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Action Ware 12: Heretic & Hexen
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1994-10-29
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MUS Player Version 1.50
========================
by Vladimir (Wladows) Arnost
QA-Software
Internet: xarnos00@dcse.fee.vutbr.cz
This is the first public release of my DOOM music player. All you have to do
is to unpack this archive and run MUSPLAY.EXE with proper parameters.
Demo Songs:
----------
This release contains two demo songs taken from wide-spread WAD files.
Namely, DEMO1.MUS is taken from CLASSIC2.WAD (collected by Scott Kearney)
and DEMO2.MUS comes from INVADE1.WAD (by Andy Chen and Claude Martins).
I did not include any of the original DOOM songs to avoid violating the
id's copyright. If you have DOOM (everyone has ...), you also have those
songs. The only task is to extract the songs from DOOM.WAD. In later
releases, I will include a program which will do this for you. (But I have
to write it, first).
Command Line Parameters:
-----------------------
MUS File Player Version 1.50 (c) 1994 QA-Software
Syntax:
MUSPLAY filename.MUS [/B[path]GENMIDI.OP2] [/1] [/M] [/Ccmd] [/L]
Options:
/Bbank set different instrument bank
/1 don't use double-voice instruments
/M play in mono -- thru Adlib instead of SoundBlaster Pro II
/Ccmd exec DOS command cmd during replay
/L play continuously (loop forever)
Options in detail:
-----------------
/Bbankname
This tells MUSPLAY to look for different instrument bank file than
the default GENMIDI.OP2. Use this also if you run MUSPLAY from other
than the current directory.
/1
Disables so called "double-voice" instruments. This feature uses two
output channels instead of one to create each sound. These two
channels use distinct values to create richer sounds. This improves
sound quality slightly, but uses more channels. Generally you can
leave this setting enabled, but if you have a good reason for it,
you can turn it off.
/M
Disables SoundBlaster Pro II extensions. The player uses only
standard Adlib 9-channel mono synth. Use this if autodetection
fails.
/Ccommand
Perhaps the strongest feature. This allows any program to be run
while the player is replaying the song on the background. Extensive
testing was performed to make this reliable and non-conflicting with
other DOS applications. MUSPLAY is guaranteed to run even under
DOS-extended games like DOOM (if you disable DOOM's own music, of
course :-). It is not wise to run any other application that uses
FM music under MUSPLAY -- the program will not hang up (probably),
but the two songs played at once would sound horribly.
/L
Useful for terrorizing your enemies -- let some song play forever...
Keys:
----
Esc Stop playing immediately and return back to DOS
C Invoke COMMAND.COM. Does not stop playing.
Alt-SysRq Fast forward (skip some part of a song). Especially useful
when MUSPLAY plays on the background.
Sample Program Output:
---------------------
MUS File Player Version 1.50 (c) 1994 QA-Software
Sound Blaster Pro II detected (18 channels stereo)
Reading file DEMO1.MUS ...
Reading file GENMIDI.OP2 ...
Playing ... mm:ss:ttt pp (cc)
where 'mm:ss:ttt' is playing time (m-minutes, s-seconds, t-milliseconds),
'pp' is the number of notes being played and 'cc' is the number of output
channels used.
Hardware and Software Requirements:
----------------------------------
* processor 386 or higher (if you have DOOM ...)
* sound card (Adlib or SB Pro II compatible)
* PC-AT compatible machine (with standard Real-Time Clock chipset and
CMOS memory layout)
* MS-DOS version 3.0+
* about 128 KB of free conventional memory
Future Plans:
------------
* digital playback (to use samples instead of FM synthesis)
BTW. if you have a nice set of MIDI instrument samples, you (especially
GUS owners) could contact me, I would like to have some
* full screen display (not console-like) with graphical bars and blobs
* MIDI file support
* OPL4 support -- if anyone knows something about it, let the world know
* EMS or XMS support (to play songs not stored in conventional memory)
Known Bugs:
----------
File D_INTROA.MUS from original DOOM.WAD is not played correctly (some voices
sound too loud). I can't figure out why.