Re: some notes regarding sound and dosemu

[Dave Phillips <dlphilp@bright.net>]

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