It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionSounds in DOSBox games lag behind on-screen visuals. (14 posts)solved(14 posts)solved
(14 posts)solved
Pages:
1
This is my favourite topic
Posted July 22, 2018
Hi. Recently I bought a new HP laptop with Windows 10 on it, the computer has a Realtek sound card in it as do so many computers. When I started installing my DOS games onto the computer, I discovered that there is noticeable lag in some games, where the game sounds lag behind the on-screen visuals. I particularly noticed this in Blake Stone Aliens Of Gold, Catacomb, Hocus Pocus, Monster Bash to some extent, Rise Of The Triad Dark War, SimCity 2000 Special Edition, and Wacky Wheels. I think the lag happens in some of my other DOG games too, but it's nowhere near as noticeable or serious as far as I can tell. I've been in contact with GOG's technical support about the problem and I sent them a DXDiag text file as instructed. They suggested I try a number of things such as installing the Direct X 9 web runtime installer, updating the sound card drivers, changing the graphics mode settings in my games, running Windows 10 in a clean boot mode, but nothing I've tried has helped as far as I can tell. When I did some very quick research on the GOG website, I can across an article that talked about renaming some files in the game installation folders, and I very quickly had a look for said files but couldn't find them. GOG seem to think that nobody else has had this problem, or at least they couldn't find any technical support tickets relating to my problem. The only thing I haven't done is contact HP, Microsoft or Realtek for help. I've been told that HP's Australian technical support isn't that good. I should also say that I'm new to Windows 10, having been a Mac user for nearly 8 years and not having had much serious experience with versions of Windows that are newer than Windows XP. If anyone can shed some light on this issue, that would be great. And if you can provide instructions, please make sure they're detailed. Thanks everyone.
This question / problem has been solved by Lucian_Galcaimage
Posted August 02, 2018
Yesterday I tried my games on 2 other PCs with Windows 10, one being a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon and the other being a basic office desktop PC, they both exhibited the same symptoms, the sound was lagging behind the onscreen visuals. So it's becoming clear to me that the problem isn't isolated to my laptop. I'll try the games on another Windows 10 PC and see if they still display the same problems.
Posted August 02, 2018
avatar
LachlanThomas: Hi. Recently I bought a new HP laptop with Windows 10 on it, the computer has a Realtek sound card in it as do so many computers. When I started installing my DOS games onto the computer, I discovered that there is noticeable lag in some games, where the game sounds lag behind the on-screen visuals. I particularly noticed this in Blake Stone Aliens Of Gold, Catacomb, Hocus Pocus, Monster Bash to some extent, Rise Of The Triad Dark War, SimCity 2000 Special Edition, and Wacky Wheels. I think the lag happens in some of my other DOG games too, but it's nowhere near as noticeable or serious as far as I can tell. I've been in contact with GOG's technical support about the problem and I sent them a DXDiag text file as instructed. They suggested I try a number of things such as installing the Direct X 9 web runtime installer, updating the sound card drivers, changing the graphics mode settings in my games, running Windows 10 in a clean boot mode, but nothing I've tried has helped as far as I can tell. When I did some very quick research on the GOG website, I can across an article that talked about renaming some files in the game installation folders, and I very quickly had a look for said files but couldn't find them. GOG seem to think that nobody else has had this problem, or at least they couldn't find any technical support tickets relating to my problem. The only thing I haven't done is contact HP, Microsoft or Realtek for help. I've been told that HP's Australian technical support isn't that good. I should also say that I'm new to Windows 10, having been a Mac user for nearly 8 years and not having had much serious experience with versions of Windows that are newer than Windows XP. If anyone can shed some light on this issue, that would be great. And if you can provide instructions, please make sure they're detailed. Thanks everyone.
Try editing these two settings under [mixer] in the DOSBox config files for the games.

blocksize=
prebuffer=

A lower number may help with the sound lag.
Post edited August 02, 2018 by Lucian_Galca
Posted August 11, 2018
Hi. Thank you for that advice, I'll give that a go and see what happens. It was suggested to me elsewhere that this may be the issue, at least with some games.
Posted August 11, 2018
avatar
LachlanThomas: Hi. Thank you for that advice, I'll give that a go and see what happens. It was suggested to me elsewhere that this may be the issue, at least with some games.
No prob! Hope it works. :)
Posted August 15, 2018
Hi. Well it turns out that a combination of increasing the mixer sampling rate to at least 44100 and decreasing the block size and prebuffer values seems to address the problem, at least to some varying degree.
Posted August 15, 2018
Just to save you some headache in the future, there's a variety of DOSbox launchers you can use which GUIze the entry of configuration data so you don't have to muck about in text files. Which one you use is largely a matter of preference, as I use the java based DBGL.
Posted August 15, 2018
avatar
LachlanThomas: Hi. Recently I bought a new HP laptop with Windows 10 on it, the computer has a Realtek sound card in it as do so many computers. When I started installing my DOS games onto the computer, I discovered that there is noticeable lag in some games, where the game sounds lag behind the on-screen visuals. I particularly noticed this in Blake Stone Aliens Of Gold, Catacomb, Hocus Pocus, Monster Bash to some extent, Rise Of The Triad Dark War, SimCity 2000 Special Edition, and Wacky Wheels. I think the lag happens in some of my other DOG games too, but it's nowhere near as noticeable or serious as far as I can tell. I've been in contact with GOG's technical support about the problem and I sent them a DXDiag text file as instructed. They suggested I try a number of things such as installing the Direct X 9 web runtime installer, updating the sound card drivers, changing the graphics mode settings in my games, running Windows 10 in a clean boot mode, but nothing I've tried has helped as far as I can tell. When I did some very quick research on the GOG website, I can across an article that talked about renaming some files in the game installation folders, and I very quickly had a look for said files but couldn't find them. GOG seem to think that nobody else has had this problem, or at least they couldn't find any technical support tickets relating to my problem. The only thing I haven't done is contact HP, Microsoft or Realtek for help. I've been told that HP's Australian technical support isn't that good. I should also say that I'm new to Windows 10, having been a Mac user for nearly 8 years and not having had much serious experience with versions of Windows that are newer than Windows XP. If anyone can shed some light on this issue, that would be great. And if you can provide instructions, please make sure they're detailed. Thanks everyone.
avatar
Lucian_Galca: Try editing these two settings under [mixer] in the DOSBox config files for the games.

blocksize=
prebuffer=

A lower number may help with the sound lag.
While you're here, what could someone do to increase the framerates of some games like Daggerfall? I have a few games on GOG that I can't get running reasonably well for the life of me.
Posted August 15, 2018
avatar
kohlrak: While you're here, what could someone do to increase the framerates of some games like Daggerfall? I have a few games on GOG that I can't get running reasonably well for the life of me.
[url=https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_II:_Daggerfall]Here you go.[/url] As a sidenote, remember that not all games are 30/60 frame games.
Post edited August 15, 2018 by Darvond
Posted August 15, 2018
avatar
kohlrak: While you're here, what could someone do to increase the framerates of some games like Daggerfall? I have a few games on GOG that I can't get running reasonably well for the life of me.
avatar
Darvond: [url=https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_II:_Daggerfall]Here you go.[/url] As a sidenote, remember that not all games are 30/60 frame games.
Thank you. I'm sure they're over 2FPS, however, which is usually indicated directly when things like dungeon keeper have audio skip issues (fortunately there's a mod to make it work natively in windows).
Posted August 15, 2018
avatar
kohlrak: Thank you. I'm sure they're over 2FPS, however, which is usually indicated directly when things like dungeon keeper have audio skip issues (fortunately there's a mod to make it work natively in windows).
Yeah, that would be a problem. I've not referenced it much myself, being pretty program headed, but the PC Gaming Wiki is a great resource for kicking old programs into high gear.
Posted August 15, 2018
avatar
kohlrak: Thank you. I'm sure they're over 2FPS, however, which is usually indicated directly when things like dungeon keeper have audio skip issues (fortunately there's a mod to make it work natively in windows).
avatar
Darvond: Yeah, that would be a problem. I've not referenced it much myself, being pretty program headed, but the PC Gaming Wiki is a great resource for kicking old programs into high gear.
Interestingly it says 70FPS for that game. Seems my computer's a tad too weak for it, though, as the audio's still skipping and all movement seems incredibly sluggish. I guess i'll just have to put this on my list of games that have to wait until i get a new rig (like TW2, TW3, and a few others, but at least i can play skyrim).
Posted August 26, 2018
avatar
Lucian_Galca: Try editing these two settings under [mixer] in the DOSBox config files for the games.

blocksize=
prebuffer=

A lower number may help with the sound lag.
avatar
kohlrak: While you're here, what could someone do to increase the framerates of some games like Daggerfall? I have a few games on GOG that I can't get running reasonably well for the life of me.
I'm afraid I don't know much about fixing framerate issues. Maybe check your frameskip settings and maybe CPU cycles or CPU type, perhaps those settings may address the problem. I don't know too much about the finer details of DOSBox to be perfectly honest with you.
avatar
Darvond: Just to save you some headache in the future, there's a variety of DOSbox launchers you can use which GUIze the entry of configuration data so you don't have to muck about in text files. Which one you use is largely a matter of preference, as I use the java based DBGL.
Thanks for the tip, I'll bare that in mind, though I don't really mind editing the text file in notepad. I've used the DOXBox Configurator/Graphic Mode Setup utility that GOG provides with their games, but I'm not going to use it anymore because it completely messes up the format of the document, it screws up the line breaks in the files, so it turns a neatly formatted file into a disorganised mess, but the files are still readable by DOSBox. Do any of these other GUI based setup utilities do this?
Well everyone, the problem is solved. I've found on my laptop that if I set the mixer sample rate to 48000, lowering the blocksize to 1024 and setting the prebuffer to around 40 or 50 or so seems to address the issue. Just for good measure I set the sample rates for the other emulated sound devices in DOSBox to 48000. The Realtek sound chip in my laptop can supposedly play back sound at 48000 Hz. This has addressed the problem. For some reason GOG set the mixer sample rate to 22050 in many of the games that I own, I've no idea why, but I think that's what's causing the problem.
Post edited August 26, 2018 by LachlanThomas
Posted August 26, 2018
avatar
Darvond: Yeah, that would be a problem. I've not referenced it much myself, being pretty program headed, but the PC Gaming Wiki is a great resource for kicking old programs into high gear.
avatar
kohlrak: Interestingly it says 70FPS for that game. Seems my computer's a tad too weak for it, though, as the audio's still skipping and all movement seems incredibly sluggish. I guess i'll just have to put this on my list of games that have to wait until i get a new rig (like TW2, TW3, and a few others, but at least i can play skyrim).
I've not played those games so I know nothing about them. But if they're DOS games, maybe increasing the blocksize or prebuffer may fix the sound skipping problems. But as I say I've not played those games and I know nothing about them.
Pages:
1
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionSounds in DOSBox games lag behind on-screen visuals. (14 posts)solved(14 posts)solved
(14 posts)solved