* Re: some notes regarding sound and dosemu
2004-06-08 15:08 ` some notes regarding sound and dosemu Dave Phillips
@ 2004-06-09 11:50 ` Peter Jay Salzman
0 siblings, 0 replies; 5+ messages in thread
From: Peter Jay Salzman @ 2004-06-09 11:50 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Dave Phillips; +Cc: linux-msdos
hi dave,
On Tue 08 Jun 04, 11:08 AM, Dave Phillips <dlphilp@bright.net> said:
> Greetings:
>
> The other day I read some posts on this list regarding failures to get
> sound and music working for certain MS-DOS games. I'd like to know what
> some of the major offenders are, I'd be willing to test them here in my
> studio. I have complete MIDI I/O now with dosemu, and I've begun to test
> its audio support as well. Yesterday I tried running the following
> programs, with the results indicated:
>
> Quake sound was good, but no music (I'm missing the MSCDEX file)
i just installed the developer's dosemu (1.3) along with the most
recent freedos on my gaming machine.
the freedos version came with shsucdx, which is a drop in replacement
for mscdex. if you have a recent version of freedos, it should have
shsucdx. if not, you can download it from:
http://www.geocities.com/jadoxa/shsucdx/
or (presumably) the freedos site.
let me know if you want instructions on how to set it up.
> Paul's Sound Designer 2.2 very good audio output
> Well-tempered Fractal program runs but no sound yet
>
> I've been running these programs as well:
>
> Sequencer Plus Gold MIDI sequencer, works perfectly
> Drummer MIDI rhythm programmer, works well, but has mouse problems
> (the mouse works but doesn't scale to window size)
> Sound Globs boots but doesn't work (no sound)
> M/pc boots, but I haven't figured out how to get a mouse working
> in it (and it really needs the mouse)
are any of these programs freeware / abandonware? if so, i'd like to
try them out myself.
> As you can see, my interest has been primarily in the MIDI side of
> things. I'm interested in testing some more games, but I need some
> recommendations. Anyone ?
sure. i'll write about my personal experiences with gaming under
dosemu.
redneck rampage is a classic. built on the BUILD engine, written by a
teenager as (what i think was an) after school programming hobby. the
BUILD engine was problematic for linux game porters. it was written in
an age before code re-usability was a common practise. the BUILD engine
itself was open sourced and ported by programmers at icculus.org.
unfortunately, games using this engine (redneck rampage, redneck rampage
rides again, duke nukem 3D and a bunch of other lesser known FPS) had
just enough code written into the BUILD engine that it wasn't just a
simple matter of "taking the data file and running it with the engine)
like you can with modern FPS like doom and quake. the games themselves
needed to be open sourced because their data files contained engine
code, not just game data information.
i played redneck rampage under dosemu 1.1 (where i had to patch dosemu
using stas's sound patches), and am playing it again under dosemu 1.3
(where i assume his patches are in because i didn't have to patch dosemu
to get sound working). in both versions, the sound is anywhere between
decent and good. there's a little crackling here and there. not enough
to be annoying. in dosemu 1.3, something unexpected happened.
apparently, there's sound tracks on the CD. i never knew that before
and it as a pleasant surprise (until i realized i don't know how to shut
it off other than to take the CD out of my computer).
-----
if redneck rampage is funny and satirical, then redneck rampage rides
again is even funnier, and is better designed. i played it once under
dosemu, and sound worked the same as with redneck rampage.
-----
there's the original doom and all the games written using the doom
engine like like heretic, hexen and others. i've played the original
doom under dosemu 1.1. sound/music worked fantastically. however, doom
ports such as doom legacy and prboom (used to be lxdoom) are SO good,
that it's just not fun to play the original anymore. to be able to use
mouselook and having networking so easy and flawless (as opposed to that
IPX nonsense) just ... make playing the DOS version really pointless.
you can get shareware versions here:
http://www.dosgames.com/g_3d.php
------
then there's the classic, duke nukem 3D. it uses the BUILD engine, and
is a classic game for dosemu gamers. like reneck, it's supposed to be
satirical and funny, although less actual humor. i played it under
dosemu 1.1 and sound / music worked great, although the subtle periodic
crackling that i mentioned in redneck was present here.
you can download shareware here:
http://www.dosgames.com/g_3d.php
like doom and friends, it's been open sourced and some REALLY good ports
have been made. unlike doom, the BUILD engine had mouse look, but it
sucked. well, back in the day it was awesome, but the perspective when
looking at any angle but 0 degrees was really distorted, as if you were
looking through a lens. the new ports are very clean and have excellent
mouse look perspective. it makes playing the original ... well, a
little sad.
-----
my most recent attempt at dosemu is "lure of the temptress" which you
can download in full (it's abandonware) here:
http://www.dosgames.com/g_adv.php
it's a very early, but quite excellent, point and click adventure. very
similar to the early "leisure suit larry" games (except it has a real
point and click interface) or the very early lucasarts games (except
there's soun, but see below).
i take it there's supposed to be sound in this game because there's a
"turn sound off" menu item. but to date, i can't get the sound working
at all. too bad. i'd really like to play this one. it looks good (but
i'm a point and click adventure junkie).
------
lastly, there's alone in the dark which you can download (demo) here:
http://www.dosgames.com/g_adv.php
the game works, except when i configure it for sound. once i configure
the game for sound, dosemu crashes with an SIGILL (illegal instruction).
too bad, because this is the game that launch the entire sub-genre of
point and click horror adventures. i've never played it myself (i have
played "alone in the dark II under windows and alone in the dark III
under wine). it's supposed to be inspired by lovecraft, who is one of
my favorite authors.
i really want to play it badly, but i NEED sound. i'm hoping that
dosemu 1.4 will come out soon and fix the problem. :)
anyway, these are my experiences with dosemu and games. there are DOS
emulator project other than dosemu. i don't have experience with them
personally, but i'm told that their emulation is better, but they're
supposed to be much slower than dosemu. so much so that they're not
good for gaming. but sound applications don't have the onus of throwing
up a new screen of graphics once every 1/30th of a second. maybe they'd
be better for pure sound apps?
btw, i noticed that linux is in bad need of a real sound HOWTO:
Sound Blaster AWE 32/64 HOWTO: Jan 1998 (outdated anyhow)
The Linux Sound HOWTO: Jul 2001
The Linux Sound Playing HOWTO: Aug 1998
it's a safe bet that the HOWTO authors have lost interest in maintaining
them. and frankly, at this point, i think the important aspects of
sound on linux have changed. back in 1998, the important question was:
how do i get sound to work?
what applications are out there?
these days, sound usually just works out of the box, and the important
question is:
what cool things can i do with the thousands of different types
of sound applications?
if you ever wanted to maintain or at least update a sound HOWTO, i can
think of nobody better qualified than you. i think the community really
deserves more updated HOWTOs on this topic.
it's just a thought. :)
sorry for the long email.
pete
--
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