To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
From: lizard AT forum DOT ncdl DOT com (Lizard)
Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 04:54:15 -0700
Organization: The Forum BBS (970) 229-9750
Subject: Re: allegro and mikmod
Message-ID: <43f.273.299@forum.ncdl.com>

 -=> Quoting Peter Johnson to Stephen Edie <=-

 PJ> i have a 486dx2/66 and mikmod 2.10 has what many have referred to as
 PJ> the Future Crew "slowdown" bug.  It appears as though the timer
 PJ> routine is reentrant when its not supposed to be.  Changing mikmod to
 PJ> use 8-bit mixing fixes this problem, but i would prefer to have 16-bit
 PJ> mixing.  Symptoms include "echos" and skipping when playing any truly
 PJ> complex s3m file.  Perhaps this problem can be fixed in the next
 PJ> version.  I could never get 2.09beta to run on my machine, but 2.10
 PJ> runs great except for that bug.

Strange thing.. The 'Future Crew' bug I heard about had to do with the fact
that their mega-demo titled "Second Reality" would crash on any systems with
more than 8 MB of RAM. Although it seems that that isn't true. I've never
heard of an S3M playing bug and I don't understand why it would be called
the 'Future Crew' bug since FC never made an 16-bit mixing routines. One
thing to consider is the mixing speed. The C mikmod routines, although
optimized with -O3 or whatever still will be very slow compared to the ASM
mikmod routines. In fact, mikmak himself told me that he didn't optimize his
C routines. I myself have seen demos that use 16-bit mixing and don't slow
down at any point or place. I don't see any reason why such a thing would
happen. I have programmed my own S3M player and it is in DJGPP code although
the routines aren't stable enough to be distributed. I am completly rewriting
the routines to support more formats including .IT which mikmod currentely
( to my knowledge ) doesn't support. Besides this, the routines will be
fully compatible with DJGPP ( and other compilers ) and will have hopefully
the highest quality and most optimized mixing routines of any MOdplayer or
library out there. When I finish this project, you DJGPPers will know.. :)
I am debating whether to include the source code or not. We shall see as the
project matures. 

 - Lizard of CAPRICE


~~~ Blue Wave/RA v2.12 [NR]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Internet: lizard AT forum DOT ncdl DOT com (Lizard)
The views stated are those of the sender and may be those The Forum BBS
This message was processed by NetXpress from Merlin Systems Inc.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------