DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-02-13, 01:30:

Because I figured that’s supposed to be the default CD drive letter, no? By default, everyone refers to it and types in ‘D’. My physical CD drive is F. I primarily use my emulated drive in Windows, which is E. And I usually set the physical drive in DOS to be E as well. It can’t be D as that’s my second HDD.

Reminded me of the old days with MSCDEX when I also thought /D means D:. 🤣

I was very little at that time and my knowledge was very limited back then.

Anyway, the manual has detailed explanations about all the arguments the TSRs could recognize.

LSS10999 wrote on 2025-02-13, 02:55:

Reminded me of the old days with MSCDEX when I also thought /D means D:. lol […]
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DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-02-13, 01:30:

Because I figured that’s supposed to be the default CD drive letter, no? By default, everyone refers to it and types in ‘D’. My physical CD drive is F. I primarily use my emulated drive in Windows, which is E. And I usually set the physical drive in DOS to be E as well. It can’t be D as that’s my second HDD.

Reminded me of the old days with MSCDEX when I also thought /D means D:. 🤣

I was very little at that time and my knowledge was very limited back then.

Anyway, the manual has detailed explanations about all the arguments the TSRs could recognize.

Ohh, heck - it’s a command switch…? 😅😂

By manual, you mean the readme, right…? I did peruse/scroll through it, but didn’t see anything.

EDIT: Ahhh, wait. The shsucdx.txt file…

config.sys:
DEVICEHIGH=uide.sys /N1 /N3 /R15 /D:CD000

autoexec.bat:
lh shcdx86 /D:CD000 /L:D /Q

Geri wrote on 2025-02-13, 11:08:

config.sys: DEVICEHIGH=uide.sys /N1 /N3 /R15 /D:CD000 […]
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config.sys:
DEVICEHIGH=uide.sys /N1 /N3 /R15 /D:CD000

autoexec.bat:
lh shcdx86 /D:CD000 /L:D /Q

Did you read anything inside the thread, or just the title?

jmarsh wrote on 2025-02-13, 14:30:

Did you read anything inside the thread, or just the title?

oh my bad
i wasnt paying close attention of the question.

Progress! Okay, I removed shsucdx from the autoexec file, so it’s just shsucdhd. In the batch file it’s…

LH C:\SHSUCD\SHSUCDHD /F:D:\ISO\SIMONDOS\CD.ISO
LH C:\SHSUCD\SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH
D:\DOSGAMES\SIMON\SIMON.BAT

The game loads up! 😄 However, for some reason there’s no music. But there are voices. And I presume SFX. So I’m not sure why music isn’t present. It could be UNISOUND being an arse again, but everything is set up and initialised on booting DOS.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-02-13, 21:41:

Progress! Okay, I removed shsucdx from the autoexec file, so it’s just shsucdhd. In the batch file it’s… […]
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Progress! Okay, I removed shsucdx from the autoexec file, so it’s just shsucdhd. In the batch file it’s…

LH C:\SHSUCD\SHSUCDHD /F:D:\ISO\SIMONDOS\CD.ISO
LH C:\SHSUCD\SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH
D:\DOSGAMES\SIMON\SIMON.BAT

The game loads up! 😄 However, for some reason there’s no music. But there are voices. And I presume SFX. So I’m not sure why music isn’t present. It could be UNISOUND being an arse again, but everything is set up and initialised on booting DOS.

Does the game use Redbook CD audio for music? Some games of that era do and they are usually saved in BIN/CUE format (or even ISO/WAV/CUE), with the CUE describing the data as well as audio tracks. ISO is only the data portion so you won't get any music.

On the other hand I don't think SHSUCDHD can handle CD audio. Not sure about SHSUCDX but on my current DOS systems I wasn't able to get any CD audio working despite having properly connected the 4-pin CD cable between the CD drive and sound card...

LSS10999 wrote on 2025-02-14, 00:37:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-02-13, 21:41:

Progress! Okay, I removed shsucdx from the autoexec file, so it’s just shsucdhd. In the batch file it’s… […]
Show full quote

Progress! Okay, I removed shsucdx from the autoexec file, so it’s just shsucdhd. In the batch file it’s…

LH C:\SHSUCD\SHSUCDHD /F:D:\ISO\SIMONDOS\CD.ISO
LH C:\SHSUCD\SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH
D:\DOSGAMES\SIMON\SIMON.BAT

The game loads up! 😄 However, for some reason there’s no music. But there are voices. And I presume SFX. So I’m not sure why music isn’t present. It could be UNISOUND being an arse again, but everything is set up and initialised on booting DOS.

Does the game use Redbook CD audio for music? Some games of that era do and they are usually saved in BIN/CUE format (or even ISO/WAV/CUE), with the CUE describing the data as well as audio tracks. ISO is only the data portion so you won't get any music.

On the other hand I don't think SHSUCDHD can handle CD audio. Not sure about SHSUCDX but on my current DOS systems I wasn't able to get any CD audio working despite having properly connected the 4-pin CD cable between the CD drive and sound card...

I don’t believe so, no. It’s just a regular ISO and it works correctly under Windows. Plus, it uses MIDI music. Any red book audio CDs I have, I’ve already converted to BIN/CUE, which I know this utility can’t load/read.

Also, I take it I can also use SHSUCD to play physical CDs as well, if it’s using MSCD001? I tried assigning a drive letter to it at the end of the command (E:), but that meant SHSUCDHD was no longer installed/initialised.

LSS10999 wrote on 2025-02-14, 00:37:

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-02-13, 21:41:

Progress! Okay, I removed shsucdx from the autoexec file, so it’s just shsucdhd. In the batch file it’s… […]
Show full quote

Progress! Okay, I removed shsucdx from the autoexec file, so it’s just shsucdhd. In the batch file it’s…

LH C:\SHSUCD\SHSUCDHD /F:D:\ISO\SIMONDOS\CD.ISO
LH C:\SHSUCD\SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH
D:\DOSGAMES\SIMON\SIMON.BAT

The game loads up! 😄 However, for some reason there’s no music. But there are voices. And I presume SFX. So I’m not sure why music isn’t present. It could be UNISOUND being an arse again, but everything is set up and initialised on booting DOS.

Does the game use Redbook CD audio for music? Some games of that era do and they are usually saved in BIN/CUE format (or even ISO/WAV/CUE), with the CUE describing the data as well as audio tracks. ISO is only the data portion so you won't get any music.

On the other hand I don't think SHSUCDHD can handle CD audio. Not sure about SHSUCDX but on my current DOS systems I wasn't able to get any CD audio working despite having properly connected the 4-pin CD cable between the CD drive and sound card...

Ahhh, no. Turns out I’d connected my sound canvas up incorrectly. 😅 But there’s no music for the DOS version of Simon 1 via it anyway. I’ve remembered - there’s no (official) support for the SC-55 with it. Only MT-32.

I’ll try everything again, but with Simon 2. Though I have noticed a hanging note bug even with that.

I'm presuming it isn't necessary, but do you need to unload/unmount and image before loading another? I can get Simon 1 working, but other CD images seem to refuse to load, such as Simon 2 and DOTT. 😒

I still need some guidance with a few things. Specifically the questions I asked. I can only seem to load one game and if I try loading another, it doesn’t and says SHSUCDX or MSCDEX is already installed. I figured I’d need to unmount the previous image first, but adding that command to the end of a game’s batch file doesn’t look to be doing anything. 😕

Quick question: can SHSUCD be used to load physical CDs as well? Or is it purely images?

Also, how does one go about setting it up if you need to switch discs mid-game?

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-02-14, 02:09:

I'm presuming it isn't necessary, but do you need to unload/unmount and image before loading another? I can get Simon 1 working, but other CD images seem to refuse to load, such as Simon 2 and DOTT. 😒

You have to unload both SHSUCDHD and SHSUCDX before loading another image.
If you're using a batch file to run your game you could put the commands for unloading in the batch file after your game exits.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-03-02, 01:39:

Quick question: can SHSUCD be used to load physical CDs as well? Or is it purely images?

Also, how does one go about setting it up if you need to switch discs mid-game?

I haven't used it for physical CDs myself but as I understand it SHSUCDX works as a replacement for MSCDEX, so I believe so?
I don't think you can switch disk images mid-game unfortunately.

8bitKittyKat wrote on 2025-03-28, 04:08:

You have to unload both SHSUCDHD and SHSUCDX before loading another image. If you're using a batch file to run your game you cou […]
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DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-02-14, 02:09:

I'm presuming it isn't necessary, but do you need to unload/unmount and image before loading another? I can get Simon 1 working, but other CD images seem to refuse to load, such as Simon 2 and DOTT. 😒

You have to unload both SHSUCDHD and SHSUCDX before loading another image.
If you're using a batch file to run your game you could put the commands for unloading in the batch file after your game exits.

DustyShinigami wrote on 2025-03-02, 01:39:

Quick question: can SHSUCD be used to load physical CDs as well? Or is it purely images?

Also, how does one go about setting it up if you need to switch discs mid-game?

I haven't used it for physical CDs myself but as I understand it SHSUCDX works as a replacement for MSCDEX, so I believe so?
I don't think you can switch disk images mid-game unfortunately.

Thanks for the reply. 😀

In the end, I tried reaching out to the creator of the utility and asked him all the questions I had. He laid out all the commands needed, including how to set it up so it reads physical CDs.

In autoexec: […]
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In autoexec:

SHSUCDX /D:MSCD001 /D1

That adds your physical drive and reserves one for SHSUCDHD.

Then for the game:

SHSUCDHD /F:game1.iso /F:game2.iso
SHSUCDX /D:SHSU-CDH,E

F will be assigned automatically.

When done:

SHSUCDX /D1
SHSUCDHD /U

to remove it again, ready for the next game. At least, I think that's right; I stopped using DOS around this time, so never had a need myself.

He also explained about the OMI tool that comes bundled with it for making the ISOs in DOS. Some weren't converting correctly with Alcohol 120% and weren't mounting/loading correctly.

I've come back to using SHSUCDX after not using it for a while, so it's taken me some time to re-familiarise myself with how to use it. I managed to get Discworld set up and working. However, if I load Discworld and only Discworld after booting, there's no problem. If I try loading either Simon the Sorcerer 1 or 2, I'm unable to run any of them. Including Discworld. There's bound to be something silly I'm overlooking, but I'm not sure what. I tried adding commands to uninstall SHSUCDX and SHSUCDHD before and after initialising my cutstom BAT file, but it makes no difference. For Simon 1 and 2, I just copied and pasted the custom BAT file I'd made for Discworld and then made changes where needed, such as the CD image location and name etc. Unfortunately, when I try to initialise, it just says drive F is un-readable/unrecognised. It can't find the image for some reason, despite it supposedly being mounted...? I'm not sure what to do. Here are my autoexec, config, and custom BAT files:

I'm glad I'm leaving notes like this for myself to refer back to in the future. ^^

Turns out the issue was because I'd installed the games originally from the CD-ROM. Some games, like Simon 1 and 2, note which drive the game was installed from. I needed to uninstall, mount the images, and then install. Problem solved. 😀