Latest version of ScummVM ported to AGA

[xavlahaye]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

You need to install CAMD to get general MIDI working, check the readme file.

This setup video will help

[ Show youtube player ]

Thanks, I found out that the PC CD version I had didn't contain MT-32 soundtrack, my bad. It now works with the Disk version but the audio is stuttery... Any idea on how to improve it?

Version 1.5 is very old and doesn't support CD audio playback, your 030 would be too slow to decompress the data even if it was enabled.

Ah ok, I thought it would send only CDDA commands, and that the audio would go out from the headphones jack?
That would be so great because there are quite a few compatible titles having CDDA soundtracks and treated that way, the 030 should not suffer too much I believe.
In the scummVM docs, it is written that it can play the CD tracks directly. Maybe there is a hidden setting somewhere where you could specify the CD device or something? It would be a blessing for 030 users!

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by xavlahaye

Thanks, I found out that the PC CD version I had didn't contain MT-32 soundtrack, my bad. It now works with the Disk version but the audio is stuttery... Any idea on how to improve it?

You mean the CAMD music MIDI playback is stuttering? Other 030 users haven't said this, AFAIK MIDI playback via CAMD is perfectly useable on an 030. Only CAMD music playback is viable on an 030, if you want to play back music using sound blaster emulation or compressed music files then you'll need a more powerful CPU I'm afraid. If you are referring to the audio SFX/voice playback then check the AGA 030 readme for the 'AUDIO_THREAD_PRIORITY' tooltype usage.

Originally Posted by xavlahaye

Ah ok, I thought it would send only CDDA commands, and that the audio would go out from the headphones jack?
That would be so great because there are quite a few compatible titles having CDDA soundtracks and treated that way, the 030 should not suffer too much I believe.
In the scummVM docs, it is written that it can play the CD tracks directly. Maybe there is a hidden setting somewhere where you could specify the CD device or something? It would be a blessing for 030 users!

The latest AGA/RTG 060 versions already support CDDA music playback by converting the CDDA tracks first to OGG and then to WAV. The 030 build hasn't been updated for years and therefore doesn't contain this enhancement.

[xavlahaye]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

You mean the CAMD music MIDI playback is stuttering?

Yes exactly, the music plays but there are delays, and the playback is not rhythmically tight, I wonder why indeed. I followed all your performance recommendations (PFS3 on Blizzard's SCSI, kickstart rom in fast, copymem patched, got 64 megs of ram, older version of AHI, etc...)
I got it running right with speech and midi music under the latest scummVM version 2.2 for 030 available on Github but it supports fewer games, unfortunately.

if you want to play back music using sound blaster emulation or compressed music files then you'll need a more powerful CPU I'm afraid.

Ok, I understand. Too bad, I think going the "real" physical route with CDDA would be better for lower configs. so nothing would go to the CPU, just the audio comes out from headphones or those 4-pin connectors on the back of CD units to a physical mixer

The latest AGA/RTG 060 versions already support CDDA music playback by converting the CDDA tracks first to OGG and then to WAV. The 030 build hasn't been updated for years and therefore doesn't contain this enhancement.

Nice! Do people report being able to run the FM-towns versions of Zak McKraken on those setups?

[sokolovic]

Maybe this question have been answered but are the 32Mb of ram mandatory to play games like Monkey Island 2 or Indy 4 in 256 colors ?

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Maybe this question have been answered but are the 32Mb of ram mandatory to play games like Monkey Island 2 or Indy 4 in 256 colors ?

I've no idea how much memory is required for each game engine, 32mb was just my best guess.

[mahen]

Hi ! Out of curiosity, do you consider a backport of the 060 features to the 040 build ? Would be compatible with the PiStorm... :-)

Would love to have an up to date version compatible with Gobliiins 5 (recently released) ! I can offer you the game if you want to try it !

[derSammler]

The 060 build runs fine on the PiStorm, I'm using it for quite some time now.

[mahen]

Oopsie, I had an issue with the 060 build due to a bad mt32 configuration leading to a black screen for some reason. Sorry for the noise and thx so much Nova !

[mahen]

BTW guys&gals, did you manage to get Kyrandia 1/2/3 running ? With both the latest 060 build and the older 040 build I get : "you're missing the "kyra.dat" engine data file or it got corrupted. (then software failure)

Cheers !

[derSammler]

Have not tried yet, but "kyra.dat" is part of ScummVM and should be in the extras folder. So either it is not there, or the wrong version for the game files you are using. (the file is also different between various versions of ScummVM)

[mahen]

Hi ! Sorry, I wasn't exhaustive enough.

The kyra.dat is definitely there in each ScummVM distribution and that's why I tried with 2 quite different ScummVM versions (the 2015 and the 2023 ones). Same result !

I tried several Kyrandia versions - floppy and cd ones. Probably didn't find the right one !

cheers

[derSammler]

When adding the game, did you set the path to the extras folder in the last tab? This is set to "none" by default.

[mahen]

Oh my... You're right. I really thought /Extras was a default path, but nope, it had to be specified

[derSammler]

Originally Posted by xavlahaye

Nice! Do people report being able to run the FM-towns versions of Zak McKraken on those setups?

Yes, works fine. I'm using OGG for the audio tracks. Tried MP3 first, but that is apparently not supported.

Sadly, most audio tracks of FMT Zak are just ambient sounds. But still better than silence.

[Asmodean]

Originally Posted by NovaCoder

You mean for the AGA version of Scummvm? If you turn off the aspect scaller option in the Scummvm launcher then it will run at the game's original DOS resolution. If you want to get rid of the black bar at the bottom of the screen for some games then run it with the NTSC tooltype option (obviously you need to have actived the NTSC monitor type first).

Do you mean that in order for the NTSC tooltype to take effect, the screenmode of workbench also needs to be running in NTSC? Or do you mean that there is a second tooltype for monitor type that needs to be set?

[Aardvark]

Originally Posted by Asmodean

Do you mean that in order for the NTSC tooltype to take effect, the screenmode of workbench also needs to be running in NTSC? Or do you mean that there is a second tooltype for monitor type that needs to be set?

The tooltype should work as long you have the NTSC driver in Devs/Monitors. If it's not, then copy it from Storage/Monitors.

[Estrayk]

Hello NovaCoder, just I post for tell you that at last, Gabriel Knight it works perfectly with your last version 2.3.0.2
https://aminet.net/package/game/misc/ScummVM_AGA_060

[NovaCoder]

Originally Posted by Estrayk

Hello NovaCoder, just I post for tell you that at last, Gabriel Knight it works perfectly with your last version 2.3.0.2
https://aminet.net/package/game/misc/ScummVM_AGA_060

Cool, thanks for letting me know