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Star Control II, Another World, Ween **UPDATE**

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First post, by vladr

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A new version of the Disney SoundSource/InterSound MDO/SpeechThing/other parallel-port DAC emulator is available. This fixes some bugs that made their way into the previous version, as well as adds new features that allow it to take advantage of the SPEEDSET utility.

Attached is the updated version of the EMUPPDAC module. To install, simply unzip in the VDMSound directory. To complete the installation, open a command prompt and type (paste) the following command:

regsvr32 %VDMSPath%\EmuPPDAC.dll

...and wait for a message box confirming successful registration.

To use EMUPPDAC with LaunchPad simply go to "Properties", "Advanced", "Troubleshooting". Tick the "Custom configuration" check-box, and past the following text in the "Custom configuration" text area:

[ParallelPort DAC Controller]
CLSID   = EmuPPDAC.PPDACCtl
Path    = EmuPPDAC.dll

[ParallelPort DAC Controller.depends]
VDMSrv  = VDMServicesProvider
WaveOut = ParallelPort DAC Wave Player

[ParallelPort DAC Controller.config]
port       = 0x3bc ; usually 0x278, 0x378 or 0x3bc
sampleRate = 44100 ; sample rate at which to output sound, 44100 = max (highest
                   ; quality but highest CPU% too), 8000 = min

[ParallelPort DAC Wave Player]
CLSID   = DSoundDevice.WaveOut  ; you can also use 'WaveDevice.WaveOut'
Path    = DSoundDevice.dll      ; you can also use 'WaveDevice.dll'

[ParallelPort DAC Wave Player.config]
device  = -1    ; -1 = the Wave/DirectSound mapper, 0 = first device, 1 = second, etc.
buffer  = 75    ; how many milliseconds of audio data to buffer

To use EMUPPDAC without LaunchPad (i.e. via "plain" "Run with VDMS"), edit %VDMSPath%\VDMS.INI and paste the above code at the end of the file, then save.

  1. Using SPEEDSET + EMUPPDAC with Star Control II
    Create a STARCON2.BAT file that contains the following line: 
    SPEEDSET -60 STARCON2.COM /s:LPT1
    Now "Run with VDMS" the STARCON2.BAT file.
  2. Using SPEEDSET + EMUPPDAC with Another World
    Use the game's CONFIG.EXE program to configure sound as follows: Disney Sound Source card at 10 KHz ( fast machine )
    Create an ANOTHER.BAT file that contains the following line: 
    SPEEDSET -60 ANOTHER.EXE
    Now "Run with VDMS" the ANOTHER.BAT file.
    IMPORTANT: Configure ANOTHER.BAT's LaunchPad Properties as follows: disable ems (under "Advanced", "Compatibility"), do not load HIMEM.SYS and do not allow DOS to use UMBs (under "Advanced", "DOS Environment"). Failure to do so will result in no sound (memory issues).
  3. Using SPEEDSET + EMUPPDAC with Ween the Prophecy
    Create a WEEN.BAT file that contains the following line: 
    SPEEDSET -60 LOADER.EXE vga mouse lg_gb
    Now "Run with VDMS" the WEEN.BAT file. Press F4 to enter Sound Setup, then press F6 to select InterSound MDO. Press Enter to start the game.

Cheers,
Vlad.

Attachments

  • Filename
    emuppdac.v1.0.4.4.zip
    File size
    16.76 KiB
    Downloads
    886 downloads
    File license
    Fair use/fair dealing exception

Reply 1 of 25, by vladr

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** IMPORTANT **

Please make sure that you have version 1.0.4.4 of EmuPPDAC.DLL installed (go to the VDMSound directory, right-click on EmuPPDAC.dll, go to "Properties", "Version", "File version"). Previous versions (1.0.4.3 and less) produce unintelligible sound. Download version 1.0.4.4 from here, and unzip in the VDMSound directory. Enjoy.

To download SPEEDSET look here.

Cheers,
V.

Reply 4 of 25, by vladr

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You have probably forgotten to provide the soundcard parameter to SCII (which also resulted in a blank screen on my side).

Specifying the "/s:LPT1" parameter works just fine. Make a .bat file that reads:

SPEEDEST -60 STARCON2.COM /s:LPT1

...then "Run with VDMS" the .bat using default settings (old-style "Run with VDMS" or LaunchPad "Run with VDMS" will both do). Once this works (no sound, but the game should run at a good speed), enable the DSS emulation as outlined in the first post (i.e. by pasting the EMUPPDAC code in LaunchPad and/or VDMS.INI, depending on whether you use LaunchPad ""Run with VDMS"" or old-style "Run with VDMS"), and you're set with sound.

SCII should come up with the intro within 3-5 seconds max (2s on my computer, 1.4GHz T-Bird).

Does this work, or still no go?

I got my copy of SCII from the web. Here are the file and corresponding sizes in case we have different versions (not likely to make any difference, though):

04/11/1992  16:18                  103 100PTS_A.MLE
04/11/1992  16:19                   94 100PTS_B.MLE
04/11/1992  16:25                  148 200_PTS.MLE
03/11/1992  18:42                  186 300_PTS.MLE
03/11/1992  22:51               53'103 ANDROSYN.SHP
03/11/1992  22:51               46'739 ARILOU.SHP
02/11/1992  14:22                  144 BALANCE1.MLE
02/11/1992  14:22                  166 BALANCE2.MLE
04/11/1992  16:35                  157 BEHEMOTH.MLE
03/11/1992  22:53               87'325 BLACKURQ.SHP
03/11/1992  22:33               97'521 CHENJESU.SHP
04/11/1992  17:35               82'821 CHMMR.SHP
02/12/1992  11:09            2'053'204 CON1.PKG
02/12/1992  11:11            1'443'224 CON2.PKG
15/07/2002  20:24                  288 DEFGRP.DAT
03/11/1992  22:51               56'261 DRUUGE.SHP
01/12/1992  16:51               81'403 HUMAN.SHP
03/11/1992  22:51               66'461 ILWRATH.SHP
05/11/1992  19:40              947'953 IP.PKG
06/10/1992  12:43               30'784 KEYS.EXE
04/11/1992  16:15                  114 LILDUDES.MLE
13/04/1994  11:34                8'154 MELEE.COM
02/12/1992  11:23              170'177 MELEE.EXE
02/12/1992  11:06               67'742 MELEE.PKG
03/11/1992  22:52               87'127 MELNORME.SHP
03/11/1992  22:52               74'011 MMRNMHRM.SHP
03/11/1992  22:33               83'953 MYCON.SHP
04/11/1992  16:27                  181 NEW_ALLY.MLE
04/11/1992  16:15                  122 OLD_ALLY.MLE
04/11/1992  16:16                  117 OLD_HIER.MLE
03/11/1992  22:53               89'887 ORZ.SHP
03/11/1992  22:53               89'261 PKUNK.SHP
15/07/2002  20:24                  268 RANDGRP.DAT
02/12/1992  11:11            2'370'872 SETUP.PKG
03/11/1992  22:52               67'817 SHOFIXTI.SHP
03/11/1992  22:52               62'665 SLYLANDR.SHP
04/11/1992  14:51               48'297 SPATHI.SHP
02/12/1992  11:11                1'434 STARCON.PKG
02/11/1992  13:59                  186 STARCON1.MLE
14/07/2002  20:07                   33 starcon2.bat
13/04/1994  11:33                8'154 STARCON2.COM
03/12/1992  11:29              342'819 STARCON2.EXE
26/07/1992  10:31                  766 STARCON2.ICO
02/11/1992  14:00                  183 STARCON2.MLE
15/07/2002  20:24                2'008 STARINFO.DAT
03/11/1992  22:53               48'093 SUPOX.SHP
03/11/1992  22:34               56'583 SYREEN.SHP
03/11/1992  22:54               48'333 THRADD.SHP
04/11/1992  17:52               49'083 UMGAH.SHP
03/11/1992  22:34               93'513 URQUAN.SHP
03/11/1992  22:54               65'059 UTWIG.SHP
03/11/1992  22:34               36'793 VUX.SHP
03/11/1992  22:34               44'527 YEHAT.SHP
03/11/1992  22:54               43'445 ZOQFOT.SHP

Reply 6 of 25, by Fisu

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It now starts up, but the game itself shows very strange problems. When I fly to earth and Ur-Quan probe is supposed to start talking to me instead I get into fight with Samatra! Samatra is the game's last opponent 😀 And if I fly to pluto to find crashed Spathi ship I do get dialogue screen, but soon it crashes back to desktop.

Anyway for starcontrol 2 there is nothing to worry about. The original developers are porting 3DO version (superior to pc) of SC2 to PC/Linux/Beos etc.. see it here: http://www.star-control.com

Reply 7 of 25, by vladr

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Fisu wrote:

It now starts up, but the game itself shows very strange problems. When I fly to earth and Ur-Quan probe is supposed to start talking to me instead I get into fight with Samatra! Samatra is the game's last opponent 😀 And if I fly to pluto to find crashed Spathi ship I do get dialogue screen, but soon it crashes back to desktop.

Anyway for starcontrol 2 there is nothing to worry about. The original developers are porting 3DO version (superior to pc) of SC2 to PC/Linux/Beos etc.. see it here: http://www.star-control.com

I noticed that although, not having played SCII before, I did not know it was abnormal (i.e. getting attacked after meeting the probe). Does it only happen when running SPEEDSET?

V.

Reply 10 of 25, by Unregistered

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The copy of Star Control 2 you guys have is corrupted. Let me guess, you downloaded it from the internet? I had the same problem. Then I got another copy from someone else and it works fine. See if you can find someone else with a different copy of the game and you shouldn't have the problem of fighting the Sa'Matra right at the beginning...

Now If I could get my copy of the game from just loading up to a black screen.... :\

Reply 11 of 25, by Unregistered

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I decided to just upload Star Control 2 to my web space. I know this isn't a 'warez board' but the remake is going to be freeware anyway, so I don't think it's a big deal.

I also uploaded the Starmap so you can print it out if you want and run it without the crack (useful if you want to use any command line parameters, since starcon2.com doesn't pass them through to the starcon2.exe file).

Enjoy.

Reply 12 of 25, by diehlr

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OK.. Finally I fixed the problem of the black screen.. and you wouldn't believe what it was. I rebooted.

Anyway..

Now my problem is if I use speedset.exe, I get a friendly pop-up error in Windows for the "16 bit MS-DOS Subsystem" that says:

"The NTVDM CPU has encountered an illegal instruction.
CS: 018b IP:1e80 OP:ff ff c5 14 04 Choose 'Close' to terminate the application."

Time to get out the debugger? 😀

Reply 14 of 25, by diehlr

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Well, after fanagling around some with the config, I finally got Star Control 2 working with sound under VDMS.

Not really sure what I did to solve the illegal instruction problem. I did figure out that speedset will cause an illegal instruction if you don't have DPMI support enabled.

The sound pitch kind of drifts around a bit, sounding like a tonedeaf singer, but it's a lot better than nothing.

I've yet to tweak the value for speedset, -60 was too fast .. -55 is still a little fast. Probably about 51-52 will be the right setting for my rig (Pentium 4 2.4 ghz, Abit BD7II-RAID, in case anyone was wondering).

Thanks, vlad.

Reply 15 of 25, by diehlr

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"drifts around a bit" ... i'm changing that to "drifts around a lot!"

vlad- do you know any solution to smoothing out the pitch? I assume it's Windows getting funky with the interrupts that are used to generate the parallel port audio, but maybe it's something to do with VDMS, I don't know.. 😀

Reply 16 of 25, by vladr

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diehlr wrote:

"drifts around a bit" ... i'm changing that to "drifts around a lot!"

vlad- do you know any solution to smoothing out the pitch? I assume it's Windows getting funky with the interrupts that are used to generate the parallel port audio, but maybe it's something to do with VDMS, I don't know.. 😀

Actually it's VDMSound getting funky with trying to estimate the rate at which the samples are being sent (because of SPEEDEST they are sent out in bunches and they have to be re-spread out). I'll release an update when I come up with a smarter "spreading" algorithm. 😀 But I *do* love the variable-speed tape effect, don't you? 😁

V.

Reply 17 of 25, by diehlr

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Awesome, well I'm glad it's your fault and not Microsoft's fault. Even though it means more work, it's easier than hacking your way around even more than you already have.. 😀

I'd be interested to read about any progress to smooth out the playback speed, whenever the time comes.

PS- If I ever meet you in real life, remind me to buy you a beer.

Reply 18 of 25, by Stiletto

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diehlr wrote:

PS- If I ever meet you in real life, remind me to buy you a beer.

I believe those were my exact words when I got involved in all this... eh, Vlad? 😁

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

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