Castle Paradox

sotrain515 · Joined: 17 May 2010 Posts: 39 Location: Connecticut

Okay, hope this hasn't already been answered.. I saw a bunch of music looping topics but they all seemed to be MIDI-related.

My question is specifically about the "chiptune" formats that OHRRPGCE can play (e.g. XM and MOD). It's been a while since I've looked at my custom.exe so I decided to get the latest (July 31, 2012 Alectormancy+2). What I noticed was that the chiptune music that I had imported no longer loops correctly. What I mean is, the songs loop from their intros every time, rather than from the point right after the intro (the FAQ uses victory fanfare which is a good example).

I thought I might have been remembering wrong, so I loaded up the older installer I still had saved (from Jan 24, 2010 Ypsiliform+1). The chiptune looping in this version works fine...

Is this a known bug? Is there something I need to do on my end to get it working?

Bob the Hamster · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 6:17 am Post subject:

I was not aware of this bug, thank you for mentioning it!

I think we updated to a newer version of SDL_mixer.dll in that time, so my guess is that the looping bug might be there.

TMC · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 6:27 am Post subject:

Wow!

I know immediately what's going on. The Windows build of Ypsiliform shipped with SDL_mixer.dll version 1.2.8, while Zenzizenzic switched to SDL_mixer 1.2.12 for some bugfixes. In between, SDL_mixer switched to a different default tracker playing library (from modplug to libmikmod?)

You might be able to take the SDL_mixer.dll file from a Ypsiliform or older release and use it with Zenzizenzic or newer. But I will attempt to fix this properly by recompiling SDL_mixer.dll however needed to get the loop points working.

Could you provide an example of a tracker file with a loop point?
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sotrain515 · Joined: 17 May 2010 Posts: 39 Location: Connecticut

I sure can, though not from my work computer (where I am currently). As soon as I get home tonight I will get you a few. I have MOD, XM and IT examples, would you like one of each?

And I'm assuming email would be the best way to get these to you?

e: Files have been sent.

TMC · Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 11:21 pm Post subject:

Thanks, got them.

Hmm, the loop points don't work with the copy of SDL_mixer 1.2.8 provided with Ubuntu 10.04. I also notice another bug: after the loop, the volume increases!
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sotrain515 · Joined: 17 May 2010 Posts: 39 Location: Connecticut

Hey, just checking in. Any news?

TMC · Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2012 8:37 am Post subject:

OK, I admit it, I was too busy to look into it immediately, and then forgot. Thanks for reminding me. I've started looking into it. I hope to have a solution soon.
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TMC · Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2012 12:05 pm Post subject:

By "soon" I actually meant "tomorrow I hope", but bear with me; my Windows (or msys?) install seems to be screwed up making any kind of programming or compiling extremely frustrating and time consuming.
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sotrain515 · Joined: 17 May 2010 Posts: 39 Location: Connecticut

Oh, no rush. Thanks again for looking into it.

TMC · Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2012 1:59 pm Post subject:

OK, it's fixed. It turned out that SDL_mixer purposefully disabled loop points so that it can control the number of loops if desired (which we don't use). You can download a 'nightly' build to get the fix. You can copy SDL_mixer.dll from a nightly build and use it to replace SDL_mixer.dll from the Alectormancy release if you don't want to use a nightly build.

What I found is that module looping works correctly in the music_native and music_native2 backends. In music_sdl, it used to work back in 2006 (when we included SDL_mixer version 1.2.6) and stopped working in 2007 (when we switched to SDL_mixer 1.2.8). So you must have been using a music_native[2] build previously.
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sotrain515 · Joined: 17 May 2010 Posts: 39 Location: Connecticut

Awesome, that worked like a charm. Thanks once again!

sotrain515 · Joined: 17 May 2010 Posts: 39 Location: Connecticut

Okay, another possible tracker format bug. This one might be just me not understanding the nuances of tracker song manipulation but here goes anyway:

I have a song file that I downloaded which did not initially loop, though it was sequenced in a way that looping would be possible. So, I opened the song in MilkyTracker and added a loop-back "command" to the last unique pattern, deleted the patterns after that and then saved the file.

The song sounds perfect in MilkyTracker itself but when I listen to it in the OHRRPGCE, it gets quieter after the loop-point. It does not get progressively quieter after each loop, just after the first one. I remembered that you (TMC) had said something about how the tracks got louder after a loop, so I though this might be a related problem.

I have the song file (it's an xm) if you would like to look into this. Again, it could very much just be me not understanding something.

TMC · Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:52 pm Post subject:

Sure, send it over. I think it's probably that it's due to a bug in the version of libmikmod linked into SDL_mixer, or an incompatibility between different .xm editors/players.

I just tried the three files you sent me previously with SDL_mixer 1.2.11 on Slackware, and didn't notice any volume change, so there's that. Unfortunately I've completely forgotten which libraries and library versions are used on each platform, so I don't know what's gonig on.
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sotrain515 · Joined: 17 May 2010 Posts: 39 Location: Connecticut

Sent to your email.

Yes, I haven't ever heard it before in any other music files, maybe it's a problem with MilkyTracker's output.

Thanks again.

TMC · Posted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 8:36 pm Post subject:

Strange, at first I didn't hear any change in volume, but after 3 or 4 loops it got quieter on the loop. Actually it sort of seems like actually it failed to get louder after the end of the quiet beginning segment. Does it always seem to go quieter for you the first time?

I would say that this random behaviour indicates a bug in mikmod.

edit: This looks like a likely cause and fix:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=3596776&group_id=40531&atid=428227

I have no idea what version of mikmod the copy of SDL_mixer.dll that I built is linked to. I don't know where I got the libmikmod.a file that I linked to. I didn't notice the volume problem when using the previous version of SDL_mixer.dll that we used, though I had thought that I had linked to the same libraries.

edit2: Yes, with the previous SDLmixer.dll the volume doesn't drop even after a long time on loop.

I'm going to put off fixing this until later, though.
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