The Even More Incredible Machine CD - Voice problem

[DragonsLover]

Hello all! I have a problem with the CD-Rom version of "The Even More Incredible Machine". I've installed and played the game using the latest version of Dosbox (0.72) and everything is running fine until I'm getting to the second puzzle. The voice that speaks for the puzzle goal has a problem : it keeps repeating the same thing and adds a little part after each time. I explain. Here's what it is supposed to be heard for the second puzzle :

"All right now. Take a real close look at the machine on the left side of the screen..."

And this is what I hear :

"All right now. Take a real - Take a real close look at the ma - close look at the machine on the - chine on the left side of - left side of the screen - the screen..."

This happens for all the next puzzles as well. It seems that, when I played the first puzzle and any sound is generated, the speeches will become broken.

I have configured the game to use Sound Blaster Pro as "Music" which is in fact the machine sound effects and I used Sound Blaster for Audio/Speeches. But even if I select "None", the speeches are playing anyway.

What I can do to solve that problem? This is really annoying.

Thanks for your help!

[jharris01]

Hi there. Assuming you use D-Fend Reloaded as your DOSBox frontend I would try increasing the prebuffer size and see if that fixes the problem. You can find the settings a the "Sound" branch from the "Profile Editor" window.

EDIT: If you use another front end it should have a similar setting somewhere. Or if you are really good with DOSBox you can edit this setting yourself on the corresponding configuration (CONF) file.

Or you could try fiddling with the buffer size inside the game's own configuration file (if the game has one and if it can be read with notepad or similar text editor). For example I know many Sierra games had a resource.cfg that could be edited with Windows' Notepad (and had a setting for buffer size). I am not sure about this but I hope it helps.

[Ari]

I had no idea they "reloaded" D-fend...

[jharris01]

I had no idea they "reloaded" D-fend...

Yes it's sort of an odd name. Maybe the author is a fan of the Matrix movies? Check it out, it's pretty good:

http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/

[Ari]

Thanks! Though I'm pretty proficient with the DOS interface, so I doubt I'd need to use it.
Still, nice to know.

[DragonsLover]

Sorry, I don't use D-Fend at all.

I tried to increase the prebuffer from 10 to 60 in Dosbox.conf and nothing different seems to happen.

There's a Resource.cfg, however, I have no idea what to change. Here's its contain :

Code:

soundDrv  = SBPRO.DRV
 audioDrv  = AUDBLAST.DRV
 joyDrv    = NO
 memoryDrv = ARM.DRV
 directory = \dynamix\timcd
 mouseDrv  = none
 minCPU = 386
 minDOS = 310
 minEMS = 304
 cmd = tim
 space = 13
 override = No
 mode = real
 cd = yes

Thanks for helping!

[jharris01]

Try increasing the framerate skip (ctrl+F9/F8), cpu cycles(ctrl+F12/F11), and running the game in fullscreen (alt+enter).

[DragonsLover]

Already tried. Doesn't work. In fact, if I decrease the cycles down to 1, the voice loops forever.

[jharris01]

You running this on Windows XP right? This is sort of a longshot, but here it goes:

How do you use the game CD? Is it mounted on a virtual drive? If so can you tell me which software do you use (Daemon Tools, DOSBox's own virtual ISO image drive, Alcohol)? Do you use a physical copy instead? Also how are your drive letters arranged? Does your virtual drive's letter comes first than your physical cd drive?

[DragonsLover]

Yes, Windows XP Home Edition SP3.

I use the REAL game CD, not an image mounted from a virtual drive. In fact, I have that one as well and it does the same thing with Daemon Tools.

The letters are as follow :
C:\ - Hard drive
D:\ - DVD writer drive where I insert the CD
E:\ - DVD drive
F:\ - Virtual DVD drive with Daemon Tools

Under Dosbox, I mount drives the following way after inserting the TEMIM CD :

mount c c:\ (why is it not recommended?)
mount d d:\ -t cdrom

[jharris01]

If you say the virtual image does the same stuttering as the physical one then I think the game does not use CD audio. I don't have the game myself so I have run out of help suggestions. Maybe try setting a different virtual sound card. There's always the possibility the game is not 100% compatible with DOSBox.

mount c c:\ (why is it not recommended?)

My guess is because that's where your operating system files reside. DOSBox likes to keep things sandboxed. When you start DOSBox it maps every file in every folder and subdirectory it finds from that mounting point. Basically you got your Windows XP system files mixed with your DOS games. Makes sense to keep them separate.

[Kippesoep]

Any program running inside DOSBox can only alter files on the mounted drives. If a program is badly written (or by a malevolent programmer -- like a virus), the damage would normally be contained only to a small section of the drive. You main OS would be safe. If you mount your entire drive, you're allowing full access to everything you have on there, even operating system files. DOSBox is trying to protect you from yourself in the relatively inobtrusive manner of showing a simple warning message. It could of course flatly refuse to mount the drive and maybe that would be a better option for all of the newbies who don't understand the implications of mounting a whole drive. But then the few people who do have a legitimate reason for doing this (and can presumably do it safely or at least not complain if their operating system vanishes or stops working) wouldn't be able to do it.

[jharris01]

D-Fend Reloaded is very helpful with this particular problem. It already comes with DOSBox pre-configured so that it installs games to a subdirectory within itself (calls it "VirtualHD" by default and mounts as "C:\"). The first time I used Reloaded I wanted to install games to a different location (which it's fine) but later I came to appreciate Reloaded's default settings. 

When you install the front end it asks you if you want to make a portable or customized installation. If you choose "portable" then you can move D-Fend Reloaded's folder anywhere, keep it on a USB thumb drive without losing your settings.

[Alistair]

Just to point out, there are 3 CD versions of the game 'TEMIM'- a CD version of the floppy version, a 'SierraOriginals' release which is basically the same, and then there's a full CD audio version.

You can tell by how large the CD is in Windows Explorer- the cheap (non CD audio) ones will be 20 MB or less.

- Alistair