Wont reply to all of you individually because there were so many great replies.. but this is finally starting to make sense :) Regarding one of the above comments regarding the Windows synth and how it doesnt 'approximate' but just plays whichever instrument the MIDI file tells it to.. does that …

pretty much all of that is done in software nowadays, the realtek chip is more or less just an ADC/DAC with a few other features, all it has to do is translate the digital audio to analog outputs. I guess thats kinda where I am lost then. If I play a game with a MIDI soundtrack, it doesnt have pre …

So in addition to my earlier questions, Im kind of wondering how modern playback works in the case of something like a Realtek audio chip. If I play a game that was recorded using a Roland MT-32 for example, what exactly is the Realtek chip doing? Does it have the ability to emulate all kinds of …

mothergoose729 wrote on 2020-06-25, 00:49: Gonna keep it high level, but here goes. ... That was really great, thanks so much for taking the time to explain all that. Exactly the kind of overview I was looking for

This is all so helpful, I knew you guys would give amazing explanations. So the basic idea regarding MIDI is that its in essence, a musical 'score' that needs to be read and then played by your machine. Because of that, the truest form of playback for any given midi track would be the exact synth …

Just some quick points, as it's past my bed time: -Games at the time used MIDI music as they didn't have the storage space for uncompressed audio and didn't have the processor power to play back compressed audio such as MP3 files. They later moved to using CD audio tracks. -Cheap sound cards played …

I am looking to better understand the basics and evolution of audio as it relates to the home computer. I have watched many videos regarding midi music from old DOS games and it seems like there were many choices for sound cards, midi modules, etc at the time. Stuff like the Roland Sound Canvas and …

Tomb Raider was a shit game when it came out. It aged terribly. Today it is about as fun as gauging my eye out with a blunt spoon. Funny you mention that. I watched a speedrun of it yesterday and realized it really was trash. The controls.. were just so bad. The way you turned, strafed, back jumped …

I remember seeing some on yahoo.jp (when yahoo had an auction site) a number of years ago, they always went for ridiculous monies. The teradrive was a sega product (Japan only), where as the MegaPC was Amstrad licensing the megadrive tech from sega, only avaliable in the UK I think. I remember …

This is my newest build, a higher end socket 478 gaming rig for playing F.E.A.R, doom 3, cod4 modern warefare, ect... Motherboard- Asus P4C800-E Deluxe Cpu- Pentium 4 Extreme edition SL7CH 3.4ghz at 3.73ghz with a zalman fatality cooler. Ram- 4x 512mb Corsair ddr500 with led indicators only running …

Have you ever seen Teradrives for sale or around in general? Its such a cool piece of tech.. but I get the feeling it really was never too common. I wonder how many of them made their way out of Japan over the years. I remember seeing some on yahoo.jp (when yahoo had an auction site) a number of …

Hey Robert! I had a question about some of the older builds, particularly the AM5x86. What makes that CPU family so difficult to find in the wild compared to the Intel products from the same years? Are the comparable Intel 486's just as hard to come across? Were the AMD products just less popular? …

Interesting. I think there was a megadrive/genesis PC as well, all black. Yes the terradrive , it was a 286 system but the megadrive part was more integrated so it could also be used for debugging/development (or so I have read) The megapc is just a 2in1 system, there is no communication between …