Messages

61

SCI Syntax Help / Re: SCI0: gTheMusic Roland MT32

« on: March 01, 2023, 01:23:35 PM »

You cannot use SCI1+ drivers with SCI0 games. You will need a MTBLAST and SNDBLAST that's specifically for SCI0. The driver structure is entirely different and SCI0 won't understand it.

62

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: Betrayed Alliance Book 2 Demo is now available

« on: March 01, 2023, 10:06:08 AM »

Yamaha FB-01/IMFC support is coming soon as well as GM.

63

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: 25th anniversary of the fan communities

« on: January 19, 2023, 01:49:39 AM »

Well I guess we know who's actually really stupid.   

64

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: 25th anniversary of the fan communities

« on: January 17, 2023, 01:26:20 PM »

Lol dude I feel stupid

65

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: 25th anniversary of the fan communities

« on: January 17, 2023, 10:16:53 AM »

Lol dude we've been trying to get a hold of any content from Mega-Tokyo for more than a decade. Please share!

66

The Games and other Sierra Adventure stuff / Re: 25th anniversary of the fan communities

« on: January 06, 2023, 07:25:07 PM »

What a milestone!

67

AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter

« on: November 20, 2022, 05:40:34 PM »

I believe the bug only took place if you put the game in any speed except Normal?

I made my own LOGIC patch with AGI Studio years back that skipped the copy protection. It's my goto now when I want to play it. I think I even patched the Apple IIgs version this way. But I still like keeping the original around so I can do my "last words" at the gallows. 

EDIT: Never mind, I had tried to patch the IIGS version but it must not have worked or I ran into too much trouble at the time.

68

AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter

« on: November 07, 2022, 12:44:29 PM »

It's really authentic already at any rate. If it had to be this way forever and couldn't be fine-tuned it wouldn't be the worst thing.

69

AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter

« on: November 01, 2022, 02:11:19 AM »

It's been confirmed by a friend of mine that DOSBox actually does impose a filter over the Tandy 3-voice tones after some digging he did in the past to find out why it sounded different. His quote:

I believe it's because pure squarewaves sound "weird" when played through what amounts to high-end stereo equipment (our modern speakers)...
(high-end from the point of view of 80s gear)
So it's doing a sort of simulation of "cheap speaker buried in a metal box"

70

AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter

« on: October 30, 2022, 12:10:25 PM »

Trying SQ2 with the latest build Collector posted on the SHP forums. The sound of the sweeping is still wrong (though it sounds like the truncation problem is solved). I decided to test between AGILE, ScummVM, and DOSBox to see how they all measured up. To my surprise it seems like ScummVM doesn't produce the sound correctly either. So while ScummVM has the best tone emulation (until now) with its volume envelope on the notes, DOSBox has the best noise emulation. I took a screen capture. The first one (top left) is AGILE, the second one (top right) is ScummVM, and the bottom one is DOSBox.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tFzwrzeT_8URmg6C_f_Lv3VTWRibc-zZ/view?usp=share_link

EDIT: I decided after to do a tone comparison as well and was surprised again at the result. AGILE's tone generation sounds perfect and crisp. ScummVM's tone is great but it sounds like it's also aliasing. And DOSBox's sounds like there's a filter over it so the crispness is lost. Or perhaps the tones generated are not perfect square waves? The tone falloff is also not as noticeable. Just thought it'd be an interesting share. So AGILE's tone generation is the crispiest of them all!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JZJG1Unfuh8oIXblXZHeJhgaKqIBrknT/view?usp=sharing

71

SCI Syntax Help / Re: SCI0 - How can I use the ESC button for non-menubar stuff

« on: October 29, 2022, 01:40:25 PM »

Couldn't you just deactivate the menubar (as you would in a cutscene, say) and then capture the ESC key pevent to override?

72

SCI Development Tools / Re: Sounder 0.5 - with many improvements

« on: October 19, 2022, 07:12:44 PM »

I have a request for a new feature for Sounder. Some GM sound resources in SCI games require the GM patch file to dump a GM reset and/or some other MIDI information like pitch bend range value to the device before playing the sound resources (see SQ6 which absolutely requires this for many of the tracks to sound correct). SCI Viewer supports saving sound resources as MIDI and also allows the user to select a patch file to "upload" as part of the saving process and puts it at the start of the MIDI. This also helps for MT-32 tracks as they require custom MT-32 instrument patch files (of course). SCI Viewer can also attach the MT-32 sysex to the outputted MIDI file. Is there any way we can do the same with Sounder when converting to MIDI? Say with a user-selected patch file in the GUI? Right now Sounder seems to be the best option for converting sounds to MIDI with the only exception being the MT-32 and GM patch dumps which SCI Viewer supports. However, SCI Viewer outputs sound resources at the incorrect speed (slightly slower than it's supposed to sound I think? Maybe faster, I forget).

73

AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter

« on: October 19, 2022, 09:04:44 AM »

ZIP. I don't ever depend on adding programs to the Start Menu. Just desktop shortcuts if anything. And I do that manually if I wish. I'm not a big fan of installers in general. Though, many appreciate it of course judging by Collector's popular patches and custom installers, but that's a different case really where one is trying to get the original games working properly. I don't even use installers for DOSBox. I wouldn't for ScummVM either but the daily builds only come in installer EXE form so not much I can do about it. But if I could get ZIPs of them instead, I would.

74

AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter

« on: October 18, 2022, 08:40:04 PM »

I apologize I've been really busy.

If so, does this imply that the AGI interpreter is using software to manipulate the volume envelope?

Yes, as has already been said, this is the case. The SN76489 (and others in the family) just aren't complex enough to have settings for volume envelopes. It just generates the tones at the requested level and duration and that's it. The envelopes are all handled in software. In fact, among the Sierra tools that were leaked semi-recently there's one for the Tandy driver for SCI games that was used to create Tandy patch files that were solely meant for creating custom volume envelopes for each channel per game.

@MusicallyInspired, do the tone channels now sound closer to what you would expect? I have now implemented the dissolve logic. To me, it sounds a lot better in some of the games I have tried, e.g. KQ4 and BC. I haven't yet changed anything with the noise channel, so in SQ2, the broom noises are still being cut short for some reason. It makes me wonder whether there is a general "cutting short" issue with sounds. I'll probably start looking into this now.

This build also has the various fixes for the AGI Demo 2 that you identified.

One thing I noticed right away is it forces me to uninstall the previous version before installing the new one. I kind of wish it would just install right on top of it or at least offer a way to automatically uninstall it before installing instead of having to bring up Control Panel->Add/Remove Programs manually. I tried to install it to one of my additional hard drives but it complains about not having permission to write there (even though it creates the folder just fine) which forces me to run the installer as admin. But these are small gripes, especially for a beta. 

That said, yes the sound is great! But unfortunately, while watching the SQ2 demo in AGI Demo Pack 1, the sound resources overlap. When Vohaul shows up on the screen the the SQ2 theme is still playing and doesn't stop. Then on the next screen the hovercraft sound overlaps with itself. And then that overlaps with the next screen, and the final short tune at the end. Basically sounds aren't stopping when they're supposed to somehow along the lines.

And yeah, the broom sound effect seems to be truncated. It does sound like a noise channel sound and not a tone like I previously erroneously thought.

75

AGI Development Tools / Re: C# AGI Interpreter

« on: October 10, 2022, 11:40:13 AM »

Yeah, I'll probably have to go back to the sound, particularly the noise. Do the tone voices sound okay?

In what way is the noise gimped? Do you have a link to a video of SQ2 running on an IBM PC JR for comparison? Original machine rather than emulator. I couldn't find one online for SQ2. There are other games, like BC, but couldn't spot SQ2. I've been trying to implement it based on the SN76496 chip, and what is known about it, but I don't think it is quite right yet.

Actually it seems like it just doesn't make any sounds. Or if it does it tries to make sound with a tone instead of noise. I can't find any authentic IBM PCjr footage except for this video



The only noise that sounds however is when the hovercraft is moving at 1:18.

The only other thing I notice is that unlike the above footage, the tones don't have a volume envelope. The volume falls off at a certain rate on every tone on the PC jr and Tandy 1000. ScummVM's PC jr emulation is the most perfect I've heard both with noise channel and tone volume envelopes. Even better than DOSBox's.

Incidentally, I just tried running the AGI Demo 2 game (which has the SQ2 demo in it) and it doesn't seem to like it. Navigating to each page of demos with F9 and F10 works once in a while, but I can't hit a number to select a demo to run. It just doesn't respond.