Damson's DOSBox Optimization Guide for Tornado

Few tweaks to get better flight stick support (rudder, hat, more buttons) and better sound - Roland or Sound Blaster

Tweaks for better flight stick support

If you have a flight stick with a hat switch and twist-rudder and want to use them as well as the 3rd and 4th joystick button in game follow these steps:

• First you need to find the dosbox_tornado.conf file, which holds all the settings for the DOSBox that the game is running on.

It should be located here (your actual install may vary)

• Open config folder

• Open dosbox_tornado.conf file in notepad, scroll down to [joystick] section and edit the two lines as shown on the screenshot:

joysticktype=ch - will let you use your hat switch
swap34=true - usually flight sticks have 3rd axis assigned to twist/rudder, back then it was used for throttle, this will ensure that your rudder is assigned to correct axis. Btw throttle is not supported in this game.

* If you encounter joystick drift during gameplay, change:
timed = false

Save the file and run the game.

Go to Preferences.

In Control Device section select Joystick 1
Choose CH Flightstick Pro which will prompt calibration routine, follow the prompts.

Next select Rudder Pedals, this will also prompt calibration routine for the rudder pedals.

If you don't mind FM sound effects leave the Sound Cards option on Adlib
Check other sections of this guide for your sound options.

Now when all of this is done be sure to save your changes by clicking on Save Preferences!

Improving the audio

If you own a Roland MT-32 module, or you have MUNT installed with proper ROM files, you can enable the superior sound in Tornado.

First however you need to determine which ID your MT-32 has in your system. It's usually 1, since your OS GM is 0, but you never know.
• go to .\Steam\steamapps\common\Tornado\DOSBox

• run DOSBox.exe, DOBox window should appear

• enter mixer /listmidi command and press ENTER

notice the ID of your MIDI devices - I have my "MT-32 Synth Emulator" listed as 1

• open your dosbox_tornado.conf in notepad and find the [midi] section

enter your ID value next to "midiconfig" key, in my case it was 1. Save and close this file.

We are half way through. Now you probably have run the game already, and if you remember the first time you run it there was this setup window where you could select your language and sound card. Now you can do this also in game preferences screen, but if I selected Roland only from there it didn't worked for me. So to be able to enter this setup screen again you either do it from DOSBox, or (a simpler way)
• delete the SETUP.INF file in .\Steam\steamapps\common\Tornado\TORNADO\TORNADO.CD folder


• after you delete this file, run the game from Steam, it should go to this setup once more

• select Sound Device and then Roland LAPC1

• Exit Setup, the game should now run, go to the Preferences and choose apropriate audio settigns, note that with Roiand you can enable music while flying missions if you select AdLib in addition to Roland (Music - Game On option).

Remember to Save Preferences!

*If you have Roland LAPC-I, you don't need to select AdLib as it has additional sound effects in its banks. It will be used for effects, but you will loose the ability to enable music during flying. Also don't choose Sound Blaster as this will crash the game on subsequent missions.

Sound Blaster Issue

I always thought that Tornado never had digitized effects so chosing Sound Blaster at the preferences screen was pointless as only FM synth effects were used (same as Adlib).

Recently I started digging after Hiuuz mentioned that you could get better effects with Sound Blaster.

As it turns out the story is a bit convoluted and depending on the version of the game you owned and your SB type (Sound Blaster 16 was main problem) you could actually hear digitized effects.

Many users of Tornado versions 1.0c - 1.0e have reported problems when using a Soundblaster SB 16 sound card. Frequently, the computer locks up after firing the cannon. The only known cure so known until now was to switch to the ADLIB driver on the PREFERENCES Screen, but this resulted in slightly less realistic sounds. This is a beta test patch to correct the problem. It should work with the following versions of Tornado:
• European (DI) versions 1.0c, 1.0d, 10.e
• American Versions 1.0c, 1.0d
• American Versions 1.0d patched with the European 1.0e patch
It will not work with the Trimark Interactive 1.0e Edition of Tornado. The reason for this is that in the Trimark release, Soundblaster support was intentionally disabled internally (probably because of the SB16 problems).
Soundblaster compatibility (or the lack of it) was a problem for Tornado right from its release. Some versions would not work with any soundblaster card, but version 1.0c seemed to fix most problems except for SoundBlaster 16 owners: Firing the cannon could lock your computer when selecting SoundBlaster as the sound device. The only option for SB16 users was to switch to the somewhat less dramatic Adlib sounds. This problem was so bad that some subsequent releases of Tornado had their entire Soundblaster support disabled for good internally. Even if you select the SoundBlaster option, the program will automatically choose the Adlib driver.

So some versions had the SB disabled and it would revert to Adlib, but which version was released on Steam I wondered... is there hope?

The Action 16 edition (mainly sold in Europe) of Tornado is a budget version that has the Desert Storm extension on it (version 1.0e) and comes on a CD-ROM, either in a box or in a jewel case with an online Adobe PDF manual. A similar edition was published as a cover-CD-ROM on the German language magazine "Bestseller Games Collection" (issue 12). The problem with these versions is that Soundblaster sound effects were disabled in these editions with the exception of the Quickstart option where you still can hear digitized sound effects. I've written a patch that will allow you to hear Soundblaster effects in all parts of the simulation. Note that this patch will probably not work with the American Trimark edition that also had it's SB effects disabled.

So I checked if I select SB and go to Quick Start there will be SB digitized effects - and bingo, right from the start I could tell that the engine sounded a lot better! So looks like we have a patchable version on Steam!

I've found the patch by Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein and I've uploaded it to my Google drive as backup:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1knOaQSKjFfQ6_m3AsTcSLHzWlOBeuD-G/view?usp=drive_link

Check out the FORCE_SB.DOC for some info on what this patch does and how to install it.

I followed the instructions and was able to get SB working fine.

To simplify the procedure:
• download the file I've linked
• unpack it
• go to :/Steam/steamapps/common/Tornado/TORNADO/TORNADO.CD/FLIGHT
• rename FLIGHT.EXE to FLIGHT__.EXE and DESERT.EXE into DESERT__.EXE
• from the unpacked folder copy the FORCE_SB.EXE to the folder from 3rd bulletpoint
• copy / paste the file (so you have 2 identical files), rename one to FLIGHT.EXE and the second one to DESERT.EXE
• run the game, go to Preferences and set sound to SoundBlaster

One caveat - when starting mission you may be thrown back to preferences screen with the error that sound card was not found. It's caused by sound card autodetection routine on faster machines, you can just restart the game and it "should" be fine. Here are some more info about this issue:

When Tornado was released, a 486-DX-33 was quite a fast machine. Like many other games, Tornado has problems on some fast machines, especially with the routines for Sound Blaster autodetection (the program (at least version 1.0c upwards) ignores the value of the BLASTER environment variable and tries to find out the correct values for IRQ and port address by "experimentation", it always uses DMA channel 1, by the way, and the only IRQ values supported by Tornado are 2,3,5 and 7. If your soundcard is set to use a different IRQ, it won't work with Tornado 1.0c - 1.0e). On fast machines, this autodetection mechanism sometimes fails. After you select "TAKE OFF" in the Mission Planner, the cockpit fails to show up and you are thrown back into the mission planner with a warning like "soundcard not present".

If restarting the game didn't fixed the issue for you, try setting cycles (in DOSBox config, they are set to max by default) at some lower value corresponding to 486 running at 33MHz (something between10000 - 20000 cycles?). You can increase the cycle count in-game with CTRL-F12 after mission loads up properly. Preferably:

cycles=40000
cycleup=30000
cycledown=30000

Now before entering mission press CTRL-F11 to lower cycles from 40000 to 10000, when mission loads properly into 3d world, press CTRL-F12 to increase the cycles back from 10000 to 40000.

Note that I'm still experimenting with this so the content of this section might change.

Here's how it runs with proper SoundBlaster sound effects:
https://youtu.be/UYqQ2hOX0_0

Another important bit - overriden key commands by DOSBox.

UPDATE! - The publisher has applied this fix to the official release, but it broke controller detection by DOSBox, since custom mapper file is provided with empty binds to the controller. Either delete that mapper file and follow this section, or try to map your controller manually by going into the mapper (press CTRL-F1 when the game is running).

You need to perform this step, as without it you probably will not be able to employ your A/A weapons!

The problem is that the default binding for arming your A/A weapons in game is ALT-ENTER, unfortunately the same command switches the DOSBox between windowed and full screen mode. How to fix that?

While the game is running at any point press CTRL-F1 - this will open the DOSBox mapper.

Press on the Fullscreen option.

It is set to Mod2 (which is ALT), we will add another key for that function - press on Mod1

Now, to switch between full-screen and windowed mode we will need to press CTRL-ALT-ENTER, leaving ALT-ENTER for the game to recognize as arming your A/A weapons.

Make sure to save your changes by clicking on the Save button!

There are additional key commands used by Tornado, that could be overriden by DOSBox:
ALT + F5 - switch between allied and enemy in drone view
CTRL + F5 - switch between air and ground units in drone view

Enter the mapper by pressing CTRL-F1
Click on the Screenshot function - as you can see it has F5 and mod1 assigned to it, which means it will be invoked by pressing CTRL-F5,


so lets delete it completeley. Click on Del, the BIND to that EVENT should dissapear

Do the same for Video, although it uses mod1 and mod2 which means you would need to press CTRL-ALT-F5 to start recording video, just to be sure delete it as well. Click on Video and then on Del


Confirm that the BIND to this EVENT also dissapeared, Save and Exit the mapper.


If at any time you think you messed something up, you can delete this custom mapping by deleting the file mapper-0.74.map found in the .\Steam\steamapps\common\Tornado folder. This will revert back to default DOSBox mapping.

Now you should be good, keep low and fast and watch out for those power lines!

[Panzerfan]

It did work in F-117, but i made a thread for convenience

[Panzerfan]

I'll give it a try

[BrianRubin]

Weird. Does the stick work in other DOSBox sims?

[Panzerfan]

I do own both the stick and throttle, but they can be connected seperately, which i did.
but even with just the stick plugged in it wouldn't recognise it

[BrianRubin]

Is the Warthog made up of multiple devices? DOSBox, like DOS, can only recognize one device. Tornado also doesn't support throttles either.

[Panzerfan]

I can't get my Thrustmaster Warthog to work. Not even deleting the mapper file helped. And i don't know if DOSBox recognises it

[♀⛤WitchyWoman⛤♀]

Really appreciate the info on the roland emulation and soundblaster fix, WOW I never heard the better engine sounds in this game until now. Great work!

[damson]

But if you do this and your stick works again, you might want to re-map the controls as I shown in the last section of the guide.

[damson]

If so you can delete the mapper file - mapper-0.74.map found in the .\Steam\steamapps\common\Tornado folder, and run the game again. DOSBox should map the controller axis and buttons automatically to your USB controller/stick you have connected.

[BrianRubin]

My stick stopped working too. The new keymapper file, which allows for CTRL-ALT-ENTER, killed it entirely. The original keymapper file allows the joystick to work again. Something got broke along the way.