Just Checking in-- My Hobbies Have Looped Back 'Round :)

[glendower]

I hate how hobbies can drag you from forum to forum and you kind of lose contact with people Anyway, I just threw together a "retro" system (though it's not very retro, really). It started as a way to play FF7 PC, but then I found a great custom graphics driver that fixes the incompatibilities with NT-based OSes. So this retro system turned back into a Sierra/Tie Fighter/General DOS system. I put retro in quotes because it's a P2-350 on a 440BX board that I had stashed away in my closet. IT has 3 ISA slots so it's been pretty fun. Right now I've got a VooDoo 3, VooDoo Graphics (so I can play Whiplash! Whoot!) An AWE32 with my SCB-55 on it (I think that's the right board. I actually forget which one it is. It's the one that has specs closer to the MKII), an SW60XG, and my MT32.

This is where my problem with the system arises, and I'm starting to think that there isn't a fix. Waaaay back when I was using the AWE32 in my primary system, I bough a DB50xg (new at Best Buy!) and it caused the system to lock. I kept the board (it doesn't make any sense, but I'm glad I did-- it's living on a Santa Cruz in my main box-- it rotates with the Roland board). In the set up for Tie Fighter, I actually like the sound of the SCB more than the SW60xg, but in game on the AWE32 notes hang, when iMuse transitions the whole system locks up for several seconds (and you can imagine all of the transitions in Tie Fighter). Is there *any* fix for this, or is the MIDI interface on the AWE32 just that bad? It seems to be okay with the MT-32 in Tie Fighter and in patched Sierra games, but is it just this miserable at driving its own WaveBlaster port?

My only other WaveBlaster alternatives are a Santa Cruz (when they started to disappear, I bought a second one, just in case), and an old Aureal card. I'm sure those aren't very DOS friendly though. I REALLY want that SC-55 sound in my DOS games, but the AWE32 just seems miserable with it on there (though I think it worked all right in HEXEN for some reason!).

Anyway, fun to brows the board again. If no one wants to answer this, that's okay, it's just nice to be gawking around in here again!

[Cloudschatze]

Heya, glendower.

Here is Lucasarts' reply regarding the pauses and hanging notes, which you may find interesting:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic/msg/105ee5c8186fea24?dmode=source&pli=1


And, since it sounds like you're running the floppy-disk version, here's the mentioned Sound Update "fix" for the pausing problems:

http://www.lucasarts.com/support/update/tie.html


While the hanging notes "bug" with the Sound Blaster cards is pretty well-known, most people aren't aware of the fact that the Hexen (et al.) problem is a separate issue. I tried pointing this out on the Vogons forum a few years back, and that information remains largely overlooked to this day (even in the same thread!). 

[glendower]

Hey thanks! That is really super that someone actually took the time to explain WHY the problem wasn't (easily) fixable instead of just saying, "Oh, we can't fix that; sorry." I appreciate that a lot.

I am running the CD version (though not the Win95 enhnaced version), which is basically the same as the floppy, with 640x480 graphics available and support for the AWE32's MIDI section (which sounds surprisingly good in Tie Fighter; it had been so long that i thought maybe i was misremembering the quality of the AWE's sound). I might try that hanging note patch, anyway, and see what happens-- worst case I have to reinstall.

Thank a lot!