VOGONS


First post, by tbcarey

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

I noticed tonight while messing around with the PCjr emulation in DOSBox 0.62 [despite the lack of graphics in most games!] that playback occurs at a pitch 33.3% lower than it should be.

I confirmed this by recording a sample of the PCjr emulation in Monkey Island and comparing it to a hardware PCjr soundcard recording of Monkey Island at the same point. I was able to match the two perfectly by raising the pitch 33.3% in Adobe Audition; obviously the tempo is not affected.

I was also able to reproduce this behavior in Loom and a similar comparison yielded identical results, so it is not related to Monkey Island specifically. Using PCjr emulation in ScummVM on both of the same games does not reproduce the same behavior, so it is also not related to Lucasarts' games/PCjr drivers.

Reply 1 of 10, by tbcarey

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Sorry to bring this back up to the top again, but this issue still exists with DOSBox 0.6.3 and there's been no commentary on it. Try switching to machine=tandy and running any PCjr/Tandy Sounds-enabled game. Record the mixer output in your favorite recording app, then compare it to a hardware-based recording of the game. You can find several [including Silpheed, Space Quest 3, and Monkey Island 1] at: http://crossfire-designs.de/index.php?lang=en … 02255bbb1c492d9

As mentioned, if you increase the pitch (but not tempo) by 33.3% in your recording app, you'll find the two match.

Hope this gets fixed.

Reply 2 of 10, by taiken7

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

If you mean you speed it up by 3 times ..(its running 1/3 of normal speed)
this makes sense - the 3 voices are 3 interlaced 'speaker samples'
which are being added linearly

..123123123.. instead of being merged vertically in time

11111
..22222..
33333

Think CanadaCow is our audio expert that could help with this one.
(I'll throw together a quick patch later in the week)

Reply 3 of 10, by tbcarey

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

No, that's not what I mean. I mean raise the pitch by 33.3% - i.e., it's outputting at 2/3 of the pitch that it ought to. To reproduce this in Cool Edit / Adobe Audition, sample the output from DOSBox, then Effects -> Time/Pitch -> Stretch. Then do Pitch Shift (Preserves Tempo) and move the slider to Ratio : 66.6% / Higher Pitch.

Reply 5 of 10, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

This also happens with PC speaker sounds. Thing is...do you really want the sound to be THAT high pitched? I'm all for accuracy but not if its going to pierce my ears in the process.

Reply 6 of 10, by jal

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
avatar_58 wrote:

This also happens with PC speaker sounds. Thing is...do you really want the sound to be THAT high pitched? I'm all for accuracy but not if its going to pierce my ears in the process.

It seems to me we all want the sound to be pitched as the original game intended. DOSbox is an emulator, not a modulator.

JAL

Reply 7 of 10, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Yes but the original was within your PC case...it was muffled. Allow that to come out full blast from a speaker and it may be too annoying.

Maybe we could have an option to change the pitch on demand? There are a few games that I agree sound better pitched....but others which I'm glad to have toned down.

Reply 8 of 10, by tbcarey

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Actually, no, it doesn't affect the PC Speaker emulation. I thought I would have noticed if it did, but just to double-check, I recorded the output of Monkey Island 1 intro and compared it to a clip of a hardware PC Speaker playing back the same portion of the intro.. matched completely. So this only affects PCjr emulation, and it ought to be fixed. It sounds far too low-pitched right now.

Reply 9 of 10, by avatar_58

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

I just looked at the link you supplied...I agree that it is lower. I've never owned a tandy so I wouldn't have known. The clips on that site sound like close to NES clips...

PC speaker is perfect? Hmm...maybe its just the speaker difference that I notice then. I used to own some pretty deafening internel speaker games.

Reply 10 of 10, by jal

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
avatar_58 wrote:

Yes but the original was within your PC case...it was muffled. Allow that to come out full blast from a speaker and it may be too annoying.

Maybe we could have an option to change the pitch on demand? There are a few games that I agree sound better pitched....but others which I'm glad to have toned down.

If you want the "muffled" sound, you need some filters, not pitching the entire sound down, that's a rather stupid thing to do.

JAL