Sam&Max MIDI on fast cpu's

[mindjoker]

Hi,

So to cut it short, sam&max doen't run on machines faster than a pentium 90 with general midi or roland selected as the music deviced, this pissed me off greatly as i like to have a slightly faster machine to play some more demanding games, and constantly having to open the machine or left it open to change cpu clock speeds was a hassle, so i put hands to work and patched the midi drivers so that they don't get caught on a very big loop, now the game works great on my p133, i currently don't have my stash of cpu's with me so i can't test it with higher clocked cpu's, if anyone is up to the task i would apreciate some feedback on how it runs on faster cpu's, specially in terms of sound/music speed, sync issues or other problems specially realted to sound, also notice i didn't touch the game so certain stuff like the highway minigame will still go faster as the cpu speed rises (will look into that if i have time).

So to test this just get this file:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2ER9UDTR
unpack the files to your samnmax folder, run the setup, goto the advanced menu, in the music device there should be 3 extra selection (the fixed version of the GMIDI,ROLAND,ESS midi drivers) choose the one you have hardware to, test, save and run the game.


thx, and let me know if it works ok.

[Doctor Creep]

So to cut it short, sam&max doen't run on machines faster than a pentium 90 with general midi or roland selected as the music deviced, this pissed me off greatly as i like to have a slightly faster machine to play some more demanding games

Just did a quick (Intro + first gameplay screen) check using my sort of Hybrid-Silent-PC (1)  - worked (DOS 7.1) without your patch using General Midi (SC-55) + Soundblaster.
Perhaps they are issues later in the game?

Doc

(1) http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,2833.0.html

[endre1952]

I have had issues with the midi support in the game, I think when DosBox cycles is set to "max". Perhaps it's only an issue in the CD-ROM version? I'm not sure.

[andrew603]

http://scummvm.org/

Give that a try.  Works fine for me.  They even have builds for Nintendo DS, PSP, iPhone, and apparently Samsung TV's LOL!

[mindjoker]

Thx for the feedback,

Just did a quick (Intro + first gameplay screen) check using my sort of Hybrid-Silent-PC (1)  - worked (DOS 7.1) without your patch using General Midi (SC-55) + Soundblaster.

hmmm interesting, seems that the problem may only show on a specific interval of speeds, as in the problem is introduced at >90mhz speed but will gradually disapear as the speed goes up as faster cpu's will finish the loop faster, need to investigate further.

I have had issues with the midi support in the game, I think when DosBox cycles is set to "max". Perhaps it's only an issue in the CD-ROM version? I'm not sure.

Yep in dosbox the problem can be easily reproduced if cycles are maxed, have to test also the floppy version.

Insert Quote
http://scummvm.org/

Give that a try.  Works fine for me.  They even have builds for Nintendo DS, PSP, iPhone, and apparently Samsung TV's LOL!

I'm aware of those programs but i'm doing this for those like me who prefer the real hardware to emulation.

[MusicallyInspired]

ScummVM is not an emulator. It's a virtual machine that runs the code in real-time. Basically it's a Windows port. No emulation.

[mindjoker]

ScummVM is not an emulator. It's a virtual machine that runs the code in real-time. Basically it's a Windows port. No emulation.

My mistake i was generalising a bit, but your definition is also not right, the more correct term would be that scummvm is a remake of the orignal game engine that uses the original game assets (art, sound, etc) in order for it to run on another operating system under different hardware, it can't really be considered a virtual machine as it ins't implementing any machine and in the end a virtual machine is nothing more than an fancy emulator. But there is emulation in scummvm, sound hardware has to be emulated with the option of midi being redirected to the real hardware.