BAD NEWS: From Lucasarts =>Tiefighter& Midi!
Jochen Heistermann
Red_brick (ta...@mail.utexas.edu) wrote:
: Natalia,
: I hope you don't mind me posting your reply.
:
: This response was from Lucas Arts concerning the my General Midi(SCD-15)
: and SB16 setup. I kept getting stalls, hanging notes etc.
:
: FROM LUCAS ARTS...
:
:
just a simple comment to the long technical explanations:
I have the Tie Fighter CD and Disk version AND I have the SB16 with
SC-10 daughterboard. There was a patch for the disk version that
FIXED the MIDI bug. The music of TF disk and TF CD is basically the
same - but the patch does not work with the CD-ROM-version.
Why don't they use the same data for music as they did in the disk
version???
Jochen
:
--
Jochen Heistermann
Lee Carpenter (e...@fay.infi.net) wrote:
: >
: > --My guess is that reading data from the hard drive is MUCH MUCH faster so
: the MIDI messages are processed normally. When reading from the much
: slower CD-ROM the messages have to wait or are lost.
You may be right. But then it should be possible to give the opportunity
to store the music files on the HD (like in the Disk version). 10 MB
more or less would not hurt.
Jochen
--
FRiC
In article <32015888...@snews2.zippo.com>,
Antos Dragon <tir...@super.zippo.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 01 Aug 1996 13:25:11 GMT, sfsi...@ix.netcom.com (Samuel
>Simpson) wrote:
>
>Probably because the iMUSE engine ISN'T flawed! I once owned a SCD-15
>GS Roland Sound Canvas daughtercard, and _LOTS_ of games would have
>hanging notes, mainly the ones with upbeat tempos, like Doom, Heretc,
>Star Wars series (xwing, tie fighter), and others that I can't
>remember right now. Games that generally didn't show the hanging note
>problems were slower-paced RPGs without thumping soundtracks, and
>other similarly paced games. The problem was, if memory serves me
>well, may have been a _deliberate_ flaw in the Sound Blaster / and
>some true compatibles' hardware (something to deal with WaveBlaster
>competition?). I think that one of the new Pro Audio 3D cards (with a
>SCD attached) did not show these hanging note problems--I sold my
>SCD-15 to my friend who had one of these cards, and he didn't have any
>problems with hanging notes.
>
>BTW, I sold my SCD-15 to buy a SCC-1 Sound Canvas, which gives me
>absolutely no problems at all, since it is a stand-alone midi card.
Every few months this thread starts up again.. from my never-to-be-finished
Sound Blaster / Sound Canvas FAQ:
x. I get stuck notes when playing games.
The stuck notes problem happens with all (?) SB16's with DSP 4.11 and
4.12. There is no fix for this. It happens with both daughterboards and
external MIDI devices. The best way to solve this is to get a separate
MPU-401 card for your MIDI device, or sell the bad SB16 and get one
with a better DSP version.
The problem is both hardware and software though, on my SB16MCD (DSP
4.11) I get stuck notes in some games like Doom and TIE Fighter (even
with the patch) but never in other games, such as Wing Commander III
and System Shock. On my SB16V (DSP 4.13) I get stuck notes in TIE
Fighter (fixed by patch), and no problems in anything else.
Lee Carpenter
the MIDI messages are processed normally. When reading from the much
slower CD-ROM the messages have to wait or are lost.
Lee C.
Red_brick
Natalia,
I hope you don't mind me posting your reply.
This response was from Lucas Arts concerning the my General Midi(SCD-15)
and SB16 setup. I kept getting stalls, hanging notes etc.
FROM LUCAS ARTS...
I'm sorry to hear that you are experiencing problems with the MIDI music
on Tie Fighter CD. We are aware of some problems that have occurred
relating to the MIDI music option on Tie Fighter (this has most commonly
been seen on systems that use MIDI daughter-boards.) The most common
problem that has been reported is the occurrence of hanging notes. We
have spent a great deal of time researching this problem, and
unfortunately have come to the conclusion that the problem cannot be
fixed. Here is a detailed explanation of what we have discovered to be
the nature of the problem:
The standard adlib-compatible FM synthesizer (also known as the OPL2 or
OPL3 chip) is the de facto music standard for computer games. The FM
synth chip is located on the sound card and it's registers are directly
accessible to our programmers. They program the chip to have nine
channels of FM synthesis. When a music note plays, IMUSE (our sound
engine) finds an open channel, downloads the appropriate instrument (11
bytes), and flips a status bit in the FM chip to un-mute the channel.
This process takes around 275 microseconds to complete. Turning the note
off takes under 30 microseconds. Since the instrument is included in the
note-on command, there is no extra time taken to switch instruments.
These timings are small enough that we haven't encountered any stuck
notes or other problems when playing Tie Fighter using the FM synth
option for the music. As long as you select FM synth, you should be able
to play the game without experiencing any hanging notes.
The General MIDI daughterboards (that most commonly attach to the Sound
Blaster 16) can improve the quality of the game's music significantly.
However, because the chips driving the music are no longer on the sound
card, the programmer is forced to access these chips indirectly through a
serial interface on the card (running at around 32 kbaud, or 4000
bytes/sec.) The card then interprets the standard MIDI note information.
To turn a note on, you must send 3 bytes to the card, and then wait for
each to be sent to the daughterboard (at 4000 bytes/sec, this process
takes 750 microseconds.) Turning a note off is another 3 byte message
(which takes another 750 microseconds). Changing an instrument, is a 2
byte message (another 500 microseconds). In addition to the time that it
takes to send a byte to the daughterboard, there is a delay that is
caused by the wait for an acknowledgment signal to be returned.
The high density of the notes in our Star Wars music, and the delay
caused by routing the information through the MIDI daughterboards,
combined with the high-resolution SVGA graphics, presented quite a
challenge to both our programmers, and to computer systems that were
trying to simultaneously process all of the game's data.
In some cases, systems processing all of this information during gameplay
can experience temporary pauses (caused by such things as waiting for
data from the CD-ROM.) This causes the music engine to starve and then
suddenly become inundated with MIDI messages. When this happens, the
system literally hangs for 2-3 seconds as the computer attempts to
process the CD-ROM reads and the MIDI messages at the same time.
We attempted to correct this problem by changing the setup so that the
system did not have to wait for the "busy-wait" acknowledgment that was
being sent out through the MIDI messages. This did manage to get rid of
the pausing problem, but there were still difficulties because
occasionally a MIDI message was lost. When the lost MIDI message was a
"note-on" message, the note simply didn't play. When the lost message
was a "note-off" message, the musical note didn't stop playing--This is
what causes the "hanging note" problem.. Our various other attempts to
remedy stuck notes either recreated the pauses, or didn't work 100% of
the time.
Another thing that we tried to do to eliminate the pauses, was to
internally buffer the MIDI messages and wait for the "busy-wait"
acknowledgment, so that when the system is very busy, no MIDI messages
are sent out. Then, when the system has extra time for music, the buffer
unloads as much as possible. This worked well, but since the "time-out"
period was shortened, stuck notes still occurred (but fewer than normally
would have). This is the solution that was shipped with Tie Fighter CD.
We spent an extensive amount of time researching this problem, with the
hope of coming up with a solution, but we have determined that there just
isn't any way that a patch can be produced that will fix the problem
(specifically because the problem is hardware related). The best thing
to do would be to use the FM Synth option when playing the game. This
will allow you to play without experiencing any of the "hanging-note"
problems.
I appreciate your patience in this matter. We wanted to be sure that we
had exhausted every possibility before we reached the conclusion that the
problem could not be resolved.
I hope this helps.
Natalia / LucasArts Technical Support
Samuel Simpson
ta...@mail.utexas.edu (Red_brick) wrote:
>This response was from Lucas Arts concerning the my General Midi(SCD-15)
>and SB16 setup. I kept getting stalls, hanging notes etc.
>
>FROM LUCAS ARTS...
>We spent an extensive amount of time researching this problem, with the
>hope of coming up with a solution, but we have determined that there just
>isn't any way that a patch can be produced that will fix the problem
>(specifically because the problem is hardware related).
I realize that this won't do any good, now that LucasArts has
officially admitted defeat, but it IS bloody well possible to program
a music engine that works perfectly with SB16 GM daughterboards,
despite their hardware problems. I have dozens of processor intensive
games which have no problems whatsoever with GM.
Why can't LucasArts just remove the flawed iMUSE engine and drop in a
set of reliable third-party sound drivers?
------------------------------------
Sam Simpson (sfsi...@ix.netcom.com)
Irving, TX
Dearmad
WOW! Thanks for reminding me how much and WHY I love LUCASARTS and their GAMES!
If they gave you such a detailed and factual accounting of things, this demands
respect in this industry, or at least my respect! I think I'll load up Sam'n'Max
again... :)
Sorry my reply is so short in size comapred to the original, but I think that the
above bears repeating in case anyone's server fails to retreive your original.
Jason Kehler
Dearmad (dea...@earthlink.net) wrote:
: WOW! Thanks for reminding me how much and WHY I love LUCASARTS and their GAMES!
: If they gave you such a detailed and factual accounting of things, this demands
: respect in this industry, or at least my respect! I think I'll load up Sam'n'Max
: again... :)
Lucasarts has excellent technical support. However, it did take
them 8 months to come to the conclusions in the above letter. However, I
am happy that they tried to do it. I'm one of the ones with the older
SB16 card with a Roland SCD-15 daughtercard.. Which in my opinion is still
an excellent sound combination.. Obviously time to upgrade my SB16 to a
newer one though.
Jason
--
Jason Kehler Zuk...@UltraTech.Net "Fraser versus an Ancient
CompTech Systems Team OS/2 Ground Sloth with Diefenbaker
My Home Page: <Bleh..> as the Judge!"
IRC Realms where I exist: #Sloth,#DueSouth "May the Sloth's be with you.."
Lon Seidman
>I realize that this won't do any good, now that LucasArts has
>officially admitted defeat, but it IS bloody well possible to program
>a music engine that works perfectly with SB16 GM daughterboards,
>despite their hardware problems. I have dozens of processor intensive
>games which have no problems whatsoever with GM.
Have you tried the MPU401 patch? It's fixed a lot of the hanging note
and other problems I've had in DOS games. If ya need it, I'll be happy to
email it to you and anyone else who needs it.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Lon J. Seidman
West Hartford and Westbrook, Connecticut
Student Member, University of Hartford Board of Regents 96-97
l...@pcnet.com
sei...@uhavax.hartford.edu
http://www.pcnet.com/~lon
-------------------------------------------------------------
Steven S Mikumo
The Mark II FCS and Mark II WCS.
Both are in great condition and work perfectly together.
Manuals and Disks included.
First $100 takes them both.
Please e-mail back a reply if interested.
For specs go to the Thustmaster Homepage!
The Doctor
fr...@cl1.frontiernet.net (FRiC) wrote:
>>SCD attached) did not show these hanging note problems--I sold my
>>SCD-15 to my friend who had one of these cards, and he didn't have any
>>problems with hanging notes.
>>
>>BTW, I sold my SCD-15 to buy a SCC-1 Sound Canvas, which gives me
>>absolutely no problems at all, since it is a stand-alone midi card.
>Every few months this thread starts up again.. from my never-to-be-finished
>Sound Blaster / Sound Canvas FAQ:
> x. I get stuck notes when playing games.
> The stuck notes problem happens with all (?) SB16's with DSP 4.11 and
> 4.12. There is no fix for this. It happens with both daughterboards and
> external MIDI devices. The best way to solve this is to get a separate
> MPU-401 card for your MIDI device, or sell the bad SB16 and get one
> with a better DSP version.
Hello. How do I tell what DSP version I have for my SB 16 in Win95?
Thanx...
-Sabre9
Red_brick
> Lucasarts has excellent technical support. However, it did take
>them 8 months to come to the conclusions in the above letter. However, I
>am happy that they tried to do it. I'm one of the ones with the older
>SB16 card with a Roland SCD-15 daughtercard.. Which in my opinion is still
>an excellent sound combination.. Obviously time to upgrade my SB16 to a
>newer one though.
>
...Personally, I think Creative Labs should allow us to exchange the DSP
or whatever, because if I buy a game tomorrow, how am I going to know that
the game is for DSP rev.1.12 or above? I paid for what I though should be a
compatible sound card to use for my games especially TIE FIGHTER! Seems to
me LucasArts is no longer the problem based on one previous poster.
Consistency is very important, especially when dealing with hardware.
Anyways, I'm gona call Creative Labs tonight to see the out come. Keep
ya'll updated.
Robert Yung
Jason Kehler (zuk...@ionsys.com) wrote:
: Lucasarts has excellent technical support. However, it did take
: them 8 months to come to the conclusions in the above letter. However, I
: am happy that they tried to do it. I'm one of the ones with the older
: SB16 card with a Roland SCD-15 daughtercard.. Which in my opinion is still
: an excellent sound combination.. Obviously time to upgrade my SB16 to a
: newer one though.
Did they fix the midi problem on the "newer" sb16? I was planning on
getting a vibra, but is that one "bad"? How about the sb16 PnP?
Anyone NOT getting midi problems from their sb16??
Darren Duncan
ry...@cnct.com (Robert Yung) wrote:
>Did they fix the midi problem on the "newer" sb16? I was planning on
>getting a vibra, but is that one "bad"? How about the sb16 PnP?
>Anyone NOT getting midi problems from their sb16??
>
I had a Vibra 16 with wave blaster 2 connected and had the probs. When
I swapped it for an awe32 with the same waveblaster the problems went
away.
Darren
Jon Rose
> : This response was from Lucas Arts concerning the my General
Midi(SCD-15)
> : and SB16 setup. I kept getting stalls, hanging notes etc.
> I have the Tie Fighter CD and Disk version AND I have the SB16 with
> SC-10 daughterboard. There was a patch for the disk version that
> FIXED the MIDI bug. The music of TF disk and TF CD is basically the
> same - but the patch does not work with the CD-ROM-version.
>
> Why don't they use the same data for music as they did in the disk
> version???
>
Jochen,
The reason for this was in Lucas Arts explanation. The problem is a
hardware contention between calls to the midi daughter-board and reads from
the CD-ROM. The CD-Rom reads are processor intensive and rather lengthy due
to the lower speed of the CD-Rom vs a hard drive. Using the disk version
you access your hard drive instead of a CD-Rom. Hard drive acces is not
very CPU intensive, and is handled by the hard drive controller instead.
This frees up the cpu to handle calls to the midi card. This eleminates
potential conflicts.
Hope this helps,
Jonathan
Juergen Bloss
Robert Yung (ry...@cnct.com) wrote:
> Jason Kehler (zuk...@ionsys.com) wrote:
> : Lucasarts has excellent technical support. However, it did take
> : them 8 months to come to the conclusions in the above letter. However, I
> : am happy that they tried to do it. I'm one of the ones with the older
> : SB16 card with a Roland SCD-15 daughtercard.. Which in my opinion is still
> : an excellent sound combination.. Obviously time to upgrade my SB16 to a
> : newer one though.
>
> getting a vibra, but is that one "bad"? How about the sb16 PnP?
> Anyone NOT getting midi problems from their sb16??
I have the SB16Value with DSP 4.13, and the hanging notes problem is still
there. Not only with Tie Fighter or Xwing, but with almost all games.
Juergen
--
"Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise!"
(Cmdr. Riker, "Contagion")
Juergen Bloss
FRiC (fr...@cl1.frontiernet.net) wrote:
>
> Every few months this thread starts up again.. from my never-to-be-finished
> Sound Blaster / Sound Canvas FAQ:
>
> x. I get stuck notes when playing games.
>
> The stuck notes problem happens with all (?) SB16's with DSP 4.11 and
> 4.12. There is no fix for this. It happens with both daughterboards and
> external MIDI devices. The best way to solve this is to get a separate
> MPU-401 card for your MIDI device, or sell the bad SB16 and get one
> with a better DSP version.
>
> 4.11) I get stuck notes in some games like Doom and TIE Fighter (even
> with the patch) but never in other games, such as Wing Commander III
> and System Shock. On my SB16V (DSP 4.13) I get stuck notes in TIE
> Fighter (fixed by patch), and no problems in anything else.
Strange. I have the Sb16Value DSP 4.13, too, and have _many_ hanging notes,
in (almost) all games. Tie Fighter never even makes it through the intro
without sound problems (not even with the patch).
Could it be that the problem is still not fixed by Creative Labs?
Does anyone have a statement from them regarding the hanging notes
problem?
Michael Carmack
Jon Rose (jlr...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: The reason for this was in Lucas Arts explanation. The problem is a
: hardware contention between calls to the midi daughter-board and reads from
: the CD-ROM.
Why does the game have to be played from a CD-ROM in the first place?
What did they add to the CD version besides SVGA, which does not by itself
justify the CD-ROM in the drive? I don't have the game, but would like to
buy it if I can resolve this issue. Is it possible to copy the whole CD
to your hard drive and play that way, thus eliminating the slow CD-ROM
access and possibly clearing up the hanging MIDI note problem? Normally I
don't advocate cracks to bypass CD-ROM-in-the-drive checks, but if a crack
would help solve this problem I think it would be justified in this case.
--
========================================================================
"In sports, it's not who wins or | Mike Carmack
loses; it's how drunk you get." | Vulcan Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
- Homer Simpson | mcar...@freenet.columbus.oh.us
DLRapp
In article <01bb85a0$cc31d4e0$9501b8cd@#jlrose>, "Jon Rose" <jlr...@ix.netcom.com> says:
>> : This response was from Lucas Arts concerning the my General
>Midi(SCD-15)
>> : and SB16 setup. I kept getting stalls, hanging notes etc.
>> I have the Tie Fighter CD and Disk version AND I have the SB16 with
>> SC-10 daughterboard. There was a patch for the disk version that
>> FIXED the MIDI bug. The music of TF disk and TF CD is basically the
>> same - but the patch does not work with the CD-ROM-version.
>> Why don't they use the same data for music as they did in the disk
>> version???
>Jochen,
>
>The reason for this was in Lucas Arts explanation. The problem is a
>hardware contention between calls to the midi daughter-board and reads from
>the CD-ROM. The CD-Rom reads are processor intensive and rather lengthy due
>to the lower speed of the CD-Rom vs a hard drive. Using the disk version
>you access your hard drive instead of a CD-Rom. Hard drive acces is not
>very CPU intensive, and is handled by the hard drive controller instead.
>This frees up the cpu to handle calls to the midi card. This eleminates
>potential conflicts.
I have a "sortof" related question. I had a 2x SCSI CD-ROM that I
replaced with an 8X IDE. Did I gain anything? I've noticed some problems
with Albion and stuck notes since then; but never had tried it with the
SCSI. Sound is ProAudio Spectrum 16 with a GUS daughter board. One
person I know contends the SCSI 2X would be just as fast as the 8X IDE,
due to interface.
Roland Frotten
In article <4ufiae$k...@rznews.rrze.uni-erlangen.de>,
jnb...@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de says...
>
>FRiC (fr...@cl1.frontiernet.net) wrote:
>>
>> Every few months this thread starts up again.. from my never-to-be-finished
>> Sound Blaster / Sound Canvas FAQ:
>>
>> x. I get stuck notes when playing games.
>>
>> The stuck notes problem happens with all (?) SB16's with DSP 4.11 and
>> 4.12. There is no fix for this. It happens with both daughterboards and
>>
>
>Strange. I have the Sb16Value DSP 4.13, too, and have _many_ hanging notes,
>in (almost) all games. Tie Fighter never even makes it through the intro
>without sound problems (not even with the patch).
>Could it be that the problem is still not fixed by Creative Labs?
>Does anyone have a statement from them regarding the hanging notes
>problem?
>
> Juergen
I have this identical problem as well (with a SB16-ASP & WaveBlaster II). I
sent Creative Labs a detailed note on the problem 6-8 months ago and never
received a reply.
Roland
David Scott
there is a fix for the SB Midi problem available.. it requires a
SB-AWE but it does fix the problems.. as to Tie I ran the CD fine on
my Mitsumi 6x IDE with a SB16 all sounds and midi were fine.
dave
dan....@stpete.honeywell.com (DLRapp) wrote:
>In article <01bb85a0$cc31d4e0$9501b8cd@#jlrose>, "Jon Rose" <jlr...@ix.netcom.com> says:
>>> : This response was from Lucas Arts concerning the my General
>>Midi(SCD-15)
>>> : and SB16 setup. I kept getting stalls, hanging notes etc.
>>> I have the Tie Fighter CD and Disk version AND I have the SB16 with
Red_brick
>Strange. I have the Sb16Value DSP 4.13, too, and have _many_ hanging notes,
>in (almost) all games. Tie Fighter never even makes it through the intro
>without sound problems (not even with the patch).
>Could it be that the problem is still not fixed by Creative Labs?
>Does anyone have a statement from them regarding the hanging notes
>problem?
...ah shit, guess the AWE is the next one up, sticking w/ Creative huh?
Ben Hall
I agree fully. It is asinine to me that a publisher such as LucasArts, who
has such a reputation as an excellent company, would leave such an obvious
bug in their shipping product. Worse, they won't even patch it! (come on
guys, the WaveBlaster worked fine in TIE) I bought an AWE32 just because
of this. If you ask me, LucasArts and Creative Labs are in bed with one
another.
By the way, it works great now (still have to play in MS-DOS mode) and my
friend who just bought TIE CD is screwed.
it's sad that LucasArts cannot be bothered to address this issue
Michael Carmack <mcar...@freenet.columbus.oh.us> wrote in article
<4ufbtt$5...@login.freenet.columbus.oh.us>...
> Jon Rose (jlr...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> : The reason for this was in Lucas Arts explanation. The problem is a
> : hardware contention between calls to the midi daughter-board and reads
from
> : the CD-ROM.
>
Steven Travers
ta...@mail.utexas.edu (Red_brick) wrote:
is there some lofty reason why people cross-post to every single
newsgroup? doesn't that defeat the purpose of the group having been
broken up into a hierarchy????? to the original poster, whoever you
were: post just in the miscellaneous group, for crying out loud.
Mike Lescault
Gee Steve, you just made the problem worse!! Like I want to see this
TieFighter post in my comp.sys....strategic NG. You should stick to
...games.action <G>
-Mike
P.S.- I know, I just committed the same crime as Steve, but I couldn't
resist... ;-)