VOGONS


Reply 20 of 52, by Artigkar

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pdw wrote:

I found a copy of the Sim City 2000 demo here: https://archive.org/details/Simcity2000Demo, but there doesn't seem to be any sound in that version. At least I can't find a way to enable it. For the full release, the file is sound\a32adlib.dll IIRC. I'll also take a look at the other games.

That would explain why I could not get adpatch working with the demo!
It seems there is not even pc speaker sound in the demo version. I guess its some sort of extreme space/cost saving measure from the game developers.

While there are some notable games that seem to be missing from adpatch compatability, I think the list of games supported is quite impressive as is.
Certainly without your work on adpatch there would be no adlib sound at all in some of these games with OPL2LPT and OPL3LPT cards.
You get two thumbs up from me!

Are you thinking of updating the list of adpatch tested games on the github wiki page? If so, you should note that while adpatch seems to be working with Shadow Warrior shareware demo it will not work with the full version of that game. Shadow Warrior dropped adlib (and general midi) music in the retail release in favor of CD audio tracks. I thought this might be important because the demo can give a false impression if a person is not familiar with the game.

Reply 21 of 52, by Artigkar

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ruthan wrote:

We need big pack games as possible for testing of this device, if there are 2 different ways what has to be done to execute them. We can 2 sepate directories for each type of games and some text file info why it is divided, or some clever execution *.bat if TSR is unloadable etc..

We are now 1 step closer to something resembling this with the latest version of the demopack.

ruthan wrote:

Could someone pleas test Dungeon Master I and Golden Axe I?

I don't have Golden Axe for dos so I dunoo about how that game works with OPL2LPT.
Dungeon Master 1 should work with Adlipt in theory, I am having some issues with the game on my 486 unfortunately.
It freezes on the Dungeon Master title screen for me, even with PC Speaker sound. At least I get the FTL games logo "WOOOOSH!" sound playing.
This is quite puzzling since I did manage to get the game working properly on that old laptop last year.
HMMM, gonna have to check it out more later. I think there is a way to force Adlib sound without going through the launcher sound card selection.

Reply 22 of 52, by ruthan

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Dungeon master 1 - i could be problem that some sound card driver is loaded, even if is not used and i had some problem with such freezing on some systems related to mouse.. when i used keyboard only it worked.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 23 of 52, by Artigkar

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That could be an issue, I have been changing and switching out some drivers on my 486 over the last year to get the smallest possible memory footprint.

Btw, when I put together the latest version of the demopack I came across a couple oddities.
The first is related to Lemmings 2. The demo version works with adpatch, you patch the ADLIB.ADV file in the game directory.
But with the full version, or atleast my copy of the full version, the Adlib driver is in a "MUSIC" folder inside the game directory.
The file is ADLIB.bin and Adpatch does not work with that one unfortunately. This will be an issue for 286 owners wanting to play full version of Lemmings 2 with OPL2LPT.

The other and maybe more interesting oddity is that the Pinball Dreams demo has no Amiga mod tracker music unlike the full version.
Instead it has a rather rough OPL2 FM conversion of the music playing with Adlib and Soundblaster.
Here is a quick video I recorded with Dosbox and shadowplay demonstrating the FM music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Acbc2gM6rY

Reply 24 of 52, by Artigkar

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ruthan wrote:

Dungeon master 1 - i could be problem that some sound card driver is loaded, even if is not used and i had some problem with such freezing on some systems related to mouse.. when i used keyboard only it worked.

Turns out it was a much simpler and more embarrassing reason for Dungeon Master freezing on my 486 machine.
I forgot that copying folders in Dos does not automatically copy over subdirectories. The data subdirectory was not copied over 😵
Good news is that Dungeon Master does indeed work with the Adlipt driver.

Anyway, I found out another thing. Running Adlipt while also running a adpatched game does not seem to cause a problem.
At least not with the two games I tested which was Whacky Wheels and Jill of the jungle.

Reply 25 of 52, by ruthan

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Fine, if Dungeon Master working and much closer order adapter..

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 26 of 52, by pdw

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I've released a new version of ADPATCH. It's only lightly tested, but I didn't want to delay it longer...

What's new:
- A lot of LucasArts can be patched now. Should be nice for 286 owners. (386 owners can just use the TSR.)
- Another version of the Miles audio engine, which uses the file "ADLIB.MDI". (These games also work with the TSR though)
- Blood. This one does require patching.

For people who are asking about compatibility: if you check the system requirements of the game, and it supports 286 CPU & Adlib sound, then they're going to work without doubt with the TSR. If it requires a 386 CPU, there's a good chance it will work but it's impossible to say for certain without testing. (Also beware that in the late DOS era, in 1994/1995, many developers started dropping Adlib support.)

(Incidentally, I just discovered that Warcraft 1 & 2 work fine with the TSR. I hadn't bothered testing those before, they felt too new for Adlib...)

Reply 27 of 52, by digger

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Nice work, pdw! 😀

Wouldn't the ability to patch more games (as an alternative to emulation) still be beneficial to slower 386(sx) systems as well? Or would the emulation overhead be negligible even on such systems?

Reply 28 of 52, by ruthan

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Warcrafts wow.. => it make sense to test much more games, if someone has this device and time.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 29 of 52, by pdw

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digger wrote:

Wouldn't the ability to patch more games (as an alternative to emulation) still be beneficial to slower 386(sx) systems as well? Or would the emulation overhead be negligible even on such systems?

I think performance is fine even on a 386SX. I don't have such a machine myself to test, but I haven't received any complaints.

Reply 31 of 52, by Artigkar

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dr.zeissler wrote:

Can we make an overview on which hardware you are using the opt-lpt device.
this would be interesting!

I would be very interested in this aswell!
Personally I don't have a wide enough range of old school computers.
The 486 laptop I use works really well despite being from 1993! Compaq, 25 Mhz CPU and 4 MB of ram.
It struggles playing Doom at a playable framerate, but plays older games fine.
Besides my 486 laptop I have an AMD Athlon machine with a clockspeed of 1.1 Ghz that may or may not be functional.
It is the only other pc I have with a parallell port, but its not been used since the mid 2000s unfortunately.

pdw wrote:

(Incidentally, I just discovered that Warcraft 1 & 2 work fine with the TSR. I hadn't bothered testing those before, they felt too new for Adlib...)

NICE! I have added those two games and a few others to an updated version of the demopack.

Reply 32 of 52, by dr.zeissler

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The real interest for me is, what is the better one.
An old style pc 386/486/pentium that can not have a dedicated sondcard (e.g. a laptop) or
a very late computer that do not have isa or pci cards usable but still can use an LPT.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 33 of 52, by Artigkar

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pdw wrote:

For people who are asking about compatibility: if you check the system requirements of the game, and it supports 286 CPU & Adlib sound, then they're going to work without doubt with the TSR. If it requires a 386 CPU, there's a good chance it will work but it's impossible to say for certain without testing. (Also beware that in the late DOS era, in 1994/1995, many developers started dropping Adlib support.)

Well, I tested the 1.0 shareware release of Tyrian on this sunday and it doesn't seem to be working with either Adlipt or Adpatch. I only get silence in both the setup music jukebox and ingame. Its a shame, it has one of the best Adlib OPL soundtracks out there of any Dos game. Maybe one of the later releases works?

EDIT: later releases of the game

Reply 34 of 52, by Artigkar

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ruthan wrote:

Could someone pleas test Dungeon Master I and Golden Axe I?

Well, I finally got my hands on the Dos version of Golden Axe and tried it with my OPL3LPT and the Adlipt driver.
It works well for the music, but sound effects are only PC Speaker (interestingly enough they are digitized sounds).
Was there Sound Blaster support for the SFX for this game?

Reply 35 of 52, by ruthan

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I thing that game has only pc speaker sfx, but in case ehere im not sure im sinply testing it with Dosbox, where i can enable, disable pc speaker.. some andvanced builds have it in menu.

Im old goal oriented goatman, i care about facts and freedom, not about egos+prejudices. Hoarding=sickness. If you want respect, gain it by your behavior. I hate stupid SW limits, SW=virtual world, everything should be possible if you have enough raw HW.

Reply 36 of 52, by Artigkar

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Added 7 game demos to the pack. This makes it 73 demos + 16 freeware game releases in total, all playable with the OPL2LPT and OPL3LPT sound cards.

The game demos added this time around for version 5 are:
Caesar II
Jagged Alliance
Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games
Settlers 2
Settlers 2 Gold Edition
Theme Hospital
Z (the Bitmap Brothers made RTS from 1996)

A couple notes:
- There are two demos of Settlers 2 included in the pack due to different levels in the two demos.
- Demos for the two Jagged Alliance games are not patched with the official speech patches
as that doesn't seem to be relevant for Adlib sound support.

- I tested the Magic Carpet 2 demo again and I still cannot get it to work with adpatch eventhough it does patch the adlib driver.
- I couldn't figure out how to install the demos of Albion and Simon the Sorceror 2 properly, but adpatch might work with those games. Adpatch can patch the Adlib driver file for both those games

Reply 37 of 52, by dreamblaster

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Reply 38 of 52, by Utafuinki

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Good work, it's always good to have more ways to map the compatibility of these magnificent devices.

However, if I am permitted to present small corrections;

It's 'convenient', not 'convienient'.

There should be a comma before the word 'Digger' (and if it's a name, it should be written with an uppercase first letter).

Why such inconsistency in the game and filenames? Couldn't they all be either first letter uppercase, every letter uppercase, or every letter lowercase? It looks so messy now (I had to just rename everything immediately after unpacking).

Also, you don't need the '.exe' in DOS scripts or when running commands. Executables can be run with just the filename, the extension doesn't need to be used. So instead of 'adpatch.exe -i filename.exe', just 'adpatch -i filename.exe' will work. (The '.exe' is of course needed for the destination file, because there you need to use the full filename)

I guess it has been too long since the DOS era for people to remember these things.

Last note, would be better to always call them 'game demos' instead of 'demos', so they wouldn't be confused with actual demoscene demos, you know.

Nice work otherwise.

Reply 39 of 52, by Artigkar

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Utafuinki wrote on 2020-02-04, 10:25:

There should be a comma before the word 'Digger' (and if it's a name, it should be written with an uppercase first letter).

Why such inconsistency in the game and filenames? Couldn't they all be either first letter uppercase, every letter uppercase, or every letter lowercase? It looks so messy now (I had to just rename everything immediately after unpacking).

Thanks for the feedback Utafuinki!
I think I can explain these two points you mention here.
The 'Digger' is a user on this forum who responded with some helpful tips on the first page of this thread and his nickname shows up as lowercase 'digger'.
The inconsistency in game and filenames is probably because I did not rename the folders when extracting and installing the archived game demo files.
Just went with whatever default names that turned up.