Heroes I-IV Edition Guide / Autorun Screen Gallery

[Pol]

Again thanks cuc for this detailed clarification!

The last note about RoE distributions. There are a 3 different versions of RoE:

1. Original HoMM 3: RoE v1.0 US released version (rare).
Heroes3.exe MD5 checksum: 9e6db279a4826e61c2c5969722aad807
2. HoMM 3: RoE *unknown* game version.
Heroes3.exe MD5 checksum: e2d1f7a508e0269fb806a4661372354e
It is a strange CiFE v1.0+ unofficial version. This version cannot be patched without having to replace Heroes3.exe and Data\H3BITMAP.LOD from (1.) version prior to patching.
3. Heroes of Might and Magic Millenium Edition CD3 (compilation). It is an another strange v1.1+ RoE version with different game executable compared to the official v1.1 patched RoE.

But nevertheless all these versions contain the same sets of BIK/SMK videos.

But at least one of them should contain different resources. Fe try to check map backgrounds screens - there should be one unusual.

[serial_thriller]

Not sure if everyone is aware of this, but there's a patch for HoMM I that improves the audio so that it plays back in stereo.

http://www.gog.com/forum/heroes_of_might_and_magic_series/homm_1_stereo_music

It seems to work for me. I'm not certain if it works with a non-GoG release though.

[Bersaglio]

Not sure if everyone is aware of this, but there's a patch for HoMM I that improves the audio so that it plays back in stereo...

It's not a patch but rather pirated copy of sound files (3 sound sets with different quality: 8-bit Mono, 8-bit Stereo, 16-bit Stereo) from original Heroes of Might and Magic CD for DOS released Sept. 1995.

[SpinalBlood]

No im not talking about fan made patch. Im talking about ORIGINAL game files and hidden original game properties. When you install game (for example im installing it from Platinum collection) we can find such dll's in game folder: audiere.dll and SMACKW32.DLL in Homm1 and MSS32.DLL, audiere.dll and SMACKW32.DLL in Homm2. audiere.dll it is library responsible for audio playing. Game developers already include possibility to play High Quality music (flac or wav).

Very interesting; anyway what I'm especially concerned about music is the fact that the tracks always reset themselves on event change. But I noticed that a russian version of the platinum collection (I "obtained" for testing purposes, but I still have other original versions..) can play homm1 with the even the castle themes set without restarting each time; maybe it's still due to audiere.dll? Because in other versions, where audiere.dll is not present, this doesn't happen. Odlly enough, it's not the same for homm2: the castle tracks resets themselves and even the terrain tracks (terrain doesn't reset in other versions of the game)

I'm curious if with some hex editing is possible to avoid this problem, even without audiere.dll, because even in the DOS version of homm1, the "enemy turn" theme doesn't restart like the others. For homm2 (even DOS), terrain themes doesn't restart.

After all, what's the point in listening the same 10 seconds of the themes? It's not only a waste of great music but somewhat even a nuisance.

For now I have found a workaround for this for the windows version of homm2gold, thanks to a program called "h2cdplay", although setting it in a proper way requires some steps (contact me in PM in case someone wants to know)

But knowing a certain way with hex editing in order to directly modify the game .exe of any version (both homm1 and homm2) would be definitely better

[GreatEmerald]

Now I got to messing around with the HoMM1 music too, and here's an interesting discovery: the 16-bit audio tracks for DOS and the Windows CD audio are not of the same quality! The CD audio version is actually quite a bit better, but it's more meant for listening and not playing in the game itself.

To test this, what I did is I opened the 16-bit audio files (.62s) from the DOS CD in Audacity (they're raw PCM, 16-bit, 22050Hz, little endian), saved it in FLAC format, then ripped the same audio files from the Windows CD directly into FLAC and opened both in Audacity.

This is how they look side by size, zoomed out:


Top is Windows CD audio, bottom is 16-bit DOS audio. What's very obvious is that the DOS audio is much louder and seems to be made specifically for looping, as it doesn't fade in and out. Here's an extreme zoom in:



Here the difference is obvious too. The DOS version looks jagged, whereas the CD audio version is smooth. This is thanks to the fact that the CD audio is 44100Hz, while the DOS audio is 22050. Also, if you look closely, you'll see that the audio channels don't actually match perfectly! It's even more obvious when you look at the spectrogram:



Notice how even the positioning of the instruments relative to one another doesn't actually match between the versions! Also, if you zoom out all the way in Audacity:



...the DOS audio doesn't actually zoom out, while the CD audio does. Let's also look at the range maps. The DOS audio:



The CD audio:



Meaning that the DOS audio's range is cut off at 11 KHz, while the CD audio has a full range.

So, in conclusion, CD audio is of much better quality than DOS audio, except when it comes to loopability, as the CD audio has added fade out.

Unfortunately for me, Wine doesn't actually run the Windows version correctly.
...wait a minute, since the DOS files are raw PCM, I wonder if it's possible to reverse the process and make high quality .62s files. Hmmmmm... But would DOS play back 44.1k correctly, or slowed down, I wonder.

Oh, and the question about how to make the tracks in the DOS version continue playing from the middle rather than restart is something I'd like to know the answer to too.

[GreatEmerald]

OK, I tried it, and unfortunately getting the DOS version to read 24-bit audio is a no-go. All I get is noise. And 44.1kHz audio plays on half speed. So unless someone can hack in support for 24-bit, looks like this is a dead end. Oh well, during the game it doesn't matter much anyway, and having the CD tracks in the music collection is the main thing that matters.

Though the CD audio I have unfortunately has popping sounds, likely due to the CD being sightly worn. Does anyone have access to something that doesn't have the same problem? Alternatively, Audacity has no problems fixing the clicks, but it takes a while to hunt them all down.

[SpinalBlood]

Yes, I also tried to convert the dos .62s files with a program called Goldwave, and it seems the terrain tracks have a bit less ambience sound than the cd audio version. Definitelly a different version even without the fade-in/outs but I think ironically the dos tracks are less louder without these ambience sounds so the instruments are clearer, at least with the terrains themes. I would say overall the cd version is more complete, but a little too roaring

I opened the .62 files as pcm - 16 bit stereo signed, 44100; if I remember correctly, it's possible with these settings to have high quality similar to the cd versions and WITHOUT the ingame noise, but you also have to halve the speed (I used a "time warp effect" function set at 0.500); I also noticed the channels were "swapped" compared to the game. About the noise so I think the problem was the game itself, in which even putting 16 bit in the setup, it's still heard

I remember I also have tried to edit and reconvert them to 62s with another program (probably audacity, I forgot the details since it was months ago) and maybe even 8 bit or touching the speed, but I couldn't get it to work, I also got noise only with no music at all

The only normal workaround I found for the dos version was to play with the original files, and about the noise trying to play with the lowest treble possible with the speakers and that helped a lot (though I haven't found such treble/bass setting via software with my current integrated onboard audio...)

About the clicks, while I was testing different homm1 windows versions I obtained for temporary testing (like i said in my prevoius post), I listened to the tracks and they all had different click problems on different tracks like (at least):

08 (around 1.15 sec)
43 (around 48 sec)
44 (around 57 sec)
50 (right at the beginning)
19
28
30
37
40 (this one was literally cut)

I tried to clean them but in some cases I had to manually cut the wavelength

I think there were clicks in the dos files too after opening in the editor with the tracks 06-22-41-48-99; not sure if they are present ingame too

[Bersaglio]

GreatEmerald
SpinalBlood
What can you say about this CD image (PM)?

[GreatEmerald]

I tried to get the Windows version working via VirtualBox and Windows 98SE. Unfortunately, no luck getting the audio working; it seems that it expects the old audio workflow: only sounds are sent to the sound card, and instructions to the ODD, which the game expects to mix both tracks into one. That requires special handling that VirtualBox doesn't seem to offer.

However, DOSBox does have such handling, and it's possible to get Windows 95 et al. running in it, too. So perhaps something can be worked out, although in my quick test I couldn't get Windows 95 drive to boot correctly. Hmm.

Yes, I also tried to convert the dos .62s files with a program called Goldwave, and it seems the terrain tracks have a bit less ambience sound than the cd audio version. Definitelly a different version even without the fade-in/outs but I think ironically the dos tracks are less louder without these ambience sounds so the instruments are clearer, at least with the terrains themes. I would say overall the cd version is more complete, but a little too roaring

This is mostly true for Swamp (5), because it has an entire section at 20k that gets discarded with 16-bit, yea. The CD version is definitely more complete.

I opened the .62 files as pcm - 16 bit stereo signed, 44100; if I remember correctly, it's possible with these settings to have high quality similar to the cd versions and WITHOUT the ingame noise, but you also have to halve the speed (I used a "time warp effect" function set at 0.500); I also noticed the channels were "swapped" compared to the game. About the noise so I think the problem was the game itself, in which even putting 16 bit in the setup, it's still heard

It's not 44100, it's 22050. That's why you had to halve the speed! And yes, the noise is only present in game, not in the files.

About the clicks, while I was testing different homm1 windows versions I obtained for temporary testing (like i said in my prevoius post), I listened to the tracks and they all had different click problems on different tracks like (at least):

08 (around 1.15 sec)
43 (around 48 sec)
44 (around 57 sec)
50 (right at the beginning)
19
28
30
37
40 (this one was literally cut)

I tried to clean them but in some cases I had to manually cut the wavelength

I think there were clicks in the dos files too after opening in the editor with the tracks 06-22-41-48-99; not sure if they are present ingame too

Interesting, mine's not like that at all, only three files were affected and all at the end of the track list. Except Credits (50): the click at the very beginning seems to come from the source, it's there in every version and clearly visible in the waveform view (other clicks were only visible in spectrogram view). So that one seems to be "intentional".

What can you say about this CD image (PM)?

Tested a few tracks, and it looks to be perfect so far. No clicks (even inaudible ones), full 24-bit. I approve.

[GreatEmerald]

All right, I managed to get the Windows version working perfectly on VirtualBox! There are more differences between the DOS and Windows versions than it was listed here, and pretty much all of them are better on the Windows version. Things I noted:

• Sound effects are where the difference in audio quality is felt the most. Makes sense, since they're short and thus having more precision due to 24-bit and 44.1k makes the most difference. The chest sound, for instance, sounds like falling rocks in the DOS version, and like coins in the Windows version.
• There are no audio glitches. The DOS version occasionally glitches out, like not playing the new week sound effect, or the aforementioned issue with static noise. The Windows version audio is smooth as butter.
• The Windows version, when building new buildings in town, uses alpha blending to fade them in. The DOS version merely renders every odd pixel as full and every even as see-though while doing that.
• You can run the Windows version in a window, which allows you to access all the options (save/load, puzzle map, audio volume) from the window menu, and also change the resolution to something higher than the default 640x480 (but it uses nearest neighbour and doesn't offer 1280x960, so it's better to just use VirtualBox's built-in bilinear scaler for that).

So the Windows version is vastly superior. The wrong cursor colour is unfortunate, but the issue pales in comparison to the huge improvement in audio quality and the two other additions.

Interestingly enough, for VirtualBox, the one and only OS that works for this purpose is in fact Windows Millennium Edition. Correct CD audio playback like that requires WDM sound card drivers. VirtualBox emulates a SoundBlaster 16 ISA or an ICH AC'97. However, the former only has VxD drivers because it's too old to have been ported to WDM. The latter has only WDM drivers, but they're not available for download; instead, they were directly integrated into Windows install medium, beginning with Windows ME. Hence WinME is the only OS capable of doing this correctly on VirtualBox, and you get out-of-the-box pointer integration, too.

So, here's the short version of getting it to work (I'll make a video tutorial later on). First, you need:

• A Windows ME image, obviously
• A DOS floppy image for Windows ME installation purposes
• Optionally, the unofficial ME Service Pack (hotfix bundle, should improve OS/game stability)
• A HoMM1 Windows image, obviously (CUE or other audio-enabled format, not plain ISO; also the 1.1 patch if it's not pre-patched)
• Generic VESA video drivers
• Windows Installer 2.0
• Daemon Tools 3.47

Install WinME (default settings are good), then put all five last items into an ISO (burning software usually allows doing that, just choose "save image only" or such; and yes, it needs to have the HoMM1 image inside the image you make). Mount it, install ME Service Pack if you want, install video drivers (via Add New Hardware), install the installer and daemon tools, then copy the HoMM1 image to My Documents or such. Unmount the driver image and mount the HoMM1 image inside Daemon tools. Install and run, and it will work perfectly!

The only thing that could still be improved is having the town music continue to play instead of restart every time. Terrain music does it, but not town music. Weird. And the cursors, of course.

[SpinalBlood]

GreatEmerald
SpinalBlood
What can you say about this CD image (PM)?

About the clicks, while I was testing different homm1 windows versions I obtained for temporary testing (like i said in my prevoius post), I listened to the tracks and they all had different click problems on different tracks like (at least):

08 (around 1.15 sec)
43 (around 48 sec)
44 (around 57 sec)
50 (right at the beginning)
19
28
30
37
40 (this one was literally cut)

Thank you for the PM! It is pretty much fine:
track #28-#30-#40 are fine;
#43,#44,#37 clicks are present but after all they are really minor/inaudible (I think when I wrote down the numbers I was using earphones);
#19 has a click during the fadeout but it may have been an effect of the track itself and not a disturb;
The actual "problem" like GreatEmerald says I think is with #50 that is broken from the source; But I also think this is the case of #08 around time 1.15, it's not a click but a strange noise; however, this is not present in the (different) dos version of the track.

It's not 44100, it's 22050. That's why you had to halve the speed! And yes, the noise is only present in game, not in the files

Yes with 22050 I think the speed was intact; but after the process the quality was inferior so I preferred to halve the speed from 44100; I also remember I did some experiments with another program (Cooledit pro 2) but the results in quality was maybe slightly different; I don't remember much of these tests since I did them a while ago, but it's definitely possible to obtain these files with a quality similar to the CD version.

I'm puzzled about the stereo tracks, I think they are reversed between what the dos game sounds and what the wave editors convert from the .62s files, but also the windows cd music.
Take for example a track where the channels are especially different, in a way they are opposed (when one sounds the other is fading), like #09 (dos) and #11 (windows, where #1 is the data track and not audio); they are the same sound event, but if I don't remember wrong, when I tested the dos version of homm1 with the help of Dosbox, and made the event happen, the channels were swapped.

All right, I managed to get the Windows version working perfectly on VirtualBox!

Thank you very much about all these infos! I will surely use them in the future.

About the terrain themes, I think when I played the windows version they didn't restart but only after certain events, they reset other times like when switching from castle, but I might be wrong.
However I'm sure in that "Buka" russian version even the castle themes didn't restart, but again that version was using a different audio system, probably the same of that AKuHAK was talking in page 2.

[GreatEmerald]

Thank you for the PM! It is pretty much fine:
track #28-#30-#40 are fine;
#43,#44,#37 clicks are present but after all they are really minor/inaudible (I think when I wrote down the numbers I was using earphones);

You might be hearing things, because I looked at them in spectrum mode too, and saw no points of increased energy.

But I also think this is the case of #08 around time 1.15, it's not a click but a strange noise; however, this is not present in the (different) dos version of the track.

Hah, in the Forest (08) track, what you're hearing is a fly hitting you. That is one of the best things in the whole track because it's so incredibly realistic.

Yes with 22050 I think the speed was intact; but after the process the quality was inferior so I preferred to halve the speed from 44100; I also remember I did some experiments with another program (Cooledit pro 2) but the results in quality was maybe slightly different; I don't remember much of these tests since I did them a while ago, but it's definitely possible to obtain these files with a quality similar to the CD version.

Uh, they're 22050 Hz. The "2" part in .62S means that (full meaning is 16-bit, 22050 Hz, Stereo). The CD audio would effectively be .44S: 24-bit 44100 Hz Stereo. If you get "better" results by improperly importing it and then stretching it, it means your software is playing tricks on you. Perhaps it fails to play the 22050 Hz properly or such. But you can't create samples out of thin air, and the sample rate of the files is what it is (which is half what the CD audio is). That's also why there's such a difference in size (CD audio takes the whole CD, whereas the DOS version manages to cram 2 more sound types into the same CD).

I'm puzzled about the stereo tracks, I think they are reversed between what the dos game sounds and what the wave editors convert from the .62s files, but also the windows cd music.
Take for example a track where the channels are especially different, in a way they are opposed (when one sounds the other is fading), like #09 (dos) and #11 (windows, where #1 is the data track and not audio); they are the same sound event, but if I don't remember wrong, when I tested the dos version of homm1 with the help of Dosbox, and made the event happen, the channels were swapped.

I haven't noticed, but then again, it doesn't really matter much.

About the terrain themes, I think when I played the windows version they didn't restart but only after certain events, they reset other times like when switching from castle, but I might be wrong.
However I'm sure in that "Buka" russian version even the castle themes didn't restart, but again that version was using a different audio system, probably the same of that AKuHAK was talking in page 2.

Sounds about right. And yes, there's no audiere.dll; the entire notion of HoMM1 supporting FLAC is ridiculous, because FLAC (as well as Audiere itself) was released only in 2001, while the game itself came out 6 years before that. So it must be a heavily altered version AKuHAK used, and possibly that's the Buka one.

Interesting note: the HoMM1 patch upgrades the Smacker version (which uses MSS instead of WAIL, thus it does DLL switching). I wonder if the sound subsystem itself is handled by Smacker, and whether it can be updated to an even higher version (the patch adds 3.0 r: http://www.radgametools.com/smkhist.htm )
EDIT: "MSS" stands for Miles Sound System: http://www.radgametools.com/msshist.htm

[SpinalBlood]

You might be hearing things, because I looked at them in spectrum mode too, and saw no points of increased energy.

I'm sure for 43 (47/48 sec) and 44 (56/57 sec) so they should appear graphically, but it might interest only one channel. These two clicks are really really little so it's not really a problem. But I didn't notice them in the Dos files;
not too sure about 37 because I seem to hear them during the drum beat so...

Hah, in the Forest (08) track, what you're hearing is a fly hitting you. That is one of the best things in the whole track because it's so incredibly realistic.

Mhh, I had thought about that but it seemed a bit too "invadent"; it really looks like a fly but I think this is a bit annoying (I would say disturbing maybe even more than a click), maybe if it was less louder...just imho. The general idea would be nice

Uh, they're 22050 Hz. The "2" part in .62S means that (full meaning is 16-bit, 22050 Hz, Stereo). The CD audio would effectively be .44S: 24-bit 44100 Hz Stereo. If you get "better" results by improperly importing it and then stretching it, it means your software is playing tricks on you. Perhaps it fails to play the 22050 Hz properly or such. But you can't create samples out of thin air, and the sample rate of the files is what it is (which is half what the CD audio is). That's also why there's such a difference in size (CD audio takes the whole CD, whereas the DOS version manages to cram 2 more sound types into the same CD).

Yes, I think you are right. I remember there was already a lot of difference between 8 and 16 bit in the dos setup (provided one has the files, since most versions has only the .82m files for strange reasons.). But now I tried to relisten to the cd version and reopen the .62 files with Goldwave to 44100; the program tries to give a sort of ehnanced quality and the result isn't too bad, but while I had the impression it could be compared to the cd, in reality it's still inferior

[GreatEmerald]

Hm, yea, at very high magnification levels I can see that you're right, yet I can't actually hear it when playing it back:






And yes, the fly is invasive, but it's unique

[GreatEmerald]

Now I'm going through HoMM2 music, and am disappointed because the exact same issue happens with it as with HoMM1 music: popping. It's even present in the Humble Bundle/GOG version (and it's compressed into OGG Vorbis to boot). Looks like they ripped the music from a somewhat damaged CD. If you look at Sorceress theme, 2:33, there's a pretty huge part of the audio that's damaged:

Top is uncompressed good, middle is compressed bad, bottom is uncompressed bad. If you look more closely, you can see that it's not just a regular pop (a single damaged sample, which is easy enough to correct), but a sawtooth pattern:


Technically I could probably combine the tracks to create one without popping, but it requires a great deal of work... And this is far from the only place with popping.

Also, I can't find the original PoL town theme files anywhere at all. Aside from YouTube videos, but obviously their quality is not great

[GreatEmerald]

Oh no, the actual autorun gallery in the OP no longer works now!

[Karmakeld]

I guess you refer to photobuckets images no longer being available for display on third party sites. I haven't checked, but if you can see the link in each image, perhaps you can still view all images at photobucket.com.
Still you'd need to update each broken image

[GreatEmerald]

If I view the image, it still just shows a page with the "enable external hosting" image instead. But yes, Photobucket is just the worst in general...

[Roman2211]

Might and Magic Guild ever released was one H4 map

I know only the name of map - A Spectres Slave, mentioned in the Russian community