some notes regarding sound and dosemu

some notes regarding sound and dosemu

[Dave Phillips]

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)
    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)

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 ?

Best,

dp

   

Re: some notes regarding sound and dosemu

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Dave Phillips wrote:

>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

Unfortunately in most cases the offenders
are not the games itself. There are multiple
problems. The first problem is that the sound
code currently in dosemu, expects too much from
the underlying driver. I was not aware that there
are so many audio drivers out there that do not
follow the specs. So you may end up with the
distorted sound, or stuttering etc.
Another problem is dosemu itself. Adlib support
is still not there, for example.
And several games do not produce sound for
unknown reasons (mortal kombat, ishar),
several do not work when configured with
sound.


>I'd be willing to test them here in my 
>studio.

It seems like you got lucky with the audio
card, in which case it will pretty much work
for you.


>As you can see, my interest has been primarily in the MIDI side of 
>things.

Note that midi is an easiest part. It requires
almost no efforts on dosemu side, it completely
relies on an external tools (midid, timidity, ALSA
sequencer etc), so midi will work perfectly. DSP
sound is much harder (depends on your audio driver)
and Adlib is not there at all.

Re: some notes regarding sound and dosemu

[Peter Jay Salzman]

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

-- 
In theory, theory and practise are the same.  In practise, they aren't.
GPG Instructions: http://www.dirac.org/linux/gpg
GPG Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D

Re: some notes regarding sound and dosemu

[Dave Phillips]

Stas Sergeev wrote:

> Hello. 

Hi Stas !

> Dave Phillips wrote:
>
>> 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
>
>
> Unfortunately in most cases the offenders
> are not the games itself. There are multiple
> problems. The first problem is that the sound
> code currently in dosemu, expects too much from
> the underlying driver. I was not aware that there
> are so many audio drivers out there that do not
> follow the specs. So you may end up with the
> distorted sound, or stuttering etc.
> Another problem is dosemu itself. Adlib support
> is still not there, for example.
> And several games do not produce sound for
> unknown reasons (mortal kombat, ishar),
> several do not work when configured with
> sound.


Interesting. I guess it makes sense: MS-DOS games became popular during 
a period of standardization, and I recall that there were various 
compatibility issues with Adlib, PAS16, and SB cards. Frankly I'm amazed 
at how well the dosemu team has handled those problems so far.


> It seems like you got lucky with the audio
> card, in which case it will pretty much work
> for you. 

I should have mentioned that I'm using a SBLive! Value with ALSA 1.0.4. 
My system is a Planet CCRMA Red Hat 9 installation, the machine CPU is 
an 800 MHz Duron.


> Note that midi is an easiest part. It requires
> almost no efforts on dosemu side, it completely
> relies on an external tools (midid, timidity, ALSA
> sequencer etc), so midi will work perfectly. DSP
> sound is much harder (depends on your audio driver)
> and Adlib is not there at all. 

Well, I must say again that the dosemu team has done a great job with 
MIDI support. Btw, did your MIDI input patch ever make it into the 
dosemu sources ?

Best,

dp

Re: some notes regarding sound and dosemu

[Stas Sergeev]

Hello.

Dave Phillips wrote:
> Btw, did your MIDI input patch ever make it into the 
> dosemu sources ?
Yes, it is there for the long time
already (1.2.1, 1.3.0).

> Drummer   MIDI rhythm programmer, works well, but has mouse 
> problems (the mouse works but doesn't scale to window size)
Use full-screen mode or mouse grab mode.

> Sound Globs   boots but doesn't work (no sound)
If this is available for download, there are
chances.

> M/pc   boots, but I haven't figured out how to get a mouse working 
> in it (and it really needs the mouse)
The only thing you can do here is to run it
under console and set up an access to the
serial mouse.