[Korama]

MainMemory, on 05 April 2015 - 05:52 PM, said:

I suppose I could do that, but normally, the DLL expects itself to be MIDIOUT.DLL, so there might be an issue if it is MIDIOUT.DLL and there's no MIDIOUTY.DLL?

I know it was intended to be renamed, but that clashes with my philosophy of not changing the original files.

InvisibleUp, on 05 April 2015 - 07:25 PM, said:

Just ran into that issue. The problem is that you've selected the directory where you've already installed the game on your hard disk, but that directory contains none of the data the game needs to run. If you tried to run that normally it would prompt you to insert the Sonic 3D Blast CD, but because this is running a No-CD patch it just gets really, really confused when it can't find any data. What you need to do is copy the contents of the CD to a folder and select that folder.

Also, I just tried to open the game from the folder out of curiosity and it ran the modded version. Does this patch the .EXE?

Yes, you can copy the original CD content to HDD yourself, or you could just use the "install from original CD" feature, after all I went to the trouble of making it. It's actually preferrable to use the launcher's install function, because it'll copy the necessary files, which might not always be identical to a manual copy. Sonic CD for example doesn't have the two required RDX libraries in its "GAME" folder, but the launcher's install function will place them there for you.
The "pick already installed location" function is rather dumb at this point. It only checks if there's a valid executable in the folder you select. The original Ecco-only launcher checked the existence of all required data files as well. I guess I should add that feature again.

As for starting games directly and not with the launcher: some work, some don't. It depends on when the game in question loads ddraw.dll, the DLL that contains my patches. Some games have a static reference to ddraw.dll in their import table, so that Windows automatically loads ddraw.dll the moment the game is executed, meaning my patches can modify the game in memory before it gets a chance to run. That's the case with Sonic 3D Blast, and Bug! as well. Other games however load ddraw.dll only later during their execution. Sometimes too late, I.e. after running unwanted or broken code (CD checks, video mode checks, etc.). Starting the games via launcher makes sure that ddraw.dll will be loaded right from the start, regardless whether the game originally imported it statically or dynamically (or not at all).

muteKi, on 06 April 2015 - 06:11 AM, said:

Everything is working surprisingly well, with the exceptions of Sonic 3D maxing out at 30 fps for some reason, and the not-CD-audio not always transitioning to the next track (such as the speed shoes in Sonic CD, or the results screen in either SCD or S3D).

Thanks. Sounds like you have changed some settings of Sonic 3D. It lets you choose between 50, 55, and 60 fps, and has a setting cryptically named "motion smoothing". What the latter actually does is half the frame rate when disabled. So, selecting "60 fps" in S3D's game menu will actually result in 30 fps, unless "motion smoothing" is enabled. Alternatively, the "sleep value" (near the bottom of the launcher's configuration page) could be too high. Try reducing it (Alt+"-" and Alt+"+" while the game is running).

I'm not sure what you mean about Sonic CD. Does the normal stage music not resume after the speed-up track? Or is there just a delay / pause? If it's the latter, the pause might be in your audio file.

This post has been edited by Korama: 06 April 2015 - 08:04 AM

[Tets]

Korama, on 06 April 2015 - 08:02 AM, said:

I'm not sure what you mean about Sonic CD. Does the normal stage music not resume after the speed-up track? Or is there just a delay / pause? If it's the latter, the pause might be in your audio file.

I'm having the same issue. The stage complete music doesn't play immediately, and thus far has never started before the level transition for me unless I switch focus from the Sonic CD window and back. Invincibility and speed shoes tracks are weirdly delayed as well. These are tracks I just ripped from my CD for the purpose of playing around with this, and they play flawlessly in foobar2000 with no delay. I haven't got a clue what's going on here.

[MainMemory]

Korama, on 05 April 2015 - 03:45 PM, said:

Great! By the way, I found another small issue with SMPSOUT: it expects that there's a MIDIOUTY.DLL. If there isn't, and you have a track configured to use the MIDI version, the game will crash. I think SMPSOUT should check first whether MIDIOUTY.DLL exists, and if it doesn't, use MIDIOUT.DLL instead.

I've done that, and added a safeguard so it'll just use the default music if a fallback isn't found.

[muteKi]

Tets, on 06 April 2015 - 10:32 AM, said:

Korama, on 06 April 2015 - 08:02 AM, said:

I'm not sure what you mean about Sonic CD. Does the normal stage music not resume after the speed-up track? Or is there just a delay / pause? If it's the latter, the pause might be in your audio file

I'm having the same issue. The stage complete music doesn't play immediately, and thus far has never started before the level transition for me unless I switch focus from the Sonic CD window and back. Invincibility and speed shoes tracks are weirdly delayed as well. These are tracks I just ripped from my CD for the purpose of playing around with this, and they play flawlessly in foobar2000 with no delay. I haven't got a clue what's going on here.

Yeah, this is my problem. It seemed like the speed shoes didn't load at all on mine, or at least took so long to load the effect wore off before they could play, unless I switched focus away from the window.


Also I turned on motion smoothing and now S3D is crashing on startup??? (When I turned it on it was like the window was framelocked to 30 fps so everything ran at half-speed, then I closed the program and now it won't open again)
Fixed. Deleted the .ini and the program launched again. Now motion smoothing is working correctly!

This post has been edited by muteKi: 06 April 2015 - 02:40 PM

[Korama]

MainMemory, on 06 April 2015 - 11:37 AM, said:

I've done that, and added a safeguard so it'll just use the default music if a fallback isn't found.

Thanks!

Tets, on 06 April 2015 - 10:32 AM, said:

I'm having the same issue. The stage complete music doesn't play immediately, and thus far has never started before the level transition for me unless I switch focus from the Sonic CD window and back. Invincibility and speed shoes tracks are weirdly delayed as well. These are tracks I just ripped from my CD for the purpose of playing around with this, and they play flawlessly in foobar2000 with no delay. I haven't got a clue what's going on here.

That's strange, as it works just fine for me. I'll have to do some research on this.

Unfortunately I have to focus on other things at the moment, so it will take a while before I'll be able to release an update, then with support for Bug!, hopefully.

[Jcaraballo]

What happened to Comix Zone and Earthworm Jim Special Edition

[Graxer]

I have finally had a chance to try this out with my copies of Sonic CD, Sonic 3D and Sonic & Knuckles Collection. You have done a great job! These games now perform so well that they finally feel like they have been built for modern computers! The only problem I have had is that even with the updated opn.avi that you provided, Sonic CD seems to be unable to show the opening movie. I used it to replace the old file and I get "Cannot find Vids:DivX compressor".

As well as Sonic R (if possible), which I know has been mentioned before, I would be interested in seeing the 2 PC Sega Smash Packs supported by this project, to add the PC versions of Sonic 2 (with its graphically improved multiplayer mode) and Sonic Spinball to modern PCs.

This post has been edited by Graxer: 12 April 2015 - 11:53 AM

[MainMemory]

You are aware that Sega Smash Pack is literally just KGen, right? Kega Fusion even does something similar to Sega Smash Pack 2 in Sonic 2's 2P mode, although it doubles the width, giving you 640x480 instead of 320x480. GerbilSoft is planning on adding a 320x480 rendering mode to Gens/GS II, whenever that gets done.

[Graxer]

MainMemory, on 12 April 2015 - 12:28 PM, said:

You are aware that Sega Smash Pack is literally just KGen, right? Kega Fusion even does something similar to Sega Smash Pack 2 in Sonic 2's 2P mode, although it doubles the width, giving you 640x480 instead of 320x480. GerbilSoft is planning on adding a 320x480 rendering mode to Gens/GS II, whenever that gets done.

I didn't realise that actually. Never mind then, if it is simply emulation then inclusion of this is definately unneeded. It is good to know that Kega Fusion supports this, I will use that in the future.

[Chris Highwind]

Is the download on the original post the latest build? I have the same problem with Sonic CD MainMemory had with an identical ISO, in that it dings when I try to select the ISO for installation.

[qwertysonic]

MainMemory, on 12 April 2015 - 12:28 PM, said:

You are aware that Sega Smash Pack is literally just KGen, right? Kega Fusion even does something similar to Sega Smash Pack 2 in Sonic 2's 2P mode, although it doubles the width, giving you 640x480 instead of 320x480. GerbilSoft is planning on adding a 320x480 rendering mode to Gens/GS II, whenever that gets done.

Is the GBA sega smash pack with sonic spinball just a port of the pc KGEN?

[Graxer]

qwertysonic, on 13 April 2015 - 10:21 AM, said:

MainMemory, on 12 April 2015 - 12:28 PM, said:

.
You are aware that Sega Smash Pack is literally just KGen, right? Kega Fusion even does something similar to Sega Smash Pack 2 in Sonic 2's 2P mode, although it doubles the width, giving you 640x480 instead of 320x480. GerbilSoft is planning on adding a 320x480 rendering mode to Gens/GS II, whenever that gets done.

Is the GBA sega smash pack with sonic spinball just a port of the pc KGEN?

If I remember correctly every level played the Toxic Caves theme on the GBA version. Also, the resolution of the GBA screen wouldn't allow for Mega Drive games to be played without graphical distortion as far as I am aware and I don't remember any in the GBA port, so I suspect it was a port instead of emulation in that case. I could be wrong though!

EDIT: This Sega Smash Pack (GBA) appears to confirm what I suspected. Changes had to be made to the games for implementation purposes on the GBA

This post has been edited by Graxer: 13 April 2015 - 11:33 AM

[Covarr]

Graxer, on 13 April 2015 - 11:18 AM, said:

Also, the resolution of the GBA screen wouldn't allow for Mega Drive games to be played without graphical distortion as far as I am aware and I don't remember any in the GBA port, so I suspect it was a port instead of emulation in that case. I could be wrong though!

Beyond that, the GBA simply isn't powerful enough for acceptable Genesis emulation. SNES emulators for the system are problematic at best, and that's even with the SNES's lower clock speed and greater similarity to the GBA. Hell, even jEnesisDS has trouble with the Genesis, so it's really difficult to imagine that a Genesis emulator for GBA could ever be anything better than a proof-of-concept, certainly nothing playable.

[Korama]

Jcaraballo, on 07 April 2015 - 05:55 PM, said:

What happened to Comix Zone and Earthworm Jim Special Edition

Nothing happened to them, so far.

Graxer, on 12 April 2015 - 11:12 AM, said:

I have finally had a chance to try this out with my copies of Sonic CD, Sonic 3D and Sonic & Knuckles Collection. You have done a great job!

Thanks!
Yeah, the Sonic CD opening I uploaded requires an installed codec that handles Xvid/DivX. Maybe I should have used mpg or mp4, but at the moment I have only avi playback implemented.

Chris Highwind, on 12 April 2015 - 07:28 PM, said:

Is the download on the original post the latest build? I have the same problem with Sonic CD MainMemory had with an identical ISO, in that it dings when I try to select the ISO for installation.

Yes, the original link is still up-to-date. The version is 1.0.0.24 for the launcher and 2.0.1.58 for the DLL.
You are selecting a mounted ISO (I.e. a virtual CD drive), not an ISO file itself, right?

[Shalpp]

So I started replacing some of the sound effects in 3DB. Some of them (namely the projectile hit/blast attack sound) share the same file despite there being what seems like one for the different instances of the sound.
Also, the game will accept any .WAV file of any sample rate.

Edit: Since I don't feel like this constitutes another post, you can replace Sonic CD's FMV's with any video file and they will play just fine. They'll just be stretched to fit the widescreen display.

This post has been edited by Shalpp: 19 April 2015 - 06:53 PM