MagicEngine

fragmare · Member Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 59

first off... i love Magic Engine. It's quite possibly the greatest, most accurage emulator out there, period. I have a question tho... when using any resolution lower than 640x480 (i.e. 320x240 or 400x300) the video is fine, but i get distorted, horribly scratchy sound. i'm running a Riva TNT for a video card and a Sound Blaster 16 for sound. any ideas?

Jabberwok · Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 4:29 am Post subject:

Sound? and your video is fine? humm... here I still get good sound with 320,240. Unless anyone else have any other ideas, you might want to check 'lil ol Windows. You might want to try a benchmarking program like Sisoft sandra & maybe even 3Dmark2001 SE for your video card.

But im getting ahead of myself : what Version of Magic Engine are you using & what are your COMPLETE pc's specs? Also, post your entire PCE.INI & LOG file please.
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If you translate Pole Position in French with babelfish you get 'Position de Polonais'... I think it's hilarious... from a French point of view.

Kaminari · Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2003 3:13 pm Post subject:

Scratchy sound? Nothing to do with the resolution used nor your video card, methinks. Except perhaps if your video drivers are not up to date... The Windows default drivers are far from being perfect (I had strange artifacts and sound glitches when I first installed my GeForce2 Ti with the default Windows drivers). You might want to check nvidia.com for the latest Detonator drivers for your OS.

fragmare · Member Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 59

Here's what i'm using: AMD-K62 333MHz, 288MB PC133 memory, Sound Blaster 16 (classic) sound card, Creative 3D Blaster RivaTNT video card, and Maxtor 4.1 GB HDD (all with latest drivers/firmware). The problem ONLY occurs at low resolutions(512x384 or below), and ONLY on Magic Engine. (e.g. other windows/DOS emulators run low resolotions fine without any degradation to video or sound). I'll generate a log file and post it here. Just didn't know if anyone else has experienced this problem before.

Jabberwok · Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2003 5:41 am Post subject:

Your CPU is the problem. Magic Engine's minimum system req is something like a 400-500MHz Pentium, and the K6-II is a little slower im afraid... so the scratchy sound you hear is Magic Engine trying to do every tasks you ask it to, with not enough juice so the emulator must cut corners Wink

.

You can always try to overclock this puppy. On another PC I got I am running a K6-II 500MHz at 600MHz with an Athlon XP stock fan ( since I replaced it on my current machine with a TT Volcano 7+ ). Depending on the layout of your mobo ( proximity of the capacitors mostly ) anything from a recent socket370 or socket a fan might do....
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If you translate Pole Position in French with babelfish you get 'Position de Polonais'... I think it's hilarious... from a French point of view.

dmichel · Admin Joined: 04 Apr 2002 Posts: 1166 Location: France

The video card is more important than the CPU, I got very good results on a simple P266MHz machine with a good video card, it even runs on my old P100, but I admit that it's a bit slow. Razz

Fragmare, did you try to play with the [sound] 'delay' option in the pce.ini file, this option often fixes scratchy sound problems.
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David Michel

Kaminari · Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2003 6:38 pm Post subject:

Yep, I remember seeing ME running fine on a P133 and it definitely flew on my previous P2/350.

Jabberwok · Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2003 12:04 am Post subject:

Oh? O.K. then, my mistake... But on my K6-II 500@600 with a Voodoo3 3000 I get full speed, even at 500MHz. I do know the TNT is a little slower than the Voodoo2 though, Maybe it's time to consider an upgrade...

Before getting another video card, make sure your AGP slot ( if you have one ) is 1.5v instead of 3.3v. Otherwise you'll be doomed to buy something like a TNT2 m64 or a Rage 128 ( or any dual-voltage capable card )... Id say avoid the m64 like the plague, but seeing it's dirt cheap...

Or do as you please, who am I anyway?
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If you translate Pole Position in French with babelfish you get 'Position de Polonais'... I think it's hilarious... from a French point of view.

fragmare · Member Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Posts: 59

Well, i doubt the speed of my system is the problem... i run Magic Engine with the games running at double resolutions (640x480,640x480, and 600x600) to avoid the sound issue. I runs games fine at thes resolutions with 50-60 FPS and no scratchy sound... when i switch to lower resolutions like 320x240 or 400x300, the framrate actually is a solid 60, but i experience the scratchy sound... the sound delay simply causes me scratchy sound with reverb added in :/