how fix SoundBlaster emulation?

[Joaquim]

ok... Windows XP is a great Windows endeed... and much more stable, speaking on older OS for modern hardware...
the only problem is that i see on these Windows is: why the SoundBlaster emulation, on CMD\MS-DOS, is so lag???
these lag can happen, too, on VDMSound\SoundFX... on DOSBox fix it... and, even MS-DOS(on Windows and i tested) have the same lag.
do i need config the config.nt or autoexec.nt??? the problem is because we use less memory on CMD?
i need understand it and try fix it?

[user57]

you might have an example where and how exactly it starts to lag

from what i know the ms-dos mode is not a real ms-dos mode anymore

for xp it is a "emulated dos" some old ms-dos stuff do not work there anymore

i criticized that trend also in win98 - in win95 when you returned to dos-mode useally worked ...
in 98 it was bugged already you had to boot up in dos mode first

windows 98 and his last release (windows me) still had 16 bit parts inside 

that gone away while windows me had its turn (and to my opinion was a bit more bugged then win98 SE)
they made their first 32 bit only aka nt 3.1 4.0 and 5.0 (what later was called windows 2000)

is it a ms-dos game ? its been really long when i programmed a dos sound device (midi and wave for example)

so its hard to say where the problem is if we dont know the cpu and the ms-dos app

sure i think also xp still has open possibilities regard backwards compatibility to ms-dos
as i think xp has found a nice compromise to still support backwards, somewhere in the xp area and future compatibility

[modnar]

If it is lagging even with VDMSound, just run your programs/games through DOSBox. It's newer - with more functions than VDMSound. I never experienced lag with DOSBox.

[user57]

well from a programming perspectiv it is most likely the buffer

it also can be the cpu what ticks cant read it out smoothly 
so knowing if this happens on a faster cpu/ram is also a little piece from consideration

a good way would be to know 
1: the game (i suspect its a game)
2: the source code of the emulator
3: a open source game if it has the same problem 
having those give you insight in the input (such as your open source game) 
and where it lands (the emulator)

1 way was already said, just using a different emulator 

one programming way would be instead of just playing that sound
instead is loading the sounds into a memory location, memory accesses are a lot faster 
a ssd would also be possible

a to small buffer can also be the case 
a false order (such as a wrong interpretation)

if the source is slow the buffer is slower to be filled (delay)

a very common windows function to play a wavesound would be playwave:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dd743680(v=vs.85)

a codec such as mp3 use compression tricks 
that goes from lossless tricks to "what soundwaves the ear hears better "soundhearing" "
the mp3 does not recontruct the wave as it was to be

for example mp3 boost certain types of wave forms

you might dont hear that so well - but in a wave compare programm you can see that

then there are like longer discussions too for example that 18-24 khz discussion
"can you hear the 20 k tone or not ect." a other one would be the "sample rate"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(signal_processing)

often in a computer its just a small piece of data 
like "make 10 k wave" "make 2 k wave" ect.
at the end a sound is nothing but a wave form 

i think it is certainly possible to find that issue but its work to do all the steps 
you have to search the right code, the right OS, the right compiler, the right debug toolz, the right places of the code, you have to run tests ect.

[j7n]

With WDM drivers (I think even in Windows 98 if you didn't use a VxD driver) you automatically got a "Sound Blaster" emulation without a sound card providing it, or setting anything in autoexec.bat. But in my experience DOS games usually stuttered when played like this. Maybe the sound was continuous, but the input was jagged. I understand that the question about these DOS games. They are usually relatively small in size that disk access and SSD wouldn't make much of a difference. It's more about how the DOS program is stopped to yield to multitasking. The buffer for passing the data to the actual sound card has to be small for interactive games.

DOS games were probably not seen as important enough anymore when XP came out.

DOSBox is always accurate. It has a high overhead as everything is emulated, but the speed will be consistent, and today you can obtain a fast enough computer to run it.

[Joaquim]

thanks to all to all

[user57]

maybe joaquim is a good candidate to reprogramm VDMSound, and the right spot to ask would be that dosbox guys

it only has a few people working on it

https://github.com/volkertb/vdmsound