DOS ain't dead

I accidentaly found a very new DOS game looking a little bit like Tomb Raider.
Look at the Post Apocalyotic Petra.
https://bad-sector.itch.io/post-apocalyptic-petra

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DOS-u-akbar!

> I accidentaly found a very new DOS game looking a little bit like Tomb
> Raider.
> Look at the Post Apocalyotic Petra.
> https://bad-sector.itch.io/post-apocalyptic-petra

Here is the lazarus/FPC forum thread:

https://forum.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,49786.msg361963.html#msg361963

Please, try whether the sound works for you.
I have two DOS machines.
The older has real SB16 card in ISA slot and the sound is OK.
The newer has SB-Live! and I have problems there. Neither in DOS with SB emulation drivers neither in Win98 DOS prompt I can not hear any sound.


This problem is deeper that it seems to be.
In whole my life I have never found any Freepascal source code which reliably works with DOS soundcards.
Especially problematic are the PCI soundcards relying on the SB emulation.
In the past I made some i_n_v_e_s_t_i_g_a_t_i_o_n_s (WHY THE HELL THE FORUM HATES THIS WORD?) about it and it seems that here exist some problem with DMA transfers which occurs in the FPC programs.
The only reliably working solution are the sound libraries which have the sound card interfacing code in real mode. (like Miles sound system).
But when the handling is done in protected mode than it ususaly does not work under SB legacy emulation neither even under ISA hardware.
Whole this thing with FPC sound is strange because it uses the same 32-environment like DJGPP and all DJGPP/Allegro based programs work normaly on my systems...

In case of interrest I can upload a set of DOS-FPC audio programs for testing but for now please try the PA Petra.

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DOS-u-akbar!

> In the past I made some i_n_v_e_s_t_i_g_a_t_i_o_n_s (WHY THE HELL THE FORUM
> HATES THIS WORD?) about it and it seems that here exist some problem with
> DMA transfers which occurs in the FPC programs.

The forum had "invest" on the list of banned phrases. I lifted that for now, it really shouldn't block the word "investigation".

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l

I had no sounds in DOSBox. But running the Win32 version with HX was OK for that. On the other hand that solution multiplies the screen somehow, LOL

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DOS isn't about why. It's about why not.

> I accidentaly found a very new DOS game looking a little bit like Tomb
> Raider.
> Look at the Post Apocalyotic Petra.
> https://bad-sector.itch.io/post-apocalyptic-petra

Hm, the author still supports this game. In the time when I pointed a link was available version F.
However actually is available version N.
Too bad that the programmer does not write any news or changelog file.
The main development is indeed done on the creating of the new ports (GL, D3D,...). Anyway, also a DOS specific code is changing.
Other new interresting feature is the editor.

By the way - I tried to run the SDLPetra.EXE under HX-DOS and it worked! But what is interresting, it works in the 16-bit or 32-bit color depth and the renderer is trying to emulate 3D hardware!
So the graphic is antialiassed and textures are filtered but it is EXTREMELY slow. But I was trying it on the P3-400MHz.
Maybe on some modern beast it could be better...

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DOS-u-akbar!

Sparcie on YouTube did a review of it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo7VlrYiTeE

> Sparcie on YouTube did a review of it.
>
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo7VlrYiTeE

Jim Hall reviewed it too.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JGxn0Bl9U4A