On Tue, 15 Jan 2002 12:03, Stas Sergeev wrote:
[snipped]
> Hello.
>
> pesarif wrote:>
> > I've had mixed results with your new patches.  In general, the code seems
> > to have gotten slower but works better.
>
> What do you mean by "code seems to have gotten slower"? Slow execution
> or slow sound? Or somethig else?
>
Liero and OMF2097 sound stutters a bit (the kind of sound stuttering you hear 
when a system is under a heavy load).

> > Here are some results of testing:
>
> You have done a very good work actually, thank you for such a detailed
> testing (esp. for the comparision with the old code!)
>
> > Program             no sound patches        original sound patches  new sound 
>patches
> >                     (sb pro)                (sb pro)                (sb or sb 
>clone)
> >
> > Jill of the Jungle  no sound                distorted               perfect (even 
>better than
> > win98!#) Scream Tracker 3   locks up                locks up                perfect
> > Wolfanstine 3D      no sound                no sound                perfect #
>
> Seems strange: Wolf used to work for me previously. And the detection
> problems are Adlib-related I think.
>
> > Swiv3D              no sound                intro works             perfect
> > Descent             perfect                 stutters                perfect
> > Warcraft 2          stutters horribly       works                   perfect
> > Spitwad Willy               no sound                ?                       perfect
>
> What is "?" :)
I forgot to test it :)

> This all looks very good. Detection problems are deferred, as I mentioned
> above.
>
> > Count Down          initial sound, lock up  stutters,clicking       
>perfect,clicking
>
> Clicking is generally caused by an OSS limitations (buffer must be empty
> if I want to change speed, I have to reopen (!!!) the device if I want to
> change fragment size) or by direct DAC writes (which I can't improve -
> pc-speaker problems). So this is also deferred (see below).
>
> > One Must Fall 2097  perfect                 music is too fast       music skips & 
>stutters *
>
> Fixed: http://www.dosemu.org/~stas/snd-patch1-1.1.2.diff.gz
> This game uses an undocumented ability of a command 0x1C to set a transfer
> length. Previously none of my programs does this, so I didn't implemented
> this, while now I can see it was implemented in the old code. Thanks for
> pointing this anomaly.
> Actually I was thinking that my "test suit" is rather large, but apparently
> it was not.
>
Good!  I'll try out your patch.

> > Liero                       no sound                perfect                 sound 
>stutters *
>
> I can only hope that it is the same problem as above. And if it is not, I
> need this game (link) or the debugging output.
>
I was given version 1.33 (freeware) by a friend.
http://www.freewaregaming.com/aa/liero.html

> > Clyde's Adventure   no sound                partial                 partial
>
> What is "partial"?
>
The music (not MIDI or adlib) cannot be heard.  Normal sound effects can't be 
heard.  But the "Arrh!!" sound of Clyde dying is about the only thing that 
can be heard.

> > Need for Speed      no sound                no sound                no sound
> > Shell Shock         perfect                 no sound                no sound *
>
> Not good. Link or debugging output needed.
>
I can't find a link.
Perhaps I could send it to you OL (it's shareware after all)?

> > Monster Bash                no sound                no sound                no 
>sound
> > Kiloblaster         no sound                no sound                no sound
> > Clyde's Revenge     no sound                no sound                bombs out
> > Mugen                       no sound                dos4gw exception        dos4gw 
>exception
>
> What??? Give me a link to this one, please! Oh, I beleive it is DMA
> problems again:(((
>
http://www.elecbyte.com
It was written in DJGPP/Allegro (and most games that use this combo don't 
work and cause a dos4gw exception).

> > Commander Keen 4    no sound                no sound                locks up :( *
>
> I guess this game is not very large for download?:)
>
http://www.apogee1.com/downloads.html
2.4keen.zip - Goodbye Galaxy v1.4 shareware episode (712k) 

> > Cosmo                       locks up                locks up                locks 
>up
>
> Not now...
>
> > (for Oliver Ob: with Stas' latest patches, Scream Tracker
> > 3 works perfectly
> > if you use SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T1 and it plays MODs very nicely)
>
> ST3 was a troublesome beast. I added a support for it only after you have
> mentioned it here:) It sets a DMA transfer from an interrupt handler when
> speaker is disabled, so retriggering the interrupt immediately causes a
> deadlock. And also it sets a transfer size for DSP *much* larger than for
> DMA, while the sane way is opposite. So it required some dirty hacks:(
>
Just wondering...but how can you write and test sound code without a sound 
card?  I mean, you're doing a very good job without one!

> > I can't hear the music in any of the games above (except for OMF 2097 and
> > Swiv3D).  This music is sb, not adlib.
>
> SB have the same FM synthesizer as Adlib have (OPL2-based for classic
> SB and early SB Pro).
>
> > > Have you tried to select "General MIDI" or "MT32" or something "MPU401"
> > > for midi? It must work perfectly if you have /dev/midi working (your
> > > sound card must support this feature) and dosemu is properly
> > > configured.
> >
> > Cheap (but decent-sounding) PCI sound cards such as the Creative vibra
> > 128, don't have MIDI support builtin.
>
> You can probably use SoftOSS. The problem is that it blocks /dev/dsp so you
> will not hear any sound, only music...
>
> > I wish dosemu could use TiMidity++ code or
>
> I was thinking about it but found no docs. Anyway, this is not for the near
> future as I am targeting at improving DSP and DMA now.
>
> > Perhaps ARTS (KDE
> > sound server) should be used since it's higher level and would support
> > mixing?
>
> I have looked at both ARTS and ESD and they both doesn't meet the
> requirements. I probably have to look at NAS later.
>
It would be good with DOSemu could do mixing with other applications like 
xmms playing the background because DOSEmu currently seg-faults when some 
other application is hogging /dev/dsp.

> > > api to make it compatible with SoftOSS, that will hopefully allow me to
> > > use midi with it...
> > >
> > : (
> >
> > I want adlib! :)
>
> I was suggested to steal an OPL2-compatible FM tone generator from another
> project. The code seems good, I will try to make it use under dosemu.
>
> > > > Trouble is, a game that worked perfectly before (One Must Fall 2097 -
> > >
> > > Oops, I was not aware of some games that used to work before :)
> >
> > This is my favourite game and now it doesn't work very well at all :(
>
> It will. But don't try to tell me that you are going to play on a speed
> like that:) (the game doesn't seem to use timer for synchronization). I
> assume you are using this game only to enjoy its music (which is pretty
> nice:).
>
The gameplay is good too!

> > This may sound blunt but it still needs a lot of work.
>
> Definitely. But my primary target for now is outperforming the old code.
> All other improvements are later, when my code gets included.
>
> > I am, however, very, very appreciative of your efforts.
>
> Thanks:) From your tests I can see that my code is already better then the
> old one, which is good and promising fact.
> BTW, it is still havily based on the old codebase. Previous authors did a
> very good framework so they must also get a credits (I mean Alistair
> MacDonald, Michael Karcher and Michael Beck). And the code from some other
> authors was completely removed:)
> And, as I can see at a ChangeLog, initial work was done by Joel Weber, who
> was 15 years old!
>
> > I'll be looking foward to any more code that you can provide.
> > Please keep up the good work!
>
> See the link above (or just go to www.dosemu.org/~stas and follow the link
> from there).
>
Thanks!

> > This email was typed while Scream Tracker 3 was playing MODs in dosemu in
> > the background :)
> >
> :))) Actually ST3 sounds not as perfect as it could on a real soundcard.
>
I just use xmms or mikmod anyway :)

> The really good player that is 100% compatible with my sound code is
> IPlay (Inertia Player). Consider using it instead. It supports tons of
> sound formats and the sound is perfect.
> For MIDI you can use Cubic Player v1.4 (no other version plays midi for me)
> starting it with dos4gw (else it will use pmode and crash).
>
> Thanks again for a very good testing.

Thanks,
pesarif

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