Dusk Win32 by Suburban
Dusk Win32 v1.0.4 - (c) Suburban Creations 1999
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< description & credits >
This is the fourth Win32 version of our intro "Dusk", which
was first presented at the Mekka&Symposium 1999 demoparty.
It uses OpenPTC v1.0.18 and MIDAS Digital SoundSystem v1.1.2.
It was designed, programmed and ported to Windows
by Eberhard O. Grummt aka Crossbone.
The setup dialogbox was programmed by Peter Hermsdorf aka Prace.
Peter Osterballe-Christensen aka Pete E wrote the soundtrack.
Dusk is our first release for the Win32 platform.
Please report any bugs you find, including bad timing of the
effects and the music to Crossbone.
< tech >
You need Windows or Windows NT, versions 4.0 or greater.
A Pentium 233 or better with at least 64MB RAM and
a fast videocard supporting 320x240 truecolor modes
are highly recommended.
If you enable "save debug file" in the setup dialog, the
intro will write a file ptc.log to its folder. It contains
debug information from the video system.
< contact >
Crossbone : crossbone_sc@gmx.net (crossbone@suburban.jena.thur.de)
Suburban homepage : http://members.tripod.com/suburban_creations
Dialogos 99 homepage : http://www.dialogos.cc
< info >
Dusk was ported to Win32 to allow a wider range of people to
watch the intro.
OpenPTC and MIDAS should work on almost any modern hardware,
providing you the best possible graphics and sound output
under Windows.
Be aware that the DOS version (which you can get from our homepage)
is faster, and if you have a videocard with good VBE2.0 support,
you might be able to enjoy the intro in truecolor even if OpenPTC
is unable to set such a mode under Windows
(this is the case on my computer, for example).
In addition, the syncronisation of effects and music is much better
in the DOS version.
So people who say that using Windows solves all video and sound
problems are just painfully wrong.
Some people flame coders for their VBE2.0 code in DOS demos/intros.
These people buy popular videocards which might be good for some
games, but then they expect the productions by demosceners to run on it!
If they don't run, they say the coders are "lame".
If you want to watch demos which are using the standard called VBE 2.0+,
you better buy a card which supports this standard well enough.
Also software tools can help a lot, even on cards with no VBE 2.0 bios.
I don't want to promote using DOS and VBE, but I don't want to promote
using Windows and DirectX either. Both pairs have advantages and
disadvantages, this is the main point. Maybe Windows is the better choice
for the future.
It's just very funny when people complain that some older demos don't
run on hardware it wasn't designed to run on.
Those people with their ultrahighspeed 3d accelerator card are probably
no demosceners, so coders of VBE 2.0 demos shouldn't care if those
helpless individuals are crying that some cool demo doesn't run on
their pentium3 gamestation.
< problems >
solving video problems:
if the graphical output looks distorted, you get strange colors or the
fullscreen version doesn't run fullscreen, you can try these things
to fix the problem:
* install the latest drivers for your videocard.
you can get them from the homepage of the respective manufacturer
of the card.
* install the latest version of DirectX.
you can get it from www.microsoft.com or from magazine-CDs.
* check Suburban Creations's website for a newer version of the intro.
by any means, please write Crossbone a short email describing
the problem and if possible the way you fixed it.
solving sound problems:
if something is wrong with the sound replay, like interrupted or
distorted output, you can try these things to fix the problem:
* select a lower sound quality in the MIDAS configuration dialog
* try other parameters in the MIDAS configuration dialog
* reboot your machine
* install the latest drivers for your soundcard
lower the lengths of the Buffers to increase the syncronisation
accuracy![ back to the prod ]