Have you checked the mixer?. Maybe something is muted.

It should be "-t iso", so something like this:

dosbox.exe -conf dosbox.heroes2.conf -c "imgmount d F:\GamesOld\dos\strategy\heroes2\ISO\heroes_2.cue -t iso" -c "MOUNT C f:\GAMESOLD\DOS" -c "C:" -c "cd \strategy\heroes2" -c "heroes2.exe"

Thanks for the suggestions.

Tried -t iso and also ensured that nothing is muted. No luck 🙁.

This is happening on two different PCs - one with Windows 7 and another with Windows XP.

Any other thoughts ?

maybe mount it in dosbox itself to see what goes wrong ?
I tried heroes 2 with cdimage 2 days ago and it worked.

I tried using imgmount from within DosBox and it says MSXDEX installed, image mounted but audio still doesn't play.

I also tried using mount with all the different options from the readme file and mounting the BIN/CUE through Daemon Tools - still no luck.

The image must be OK since it works fine with DosBox 0.73, so I guess your BIN/CUE is somehow different from mine. Oh well - I guess I will continue using 0.73 for Heroes 2 and 0.74 for everything else.

Thanks for the help.

it makes no sense. the changes for homm2 are related to a specifc audio effect being distorted due to playing the data track.

what does your cue file look like ?

enclose your .conf and .cue
post content of "DOSBox Status Window" (in Windows: right click on its title bar -> edit)

Here goes:

CUE File: Heroes_2.cue

FILE "Heroes_2.bin" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 26:32:19
TRACK 03 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 28:22:68
TRACK 04 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 30:19:24
TRACK 05 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 32:06:37
TRACK 06 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 36:14:27
TRACK 07 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 38:10:08
TRACK 08 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 40:30:61
TRACK 09 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 42:56:62
TRACK 10 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 44:59:18
TRACK 11 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 47:00:58
TRACK 12 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 48:56:60
TRACK 13 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 51:03:08
TRACK 14 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 52:57:51
TRACK 15 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 55:02:61
TRACK 16 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 57:28:62
TRACK 17 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 59:16:40
TRACK 18 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 61:14:41
TRACK 19 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 63:22:41
TRACK 20 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 63:42:39
TRACK 21 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 63:46:54
TRACK 22 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 63:52:60
TRACK 23 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 64:48:11
TRACK 24 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 64:56:52
TRACK 25 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 65:48:39
TRACK 26 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 65:52:39
TRACK 27 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 65:56:39
TRACK 28 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 66:00:39
TRACK 29 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:02:67
TRACK 30 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:07:43
TRACK 31 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:11:43
TRACK 32 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:15:73
TRACK 33 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:20:31
TRACK 34 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:26:17
TRACK 35 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:30:17
TRACK 36 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:34:17
TRACK 37 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:39:07
TRACK 38 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:43:07
TRACK 39 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:47:27
TRACK 40 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:51:70
TRACK 41 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:55:70
TRACK 42 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 67:59:70
TRACK 43 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 69:15:67

DosBox 0.74 Status Window:

DOSBox version 0.74
Copyright 2002-2010 DOSBox Team, published under GNU GPL.
---
CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file dosbox.heroes2.conf
MIDI:Opened device:win32
DOSBox switched to max cycles, because of the setting: cycles=auto. If the game
runs too fast try a fixed cycles amount in DOSBox's options.

Config File: See attached

It should be like:

TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 01 26:32:19
...

In short, change all the "MODE1/2352" to "AUDIO" for track 2 and on.

Shouldn't have worked like that in 0.73, but oh well.

Yay it works !!! Thanks so much for pointing this out !

I don't know how it worked in 0.73 before, but now its working in both 0.74 and 0.73!

Thanks once again!

ripsaw8080 why his cue was so strange?

How would I know? I could only guess whatever tool program was used to make the image was either confused or misconfigured when it marked all the audio tracks as data tracks.

Interesting coincidence that HOMM2 prompted (at least in part) the fix in DOSBox that prevents playing data tracks as audio tracks, causing the poster's strange cue file to stop working.