Crash with no sound

[Cas]

Hey, guys. I remember since a long time ago, that sometimes, you would crash and no sound would occur. For some reason, I had associated this with the Jaguar, but now I've been trying it and it does make a sound when crashing, so I don't know if this was fixed or if there's a relation. What do you guys know about this?

[KyLiE]

I know there are quite a few bugs in relation to sound that occur when running the game in DOSBox.  Sometimes when starting a race, there will be no sound at all.  I don't recall anything specific to crashing though, although that's not to say it hasn't happened before at some stage, but definitely not regularly.

[Daniel3D]

I'm not familiar with the bug either. I remember that I always booted my computer into DOS and started 'win' if needed. I didn't use dosbox for Stunts until way into this millennium.
The only sound problem I had late 90s was an unsupported sound card so I had pc speaker sound..
Problems I have now are mostly emulator or mod based.

[Cas]

So strange. I was so convinced that it was a thing and now, of course, I can't replicated it.

In my case, in the 90s, I only used DOS. While other people had gotten used to Windows 3.1 to the point that they didn't know what to do if they ever typed "win" and it didn't come up, I didn't have Windows at all in my computer, so I would run Stunts 1.0, the one I had, in pure MS-DOS 6.22. Starting year 2000 or maybe late 1999, I got connected to the Internet, so I created a small partition for Windows 95, which I used exclusively to go online. At that time, one wouldn't be connected all the time, but just dial up when needed, so still, most of the time on the computer, I was in pure DOS and only when I wanted to do something online, I would reboot with Windows 95, so still, I was running Stunts in DOS. In 2005, I got to WSC, and then I met Stunts 1.1. I started trying my first GNU/Linux distros. One or two years later, I managed to go online with Ubuntu and get used to it, so I stopped installing Windows 95/98 and gradually migrated my things from DOS to Ubuntu, but DOSBox, when it came up, wasn't as stable and I didn't know how to configure it, so I'd still boot up pure DOS (FreeDOS at that time) to run Stunts. One day I mentioned here that I found DOSBox too slow for Stunts and Duplode pointed out I probably wasn't setting up the cycles correctly. That must have been in 2015!  Only then, I began using DOSBox to race. And after all that, for some reason, I was convinced of the existence of this bug!

[Daniel3D]

Funny how similar our path was. Around 2001 I was at a OS junction. I ran DOS and win98 at home and played with Redhead Linux and Suse Linux.
Worked with winXP, Unix and Macintosh at school.

Couldn't get the hang of Linux though. And the software I wanted to use was either Unix or Windows. So I upgraded to NT4 and later XP and bought an old 386 for fun (mainly Stunts  )
On 5 screen beast for animation and 3D modelling and a nice little 386 witch got way more attention...

So Linux was there, briefly, but had little to offer at the time.
Started using dosbox when I broke the 386...
(Something with removing the CPU but forgetting to turn off the computer I believe...)

[Duplode]

I do recognise this bug, Cas -- it's been an annoyance for many years here. A few notes on what I know about it:

• Besides the crash sounds, wall contact and skid sound effects also go missing. If you are being affected by the bug, you'll only hear the engine sound while driving or watching a replay.
• In my experience, the bug tends to be triggered after loading a few replays from the pause menu, or after leaving the game paused for some time. It doesn't seem to depend on the car, though I never looked at it from that angle.
• If you are driving with RH or watching replays, going to the main menu and reloading often makes the sound effects come back, at least until they go away again.
• The only mitigation advice I have is pausing DOSBox (Alt + Pause, and/or turning on autopause via the priority setting of dosbox.conf) if you are going to leave the game paused for a while, which can help a bit with one of the triggers.
• I believe it happens with all sound drivers. For instance, I have just reproduced it with MT-32 by loading replays through the pause menu.
• Your timeline ("I remember [the bug] since a long time ago" + "[The switch to DOSBox for racing] must have been in 2015!") suggests it might happen not only on DOSBox but also on true DOS. I wouldn't find that surprising, given how the missing non-asphalt skid sounds bug of the Sound Blaster driver also happens under FreeDOS + QEMU.
• Though most of my racing is with DOSBox + Linux, I'm pretty much sure it also happens under DOSBox + Windows. (Full disclosure: even though I have done several RH racing sessions on DOSBox + Windows as recently as last month, I'm so used to that bug by now that it hardly registered whether it kept happening )

[KyLiE]

After reading Duplode's notes, I realised that I have experienced this bug after loading a few replays as well.  However, as Duplode mentioned, it is not restricted to crashing.  Since I'm a Windows user, I can confirm that it occurs with the Windows version of DOSBox as well.

When I first started playing Stunts in 1996, I ran it natively in MS-DOS, however I only had the PC speaker for sound.  I don't recall this bug occurring, but it was a long time ago, so it's possible that it did.

[Cas]

Now I'm thinking that there's another thing I've noticed many times and it might be related: sometimes I'm at the menu and there's silence for a moment. Then, one of the music tracks begins but only one of the channels can be heard, that is, no bass or drums. I continues like this until I select "Drive" and at that point, for a couple of seconds before the race starts, the background channel kicks in briefly. Also, sometimes, if I've been watching a replay or doing RH, I have sound there, but then I try to Continue Driving or Restart Driving and I get no sound at all (except perhaps some very low noise). This gets resolved if I go back to the main menu and drive from there.

Anyway, I asked this initially because I was under the impression that it was related to one or more cars and that maybe some parameters in the RES file could be changed that could fix this. Now it looks like it's not that way 

[Daniel3D]

I also don't think it is car related. However I did notice that when I drive the McLaren Honda and my opponent as well the game crashes about 50% it the time. Yesterday I was driving while looking through the opponents cam (for overtaking) but I messed up and hit ESC. And the game crashed.

[KyLiE]

Cas, I've experienced those bugs with the music and no sound many times as well and in my experience, it is not specific to a single car or set of cars.

[Duplode]

Now I'm thinking that there's another thing I've noticed many times and it might be related: sometimes I'm at the menu and there's silence for a moment. Then, one of the music tracks begins but only one of the channels can be heard, that is, no bass or drums. I continues like this until I select "Drive" and at that point, for a couple of seconds before the race starts, the background channel kicks in briefly. Also, sometimes, if I've been watching a replay or doing RH, I have sound there, but then I try to Continue Driving or Restart Driving and I get no sound at all (except perhaps some very low noise). This gets resolved if I go back to the main menu and drive from there.

This also happens every now and then here. By the way, something that happened a couple times since going back to DOSBox + Linux + MT-32 emulation this week was the engine sound (and also the music) getting a weird reverb effect, and the driving sounds fading out entirely after several seconds. It looks rather like the bug you have just described, though I don't remember noticing it with MT-32 before.

However I did notice that when I drive the McLaren Honda and my opponent as well the game crashes about 50% it the time. Yesterday I was driving while looking through the opponents cam (for overtaking) but I messed up and hit ESC. And the game crashed.

That's a new one for me. I couldn't reproduce it on a quick attempt, but I'll try to keep an eye for it.

[Cas]

The bug Daniel3D describes, I have not experienced or not that I remember. Are you sure, Daniel, that you have the exact same copy as we do?  I remember my old Stunts 1.0 copy was sometimes unstable and I had learnt which options to avoid (such as loading a replay from the Options menu; I had to use ESC while driving instead), but 1.1 works perfectly fine to me.

All in all, it looks like most sound/music  issues are correlated

[Daniel3D]

The bug Daniel3D describes, I have not experienced or not that I remember. Are you sure, Daniel, that you have the exact same copy as we do?

4D sports. V 1.1 December 13 1990. With restunts_ad exe.
And on dosbox on Android mobile.

I can/will cross reference with other emulators, Operating systems and Stunts versions.
(I have I believe 10 different combinations... )

[Cas]

Ah, I have the Brøderbund 1.1 version. I use Neverlock (stunts_k.exe) for the crack.

[Daniel3D]

Ah, I have the Brøderbund 1.1 version. I use Neverlock (stunts_k.exe) for the crack.

The neverlock is a crack and it has always bothered me. (Never had one without)
Mainly because it's an extra load screen at startup and an extra keystroke before you can race.

Restunts removes both and I like that. I also have the feeling the game runs better. But that's just biased because I want it to be I guess..