MIDI games

[leech]

Just now, Justin Payne said:

oooh. Dark Forces, Loved that game. I have that on CD and would love to play it again. 

It is awesome, I should finish it.  Boxtron is a wrapper someone wrote to allow Dosbox games to run under Steam, and it automatically sets up MIDI, for games that support it, which Dark Forces does!

[Justin Payne]

I finished DF, DF2:Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (twice), Jedi Academy (twice). I started playing The Force Unleashed but just didn't really enjoy it as much. Of course, that was on a Xbox and maybe the controller took me out of the experience.
Of course, the XWing/Tie Fighter games also use Midi and so those would also be good to play if you can. Someone reskinned (or is reskinning) XWing, I think, and it looks freakin' amazing.

 

[leech]

18 minutes ago, Justin Payne said:

I finished DF, DF2:Jedi Knight, Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (twice), Jedi Academy (twice). I started playing The Force Unleashed but just didn't really enjoy it as much. Of course, that was on a Xbox and maybe the controller took me out of the experience.
Of course, the XWing/Tie Fighter games also use Midi and so those would also be good to play if you can. Someone reskinned (or is reskinning) XWing, I think, and it looks freakin' amazing.

 

Yeah, strangely I have completed all the Jedi Knight series except the first one!  Haven't played the Force Unleashed games yet.

I should try out X-wing on MIDI, and play with the reskin.  Damn, I need a clone to go to work for me so I have more time to play video games haha

[Justin Payne]

That is what retirement is for. Catching up on all of the games you haven't finished. If you can, borrow or pick up Force Unleashed on discount just to see if you like that type of gameplay. I really don't like games that incorporate quick time events. I did hear good things about Fallen Order. Also, get Star Wars: Republic Commando if you like first person shooters (which, if you're going to play Dark Forces, you must) with just a touch of squad based gameplay, this is a awesome game.....one that I got stuck on and never finished. I guess I should put that on my, "Retirement to-do list". ?

 

[leech]

7 minutes ago, Justin Payne said:

That is what retirement is for. Catching up on all of the games you haven't finished. If you can, borrow or pick up Force Unleashed on discount just to see if you like that type of gameplay. I really don't like games that incorporate quick time events. I did hear good things about Fallen Order. Also, get Star Wars: Republic Commando if you like first person shooters (which, if you're going to play Dark Forces, you must) with just a touch of squad based gameplay, this is a awesome game.....one that I got stuck on and never finished. I guess I should put that on my, "Retirement to-do list". ?

 

Ha, I have 20+ years until retirement, unless I somehow strike it rich.  But yeah I have all the Star Wars games, and have one a good portion of them.  Fallen Order was fantastic, though there was at least one part that was frustrating due to the camera angles and tight corridors. 

Republic Commando remains one of my favorite FPSs.

[Justin Payne]

20 Years? Well, don't worry. They'll still be there for you. ?

Freakin' camera angles!? It amazes me that games still suffer from issues that plagued us years ago. Still, I can overlook a few game design faux pas if the rest of the game is awesome.

Glad to hear you played Republic Commando. ?

 

[leech]

1 minute ago, Justin Payne said:

20 Years? Well, don't worry. They'll still be there for you. ?

Freakin' camera angles!? It amazes me that games still suffer from issues that plagued us years ago. Still, I can overlook a few game design faux pas if the rest of the game is awesome.

Glad to hear you played Republic Commando. ?

 

Yeah, it's on one specific spot where you kind of have to flip the camera around just so you can see what's attacking you.  It made me take one of those 'forced pauses' where you just can't get further in the game because you're about to throw your controller through the TV   But almost all 3rd person games have that issue.

Speaking of forced pauses, probably a good thing Hearts of Iron IV is only running at 1FPS at 4k for me, means I'll not piss the day away playing it, and I can get out and ship some packages off to fellow Atari users

[Justin Payne]

1FPS @ 4K? Sounds like someone needs an upgrade to their PC. My PC isn't old but it ain't new either. So far it's holding up quite well to my current collection of games I need to get through but 4K ain't going to happen for me anytime soon. Most of my games will take me many hours to finish so as long as I can stick to it, I won't need to upgrade anytime soon. I need just to stay focused and not get distracted by......oh, look, shiny keys (jingle jingle). ?

[leech]

1 minute ago, Justin Payne said:

1FPS @ 4K? Sounds like someone needs an upgrade to their PC. My PC isn't old but it ain't new either. So far it's holding up quite well to my current collection of games I need to get through but 4K ain't going to happen for me anytime soon. Most of my games will take me many hours to finish so as long as I can stick to it, I won't need to upgrade anytime soon. I need just to stay focused and not get distracted by......oh, look, shiny keys (jingle jingle). ?

Well, considering I get 90FPS pretty consistently in Elite Dangerous in VR, I'm thinking something funky is going on with Hearts of Iron IV.  Stellaris runs fine, and Crusader Kings II, and I'm pretty sure they all use the same engine.

[Justin Payne]

Elite Dangerous in VR?! That game IS the reason why I want VR. I just want to make sure I don't spend hundreds of dollars just to find out I get sick. I've done VR in the past but not for long stretches and that's what I'd like to try but I LOVE flight sims and having a VR headset would be what I've desired since the early 2000's.

[leech]

4 hours ago, Justin Payne said:

Elite Dangerous in VR?! That game IS the reason why I want VR. I just want to make sure I don't spend hundreds of dollars just to find out I get sick. I've done VR in the past but not for long stretches and that's what I'd like to try but I LOVE flight sims and having a VR headset would be what I've desired since the early 2000's.

Ha, well here is what I have found...

1) maybe close your eyes when you are in particular star bases.  As when you go into the hanger, it turns your ship around and that is inevitably where, even on a powerful system, you will get some lag/frame redraws and it feels like someone just put glass bowls around your eyes and they rotated at the wrong rate...

2) drive very slowly on planets, especially with low gravity, as it is VERY easy to start bouncing all over the place and make you want to spew.

 

Other than that, get a HOTAS!  I was using the Saitek x52 pro.  Apparently I bought mine before madcatz bought them and made them crappy, but now logitech bought madcatz and they are good again.

But now I went full in and got a Thrustmaster Warthog with the pedals, and even ordered a cutout to replace the panel labels on the thruster for Elite...

 

My next step might be to order a mount for my Ikea Markus chair...

[Justin Payne]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have a x52 pro,. I've also got a bunch of old Thrustmaster sticks, TQS, and RCS as well. Would really like to upgrade them to work with modern computers since they were sweeeeeeeet but I know that's a challenge. At the very least I need ruddle controls and those RCS's were the best other than mine not having toe brakes.
What's your CPU and video card? Might give me an idea of where I should be when I decide to get a VR headset.

Edited March 1, 2020 by Justin Payne

[leech]

1 hour ago, Justin Payne said:

Thanks for the suggestions. I have a x52 pro,. I've also got a bunch of old Thrustmaster sticks, TQS, and RCS as well. Would really like to upgrade them to work with modern computers since they were sweeeeeeeet but I know that's a challenge. At the very least I need ruddle controls and those RCS's were the best other than mine not having toe brakes.
What's your CPU and video card? Might give me an idea of where I should be when I decide to get a VR headset.

Pretty sure I've seen 15 pin gameport adapters to USB around; https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=gameport to usb

[zzip]

On 2/27/2020 at 9:30 AM, zzip said:

I went and tried to play Ultima V last night, but I decided I wanted to do it with MIDI sound.   First I tried the ST version, on the hatari emulator.   I set up virtual synths with Timidity and Fluidsynth,  and both responded properly when I tested other midi clients, but hatari just would not communicate with them.

 

So then I tried PC,  I have the Ultima collection on CD, and I see that there is a patch for U5 that will add midi sound.   I tried it under DOSBox, but one of the patch files says it's corrupt and I couldn't find a fix.

 

I was hoping it was easier than this, I guess I'm just not meant to have the music

I went back and tried again.   With more success.    It seems that there was no "perfect version" of U4 & U5,  at least from what I want,  which is 1) hard drive installable so there is no disk flipping and 2) full MIDI music.    The PC versions of U4 and U5 are hard-drive installable, but they are too old and don't really support any music out of the box.

 

Ultima IV for DOS has patches for music, but no matter what I do, it runs way too fast under Dosbox.   But I installed "xu4", which gives me a native Linux version of the game, with the midi music and optionally enhanced graphics.

 

Ultima V has no such "engine remake" project.   It does have some patches that weren't working.   But I tried it under a different version of DOSBOX, and suddenly the "setm.exe" patch that sets the music output works.   I was able to get Adlib music at first, and then midi output giving me the music in all it's glory using soundfonts.    So now I look forward to playing both.  Already started on Ultima IV.

 

I do have a pair of Midi-compatible keyboards, but I don't really like the idea of hooking them up to my PC to get music,  I don't have enough space in my game room for that.   So I'm happy I was able to get the virtual synth working with excellent-sounding patches.

[Justin Payne]

On 2/29/2020 at 8:19 PM, leech said:

Pretty sure I've seen 15 pin gameport adapters to USB around; https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=gameport to usb

Yes, I've tried an adapter in the past but for the life of me I can't remember if the stick was detected BUT I have a feeling it wasn't. Even if it was working this is the issue of programming the thing. Originally, you had to use a DOS program but James "Nutty" Hallows created Foxy, a Windows based setup/programmer. I think he also worked with Thrustmaster to package Foxy II with one of their newer sticks (Cougar, I think). It's possible it might work with the F16/F22's. I do see they have Vista 64bit drivers, which also might work in Windows 10 but, again, I don't have the Cougar.
I might be trying to revive a stick that is far past it's prime. I do know that the pots got a little jumpy over time. Hall sensors were the upgrade options but when I looked into it years ago it was so expensive that it wasn't worth it. Of course, it does look like prices have come down so if I can figure out solutions to all of the other issues, it might be worth it. 

Thrustmaster does make the  Warthog HOTAS which looks solid but I don't like how close together the rudder peddles are and the throttle doesn't seem as useful as the old TQS. Of course, a hands on experience is the only way to know for sure. There is also the $600 price tag for the entire setup. ?
I might just have to bit the bullet and consider it an investment in fun. My last apprehension is that I wasn't the best pilot. ?

[leech]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

I went back and tried again.   With more success.    It seems that there was no "perfect version" of U4 & U5,  at least from what I want,  which is 1) hard drive installable so there is no disk flipping and 2) full MIDI music.    The PC versions of U4 and U5 are hard-drive installable, but they are too old and don't really support any music out of the box.

 

Ultima IV for DOS has patches for music, but no matter what I do, it runs way too fast under Dosbox.   But I installed "xu4", which gives me a native Linux version of the game, with the midi music and optionally enhanced graphics.

 

Ultima V has no such "engine remake" project.   It does have some patches that weren't working.   But I tried it under a different version of DOSBOX, and suddenly the "setm.exe" patch that sets the music output works.   I was able to get Adlib music at first, and then midi output giving me the music in all it's glory using soundfonts.    So now I look forward to playing both.  Already started on Ultima IV.

 

I do have a pair of Midi-compatible keyboards, but I don't really like the idea of hooking them up to my PC to get music,  I don't have enough space in my game room for that.   So I'm happy I was able to get the virtual synth working with excellent-sounding patches.

xu4 is awesome.  I don't know why Ultima V doesn't have an engine remake.  There have been remakes for Neverwinter Nights, and Dungeon Siege for it, but no one has really made a recreation of the game for modern operating systems.  Though, having used a hex editor on it, I can say that it isn't all that different in the data than Ultima IV.  I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, that U4 uses straight conversion of numbers for the characters (99 = 99 for say Strength).  But Ultima V they tried to get clever and used Hex values (so 63 = 99 in game.)  but otherwise, I think the maps were all the same, 00 deep sea, 01 shallow sea... I think 03 was grass.

A zeroed sector could be easily spotted, as it was just deep water.  I may have to pull out the dos version and a hex editor and check that out.  Kind of wonder if it was just U4 on the Atari 8bit that didn't use hex conversion...

[leech]

3 hours ago, Justin Payne said:

Yes, I've tried an adapter in the past but for the life of me I can't remember if the stick was detected BUT I have a feeling it wasn't. Even if it was working this is the issue of programming the thing. Originally, you had to use a DOS program but James "Nutty" Hallows created Foxy, a Windows based setup/programmer. I think he also worked with Thrustmaster to package Foxy II with one of their newer sticks (Cougar, I think). It's possible it might work with the F16/F22's. I do see they have Vista 64bit drivers, which also might work in Windows 10 but, again, I don't have the Cougar.
I might be trying to revive a stick that is far past it's prime. I do know that the pots got a little jumpy over time. Hall sensors were the upgrade options but when I looked into it years ago it was so expensive that it wasn't worth it. Of course, it does look like prices have come down so if I can figure out solutions to all of the other issues, it might be worth it. 

Thrustmaster does make the  Warthog HOTAS which looks solid but I don't like how close together the rudder peddles are and the throttle doesn't seem as useful as the old TQS. Of course, a hands on experience is the only way to know for sure. There is also the $600 price tag for the entire setup. ?
I might just have to bit the bullet and consider it an investment in fun. My last apprehension is that I wasn't the best pilot. ?

The Warthog is absolutely fantastic.  Compared to the Saitek x52 Pro, that one feels kind of cheap, though I do miss the ability to rotate the joystick, but that's why I got the pedals.

Yeah that pricetag was a bit of a kick.  Then I 3D printed a detent (which the x52 pro has, but the warthog by default does not) and got the laser etched panel to match the layout someone created for Elite: Dangerous.  And then needed to re-learn how to fly.... eventually I finally did what I swore I'd never do... got an autodock computer!  I need to play more and learn  better how to land the ship, but since I was doing some quick cargo runs to a planet with low gravity, it sucked trying to land that thing when I was till iffy with the controls.

[zzip]

1 hour ago, leech said:

xu4 is awesome.  I don't know why Ultima V doesn't have an engine remake.

Idk,  Seems like U4 and U7 remakes.   But luckily Ultima V runs at a reasonable speed on Dosbox unlike the older Ultimas.

 

1 hour ago, leech said:

I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, that U4 uses straight conversion of numbers for the characters (99 = 99 for say Strength).  But Ultima V they tried to get clever and used Hex values (so 63 = 99 in game.)  but otherwise, I think the maps were all the same, 00 deep sea, 01 shallow sea... I think 03 was grass.

I would think using hex numbers would be more efficient and allow a greater variety of tiles in the map.   U5 does seem to have many more tiles, so that might have forced them to make this change.

[Goochman]

1 hour ago, leech said:

xu4 is awesome.  I don't know why Ultima V doesn't have an engine remake.  There have been remakes for Neverwinter Nights, and Dungeon Siege for it, but no one has really made a recreation of the game for modern operating systems.  Though, having used a hex editor on it, I can say that it isn't all that different in the data than Ultima IV.  I think I mentioned earlier in this thread, that U4 uses straight conversion of numbers for the characters (99 = 99 for say Strength).  But Ultima V they tried to get clever and used Hex values (so 63 = 99 in game.)  but otherwise, I think the maps were all the same, 00 deep sea, 01 shallow sea... I think 03 was grass.

A zeroed sector could be easily spotted, as it was just deep water.  I may have to pull out the dos version and a hex editor and check that out.  Kind of wonder if it was just U4 on the Atari 8bit that didn't use hex conversion...

 

 

Heres some work I did with Ultima 3 on the A8 - my avatar is actually a new world map I created for the fun of it - actually not fun

 

 

I copied the U3 maps to U2 here;

 

 

Edited March 2, 2020 by Goochman

[leech]

20 minutes ago, Goochman said:

 

 

Heres some work I did with Ultima 3 on the A8 - my avatar is actually a new world map I created for the fun of it - actually not fun

 

 

I copied the U3 maps to U2 here;

 

 

Nice!  Was Disk Wizard II your weapon of choice?  Spent so many hours on hacking around Ultima IV.  Wish I still had all the notes I'd made.  I MIGHT still have that floppy disk, I did find a Britannia disk in my collection, but not sure if I have the rest.  I do need to do a cleaning job on my 1050, last time I tried it, it loaded up Eidelon, but sounded like there was junk in it...

 

Sadly Ultima V never released for the 8bits, and I never had it on the ST, I was hacking at the DOS version.

31 minutes ago, zzip said:

Idk,  Seems like U4 and U7 remakes.   But luckily Ultima V runs at a reasonable speed on Dosbox unlike the older Ultimas.

 

I would think using hex numbers would be more efficient and allow a greater variety of tiles in the map.   U5 does seem to have many more tiles, so that might have forced them to make this change.

Yeah, of course that'd make total sense.  I'd have to look at all the tiles again for Ultima V, though it seems to me that both would have under 100.  Did Ultima 1 ever get a 16 bit release outside of the IIGS remastered version?

[zzip]

47 minutes ago, leech said:

Yeah, of course that'd make total sense.  I'd have to look at all the tiles again for Ultima V, though it seems to me that both would have under 100.  Did Ultima 1 ever get a 16 bit release outside of the IIGS remastered version?

I think just the PC

 

The original was written in BASIC on Apple II and Atari 800,  then in 1986 they re-coded it in Assembly, but only released that version on C64 and PC and maybe MSX.    IIgs came later.

[leech]

12 minutes ago, zzip said:

I think just the PC

 

The original was written in BASIC on Apple II and Atari 800,  then in 1986 they re-coded it in Assembly, but only released that version on C64 and PC and maybe MSX.    IIgs came later.

From what I have seen, arguably the best versions are forthe FM Towns... though the voice acting for VI is... wow it is bad...

[+DarkLord]

13 hours ago, zzip said:

I went back and tried again.   With more success.    It seems that there was no "perfect version" of U4 & U5,  at least from what I want,  which is 1) hard drive installable so there is no disk flipping and 2) full MIDI music.    The PC versions of U4 and U5 are hard-drive installable, but they are too old and don't really support any music out of the box.

 

What about the hard drive adapted versions for the Atari ST? Does MIDI work okay with those?

 

If so, that would seem to fit your criteria....

 

[leech]

2 hours ago, DarkLord said:

What about the hard drive adapted versions for the Atari ST? Does MIDI work okay with those?

 

If so, that would seem to fit your criteria....

 

Listening right now to the MIDI music on the Ultima IV hard drive installable version, haven't figured out what keys to press on U3. this is on a Roland MT-32.  Hmm, I don't think it will work this way, but I should figure out if I can just pipe them both through the OSSC...

[leech]

I can't seem to find the hard drive installable version of Ultima V anywhere...