MagicEngine

Idonex · Visitor Joined: 21 Jun 2003 Posts: 7

Hi,

I'm using the latest version of Magic Engine on XP Pro and i have a weird issue that affects all CD games, namely i have no CD Audio unless i plug headphones directly into my CDROM drive.

Here's what i have done:

1) Yes, the CDROM IS connected to my Audigy. I listen to CDs on my CDROM all the time.
2) Here is the log.txt file with the relevant details:

Kaminari · Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 5:00 pm Post subject:

Hi,

Your drive is connected to your motherboard through an IDE flat cable, which allows CD audio playing via the digital audio mode you mentioned. Windows XP is natively set in DA mode, that's why you can listen to your regular audio CD.

But Magic Engine only works in good old analogic audio mode and thus requires a small CD-ROM audio cable connected from your drive to your sound card (which is most of the time missing on XP systems). You should get one, or wait for MagicEngine 1.0 which will support digital audio mode.

> cd_audio_input_line=4

It's better to leave the line blank (just delete the number). MagicEngine does a better job at finding automatically the right CD audio input. And don't forget to set the option debug_log=yes if you want the CD volume to fade in and out properly.

Idonex · Visitor Joined: 21 Jun 2003 Posts: 7

Hmm. I'm pretty sure the audio lead is connected from the CDROM to the soundcard but i'll double check anyway! Also, the CDA from Sega CD games run fine in Gens, although i dont knowif this uses a different playback method. Smile

Kaminari · Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 5:33 pm Post subject:

Yup, Gens works in digital audio mode and doesn't need the audio cable.

Could you post your pce.ini file here?

Idonex · Visitor Joined: 21 Jun 2003 Posts: 7

Hi, I just double checked and the audio out from my CDROM is definitely connected to my soundcard. Here is the pce.ini

Think

Kaminari · Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 10:15 pm Post subject:

Idonex · Visitor Joined: 21 Jun 2003 Posts: 7

Yeah it's a DVDROM drive. I managed to fix the sound problem by removing the audio connection from the DVDROM drive and putting it on my SCSi CDRW. Now i get CDA in games!

But for some reason loading CD games from the CDRW is really slow and I can hear the drive spin up and down all the time.

Is there something that needs to be done in the ini file?

Thanks for all the help so far btw Smile

Kaminari · Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2003 4:02 pm Post subject:

Recorders are traditionally slower than read-only devices. You might get some noticeable speed up by setting the read cache as follows:

Specineff · Elder Joined: 29 Aug 2002 Posts: 258 Location: Arizona

Hey Kaminari, just for the record...

I just checked my CDROM drive properties as I'm playing Drac X in windowed mode...

DIGITAL PLAYBACK IS ON AND MUSIC CAN BE HEARD ALL RIGHT!! Shocked

I noticed that when I deactivate Digital Playback sound balances most of the way to the left speaker, and when it's on, sound seems evenly distributed between the two. WTF?? Anxious

God, I love my Frankestein Box!
_________________
Proud owner of a Dreamcast, Saturn, Turbo Duo and a registered version of ME since 2002.

Kaminari · Posted: Fri Jun 27, 2003 3:29 am Post subject:

Hi Specineff!

Digital playback is activated on my system as well. Activating digital playback doesn't mean that analog playback won't work anymore. It's just that you're setting it as the default playback method in Windows. Applications can still override this setting and force analog playback. That's what Magic Engine and T-98 Next do.

Digital playback is the Graal of CD playing for many reasons, the most important one being that audio mode is not limited to 1x anymore and can go as fast as the data mode reading. That means no speed variation when a game is switching from a data track (say in 40x) to an audio track (1x) and vice versa. Many seconds are wasted in the process, with a great risk that the audio tracks are desynchronized when the program ask them to start.

The downside is that digital playback means audio streaming, thus heavy CPU stress. On modest configurations, you may hear some very unpleasant cracks. Not to mention the furious noise of the fast-spinning drive which can become painful if it's so loud you can't hear the CD music...

Last but not least, not all drives (especially ATAPI) correctly support digital playback. With some of them, Magic Engine can even refuse to run if this mode is activated by default. It happened to me before. But the next version should make it a thing of the past ;-)

Specineff · Elder Joined: 29 Aug 2002 Posts: 258 Location: Arizona

Interesting. I'm counting the seconds for V 1.00 release. Pray

_________________
Proud owner of a Dreamcast, Saturn, Turbo Duo and a registered version of ME since 2002.