Wing Commander + DOSBox + joystick = choppy music

Crowley

Rear Admiral
Wing Commander runs fine in DOSBox otherwise, but if I try to use my ye olde Gravis joystick, music gets choppy (=has split second pauses, more if I move the joystick around). I have 1,3 GHz AMD Athlon with 256 MB memory. The joystick plugs into the gameport at my Sound Blaster 128 PCI card. Changing the CPU cycles or frameskip doesn't seem to make a difference. Using an USB gamepad doesn't affect the performance in any way. Also, when I move the cursor around with the joystick in the save/load room, the graphs (EKG-like thingies) at the end of the beds flicker.
 
I think I've got a dejavu...
Am I wrong or didn't you write the exact same thing in the DOSBox Forum?
To your problem: To be honest I have got no idea how to solve is, but I noticed that somehow (some) Gravis Joysticks seem to have troubles with (some) WC games quite often - But maybe that is just because mots people use Gravis Joysticks.
But to check whether it's really the Joystick or not, you could test another Gameport Joystick /gamepad. You could borrow it from a friend, maybe. If that one also suffers the bug, there is def. something wrong with the Joystick.
Oh, btw, have you tried recalibrating the Joystick under Windows? And does it work perfectly for other games?
 
I tried using another gameport joystick with the same results. Anyway, I played one mission using the mouse, and I started getting the same choppiness in the sound, getting gradually worse. I quit DOSBox, restarted it and played another mission using mouse, this time with no problem with sound. I've noticed that Wing Commander has a strange urge to force Adlib for sound with DOSBox, even when I've disabled it in the DOSBox configuration file. Whatever I select when running install.exe through DOSBox, it doesn't really seem to change to configuration file. So I tried running the install program through Windows to set Sound Blaster, and setting the WC config file to read-only, but even that didn't stop it from using Adlib.

edit: Now this is interesting. When there isn't a joystick plugged in, Wing Commander has the firm opinion that there is a Sound Blaster, despite what I choose in the setup.

more edit: Tried slightly newer sound card drivers (figured that legacy emulation thingie might be causing troubles). Now WC identifies the sound card as Sound Blaster, but still the choppiness remains. It isn't just the music, but the game overall, I've noticed.
 
Ok, so now at least it's clear it isn't the Joystick. You say you are using legacy emulation for WC. How do you do that? I thought Emulation via DOSBox was independent from soundcard EMU. - Wait, except Music that is! Ah, so there's the prob. Hmm.
Got an idea: Try to use mpu401=false under [midi] and then reinstall the game. Now everything should be done by DosBox, I think.

To clear things up: We are both talking about DOSBOx 0.61 or? Just ask cause I didn't know there is an Adlib option in DOSBox.
 
Updating sound card drivers apparently disabled the legacy emulation. Anyway, I tried setting MPU to false, which didn't affect the situation in any way. Also tried changing some of the mixer and GUS settings, the only change being that disabling the mixer turned off sound completely. And yes, this is DOSBox 0.61.
 
I just got another idea: Maybe too high cycles ;)
I hope I didn't ask that before (just flew over the Thread again), but:
What cycles are you using? I personally use cycles=4000 for my 3Ghz rig, so might be too high / low for you, but at least a point where to start. Cause if the cycles are too high for your CPU, sound gets choppy - doesn't matter whether it's midi only or only sound or both. That differs from game to game. - Also too high cycles will slow down the game. - same can go for too low cycles.
 
Maybe the gameport emulation is more processor intensive, who knows...
One question, regarding this cycles stuff: What actually happens when ou raise/lower this setting? I tried Priv with 5000 cycles (athlon 1.3 gh 256 ddrram) and it was so so, kinda slow but sound/speech was fine. when I pressed ctrl+f12 repeatedly it ALL got choppier and choppier, a lot worse...

So, what direction is faster/slower or better/worse? up or down?
 
Ok: Generally HIGHER is faster, BUT if your cPU is already working with 100% power, anything higher will slow it down again. So best is to try higering it from a lower value till sound etc. gets choppy, then lower again - you can also check your CPU power with the Task manager when doing so, cause anything higher than 100% is impossible ;) (Ok, for HT-CPUs, even ~50% is the limit :( )
 
@crowley:
Bad news :( In another Thread someone had a similar problem and solved it via unplugging the Gameport Joystick and using an USB one instead. That was with WC2. So you are not the only one having problems with Gameport under DOSBox. - Btw, did you get any response in the DOSBox forum yet? Maybe they are working on that bug already. - If not, try bumping again and hopefully someone will react there ;)
EDIT: I just bumped your topic in the DOSBox Forum and also mentioned the other guy having the exact same problem with a different game.
 
Back
Top