GK1 (first playthrough since 1994)

[DeadPoolX]

As the subject heading says, I haven't played GK1 since 1994. I almost beat it, but I had a hard drive problem and lost all of my saved games. I got frustrated and didn't bother going back.

I'm playing right now (just started so I'm still on Day 1) and I've noticed the dialogue audio seems to "pop" at the beginning of conversations. It doesn't ALWAYS happen, but it occurs often enough that it's a bit annoying.

Is there a way to fix this? I know I can turn the dialogue off and use text (which I with the narrator), but I like hearing the character's voices.

Oh and this isn't a "fixable" problem in the game, but there seems to be far too many icons. Did GK1 really NEED separate icons to operate, push and open/close items? It seems to me that the generic hand icon would've worked just fine for all three or at the very least, instead of the operate and open/close icons.

It's just annoying to right-click through them all (since there are more than usual) or move my cursor up to the top every time I want to select something. Are there any keyboard shortcuts available?

[Collector]

You are using DOSBox, aren't you? Change the audioDrv= to DACTHUND.DRV. The SHP installer will setup the game with optimal settings as well as fully patch the game, including the NRS patch for GK1 that is not available any where else.

[DeadPoolX]

I checked both the original DOSBox-0.73.conf and GK1's dosbox.conf files and audioDrv doesn't exist in either of them.

I've also looked in GK1's root directory and audioDrv isn't there, either. I do, however, see a file called DACTHUND.DRV.

I just checked the RESOURCE.CFG file and it already says "audioDrv=DACTHUND.DRV. So it looks like everything is in place.

Am I looking in the wrong areas or is something amiss here?

[Collector]

I was referring to the RESOURCE.CFG. Did you use the SHP installer?

[DeadPoolX]

I was referring to the RESOURCE.CFG. Did you use the SHP installer?

Yes, I used the installer.

As I said before, the RESOURCE.CFG file already has "audioDrv=DACTHUND.DRV" written within it. So it should work right, but for some reason it doesn't.

[Collector]

If I remember right , you have a P4. I'm not sure if this might be a problem that older machines have with emulation or not. I don't get this issue on my workstation or my laptop. Try adding this to your dosbox.conf:

Code: Select all

[mixer]
rate=44100
blocksize=1024

Ignoring default values, other values that can be used for rate are: 48000, 32000, 16000, 11025, 8000, 49716. And for blocksize are: 4096, 8192, 512, 256. Other than that, try adjusting your cycles. If you find settings that work for you, let me know so I can adjust the installer. I want it to have maximum compatibility across many different PCs.

One last thing that you can try, though it would be beyond the scope of the installer, is to play around with the hardware acceleration settings for your audio equipment.

[DeadPoolX]

Okay, it took me a while but I tried every combination between rate and blocksize. I also tried lowering my audio hardware acceleration -- at one point to the lowest level possible. I even tried every audio driver within the GK1 folder.

None of those solutions helped.

My only option now is to turn voices off. That's not a great answer (I like hearing the characters speak), but it's better than voices that sound like Rice Krispies.

[Collector]

Try adding

Code: Select all

[sblaster]
sbtype=sbpro1

to your dosbox.conf and change

Code: Select all

audioDrv  = DACBLAST.DRV

in your RESOURCE.CFG.

[DeadPoolX]

That didn't seem to help. I also changed "sbpro1" to "sbpro2" to see if it'd do anything (neither of them made a difference). For kicks, I tried the other DRV files as well. Some of the kicked me out DOSBox immediately, while others ran extremely poorly.

I wonder if anyone else here has run GK1 recently and noticed the audio problems I've been experiencing? For reference, my sound card is a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS.

Come to think of it... I'll go check the card's software. Maybe something in there has a setting that's messing this all up.

[Collector]

I have an Audigy, too, but don't have your problem. I do get some distortion and noise with sb16 with DACBLAST.DRV. This goes away with DACTHUND.DRV or any other SB setting than sb16.