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Help with sound for the game, Pyrotechnica...

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First post, by The Coop

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Greetings folks.

I've been using DOSBox for a quite a while now, and enjoying a lot of the older games that I own because of it. So first, let me give a big kudos to the folks making this program work so well, and an equally big thanks for making it in general so I can enjoy the likes of Descent, Wolfenstein 3D and the old D&D RPGs.

However, I've run into a nasty problem with an older Psygnosis game called Pyrotechnica. I can get the game to install from the CD without a problem, but I have no sound... at all. No music, no sound effects, and to top it off, the game refuses to recognize any of the sound emulation of DOSBox. Every audio config file in Pyrotechnica's folder is empty, save for a few letters (like for the Sound Blaster file, it just says "sbl"). It tells me to make a boot disk so that the game can grab the needed info from the autoexec and config "bat" files, but when I try to make it, it tells me the disk isn't usable (despite being able to use it outside of DOSBox). I've been trying for the last two weeks to get the sound working in this game, and I'm close to my wit's end with it.

I done several searches, and only found that according to two posts, the game runs just fine with sound (one post mentioned Adlib and SB for music and FX), but no commentary on how to get the sound working. Has anyone gotten the sound for Pyrotechnica to run in DOSBox, and if so, how?

Here's my general PC info in case it's needed...

XP Home Edition
GeForce 7800GS (AGP)
Realtek AC97 Audio
DOSBox .65
P4 3.00E GHz (HT)
1GB of PC3200 RAM

I also have the following lines at the bottom of DOSBox's config file...

loadfix -f
mount f f:\ -t cdrom
mount c c:\Games
mount a a:\ -t floppy

Last edited by The Coop on 2007-02-12, 00:20. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 11, by The Coop

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wd wrote:

Can you install it in XP and see if the same files are present after
the installation?

I tried that several times, but I always get two messages trying to install it in XP. The first tells me it can't find my IRQ and DMA settings (but it gives me choices to select them manually), and the second tells me my system only has 2048kb and can't install the game (it supposedly needs 4096kb to be installed).

Reply 4 of 11, by The Coop

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wd wrote:

Are there non-zero files in the SBL directory?
What is the content of AUDIO.CFG?

The AUDIO.CFG file simply says "sbl" inside it. As for the SBL directory, while I'm not sure what a non-zero file is, it's filled with these files...

AMBY.SND 1-5
ENDGAME.SND
PYRO.SND 1-10
PYROINTR.SND
PYROPT.SND
PYROSCOR.SND
PYROTITL.SND

... and they all range from 3KB to 22KB.

Reply 6 of 11, by The Coop

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wd wrote:

Hm that seems to be correct.
Be sure to try it with the default dosbox.conf settings core=normal and cycles=3000,
maybe even less cycles.

I don't believe this.

I went into the DOSBox config file, and changed the core to "normal"... and music began playing. I knew that the core type could affect game speed, stability and such, but I didn't know it could affect sound. I would have never thought about changing the core type as a sound fix. I feel like an idiot now 🤣

So Pyrotechnica seemingly needs a "Normal" core for the sound to work properly, and the sound begins to stutter at 11,000 cycles. That info may come in handy for others in the future.

Thanks for the help wd. It was much appreciated.

Reply 7 of 11, by MiniMax

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The Coop wrote:

I knew that the core type could affect game speed, stability and such, but I didn't know it could affect sound. I would have never thought about changing the core type as a sound fix. I feel like an idiot now 🤣

Don't. Somehow the emulation speed affects the ability of some games to properly detect the presence of the emulated hardware. Logically, it shouldn't be like this, but it is.

DOSBox 60 seconds guide | How to ask questions
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Reply 8 of 11, by The Coop

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MiniMax wrote:
The Coop wrote:

I knew that the core type could affect game speed, stability and such, but I didn't know it could affect sound. I would have never thought about changing the core type as a sound fix. I feel like an idiot now 🤣

Don't. Somehow the emulation speed affects the ability of some games to properly detect the presence of the emulated hardware. Logically, it shouldn't be like this, but it is.

It's a weird solution, that's for sure. I'm just glad to finally be able to hear what I've been missing since I picked the game up some seven years ago.

Oh, and once I changed the output to "OpenGL", I was able to crank it up a lot higher without any sound problems. It seems roughly 16,000 cycles is the game's sweet spot on my PC, making it run smooth with little in the way of choppiness. So if anyone else runs into this problem, give that output type a try. It makes quite a difference.

Reply 9 of 11, by MiniMax

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Once the game has started, and has detected/initialized its sound routines, you should be able to crank up the cycles again by pressing CTRL-F11 (look in the README file).

Edit:

CTRL-F11 Slow down emulation (Decrease DOSBox Cycles).
CTRL-F12 Speed up emulation (Increase DOSBox Cycles).

Last edited by MiniMax on 2007-02-12, 10:12. Edited 1 time in total.

DOSBox 60 seconds guide | How to ask questions
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Reply 10 of 11, by The Coop

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F-12 actually 😉

The issue I was having once the sound started working on a "normal" core, was that on "surface" and "overlay" outputs, the sound began stuttering at 11,000 cycles, and got worse as the cycles climbed. At 20,000, the game was actually running too fast, and the sound was heavily broken up. There's something about the "OpenGL" output that makes this particular game run better sound-wise. I had it cranked up to 25,000 cycles, and though the game was so fast it was unplayable, the sound was still perfect. So for me at least, "Open GL" with 16,000 cycles is the spot. 20,000 is too fast, and any other output makes for choppy sound at anything over 10,000 (which unfortunately, is too low for smooth gameplay).

It's odd that this game is so picky, seeing as every other DOS game I have runs fine on the other output types (I usually use "surface"). But, whatever makes it work I guess. Pyrotechnica's been tamed, and that makes me a happy man.

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