LSL7 question...

[Tawmis]

I'll try but since it's random I'm not sure what good a savegame would do... sometimes when I load a savegame I get it,,,

I don't know - Collector had mentioned in a previous post, saving the games to upload them. So... I don't know if he has a way to check what it might be.

[BBP]

I can't - if I save in every location until I get the noise, then reload that game, there's a good chance I won't get the noise when I load that game.

[shoptroll]

My apologies for the bump but I was recently playing around in LSL7 and was getting the static again too. I did some searching around and it appears to be some weird interaction with the SCI interpreter and DOSBox.

One of the DOSBox devs posted a patched version of the interpreter on VOGONS: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=747801#p747801

I’ll give it a try and report back. Might be worth archiving on this site or incorporating into the installers.

[Tawmis]

My apologies for the bump but I was recently playing around in LSL7 and was getting the static again too. I did some searching around and it appears to be some weird interaction with the SCI interpreter and DOSBox.

One of the DOSBox devs posted a patched version of the interpreter on VOGONS: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=747801#p747801

I’ll give it a try and report back. Might be worth archiving on this site or incorporating into the installers.

I know Collector's insanely busy and the installers are a hobby; but since it's random (the static) - if you can play it for a bit and confirm it works - at some point when Collector has free time (hahahahaha >phew< hahahah) - he may be able to look into this. When I played (and I had just played for my YT channel) I hit none of the issues mentioned.

Are you using DOSBox, ScummVM, etc?

[shoptroll]

I know Collector's insanely busy and the installers are a hobby; but since it's random (the static) - if you can play it for a bit and confirm it works - at some point when Collector has free time (hahahahaha >phew< hahahah) - he may be able to look into this. When I played (and I had just played for my YT channel) I hit none of the issues mentioned.

Are you using DOSBox, ScummVM, etc?

DOSBox 0.74-3 I think on Windows 11. I'm pretty sure at one point, in the mists of time, I wasn't getting the static effect either. I don't remember what my hardware setup was at the time though. I'm going to also test against DOSBox-X as well with the original interpreter just to see if I can repro it there.

I would be shocked if ScummVM has the same problem since that's an entirely different interpreter. I also wouldn't be shocked if something changed in Windows at some point that's making DOSBox act funny in a way it didn't before.

[Tawmis]

I know Collector's insanely busy and the installers are a hobby; but since it's random (the static) - if you can play it for a bit and confirm it works - at some point when Collector has free time (hahahahaha >phew< hahahah) - he may be able to look into this. When I played (and I had just played for my YT channel) I hit none of the issues mentioned.
Are you using DOSBox, ScummVM, etc?

DOSBox 0.74-3 I think on Windows 11. I'm pretty sure at one point, in the mists of time, I wasn't getting the static effect either. I don't remember what my hardware setup was at the time though. I'm going to also test against DOSBox-X as well with the original interpreter just to see if I can repro it there.
I would be shocked if ScummVM has the same problem since that's an entirely different interpreter. I also wouldn't be shocked if something changed in Windows at some point that's making DOSBox act funny in a way it didn't before.

When I most recently played for my YT channel, I was also on a Windows 11 with DOSBox 0.74-3 as well.

Curious - what do you have selected for the audio (Soundblaster, Adlib, MT-32, etc)?

[shoptroll]

Audio appears to be Soundblaster based on the dosbox.conf and resources.cfg files. I don't think LSL 7 had MT-32 support?

dosbox.conf

Code: Select all

[sdl]
output= openglnb
fullresolution= desktop
windowresolution= original
fullscreen= true
fulldouble= true
autolock= true

[DOSBox]
machine= svga_s3
captures= <omitted>
memsize=64 

[render]
aspect= true
scaler= normal3x

[cpu]
core= dynamic
cputype= auto 
cycles= max

[autoexec]
cls
@ECHO OFF
mount c "D:\Games\Leisure Suit Larry Ultimate Pleasure Pack\Leisure Suit Larry 7"
c:
cd \
SIER.EXE .\resource.cfg
exit

resource.cfg:

Code: Select all

 videoDrv   = VGA.DRV
 soundDrv   = MIDNONE.DRV
 audioDrv   = DACBLAST.DRV
 joyDrv     = NO
 directory  = \SIERRA\LSL7
 minCPU     = 486
 minDOS     = 572
 mode       = real
 minEMS     = 200
 CD         = yes
 CPU        = 0
 VideoSpeed = 0
 CPUSpeed   = 0
 CDROM      = 0
 mouseDrv   = NONE
 memoryDrv  = NONE
 language   = 1
 audioSize  = 224k
 minMemory  = 1600k
 brightness = 0
 cmd        = LSL7DOS

 audio      = .\music
 resSfx     = .\
 resAud     = .\
 resMap     = .\
 patchDir   = .\; .\patches\
 movieDir   = .\movie

One thing I did notice, I seem to have doubled the audioSize setting in resource.cfg at some point for an unknown reason. Not sure if that would make a difference or not.

[shoptroll]

Well I thought maybe it was the wrong audioSize value being set in resource.cfg so I reset it to 112k. I've poked and prodded at the game off an on for the last few days and I wasn't able to reproduce the issue until tonight and it happened within about 5 minutes of the game starting up and loading the autosave. When I opened up the inventory and did "Look" operations on a couple of items I got the static again.

So it's clearly not the audioSize setting but that makes me feel a little better since I also pulled down the Steam version and that has a resource.cfg file that looks the same as what the game shipped with.

That said, I did notice that the SHP installer doesn't seem to install the patch listed on http://sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/P ... dates.html. This was brought to my attention by the game randomly crashing when going into the menu, and I was also able to trigger the crash for exceeding 20 characters in the input boxes. And I confirmed in the installer .exe (both the latest one and the one from like 2012 I think I originally used) is missing the .csc and updated interpreter .exe files.

I'm going to patch the game and see if that makes a difference and report back.

[shoptroll]

Patching didn't seem to fix it either. Did the opening segment and the buzzing started up during the cutscene when you escape the penthouse. Came back again during the scene with Peter getting the room key. Tried transitioning to a couple other rooms (the various holds, dining room, lobby) and that didn't clear the static until I transitioned to Room 0 and the intro cutscene for that location.

This is such a weird bug.

EDIT: On a whim tried DOSBox-X (2023.10.06) with the same .conf file and immediately got static. So that rules something out. Not sure what though

[notbobsmith]

It might be worthwhile to test on ScummVM. If you get the same static, it might be a problem with the game.

One thing I noticed in your config file is that cycles was set to max. This might have changed in more recent versions, but games with FMV would sometimes have glitches with that setting. Try a fixed value. Like 30000. I don't have the game so I can't say if I have the same problem or not.

I'd also try setting core to auto.

[shoptroll]

It might be worthwhile to test on ScummVM. If you get the same static, it might be a problem with the game.

I can certainly try setting that up this weekend. As I stated previously, I'd be shocked if this exists in ScummVM since that's a completely different interpreter and the VOGONS thread seemed to implicate this being an issue with the SCI interpreter not handling something in DOS correctly. The version I've most got experience with is the old Windows version but not the DOS version. I'd be curious to see if this problem exists when the game is run on original hardware.

One thing I noticed in your config file is that cycles was set to max. This might have changed in more recent versions, but games with FMV would sometimes have glitches with that setting. Try a fixed value. Like 30000. I don't have the game so I can't say if I have the same problem or not.

I'd also try setting core to auto.

I can give those a try as well. These are the values that are set by Collector's installer so I'd be a little surprised if they weren't correct. I'm also noticing that the dosbox.conf for Space Quest VI uses the same CPU configuration.

[notbobsmith]

One more thing I found on DOSBox-Staging's Game issues wiki:

https://github.com/DOSBox-staging/dosbo ... ame-issues

They call it "garbled audio" so I don't know if that is the same problem that you are having.

They have instructions for patching the executable, which you may have done already. They also recommend setting audiosize to 32k which is much smaller than what you have. These might be worth a try. I would think these would work with any version of DOSBox and not just Staging.

[shoptroll]

Hey sorry for the late response. Firefox's redirect to HTTPS feature was blocking me from accessing this forum in addition to taking a while to get back to troubleshooting this problem.

I tried the fix in that DOSBox-staging wiki but it didn't really help.

I noticed recently that GOG's version of Syndicate Wars has the static/garbled audio issue as well. So I'm inclined to think this is some sort of bug in DOSBox or my sound card driver / Windows 11 that's causing this to happen.

That said, if Collector does ever see this thread... the installers aren't upgrading Larry 7 to the latest version (1.2) and still have the crash bug when you try to save the game with too many characters in the save name.