AOD DOSBox (D-Fend) settings?

[Nate8thcvi]

Hi, folks,

I've been able to get AOD up and running using DOSBox-0.72 and D-Fend v2. I'm able to hear music just fine, but I'm having trouble with sounds such as the engine, speech, etc. I'm not even hearing the "click" when I click the mouse on a menu item. Does anyone have detailed settings of how they were able to get the sounds to work?

Using the game's "Soundset", I have the digital sound driver set to Sound Blaster, DMA 1, IRQ 7, PORT Address 220h. The MIDI Music driver which works is MPU 401 with a PORT Address of 330h.

In the D-Fend settings, under Sound/Sound Blaster, I have sb16 with Address 220, IRQ 7, DMA 1 and HDMA 5. "Opl mode" (whatever that is) is auto, and "Opl rate" is 22050. The "Use Mixer" setting is checked.

Is there something I'm missing with the D-Fend settings for DOSBox?

Thanks,
Nate

[Pisces]

Change the Soundblaster type in D-Fend to SB1 (or try the other if it doesn't work). SB16 was a more advanced type of soundcard that the game may not support. I don't know if it works for sure, I never had the luxury of owning or playing AOD.

[Nate8thcvi]

Hi, Pisces,

I tried doing that, as well as exploring all the other SB types. I am able to hear a sonar "ping" in the game, but no other sounds. Again, the music works just fine.

What is "GUS"? Is that Gravis UltraSound? I'm starting to wonder if it's an issue with the settings in "SoundSet", not D-Fend.

Anybody have specific settings that work for them?

Nate

[VipertheSniper]

I don't remember it exactly, but isn't there a possibility to check if sound is working in the soundset ? I mean the settings you posted are what is set by default for Dosbox and I think AOD supports the SB16. Have you tried starting AOD from Dosbox instead of through D-Fend? That could help ruling that out.

When I get home in about 2 hours I'll check it out.

[Nate8thcvi]

Hi, Viper,

Yes, you are able to check the sound using "SoundSet". And when I do that, I'm able to hear the sonar ping but nothing else (both in SoundSet and also in the game) with the following combinations:

SoundBlaster: DMA 1, IRQ 5, PORT 220h
SoundBlaster 16: DMA 1, IRQ 5, PORT 220h
Gravis UltraSound: DMA 1, IRQ 5, PORT 240h

The Gravis UltraSound is what comes up when I choose "Detect the Sound Card and Settings" from the SoundSet menu.

(The MIDI Music Driver settings always works fine when I have MPU 401, PORT 330h.)

I'm starting to wonder if some sound files didn't copy over from my CD, although that's a pretty remote possibility....

Thanks for any help you might be able to offer.

Nate

[VipertheSniper]

OK I just installed AOD with option c (takes 8,3 MB of space) and I got working sounds with the following settings in setsound:

Soundblaster 16

DMA 1
IRQ 7
Port 220h

Which is the default setting from dosbox.conf, so you probably should start dosbox with the default conf and mount your drives in dosbox, as I seem to recall with D-Fend there's the option to start with a custom one. I was never a friend of that frontend, especially as I'm still used to typing into a console I didn't really see the need for one.

[Nate8thcvi]

Hi, Viper,

For some reason, I can't get AOD to load just by running DOSBox (and not the frontend). I'm thinking about deleting AOD and doing a fresh install. Did you do that using DOSBox as well?

I'm not all that familiar with the DOSBox commands - what did you use to (a) install the program and (b) run the game?

Thanks for helping to walk me through this - I really do appreciate it. I'll try a fresh install tonight.

Nate

[VipertheSniper]

Well, copy this lines to the end of the file dosbox.conf (in the autoexec section, so it runs on startup)

mount c [harddrive]:\[path]
mount d [cd/dvd-drive]:\ -t cdrom -usecd 0 -ioctl
c:

Terms in brackets to be replaced with drive letters, respectively foldername (e.g. the folder you installed your dosgames to [I would definitely recommend a folder dedicated to just that])

To install: Put the AOD-CD in the drive you just mounted

To navigate to the d: drive
Type:
d:
-enter-
install
-enter-

follow the instructions, once the setup is done copying the files, you get to setsound, just let the autodetection do it's magic, test the settings, then save and abort

ok, I'm not sure, but I think you should now be in the right folder AOD was installed to, if not navigate there with the following commands:

Type:
c:
-enter-
cd\dynamix\aodcd (default installation path)
-enter-
aod
-enter-

When you get to the menu, check if you've got sound, apart from the music. if needed you can turn the music on/off with "ctrl+M"

[Nate8thcvi]

Viper,

You did it! That works!!! I followed your steps, and I can hear the sounds - thank you for all your help!

Now I just need to figure out how to install the expansion and make it so that it doesn't have to run off of the CD all the time... any hints on either of those?

Again, thanks - you made my day!

Nate

[Pisces]

You can rip a cd to make an .iso image (plenty of 3rd party tools on the net) and store it somewhere on your harddrive. Then add a drive in D-Fend with type cd-image under:

Hardware (settings)\Drives,
Then press the Add button,
Select type: CD image,
Locate or enter the filepath to the image in the textbox,
Assign desired drive letter for the (virtual) cdrom drive.

I'm not familiar as to how copy-protection schemes of those days affect this solution, though.

[VipertheSniper]

no copy protection for AOD as far as I know, so that shouldn't be a problem. Mounting virtual drives in Dosbox is also no problem. What might be a problem: some games won't recognize a Cd-drive that's not assigned the drive letter d, so you should mount a (virtual)cd-drive as d, to avoid any complications.

[Nate8thcvi]

Viper,

I'm sorry to keep bugging you, but I now seem to be having trouble installing the 1.2 update patch (which also includes the expansion). The patch files are copied both to a folder I created (C:\DYNAMIX\UPDATE) as well as to a floppy disk (a: - yes, I still have one of those.

The command to install the patch is to type "AODPATCH" (AODPATCH is a .BAT file). When I am in DOSBox, whether I mount the a: drive or try to install it from the folder I created on the hard drive, when I type "AODPATCH" it says:

Illegal command: mode.
GOTO: Label sameDir not found.

So, thinking it's not reading the proper directory, I typed "AODPATCH C:\DYNAMIX\AODCD". Same problem.

Okay, so I went to the regular Microsoft Command Prompt, hit "A:" and then "AODPATCH". Although it quickly flashed on the screen "Invalid parameter - co80", it started the install, asking what language I wanted to run the program in. Now we're getting somewhere, I thought! As I followed the steps, when it started unpacking the files, it then said:

Exiting with return code 8

Exiting with return code 8
unable to extract resource file.

Any clue how I might be able to successfully install the update patch? Have you been able to do it?

Thanks so much - you've already been a great help.

Nate

[VipertheSniper]

Yeah I had some trouble with the patch too... when you mount a floppy drive you have to add "-t floppy" to the mount command. If you want to install the expansion disk, do that before installing the patch, well I guess you know that.

I hope adding the switch to the mount command is all there is to it.

[Nate8thcvi]

Well, I just tried installing the expansion first (I was trying to install the 1.2 patch first).

This time, when I mounted " a a:\ -t floppy", then hit "a:" and then "install", I pressed "E" to run it in English, and this is what came up:

Null pointer assignment
Environment variable IDRIVE A not defined.

GOTO: Label chkdef not found.

Any clue what I should be doing different?

Nate

[VipertheSniper]

Well if you want to have the expansion, you've got to install that before the patch...

So here is what I did, I downloaded the files needed from subsims download section, and then I made two folders (outside the folder that's mounted as c: in dosbox) where I extracted the contents of the expansion respectively the patch.
Mount the folder for the expansion in dosbox as drive a: and install.
After that unmount the floppy drive with the command "mount -u a"
Mount the folder with the patch in dosbox as drive a: and install.

Worked for me.

[Nate8thcvi]

Hi, Viper,

It looks like I've hit a dead end - I did exactly what you said, but when I tried installing the expansion it came up with the same thing:

Null pointer assignment
Environment variable IDRIVE A not defined.

GOTO: Label chkdef not found.

I may try and install this on my laptop to see if I get the same problem. A few years ago, my hard drive was wiped out and I had to start from scratch. I'm wondering if some drivers didn't make it back on when I reinstalled everything.

I'll report back in a couple days once I try everything on my laptop. Again, I really appreciate the help.

Nate