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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / No MOD-support anymore? Why? :(

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Rylex
21
Years of Service
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Joined: 5th Nov 2002
Location: Germany
Posted: 5th Nov 2002 13:58
Hi there,

I've bought DB Pro a week ago and thought now you have DB Pro that means you have everything like good old DarkBasic only better.
THAT WAS WRONG!
The first thing is the ####ing CD that has to be inserted every time you wonna start (compile) your application.

OK but that's not the point here. The big problem is that DB Pro seems to offer NO support for MOD-files that could be played with old DarkBasic 1.13...
Will there be a patch to support the mod-files?
This is really a bit angry... now I've spent 126,- EUR for this program and it can't play MOD-files like the old one. This is ridiculous.

Any suggestions?

Rylex

Feel free to comment...
MrTAToad
21
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 5th Nov 2002 15:09
MOD files are rather old now, so I dont think MOD support is really needed.

If you do need MOD support, I think there is a DLL that you can use to play it - I dont know where it is though...

Yes, I really am THAT good...
indi
21
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Earth, Brisbane, Australia
Posted: 5th Nov 2002 16:21
ogg are available mate saves thousands on a liscence

indi is part of Team Lunarpixel
multimedia logisitics and interactive media
Rylex
21
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Joined: 5th Nov 2002
Location: Germany
Posted: 6th Nov 2002 10:24
I have a lot of MODs that are really great and should be used with the games I wonna write. MODs are really small-size and sound great. What about OGG? Is this another sound-format? Where can I get free legal OGG-files?

Fallout
21
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 6th Nov 2002 12:43
OGG is a lossy compression medium, a lot like MP3, but without the impending legal restrictions.

I'm a tracker though. Have been for 10 years and have released in all formats from MOD to S3M, from IT to XM. Now I release in MP3 though. MODs with file sizes smaller than your average 4-5MB MP3 are generally not that great. There's not many decent samples in a small mod, and although they can be well composed and show great skill, the overall sound quality will not be anywhere near that of a professional track. It's just not really possible.

My advice is to cut your losses and stick with MP3s. I gave up writing MODs many years a go because filesize restrictions are very limiting, and they totally lack the professional polish of post production.

Machine: P4 2200, 512MB, GeForce4 64MB, Audigy Platinum

There's a junglist inside every coder. http://www.kontact-kru.com for my own personal breakbeat terrorism.
Rylex
21
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Joined: 5th Nov 2002
Location: Germany
Posted: 6th Nov 2002 12:55
I can really understand that you all prefer MP3 when it comes to Quality. But MOD-files are very great and if you create a game that is 7 MB download with MODS and 15 MB with MP3s then I prefer the 7 MB download because MODs still sound great in my opinion.

The point is that this MOD-support was a feature of old DarkBasic and now with the new one (you should expect things get better) they've cut this feature and THIS SUCKS!!!

Freddix
AGK Developer
21
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Joined: 19th Sep 2002
Location: France
Posted: 6th Nov 2002 13:01
there is another think you forgot all !
Rylex when you talk about 2 version 1 with mods ( 7mb ) and 1 with mp3 ( 17mb ) !

Thinks that there are people that own slow connection ! they can't download too large files and should surely choose the small version because it is the solution for them to take the game without losing too time downloading it . . .
Rylex
21
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Joined: 5th Nov 2002
Location: Germany
Posted: 6th Nov 2002 13:09
That's what I wanted to point on (got a modem myself)... it is simply silly when the EXACTLY same game needs 7 MB with MOD-files and 17 MB with MP3 sound.
Of course you could cut the sound from 7 soundfiles to about 2, but then the game will not be that much fun.

freddix - I see you understand me!
(at last somebody does)

One thing is for sure:

WE NEED MOD-Support!


Kale
21
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Joined: 8th Sep 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 6th Nov 2002 20:26
i've been trying to get a bit of code working to enable mod support again using the midas sound system i.e. :



midas is a free 156k dll BTW but its not quite successful yet, but im working on whats going wrong!

What the flame does not consume, consumes the flame.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
AMD XP2100+, Geforce4Ti 4400, 512Mb DDR, Abit KX7, WinXP Pro
Hubdule
21
Years of Service
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Joined: 3rd Sep 2002
Location: Gundelsheim
Posted: 6th Nov 2002 20:55
This won't work Kale ... if you want a working example what could be done with Midas check out: http://www.colorarts.de/temp/midas.zip

If you are interested for the source mail me: hubdule@colorarts.de

rapscaLLion
21
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Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location: Canada
Posted: 6th Nov 2002 22:33
MODS need to be licensed don't they?
Anyway, you don't have to do the CD check, there are ways to bipass it, I just forget what you have to change. But there is some key that you change in the registry to make it skip the cd check. Your like the tenth person to complain about something that is no longer a problem, no offense.

Alex Wanuch
aka rapscaLLion
Get the DB Weekly Newsletter at www.dbwn.cjb.net
Rylex
21
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Joined: 5th Nov 2002
Location: Germany
Posted: 7th Nov 2002 08:29
OK - If anyone has a complete bit of example-code and the right DLL then I would really like to see that example. Thanks!

Richard Davey
Retired Moderator
21
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Joined: 30th Apr 2002
Location: On the Jupiter Probe
Posted: 9th Nov 2002 19:09
"MODS need to be licensed don't they?"

Not if you wrote them, no! The format is copyright free.

Cheers,

Rich

"Gentlemen, we are about to short-circuit the Universe!"
DB Team / Atari ST / DarkForge / Retro Gaming
EdzUp
21
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Joined: 8th Sep 2002
Location: UK
Posted: 9th Nov 2002 20:13
I would like to see Mod support back in , I know how long it takes to upload a 8Mb file (<>45Mins here) and seeing as quite a few ISP's disconnect after 2 hrs (and some 2 mins ) I would always go with the smallest file option (baring midi as that is toss IMHO )

rapscaLLion
21
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Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location: Canada
Posted: 10th Nov 2002 01:04
oh... then do you have any idea why it was cut?

Alex Wanuch
aka rapscaLLion
Get the DB Weekly Newsletter at www.dbwn.cjb.net
Fallout
21
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 10th Nov 2002 21:27
I'm not 100% sure about this, but there are CPU cycles to consider. I know MP3s require decoding, but MOD files require on-the-fly mixing of multiple sound channels, as well as effects programming, etc etc. It strikes me that, even if it's not immediately noticable, decoding an MP3 would slow down your game much less than the mixing of a complex MOD file.

Machine: P4 2200, 512MB, GeForce4 64MB, Audigy Platinum

There's a junglist inside every coder. http://www.kontact-kru.com for my own personal breakbeat terrorism.
rapscaLLion
21
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Joined: 29th Aug 2002
Location: Canada
Posted: 10th Nov 2002 23:21
maybe

Alex Wanuch
aka rapscaLLion
Get the DB Weekly Newsletter at www.dbwn.cjb.net
Rylex
21
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Joined: 5th Nov 2002
Location: Germany
Posted: 11th Nov 2002 11:16
Please give us MOD-support again!
We can't live without it!

Van B
Moderator
21
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Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 11th Nov 2002 12:50
They probably left it out so you could use your own .mod playback .dll. Obviously some playback routines will sound better but will be slower, whereas some will run faster, only lower quality.

I doubt it'll be long before there's a nice mod player add-on. You could probably get Bass.dll working with pro.


Van-B
Megaman X
21
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Joined: 21st Oct 2002
Location: Sweden
Posted: 11th Nov 2002 19:11
Well... If u r planning to release a 7 mega DEMO on the net, u could or use very low quality mp3 or make the demo without music. Many companies release demos without music or some effects... But if u intend to realease a full playable game of 7 megas, I wont ever bore downloading. If it's creative ( let's say like HERO from Atari, with 7 megas ) I wont really care if has music or not Just the game is good.

I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
-- Rogue
DrakeX
21
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
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Posted: 12th Nov 2002 00:47
there are 2 i know of:

mikwin: the default mixer is kinda crappy (8-bit) but it's very accurate and supports everything but Zxx low-pass filter in IT files and the note offs are a bit odd (they are treated like note cuts).

SDL: uses a modified mikmod, it's very nice 16-bit sound, and note offs work correctly. however it's a pain in the ass to use as you have to load 2 DLLs and go through several steps of init before you can load a song and play it. SDLlib is also a much bigger DLL than mikwin alone.

then there's the hybrid i made: it takes the good mixer of SDL and the easy setup of mikwin and recompiles them into a new DLL which i call mikwin2. unfortunately even though i copied the player with the fixed note offs from SDL to mikwin and recompiled, the note offs still don't work... i don't get it

i'm looking at yooooou!
Deion
21
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Joined: 13th Sep 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 12th Nov 2002 05:57
ogg is much better samller file size then mp3 and sounds superior in every way to mp3

Cheers,
Deion G.

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