Chocolate Doom

[vesperas]

fraggle said:

But you'll be pleased to hear that a more general solution is in development - originally as gl-branch, but it appears that the SDL2 port might bring the same functionality.

That's nice to hear! I'll keep an eye on the sdl2 branch for any news, then!

[WhiteMagicRaven]

There is master server with chocolate-servers
http://master.chocolate-doom.org/
I want to extend IDE to show these servers. What i should know?
like master server IP, stuctures that sends from program and master servers. How is that all works.
P.S. Also will be nice to do the same with Doomsday engine.

[fraggle]

These will probably be what you want:

https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/blob/master/src/net_query.c
https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/blob/master/src/net_defs.h

and other files named net_*

[Megamur]

Did anyone ever successfully get Fluidsynth sound font support working in Chocolate Doom? I tend to believe that might help us poor souls stuck with post-XP Windows machines.

[Archy]

I don't know if this will be of help to you but I did on Debian Linux.

[VGA]

Megamur said:

Did anyone ever successfully get Fluidsynth sound font support working in Chocolate Doom? I tend to believe that might help us poor souls stuck with post-XP Windows machines.

Go here:
http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

and download the latest alpha from the forum, you may have to register. Then you have a bassmidi library based midi device that uses soundfonts. And works with all applications that use the native midi. I have used it on win7 x64 and 8.1 x64.

This must be the tenth time I'm recommending that in this forum btw :-D

[Megamur]

@VGA:

Please consider making that a sticky topic. It actually worked. Thank you so, so much. This is amazing. And oddly, I didn't even have to do any registry editing: just booted it up, loaded in a nice Roland Soundcanvas font, and it works great.

Even so, I still wish more focus would be put towards making Chocolate Doom's audio more compatible with modern Windows systems.

[VGA]

Megamur said:

@VGA:

Please consider making that a sticky topic. It actually worked. Thank you so, so much. This is amazing. And oddly, I didn't even have to do any registry editing: just booted it up, loaded in a nice Roland Soundcanvas font, and it works great.

Even so, I still wish more focus would be put towards making Chocolate Doom's audio more compatible with modern Windows systems.

Cool, I prefer Patch93's soundfont myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tmN1a3cDMg

I just wished that source port authors would directly point to these software synth solutions.

Even that WinDoom beta, a weird unofficial windows port even older than Doom 95 just plain works on my 8.1 x64 ... AND with soundfont support, just because it (thinks it) uses the native midi.

[Megamur]

I agree: If Chocolate Doom never gets proper MIDI support for newer Windows systems (which would be a shame), at least update the wiki with installation procedures for potential workarounds, like Timidity++ drivers or the aforementioned Virtual MIDI Synth.

[Jon]

Megamur said:

I agree: If Chocolate Doom never gets proper MIDI support for newer Windows systems (which would be a shame), at least update the wiki with installation procedures for potential workarounds, like Timidity++ drivers or the aforementioned Virtual MIDI Synth.

Well it is a wiki, and if you guys know what's best, you're best qualified to write it...

[chungy]

I'm not sure exactly what proper MIDI support for Windows means (Fluidsynth support?), but it's worth noting that none of the present active developers for Chocolate Doom use Windows as a primary platform. We do, of course, try to make the experience on Windows as painless as possible, but if anyone can do it better or suggest how, it would be highly appreciated :-)

[Megamur]

chungy said:

I'm not sure exactly what proper MIDI support for Windows means (Fluidsynth support?), but it's worth noting that none of the present active developers for Chocolate Doom use Windows as a primary platform. We do, of course, try to make the experience on Windows as painless as possible, but if anyone can do it better or suggest how, it would be highly appreciated :-)

I know nothing about programming. All I do know is that ZDoom-based ports never gave me MIDI volume troubles no matter which Windows version I used, whether it be XP, Vista, 7 or 8.1. I always wonder why Chocolate can't do the same. I just select Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth under the sound options and away it goes.

[Quasar]

I'll remind of EE's solution, which is to use an RPC pipe to a secondary process called the "midiproc" which is also linked against SDL and has the sole purpose of playing music on the engine's behalf so that it has an independent volume control.

I think some people might have felt this was overkill, but it's the only solution *besides* writing your own synthesizer (whether it hand marshals every MIDI event to the system on its own, or plays back the actual instruments itself), or incorporating one of the existing 3rd party ones (which are themselves non-trivial and in some cases *coughfluidsynthcough* extremely difficult to build from source).

[fabian]

Megamur said:

I know nothing about programming. All I do know is that ZDoom-based ports never gave me MIDI volume troubles no matter which Windows version I used, whether it be XP, Vista, 7 or 8.1. I always wonder why Chocolate can't do the same. I just select Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth under the sound options and away it goes.

ZDoom does not use SDL for sound mixing but relies on the proprietary-licensed FMOD library which probably has its own workarounds for this issue.

[RestlessRodent]

I suppose proper MIDI support would be using the actual MIDI device API. You query the devices which are available, then send them raw MIDI messages. You could also have a selector for which device you actually want to use. As for volume control, when I did it I just changed the note on volume which acted as a kind of soft volume control. A bit ugly but it does dodge the volume control issues seen in Vista and up.

[vesperas]

I've just compiled the SDL2 branch of Chocolate and the new scaling code is doing miracles! Finally I can use all the screen space. I hope to see this in the master branch soon!

[Danfun64]

I decided to test crispy-doom on my old laptop (running win98se2me, and yes, that's a real thing.) The laptop in question has an ES1869 sound card, which provides FM synthesis. However, music only comes out when I choose General MIDI (despite still being FM synth). When I choose "OPL (Adlib/SB)", no music comes out. It doesn't matter whether I choose OPL2 or OPL3. "OPL_Init: Using driver 'Win32'." comes out on the stdout.txt file though.

I know I posted about Crispy Doom, but I have also confirmed that this issue also appears in Chocolate Doom. What do you suggest?

[Foxpup]

Danfun64 said:

The laptop in question has an ES1869 sound card, which provides FM synthesis. However, music only comes out when I choose General MIDI (despite still being FM synth). When I choose "OPL (Adlib/SB)", no music comes out.

I once had a laptop with a similar card, and I know they don't normally provide Sound Blaster compatibility on Windows, which is what you need to make it emulate an OPL (it doesn't have an actual OPL chip). The FM synth normally functions as a MIDI device only, so it seems to be working as designed. There may be a setting (either in the BIOS or sound driver configuration) to enable Sound Blaster compatibility, but then applications expecting a MIDI device won't work.

[Danfun64]

Foxpup said:

I once had a laptop with a similar card, and I know they don't normally provide Sound Blaster compatibility on Windows

...and yet I can set adlib/sbpro on dos games like the Boom source port using the same laptop. Odd.

[Foxpup]

Foxpup said:

on Windows

Danfun64 said:

on dos

At the risk of stating the obvious, most DOS programs don't use the Windows sound driver (I think some of Epic's later DOS games experimented with this, to avoid sound problems when the games were run under Windows instead of pure DOS, but that's another story). It seems you've got Sound Blaster compatibility under DOS, but not Windows, which is reasonable since the Windows driver doesn't need it. Windows programs (such as Chocolate Doom) will not be able to use your card as an OPL synth (since it isn't really one in the first place) unless it has an option somewhere to enable Sound Blaster compatibility under Windows.

[fraggle]

Danfun64 said:

I decided to test crispy-doom on my old laptop (running win98se2me, and yes, that's a real thing.) The laptop in question has an ES1869 sound card, which provides FM synthesis. However, music only comes out when I choose General MIDI (despite still being FM synth). When I choose "OPL (Adlib/SB)", no music comes out. It doesn't matter whether I choose OPL2 or OPL3. "OPL_Init: Using driver 'Win32'." comes out on the stdout.txt file though.

Interesting report. Chocolate Doom's OPL library includes a couple of routines to allow it to write to the OPL ports on Windows 9x but I've never actually tested if it works on real hardware. It's possible that it doesn't.

However, the fact that you're seeing the "OPL_Init: ..." line implies that you have had at least some success. I don't think you'll see that line unless the init code has managed to initialize the OPL chip. Maybe the volume is down low or there's something else that needs to be configured for the OPL output to actually come through.

Some of the later 90s sound cards come with limited support for OPL output as a legacy feature that needs special registers to be configured in order to work. For example the Linux driver for the YMF724 has a special driver flag that you need to enable to turn it on. It might be the same for the ES1869.

[RestlessRodent]

fraggle said:

Interesting report. Chocolate Doom's OPL library includes a couple of routines to allow it to write to the OPL ports on Windows 9x but I've never actually tested if it works on real hardware. It's possible that it doesn't.

I remember testing that for you in the past with my Aureal Vortex AU8830 on Windows 98 SE, it did work. Although the card is not a sound blaster, it has a compatibility mode which works in both DOS and Windows for said card.

[fraggle]

Thanks. That's reassuring at least. Although, enjoy it while it lasts, I think - I believe SDL2 doesn't work under Win9x, so you can expect Chocolate Doom won't in the near future either.

[Danfun64]

fraggle said:

Although, enjoy it while it lasts, I think - I believe SDL2 doesn't work under Win9x

It doesn't. It isn't even mentioned in the kernelex wiki. Pity...

[Linguica]

Oh no is there a GZDoom-esque schism in the near future for Chocolate Doom?!?

[vesperas]

I noticed that every time I start Chocolate Doom (and some other forks as well), in the Windows system tray the input method icon pops up:

Before:


After:


I admit it's not a great problem, but does someone know why this occurs? Among all Choco derivatives only DOOM Retro is unaffected by this issue.

Thanks

[bradharding]

vesperas said:

I noticed that every time I start Chocolate Doom (and some other forks as well), in the Windows system tray the input method icon pops up:

...

I admit it's not a great problem, but does someone know why this occurs? Among all Choco derivatives only DOOM Retro is unaffected by this issue.

Thanks

My guess would be that DOOM Retro uses SDL2, whereas Chocolate DOOM and others still use SDL 1.2 (for the moment). Perhaps it's the use of SDL_EnableUNICODE() or SDL_EnableKeyRepeat() in SDL 1.2.

[scifista42]

This wad's midi track causes some SERIOUS slowdown in Chocolate Doom 2.0. I've experienced like 100-times slowdown of the whole game. The issue disappeared when I removed the midi from the wad. Here is a direct download to the midi in question: http://www.filedropper.com/buggymid

[TwinBeast]

IDMUS Alt+Tab crashes vanilla with Bad music number -<insertnumberhere>. Chocolate-Doom crashes with the same error if I've released Alt before pressing Tab. If I hold Alt while pressing Tab, no crashing, and I can go back to desktop.. but when I return back to game and press anything from the keyboard.. then it crashes.

Using the Windows key seems to be mostly safe for going to desktop while IDMUS was activated and only gives the Impossible Selection message... unless the first key I press when returning is something more special than letters or numbers.

[VGA]

scifista42 said:

This wad's midi track causes some SERIOUS slowdown in Chocolate Doom 2.0. I've experienced like 100-times slowdown of the whole game. The issue disappeared when I removed the midi from the wad. Here is a direct download to the midi in question: http://www.filedropper.com/buggymid

What the hell, I made a timedemo test with the song and without and the framerate went from 191 to 234. Why is the difference so huge for you?