Dune II Windows Sound/Speech Fix

[MrFlibble]

Those who have ever tried running Dune 2 from Windows are most likely familiar with this problem that digitized sounds and speech will seemingly randomly disappear and reappear as the game gets progressively unstable. Well, it turns out it's not due to a programming bug or faulty drivers, but some speech files for the in-game Mentat announcements are simply corrupt. Whenever such sound file is played, all further sound playback is halted until you go to the Mentat or options screen, but, more importantly, these files screw up memory, ultimately leading to crashed. There are only few of them for the Harkonnens and the Ordos, but a whole lot of frequently used files for the Atreides. Here's the list:

AATRE.VOC
AFREMEN.VOC
AHARK.VOC
AORDOS.VOC
ARADAR.VOC*
HSABOT.VOC
HWARNING.VOC
OFREMEN.VOC
OHARK.VOC
*This is most likely the real cause of the "radar bug" that was supposedly fixed in v1.07

Fortunately, the corrupt files weren't hard to fix, so I repackaged the PAK archives with speech sets for each House. This should remedy any problems with sound hat might arise when running Dune 2 under Windows. DOSBox users aren't likely to notice the difference, as for whatever reason the problem with speech files does not affect game performance at all when run in DOSBox.

Download Dune 2 Speech Fix from Nyerguds' Website

[pichorra]

I never got DuneII running on Windows 98, it tells me i do not have engonth memory. but on MS-DOS sometimes MIDI musics simple stops! then i have to close DuneII and run that agan

[MrFlibble]

I never got DuneII running on Windows 98, it tells me i do not have engonth memory.

I think this might be because XMS is not enabled (you need it for digitized sound effects and speech). Open DUNE2.EXE properties, go to the memory tab and check if XMS is enabled. I think setting it to a fixed amount (4096 Kb should be fine) should help.

Turning on EMS, on the other hand, seems to lead to undesired results.

[ShadowDog]

There was a version of Dune 2 for Windows? Wow, I feel stupid for not knowing that.

[Nyerguds]

No there isn't. But the original DOS Dune II works fine even on (32 bit) XP.

I guess you could say there is one now though, with the OpenDune project nearing completion.

[MrFlibble]

It's just a question of parsing:

[Dune II [Windows [Sound/Speech Fix]]]

(and not [[Dune II Windows] [Sound/Speech Fix]] )

[Nyerguds]

You can avoid that by just changing it to "Sound/Speech Fix for running Dune II in Windows"

[gerwin]

Those who have ever tried running Dune 2 from Windows are most likely familiar with this problem that digitized sounds and speech will seemingly randomly disappear and reappear as the game gets progressively unstable.

I have a retro PC with a Pentium III Processor with Windows 98SE and its DOS Prompt (v7.1).
What I noticed is that in Windows I have to restrict the Processor speed to 333MHz or below, otherwise Dune II will do the intro with subtitles instead of speech. When running it from the pure DOS Prompt this issue not there.

I prefer to run the game from windows 98 instead of pure DOS, as in DOS the game needs so much base memory (under 640k) that I am actually forced to use upper memory blocks.

The above is with Dune 1.07 with your patch.

You can download the fix here.

I am not a member of that forum, so I cannot download it.

[pichorra]

that is not a CD problem from where did you copy the  game?

anyway, Dune2 simple do not run on Windows for me... It says that i have not engonth memory... do not matter on what i change on the memory propieties.

[MrFlibble]

You can download the fix here.

I am not a member of that forum, so I cannot download it.

Oww, I didn't realize we still have those old download permissions that don't let you download attachments unless you're logged in... sorry!

I've attached the archive to the first post here.

anyway, Dune2 simple do not run on Windows for me... It says that i have not engonth memory... do not matter on what i change on the memory propieties.

You should try setting XMS to about 4 megs, but completely disable EMS. It doesn't seem to work with EMS on at all for some reason.

[MrFlibble]

The fix is now downloadable from Nyerguds' site. Thanks Nyerguds! ^_^