Terminal Velocity DOS game (CD version) speed and audio issues

[MX9000]

Describe the bug

This game seems to be very sensitive to the accuracy of CPU timings and I have not been able to find a cycle number that fits all parts of the game. Setting the speed to 11000/12000 cycles solves the problem of audio stuttering in the game's starting animation that displays the Terminal Reality Inc. logo, but then the cinematics introducing the story and even the music accompanying the briefing screen before the mission are slow with crackling and stuttering. The game with the 3D graphics options set to maximum is unplayable with so few cycles. If I set cycles=auto DOSBox switches to MAX cycles: the 3D flight scenes are smooth, but the initial animation stutters and even the later cinematics and briefing screen have occasional crackles and pops. I tried to configure some audio parameters as recommended here but I did not notice any difference: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Terminal_Velocity. I also tried changing the blocksize and prebuffer in the mixer often worsening the result. With the SETUP.EXE of the game I tried all the Sound Blaster supported and in the Sound Options of the game I tried to change from stereo to mono or lower the frequency of the music. The game runs perfectly in PCem or 86Box configuring a virtual machine with a Pentium 166/200, 32MB RAM, S3 Trio 64 and SB16.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. Install the game
2. Try to find a number of cycles that resolve stutter

Expected behavior

The graphic and sound of the game should be smooth as in PCem or 86Box.

What operating system(s) this bug have occurred on?

Windows 10 Pro 21H2

What version(s) of DOSBox-X have this bug?

DOSBox-X 0.84.0 VSbuild 64 bit SDL1 & SDL2

Used configuration

Standard apart from changing the cycles, increase memsize to 32 MB and try some audio parameters as described in the link above.

Output log

No response

Additional information

No response

Have you checked that no similar bug report(s) exist?

• [X] I have searched and didn't find any similar bug report.

Code of Conduct & Contributing Guidelines

• [X] I agree to follow the code of conduct and the contributing guidelines.

[grapeli]

At maximum settings, this game requires a pentium processor. https://legacy.3drealms.com/tv/index.html eXoDOS in the dosbox configuration sets cycles to 40000.

As for the intro issues in this game. Any imperfections will disappear if the sound settings are exactly like that.

Anything else causes this intro to be played badly (both sbpro2 and sb16, sb1, sb2). This also applies to dosbox-SVN and dosbox-staging.

[MX9000]

@grapeli thank you. I tried your suggestions and also the game included in eXoDOS but it seems to me that even with these settings the sound stutters. I enclose two videos where you can hear the differences in the intro music between PCem (which seems to me to be the correct one) and Dosbox-X. DOSBox-X TV Intro.zip PCem TV Intro.zip

[grapeli]

@MX9000 First of all, your dosbox-x recording has a huge audio delay. Approximately 2 seconds (a lot). I don't know what it's caused by. You are probably using the wrong settings. Maybe you are setting blocksize to a value other than the default. Do not do this. Remember, the higher the blocksize value, the greater the audio delay.

I listened to some Terminal Velocity videos available on youtube (intro only). Most of my ear is wrong. The conclusion is this. Probably not many people pay attention to it. People play games, intros to games usually skip. The Terminal Velocity floppy version does not contain it.

According to the description, this video is from dosbox, and it sounds perfectly correct to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU6ti5Ng6hg

It really is the intro that causes problems. Not only under dosbox-x, also dosbox-svn and dosbox-staging. I did not find any perfect settings for the soundblaster. In the end, I decided to use the GUS. This is what it sounds like under dosbox-x.

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/452325/175816371-07c5c71f-dd50-4396-84e2-b22f36defe15.mp4

[grapeli]

@MX9000 Press Ctrl-b while in the main menu of the game. This will bring up the tvi file player. Then press the 2 key and then type logo.tvi. It turns out that this file sounds correct for the sound blaster 16, which is not the case when it is initialized at the start of the game. You can play other files as well. The intro file is depa.tvi.

Information about this hidden player can be found in the FAQ.

[grapeli]

I checked how this intro sounds under QEMU with freedos. There are very similar problems with the sound (sound blaster) during the presentation of the Terminal Reality Inc. logo as under the various dosboxes.

[MX9000]

Thank you very much for your assistance @grapeli I had also noticed the audio delay in recording, but my blocksize is 1024 as recommended in the Configuration Tool. In the YouTube video you posted the audio is perfect: who knows what version of DOSBox they used. GUS also works for me and the TVI player also plays the intro perfectly with SondBlaster 16.