A few sporadic tech help questions regarding old LEC games

[speon]

I've been methodically trying to get my old LEC adventure games to work on my Win XP Pro laptop and have had good success, with a few exceptions. I've searched these boards (and the web) pretty thoroughly for the answers I seek, so I apologize in advance if these questions are answered elsewhere.

 

I've been using VDMSound, DOSBox, and ScummVM Q+E.

 

1) Fate of Atlantis audio - does it have Sound Blaster music? I don't see an iMUSE file for it and it works well enough with AdLib, but it's odd that speech and sfx are there, but no SB music option.

 

Also, is there a GMIDI patch for FoA? The installer (from the CD version) has it as an option, but I don't see the files for it...only Roland - which sounds pretty bad without a true MT-32 module. Is there perhaps a fan-made GMIDI patch for MI2 anywhere?

 

2) The Dig - yes, I'm aware that ScummVM Q+E will play it. And I can get it to work perfectly with VDMSound...but...I'd like to play it without the CD. I've copied all of the files off of the CD (as I did with Full Throttle and CoMI - both of which work) though the .exe still prompts for the CD. Is there any way to install this game completely to the hard drive? I'm not asking for a crack...but if that's the only solution...I'll retire my efforts.

 

3) CoMI - I've copied this game entirely to the hard drive and by and large it works great. However, oddly, the audio will start to repeat/skip/loop occasionally within different play sessions. Sometimes when I run the game, the bug will occur and other times it won't. The odd part is, I'm not doing anything different (that I know of) to any sound/game settings. I'm not running VDMSound with this game (I don't think I can). I can't figure out a pattern. Has anyone experienced this? (BTW...this bug occurs independently of copying the game to the HDD.)

 

...and finally, to potentially save someone from headache regarding fast/stuttering Full Throttle audio...I recommend tweaking the DMA servicing values under the performance tab in VDMSound. Setting my polling period min value to 0 solved it for me.

 

Thanks in advance.