Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Discuss Drakan: Order of the Flame with fellow players and post any technical problems here where an 'unofficial' support team will try and help you. Gameplay help questions can go here too.
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Ginko
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by Ginko »

UCyborg wrote:Good thing people take their time to develop working solutions.
Indeed! :D
But sadly, all games don't have a fan base as dedicated as Drakan's so it's difficult (or even impossible) to play them nowadays.
But I'll give dgVoodoo2 a try on some of my old games, it looks like it might help with running them too.
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Ginko
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by Ginko »

Hmm, I just realized that Drakan is quite choppy when I play fullscreen using dgVoodoo2. It's visible when Rynn runs, there is some stuttering and it's quite annoying. :?
I tried fiddling with dgVoodoo2's options but couldn't solve this problem.

In the end, I stopped using dgVoodoo2 and used the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit to apply a fix and launch Drakan in fullscreen. It runs much better (almost no stuttering).
I'm not sure if there are any hidden disadvantages using this method over dgVoodoo2? But for now, I'll go with it.
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by UCyborg »

It probably depends on graphics drivers. My old Radeon 4890 ran the game faster without dgVoodoo than my current GeForce GTX 750 Ti does without it. Never tried dgVoodoo with that Radeon though. dgVoodoo just translates calls to old DirectX commands to something more modern (DirectX 11). I don't think there are any major disadvantages if you're using Microsoft's fix if that's what works best for your hardware.
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by UCyborg »

Hm, I've also noticed that game is a bit more stuttery with dgVoodoo. Didn't test much the first time around. It also seems to make the mouse less responsive. Only framerate numbers are higher.

PS: I've been working on extension for my AiO Patch which among other things makes the game run okay out of the box without the need to manually apply compatibility hacks on Windows 8+. It only takes throwing .dll file into the game folder. I'll upload it later today.
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Brandon

Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by Brandon »

*bump!*
Hello!
I know this thread is a bit old, but meh! I installed the ALchemy program and I have to restriction remover. I am using onboard audio and I wanted to try this out. When I run the patch in the directory, I get the message "Can not access the file." I honestly don't know what to do as I have full administrative access and it is not open. If only things worked... :lol:

Brandon

UCyborg
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by UCyborg »

You have to put the patch program in the directory where ALchemy is installed and run it from there.
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by UCyborg »

I've recently tried to play The Suffering (one of the last Surreal Software's games) and noticed that audio doesn't exactly sound right, even with ALchemy (no EAX effects).

So I've learned that by default, ALchemy relies on Creative specific OpenAL implementation. that gives users of Creative sound cards hardware accelerated audio. Users of onboard audio have 2 solutions, patching ALchemy so that it falls back to its in-built so called Creative Software 3D Library, which is the solution I proposed initially, and realized now it's rather crappy, or install Creative's Host OpenAL implementation and trick ALchemy to use that, which works and sounds better than this Software 3D Library thingy. Host OpenAL processes all sound in software, so it works with any sound card.

Remember that weird volume problem I mentioned at that time? Well, sound volume is definitely improved with HOAL, plus there is no sound artifacts in the first cutscene. Might be just better 3D positioning. And The Suffering definitely sounds as it should with it. It seems that HOAL is crucial to have along with ALchemy if you have integrated audio. Here's the thread on VOGONS discussing EAX stuff.

I've packaged everything needed along with instructions in a single ZIP (link in OP), so you don't have to search for and extract random stuff from Creative's installers. It's 2 min work if all goes smoothly.

PS: about that volume problem, the fist time it really was just a matter of different volume levels, and that improvement was likely a placebo effect, but with HOAL, it's really better. I think I overreacted when I said it was much better at that time, especially compared to now. Who knows, might be my brain playing tricks on me, but I'm 200% positive about sound artifacts in the fist cutscene, which are gone since I installed HOAL.

Late edit: Welp, apparently The Suffering doesn't have EAX implemented in the first place. I found that out by monitoring the calls to DirectSound. ALchemy is just weird and can makes some games unconditionally echoey.
Last edited by UCyborg on Sat Jul 27, 2019 9:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Demo85
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by Demo85 »

Does anyone have the EAX files from the OP saved? The link is down. I'm on Win10 and everything is working great but i'd love to get EAX working since I had it going back when I I played Draken when it was newish.

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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by Arokhs Twin »

I don't have the download anymore but Alchemy is available from Creative's website https://support.creative.com/downloads/ ... 70&nPage=1

OpenAl can be found here https://www.openal.org/downloads/
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Demo85
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by Demo85 »

Arokhs Twin wrote: Tue May 21, 2019 12:41 pm I don't have the download anymore but Alchemy is available from Creative's website https://support.creative.com/downloads/ ... 70&nPage=1

OpenAl can be found here https://www.openal.org/downloads/
Thanks for the reply but i'm getting the "the audio device required by this application is not detected" whenever I try and launch the application. In the OP it talks about the info for the work around being in that zip file that was posted that is now a dead link. Do you happen to know the work around?

Edit "For users of onboard audio, process is a bit more involved. Basically, you have to install HOAL (Host OpenAL), rename 2 files in system directories, run a license generator, then finally install ALchemy and add Drakan to its game list." thats the part i'm looking for, the info on the key gen and what files to rename

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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by Arokhs Twin »

I've looked into it, if you have a creative labs sound card Alchemy will work fine however for other sound chips including onboard audio there has to be a 'hack' done to make it work. I've downloaded that file which is now a dead link in the past but I'm unable to find it. I must have deleted it. The only thing I can suggest is PM UCyborg but he may not reply for a while. If I come across the file in the meantime I'll update here.
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Demo85
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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by Demo85 »

Arokhs Twin wrote: Wed May 22, 2019 7:42 pm I've looked into it, if you have a creative labs sound card Alchemy will work fine however for other sound chips including onboard audio there has to be a 'hack' done to make it work. I've downloaded that file which is now a dead link in the past but I'm unable to find it. I must have deleted it. The only thing I can suggest is PM UCyborg but he may not reply for a while. If I come across the file in the meantime I'll update here.
Thanks, I may just go out and get a sound card to make it work even if i'm happy with my onboard audio. See if/when cyborg gets back to me. Outside of Drakan a lot of other older games also support EAX and i'd like to replay them as I remember. Might make a post over at vogons about it.

By the time I got this figured out i'll have already beaten the game, I keep playing for an hour here or there and get lost in how good the game is. Brings back memories of the Surreal News forums and people posting maps and mods and what not.

Good times

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Re: Improving Drakan performance, compatibility and audio

Post by UCyborg »

The download was removed because I don't want trouble. If Creative's usage terms say ALchemy can only be used with their products then so be it. You can try DSOAL instead.

Someone made a comparison video showcasing F.E.A.R. with both ALchemy and DSOAL.
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