VOGONS


First post, by Crowley

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In Ultima Underworld 1, if I set the sound for Roland, the music plays perfectly, but footsteps and other sound effects sound like plinks and plonks like somebody playing a keyboard synthetizer. If I set sound for Sound Blaster, the sound effects are much better but still not accurate, but the music is distorted in the main menu, and does not play at all during game. Underworld 2 is almost the same. With Roland the sound effects sometimes sound somewhat what they should be, sometimes it's plink-plonk. With Sound Blaster it's the same as in UW1 except distorted music keeps playing.

Reply 1 of 7, by robertmo

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I have just checked UU1 and it uses Roland LAPC-I/CM-32L sound effects. So if you play the game with Roland MT-32 or MT-100 you won't have all the sound effects (if you walk in a stream for example you hear nothing with mt-32). To hear all sound effects you need to have LAPC-I or CM-32L or CM-64 or CM-500.
If you choose Sound Blaster in setup instead of Roland you will have sound effects too, but they will be produced by Adlib (FM) and that's why they don't sound nice.

But I guess your case is that you also haven't optimised dosbox (read Dosbox Guides), and you use Windows' General MIDI which is not Roland compatible. Although I still don't get why you have no music in game. Is the music turned on in game? (press F1 and check if music is ON).

Reply 2 of 7, by blueside19

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I Tried my copy of Ultima Underworld in DosBox and It works fine. Here is a list of my config file for dosbox:
The cycles on my config file are set to 25000 you should set them between 10000 and 15000 to get the game working right. I ran UINSTALL.EXE in the game folder and set the IRQ to 7, DMA to 1, and ADDRESS to 220. Please Note: Those ared the same setting in the config file below. Both the sound/music and speech are using Sound Blaster Pro (on the UINSTALL.EXE file). That was the best setting I tried. I hope this works for you.

[sdl]
# fullscreen -- Start dosbox directly in fullscreen.
# fulldouble -- Use double buffering in fullscreen.
# fullfixed -- Don't resize the screen when in fullscreen.
# fullwidth/height -- What resolution to use for fullscreen, use together with fullfixed.
# output -- What to use for output: surface,overlay,opengl,openglnb.
# hwscale -- Extra scaling of window if the output device supports hardware scaling.
# autolock -- Mouse will automatically lock, if you click on the screen.
# sensitiviy -- Mouse sensitivity.
# waitonerror -- Wait before closing the console if dosbox has an error.

fullscreen=true
fulldouble=false
fullfixed=true
fullwidth=640
fullheight=480
output=surface
hwscale=1.00
autolock=true
sensitivity=200
waitonerror=true

[dosbox]
# language -- Select another language file.
# memsize -- Amount of memory dosbox has in megabytes.
# machine -- The type of machine tries to emulate:auto,hercules,cga,tandy,vga.
# Try a specific type if your game has problems with auto.

language=
machine=auto
memsize=64

[render]
# frameskip -- How many frames dosbox skips before drawing one.
# snapdir -- Directory where screenshots get saved.
# aspect -- Do aspect correction.
# scaler -- Scaler used to enlarge/enhance low resolution modes.
# Supported are none,normal2x,advmame2x

frameskip=0
snapdir=snaps
aspect=false
scaler=normal2x

[cpu]
# core -- CPU Core used in emulation: normal,full,dynamic.
# cycles -- Amount of instructions dosbox tries to emulate each millisecond.
# Setting this higher than your machine can handle is bad!
# cycleup -- Amount of cycles to increase/decrease with keycombo.
# cycledown Setting it lower than 100 will be a percentage.

core=normal
cycles=25000
cycleup=1500
cycledown=1500

[mixer]
# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.
# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will
# probably lower their sound quality.
# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering
# but sound will also be more lagged.
# wavedir -- Directory where saved sound output goes when you use the
# sound record key-combination, check README file.

nosound=false
rate=22050
blocksize=2048
wavedir=waves

[midi]
# mpu401 -- Enable MPU-401 Emulation.
# device -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
# This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.
# config -- Special configuration options for the device.

mpu401=true
device=default
config=

[sblaster]
# sblaster -- Enable the soundblaster emulation.
# base,irq,dma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA address of the soundblaster.
# sbrate -- Sample rate of soundblaster emulation.
# adlib -- Enable the adlib emulation.
# adlibrate -- Sample rate of adlib emulation.
# cms -- Enable the Creative Music System/Gameblaster emulation.
# Enabling both the adlib and cms might give conflicts!
# cmsrate -- Sample rate of cms emulation.

sblaster=true
base=220
irq=7
dma=1
sbrate=22050
adlib=true
adlibrate=22050
adlibmode=adlib
cms=false
cmsrate=22050

[gus]
# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.
# base,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the
# Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.)
# rate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.
# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory
# there should be a MIDI directory that contains
# the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used
# with Timidity should work fine.

gus=true
rate=22050
base=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]
# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.
# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.
# tandy -- Enable Tandy 3-Voice emulation.
# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.
# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation.

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
tandy=true
tandyrate=22050
disney=true

[bios]
# Nothing to setup yet!

[dos]
# xms -- Enable XMS support.
# ems -- Enable EMS support.

xms=true
ems=true

[modem]
# modem -- Enable virtual modem emulation.
# comport -- COM Port modem is connected to.
# listenport -- TCP Port the momdem listens on for incoming connections.

modem=true
comport=2
listenport=23

[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.

Reply 3 of 7, by robertmo

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blueside19: read Dosbox Guides before you post anything else

Reply 6 of 7, by robertmo

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of course after applying the UU1 GM patch, music is OK but sounds are still "very specific" 😉

Reply 7 of 7, by teamster1975

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I haven't tried UW1 with the MT32 version of Dosbox yet, have to try that tomorrow!
You're right about the SFX Robertmo 🤣