MagicEngine

[Jabberwok]

O.K. David : The player needs a few files before being able to run :

VCL50.BPL
BORLNDMM.DLL
CC3250MT.DLL

After these files are in place in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM ( or C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 depending on your windows ), the player runs psg files *PERFECTLY*. I mean wow, it's perfect!. The new sound engine sounds very promissing.... On a darker note however, putting cd's in both my drives gave me only skipped tracks, sort of like if someone whould push the forward button every 1/2 second. A minor bug im sure. Other than that, I honestly can't wait...

If you need anything David just ask ok?



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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.

[animefx]

i first tested the psg file and it sounded really garbled and skipped around.. i then tried a few different cds (originals) and they skip around too, the program has even crashed a few times :\

the only thing i can think of is because i have 4 cd-rom devices on my system... 2 are real, and 2 are virtual, but aren't in use. the 2 real ones is a tdk cdrw, and a generic dvd-rom.. the 2 fake virtual drives are daemon tools and clone cd tray.

i tried both of the real devices and they have the same problem.

[sideshow]

I thought I was the only one with the skipping problem. Neverless, this new player is a great attempt to play pc-engine game music on a computer. I popped in y's book 1 and 2 and noticed the skipping yet when I actually played the game through magic engine it didnt skip at all. I sure hope a bug fix release comes out shortly. By the way I noticed that when you minimize the player down to the taskbar, the result is that whatever music is being played through the player will pause until the player is maximized back to the desktop.

[dmichel]

This skipping problem is strange, I must be the only one to not have it.

I tried the player on 3 different PCs, all was smooth here. Are you guys running other programs in the background that could eat CPU time? The sound engine use a low latency, it need to run every ~16ms else it will start to skip. Latency is higher for CD audio though, about 200ms, it's weird...

You mention that with MagicEngine there's no problem, is it with MagicEngine running in windowed mode too, or is it fullscreen?
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David Michel

[dmichel]

I just released a new version, I didn't change a lot of things but may be it will help. Let me know...

You guys have weird PC.
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David Michel

[Kaminari]

I nearly choked when I saw the news page had been updated

Ok, back to business now. Here is my config: P3@667, Windows 2000 SP4.

1. The missing Borland DLLs can be found here.

2. The new PSG sound engine is very promising. I love the many interpolation options which allow to get a very crisp and clean sound. The ability to control the volume and quality output of the noise channel is a great plus as well. Overall, it's the best PCE emulated sound I have ever heard. However, I have to report that I occasionally get some unpleasant crackings, which don't make for a very smooth sound. It should be possible to iron it out without too much hassle (I suspect a minor buffering / latency issue).

3. The CDDA player skips a lot on my system too. My drive is set to digital playback and I don't get such problems in other CD-based emulators like Gens, Glidos, Anex86, Unz, etc.

Keep up the good work!

[Jabberwok]

Ok David, everything runs fine now

My PC is a pretty standard gamer PC, nothing out of the ordinary :

Athlon XP 2100+
MSI GeForce4 TI 4200 128Mb @ 265/540
Asus A7V333
DDR pc 2100 512Mb cl2
D-Link Dfe-538TX
LG cd-rom
Liteon cd-rw
IBM Deskstar D120gxp 60 Gig
Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1
Floppy, cables, mouse, keyboard, generic mid-tower, Antec PSU, Sidewinder USB, an army of fans ect...

Windows XP Pro SP1, every drivers up-to-date & everything else runs smoothly...
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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.

[animefx]

i downloaded the new version of the player and i still have the same problems... my computer has windows xp home with *all* of the current windows updates, direct x and blah blah blah. the old magic engine sound engine was fine. :\

my specs:
1.3 ghz amd duron
512 megs of pc133 ram
geforce mx 2 video card
sb live! value sound card
windows xp home
tdk cdrw
generic dvd-rom

[animefx]

my cd-rom is connected digitally to the sound card, not analog like most people probably use... but still the psg files shouldn't sound messed up :\

also, i was just wondering if the next magic engine will have support for un-compressed save states like the current magic engine will the current magic engine save states work with the new magic engine too?

[dmichel]

Yes, there's a un-compressed format, it's not compatible with the old one but MagicEngine will still load the old save states.
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David Michel

[Gilian_Seed]

I have the problems too (for both cda and psg). Running with winxp, an athlon xp 2400+, 512mb, sblive

[sideshow]

Hi David. I downloaded the magic player update and tried to put those dll's in not only the windows/system32(Windows XP Home) directory, but also in the magic engine player directory. I still get all audio tracks on my Y's Book 1 and 2 or any pc-engine game to skip. The psg files apparently work though without the skipping. Another thing is that I tried both original pc-engine games and backup cd-r of my games and the skipping results are the same for both attempts. Hope a remedy is applied soon

Windows XP Home
Compaq Presario 1500
2.2 ghz, 512 MB RAM, 32 MB GC

[Kadamose]

Bug:

When playing the player and minimizing it or multitasking with another program the program will stop playing the music until it is maximized again. Not a bad bug, just a really annoying one.

Port this thing to the Xbox, David!!!

[Kaminari]

It's not a bug, it's called 'auto-pause when minimized' and is a common feature of many emulators. It allows to ease the load of the CPU when the application is not running in the foreground, especially with a heavy multitasking environment.

[dmichel]