[NNC]

Haha, no.

[NY00123]

So, a little-known fact about the Apogee Sound System (the audio library used in ROTT and differing Build Engine games), is that it has audio recording capabilities.

These appear to be used for voice chat in multiplayer ROTT LAN sessions. If you see any DemandFeed-related code in the audio library (e.g., FX_StartDemandFeedPlayback), it seems to be used on the receiving side as follows: First, audio arrives from the network and is added to an internal playback buffer. The DemandFeed code is then used in order to play back the sound data from this buffer. This differs from playing a premade audio segment, say a WAV or VOC file.

The opposite is essentially done for sound which is recorded and then sent over LAN.

Now, as it turns out, the last version of VMware's desktop VM software has improved SB16 support. There might still be enough which is missing, but audio recording is, in fact, covered, at least partially. (I actually don't recall checking if this worked before the update, but it's still been a good chance.)

Other than VMware, and possibly also NTVDM for Windows XP, only other environments which I know to have working audio recording for SB-compatible DOS programs are actual DOS/Win9x setups with compatible sound cards.

As the following step, locating DOS software which supports audio recording with the SB *and* can do so under VMware turned out to be less than "simple".

While not letting me hear the recording as-is, I could at least see the reported volumes, using Cthugha: http://www.afn.org/~...a/archives.html

As for actually hearing whatever is recorded with a microphone: Eventually, I looked at the Apogee Sound System sources, which include the sound playback utility PS, and modified it into RAW PCM sound recorder, shortly named RS.

Source on GitLab: https://gitlab.com/NY00123/audiolib-rs
Last binary and source are currently available from my Duke4.net-hosted site: https://ny.duke4.net/files.html

[Marphy Black]

While browsing through archived versions of Bobby Prince's old site, I came across what seem to be a couple (very scant) unused alternate Duke line recordings. Don't get your hopes up!

• One is simply named "ooh.au": https://web.archive....80/sound/ooh.au
  
  Unsurprisingly, it's Duke saying "Ooh!". Not that remarkable, unfortunately, but this is not the same "Ooh!" from him saying "Ooh, I needed that!" or "Ooh! That's gotta hurt!"
  
  
• The other is slightly more interesting, "letsrock1.au": https://web.archive....nd/letsrock1.au
  
  It's Duke saying "Let's rock!" with a repeated echo. This is not the same "Let's rock!" used at the skill menu, and the seemingly peculiar echo seems like it was meant for the menu selection sound. You'll note that the filename here is letsrock1, while the line used in the game is LETSRK03, suggesting other takes we've never heard.

Both sounds can be found on this page: https://web.archive..../frame_3dr.html

And this segues into my next interesting discovery on the site. Each image here links to a Duke-related piece of audio, and apart from the aforementioned Duke lines, we can see that Bobby linked to myrtle.mid which we know didn't actually end up in Duke 3D but rather only in Xenophage. But even better than that, the page provides a whole backstory for the track explaining how that all came to be! And there are even more backstories for most of the tracks he made pages for on his site!

With that in mind, I have collected all of the midi pages on Bobby's site that present historical backgrounds (sans the Doom ones which can already be found here and here):

Duke Nukem 3D

• citystreets.mid
  
• invader.mid
  
• myrtle.mid

Duke Nukem 2

• depths.mid
  
• kissgirls.mid
  
• hesback.mid
  
• dukeii.mid

Wolfenstein 3D

• pow.mid
  
• warmarch.mid
  
• getthem.mid
  
• funky.mid
  
• corner.mid

Commander Keen

• mamsnake.mid
  
• jazzme.mid
  
• sphereful.mid
  
• aliensate.mid
  
• kickpant.mid

Other Apogee games

• Bio Menace - circles.mid
  
• Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure - breakdown.mid
  
• Major Stryker - dizzy.mid
  
• Realms Of Chaos - badlands.mid
  
• Blake Stone: Planet Strike (the page says Aliens of Gold, but Bobby is wrong, that hack!) - fortress.mid
  
• Xenophage - fromhell.mid
  
• Rise of the Triad - hereboy.mid

Other games

• Pickle Wars - linda.mid
  
• Pickle Wars - kingdill.mid
  
• Terrace - joecool.mid
  
• Terrace - cogitating.mid
  
• Zorro - fiorini.mid
  
• Zorro - zorro.mid
  
• Black Knight - afterburner.mid
  
• Black Knight - starman.mid

If you want to listen to the midis themselves, go here and either sort type by audio or add ".mid" as a filter.

And a lot of these tidbits are already fairly well known, but I also recommend checking out Bobby's Little Known Facts page.

[oasiz]

I found out that Lameduke has a suicide function that if you mess with FILE_ID.DIZ, the game.exe will erase itself when it fails integrity checks.
This file can't also be edited, unless you open D3D.EXE and find the text content embedded in the executable and modify it there also.

Based on compiled files the game also internal definitions for some sounds that do not exist, along with copter/elevator movement sounds but these are not correctly defined and some names are garbled. Despite renaming files, I was unable to get these play in-game. References to KSM also exist, so it's likely that the game+engine might still be able to play those back somehow. Actually not, no KSM. Wrong notes to another file.

[Phredreeke]

oasiz, on 09 March 2020 - 07:33 AM, said:

I found out that Lameduke has a suicide function that if you mess with FILE_ID.DIZ, the game.exe will erase itself when it fails integrity checks.
This file can't also be edited, unless you open GAME.EXE and find the text content embedded in the executable and modify it there also.

Didn't Blake Stone also do this?

[MrFlibble]

Phredreeke, on 09 March 2020 - 07:38 AM, said:

Didn't Blake Stone also do this?

I also remember reading about this type of copy protection, maybe even for other Apogee games. The FILE_ID.DIZ of the registered version would say something like "This is the registered version, do not distribute, and notify sysop if found on a public FTP", and the game would not run if the text was altered or removed altogether. Actually a good way of preserving integrity of distributions and discouraging tampering, even if the game is not commercial.

[necroslut]

MrFlibble, on 13 March 2020 - 02:17 AM, said:

I also remember reading about this type of copy protection, maybe even for other Apogee games. The FILE_ID.DIZ of the registered version would say something like "This is the registered version, do not distribute, and notify sysop if found on a public FTP", and the game would not run if the text was altered or removed altogether. Actually a good way of preserving integrity of distributions and discouraging tampering, even if the game is not commercial.

I'm quite sure Duke II did this. Interceptor broke the Steam version with one of their updates by "accidentally" removing the file_id.diz.

[oasiz]

Decided to do a video that kind of shows the build engine looking up/down in a nutshell for those who are curious.

[nukemania]

Listen from 1:50 here on Mark Knight's Chaingun in My Hands (Total Meltdown E3M1, E4M7):



On a Japan PS1 demo disc, from 2:23:



Is it just a shared sound sample, or?

[Darkus]

Another movie reference? I would say yes:

[Fox]

IMHO a bit too generic, probably something made up

[Phredreeke]

In Warp Factor there's a bunch of porn mags in the really ready room. One is unique in that it has the palette set to 22 (not used elsewhere AFAIK) but the sector's palette overrides it.

In Life's a Beach's The Wavemistress there's a liztroop with the palette set to 10, but the sprite used by the expansion makes it hard to tell.

[Fox]

Odd palettes are quite common. The strangest one is the respawning Newbeasts with pal 14 at the end of Area 51.

[necroslut]

Fox, on 18 April 2020 - 04:02 PM, said:

IMHO a bit too generic, probably something made up

Especially as the poster exists in LameDuke already but with different (alien) text. Still, Fright Night was hardly an obscure movie at the time, so who knows.

[Darkus]

After seeing the threads 'running EDuke in 320x200' and 'how things have changed' I got the idea to see the differences between DOS and EDuke using 320x200; I taken screenshots of the start from E1L1 with DOS 1.3D, Atomic Edition and the recent EDuke32 and made an animated gif.

The only difference between 1.3D and 1.5 is just the slope texture being shifted to some pixels (I verified both map versions). In EDuke32, the slopes are being more 'wavy' than original version. There's more, see:

[Radar]

Does anyone know why the viewing angle in EDuke32 is slightly shifted compared to DOS?

[necroslut]

 Darkus, on 05 May 2020 - 12:23 PM, said:

The only difference between 1.3D and 1.5 is just the slope texture being shifted to some pixels (I verified both map versions). In EDuke32, the slopes are being more 'wavy' than original version. There's more, see:

Interesting I had actually just recently noted that slope textures looked "wobbly" – especially noticeable when crouchwalking – but I assumed it had always looked like that and I just hadn't picked up on it.

[mxrtxn]

Someone mentioned a japanese trailer of Duke, here´s what I found in youtube:

[NNC]

 Darkus, on 18 April 2020 - 12:24 PM, said:

Another movie reference? I would say yes:

Was this sprite originally intended to be used in E1L1?

[necroslut]

 The Watchtower, on 27 May 2020 - 12:52 AM, said:

Was this sprite originally intended to be used in E1L1?

It was found on the cinema in LameDuke, before it was turned into E1L1. Though at that time it didn't say "Byte Nyte" but had some japanese-looking (or possibly alien) text on it.

[Fox]

 necroslut, on 27 May 2020 - 06:21 AM, said:

It was found on the cinema in LameDuke, before it was turned into E1L1. Though at that time it didn't say "Byte Nyte" but had some japanese-looking (or possibly alien) text on it.

That's not Japanese

Unless it's "Ѵι·πУ", then it's probably a made-up language

[necroslut]

 necroslut, on 27 May 2020 - 06:21 AM, said:

japanese-looking

 Fox, on 27 May 2020 - 10:21 AM, said:

That's not Japanese

It's obviously not actual japanese, but I assume it's meant to look vaguely asian, considering an alien movie poster in a regular theatre makes little sense.

[Doom64hunter]

So here's something odd I never noticed before today: Pigcops are completely unable to open doors, as they never call the `operate` command.

Furthermore, sentry drones can open doors, but it's placed in an `ifrnd 1` block so they effectively never do it. The same applies to newbeast actors.

[Fox]

If they are running ifrnd 1 constantly, that would return true every 4 seconds or so.

[Doom64hunter]

 Fox, on 05 June 2020 - 03:12 PM, said:

If they are running ifrnd 1 constantly, that would return true every 4 seconds or so.

Actually true, I was expecting it to be more rare since they tend to back away from the player, but it does occur.

[dnskill]

I don't think I've seen this before:

Spoiler

[Sanek]

Haha, check this Duke Nukem down here:



Do you know where it comes from?

[MrFlibble]

No, but you're going to tell us, right?

And since you mentioned this game, whatever it is, there's also this.

[Sanek]

 MrFlibble, on 27 September 2020 - 12:07 PM, said:

No, but you're going to tell us, right?

Right...I just wanted to play and see if you know.


If you really want to know it right now, it's a 1994 game called "Chaos" by "Idee Software".


As for the game you mentioned... goodness gracious

[MetHy]

Anyone has more Build engine and Build engine related (console ports etc) ads?

Here is what I got

Spoiler