VOGONS


First post, by Guest

User metadata

😢
Good day everyone. I've been trying to go through the posts over the past few days and I'm still a little unclear about what the settings under the performance tab of the VDM launcher. What exactly do the DOS frequency, CPU usage, and DMA servicing do?

Another question, if I may. One of the common problems I have is stuttering. In Lands of Lore the voices stutter. In Carmen Sandiego the music loops. In Carmen Sandiego, it actually gets so bad that the game freezes on looping audio. Any ideas?

Last question I can think of at the moment, I'm not sure if my copy of Gateway 2 is defective, but I can't see any of the opening screens. I can only hear music playing. I don't know about the later cutscenes tho cuz I haven't really gotten around to playing it yet. Any ideas about this one as well?

Anyway, I really, really hope anyone can help. Thanx in advance! Ciao!

Reply 1 of 2, by vladr

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Min and max DMA period defines how often VDMSound will look for new audio data and send it to direct-sound (in milliseconds.) It will self-adjust between the min/max bounds depending on how frequently the game pumps out sound data (small sound buffers, circular, will overwrite themselves more quickly than large ones so VDMSound must grab data much more often or else data will be lost.) If data is grabbed too fast VDMSound starts putting load on the system hence the min period bound. The max bound is so that VDMSound doesn't get too lazy when no sound is played and doesn't then have too much to catch up when the game has sounds kick in again.

The CPU usage stuff is a Windows thing, it's how Windows emulates the timer. Kind fo the same principle as above but much less controllable. If the game requests a very fast timer Windows may spend all the CPU switching in and out of the timer and not leave any resources for the game itself and/or windows so the timer can be capped. But of course the game may not play normally then.

GW2 worked here. May be a video card thing? Legend games use VGA modes that so far only Matrox cards suported properly (not ATI for me.) I recommend you get DosBox, if possible a DosBox+MPU401-MT32 build. Vide should work and if you find the above build then you get mt32 sound too. I am used to AdLib now though. 😀

Cheers,
V.

Reply 2 of 2, by tebbybabes

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

gosh thanx man! I've been playing around with those settings without really understanding what I was doing! yeah, I kinda had the feeling that it could be my video card, cuz otherwise, everything else in the GW2 runs fine.
Thanx a bunch for all your help and the quick reply!