Um, thats how it is. The game uses CD music for certain scenes (2nd screen at the lighthouse, hardware store, forests) and uses midi for the rest. There wasn't enough space on the CD to include tracks for everything, so they mixed and matched them.

avatar_58 wrote:

Um, thats how it is. The game uses CD music for certain scenes (2nd screen at the lighthouse, hardware store, forests) and uses midi for the rest. There wasn't enough space on the CD to include tracks for everything, so they mixed and matched them.

That is not true.

I know from playing the game 100's of times before, every single location plays a set high quality track from the CD. Alot of the locations play the same track as each other, but they are definately all from the CD.

The midi soundtracks which are playing in most locations stick out like a sore thumb they are absolutely terrible like Zac Mckraken sounds but from my speakers. And proof that the midi tracks are supposed to be CD tracks; when I check the CD tracks on Windows media player, they are all high orchestra quality and are the ones which I remember are supposed to play in certain locations rather than what I am getting now.

Anyone that owns Return to Zork will know this. So does anyone have any ideas whats going wrong? Is there some sort of patch or some other way to configure my settings?

Moved to DOSBox Games/Apps

Run the INSTALL.EXE program in RTZ's directory under DosBox and set "Digital Soundtrack" to "YES" to use CD Music whenever possible, otherwise it will fall back to MIDI.

WonderSlug wrote:

Run the INSTALL.EXE program in RTZ's directory under DosBox and set "Digital Soundtrack" to "YES" to use CD Music whenever possible, otherwise it will fall back to MIDI.

That is how it is already set. I already have "YES" selected next to "Digital Soundtrack" and the problem is still there.

Has anyone got any possible theories why I am encountering this problem?

daryl wrote:

That is not true. […]
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avatar_58 wrote:

Um, thats how it is. The game uses CD music for certain scenes (2nd screen at the lighthouse, hardware store, forests) and uses midi for the rest. There wasn't enough space on the CD to include tracks for everything, so they mixed and matched them.

That is not true.

I know from playing the game 100's of times before, every single location plays a set high quality track from the CD. Alot of the locations play the same track as each other, but they are definately all from the CD.

The midi soundtracks which are playing in most locations stick out like a sore thumb they are absolutely terrible like Zac Mckraken sounds but from my speakers. And proof that the midi tracks are supposed to be CD tracks; when I check the CD tracks on Windows media player, they are all high orchestra quality and are the ones which I remember are supposed to play in certain locations rather than what I am getting now.

Anyone that owns Return to Zork will know this. So does anyone have any ideas whats going wrong? Is there some sort of patch or some other way to configure my settings?

Sorry but you "rememeber"? Thats not good enough. I own the game and I played it through hundreds of times on my original DOS machines. Thats how it works.

Don't believe me? Put your CD in and play it in media player. It only has a few tracks, it's missing a large amount of music (Pugney's farm, the eerie music near the river, etc)

So really your memory means nothing. Play the game on a real dos machine and you'll see the same behavior. Hell even wikipedia backs me right up:

"Soundtrack
The game disc is also a 25-track audio disc. The songs on the disc play in certain areas (for example, track 3 plays during the intro movie).
"

Certain areas. Not all. The game is working fine.

avatar_58 wrote:

Sorry but you "rememeber"? Thats not good enough. I own the game and I played it through hundreds of times on my original DOS ma […]
Show full quote

daryl wrote:

That is not true. […]
Show full quote

avatar_58 wrote:

Um, thats how it is. The game uses CD music for certain scenes (2nd screen at the lighthouse, hardware store, forests) and uses midi for the rest. There wasn't enough space on the CD to include tracks for everything, so they mixed and matched them.

That is not true.

I know from playing the game 100's of times before, every single location plays a set high quality track from the CD. Alot of the locations play the same track as each other, but they are definately all from the CD.

The midi soundtracks which are playing in most locations stick out like a sore thumb they are absolutely terrible like Zac Mckraken sounds but from my speakers. And proof that the midi tracks are supposed to be CD tracks; when I check the CD tracks on Windows media player, they are all high orchestra quality and are the ones which I remember are supposed to play in certain locations rather than what I am getting now.

Anyone that owns Return to Zork will know this. So does anyone have any ideas whats going wrong? Is there some sort of patch or some other way to configure my settings?

Sorry but you "rememeber"? Thats not good enough. I own the game and I played it through hundreds of times on my original DOS machines. Thats how it works.

Don't believe me? Put your CD in and play it in media player. It only has a few tracks, it's missing a large amount of music (Pugney's farm, the eerie music near the river, etc)

So really your memory means nothing. Play the game on a real dos machine and you'll see the same behavior. Hell even wikipedia backs me right up:

"Soundtrack
The game disc is also a 25-track audio disc. The songs on the disc play in certain areas (for example, track 3 plays during the intro movie).
"

Certain areas. Not all. The game is working fine.

OK. Heres the thing. I don't have to remember; as I stated in the original post I can play the actual tracks in WMP and see exactly what they should sound like........then in the actual game I can hear the same track...but in an extremely low quality crackling version of MIDI.

As I said, the only two tracks which are playing from the CD (exactly the same as when I listen to the track in WMP) is outside the lighthouse and the hardware store.

Even the tracks in ALL three mazes ie: the forests, which as you say are supposed to be from the CD, are instead playing extremely low quality MIDI versions of their original soundtracks (which I will state again I have listiened to from Windows Media player -TRACK 22 & 23 for example are being replaced with midi music in the forests - and know what they should sound like).

I am trying to get to the bottom of why my computer is doing this, and I already said that if you could hear the quality of these midi tracks compared to the CD tracks like I can, you would not be telling me that "Um.. thats how its supposed to be". I need technical help not statements like that.

but in an extremely low quality crackling version of MIDI.

Disable all sound devices in your dosbox.conf except for one, like all off
only midi on, or all off only soundblaster on etc. then you can make sure
you didn't configure something for pcspeaker output.

OK. Heres the thing. I don't have to remember; as I stated in the original post I can play the actual tracks in WMP and see exac […]
Show full quote

OK. Heres the thing. I don't have to remember; as I stated in the original post I can play the actual tracks in WMP and see exactly what they should sound like........then in the actual game I can hear the same track...but in an extremely low quality crackling version of MIDI.

As I said, the only two tracks which are playing from the CD (exactly the same as when I listen to the track in WMP) is outside the lighthouse and the hardware store.

Even the tracks in ALL three mazes ie: the forests, which as you say are supposed to be from the CD, are instead playing extremely low quality MIDI versions of their original soundtracks (which I will state again I have listiened to from Windows Media player -[b]TRACK 22 & 23 for example are being replaced with midi music in the forests [/b]- and know what they should sound like).

I am trying to get to the bottom of why my computer is doing this, and I already said that if you could hear the quality of these midi tracks compared to the CD tracks like I can, you would not be telling me that "Um.. thats how its supposed to be". I need technical help not statements like that.

You didn't say that the forests didn't play music. Next time be more precise. Zork does play midis in certain areas whether you want it to or not, so I wasn't sure what you were driving at.

Rip your CD to an image (isobuster can do this http://www.isobuster.com/) then mount it. See if that changes things. Also try adding more cycles, because back in the old days Zork would "lose" the CD track occasionally if your PC was too slow to read the disc. I've heard the midi version of the forest theme once, when clearly the track exists for it. Exiting the forest would solve it.

Also make sure you mount the CD with the "-t cdrom" option on the end, not just the drive letter.

avatar_58 wrote:

You didn't say that the forests didn't play music. Next time be more precise. Zork does play midis in certain areas whether you […]
Show full quote

OK. Heres the thing. I don't have to remember; as I stated in the original post I can play the actual tracks in WMP and see exac […]
Show full quote

OK. Heres the thing. I don't have to remember; as I stated in the original post I can play the actual tracks in WMP and see exactly what they should sound like........then in the actual game I can hear the same track...but in an extremely low quality crackling version of MIDI.

As I said, the only two tracks which are playing from the CD (exactly the same as when I listen to the track in WMP) is outside the lighthouse and the hardware store.

Even the tracks in ALL three mazes ie: the forests, which as you say are supposed to be from the CD, are instead playing extremely low quality MIDI versions of their original soundtracks (which I will state again I have listiened to from Windows Media player -[b]TRACK 22 & 23 for example are being replaced with midi music in the forests [/b]- and know what they should sound like).

I am trying to get to the bottom of why my computer is doing this, and I already said that if you could hear the quality of these midi tracks compared to the CD tracks like I can, you would not be telling me that "Um.. thats how its supposed to be". I need technical help not statements like that.

You didn't say that the forests didn't play music. Next time be more precise. Zork does play midis in certain areas whether you want it to or not, so I wasn't sure what you were driving at.

Rip your CD to an image (isobuster can do this http://www.isobuster.com/) then mount it. See if that changes things. Also try adding more cycles, because back in the old days Zork would "lose" the CD track occasionally if your PC was too slow to read the disc. I've heard the midi version of the forest theme once, when clearly the track exists for it. Exiting the forest would solve it.

Also make sure you mount the CD with the "-t cdrom" option on the end, not just the drive letter.

Thanks, I'll give that a try and see if it works.

Remember though the key areas to test are:

-second screen before the lighthouse
-hardware store
-inside gift shop
-forest / woods
-blacksmith (closeup shot, from far away it's midi)

There are still many areas that will play midi. The only other thing I can think of (if I recall correctly) is that Zork is bitchy about memory. Did you install the Full complete game, or just opt for the smaller minimum? (The project file on the HD vs CD)

I

I do know that MIDI music will indeed play at various points.

Notably right after the intro movie flyby, where it shows the Valley with the Vulture and the credits are being displayed and scrolling. There will be music playing if your Music device is set up. This music is MIDI(GM).

Same with the part next to the lighthouse, with the vines and wood planks. There is MIDI(GM) music playing there as well.

So, it all depends on how your Music device is set up in RTZ's install.

If you have your Music device set up as a Roland MT-32 or MPU-401 MIDI, then it will map to whatever DOSBox has set up for MIDI music.

If the Music device is set up as the same Creative SB as the Sound device or an AdLib, then it will play using the OPL synthesizer which can sound like crap at times.

Here's how my RTZ setup is, and it works perfectly fine for me:

---------------------------------------------------------
Sound Device: Creative Labs Soundblaster 16
I/O Address: 220
IRQ number: 7
Extra/DMA: 1

Music Device: Roland MPU-401 MIDI
Sound Smoothing: Yes
Use Extended/Expanded Memory: Yes
Load drivers in Upper Memory: Yes
Digital Soundtrack: Yes
CD-ROM Drive: D:
----------------------------------------------------------

Under DOSBox's config, I have my MIDI going to my Windows MM Mapper (I'm running this on a WinXP system) on my SB Live! card. In my MIDI setup under Windows, I have loaded a 32 MB Reality GMGS SF2 SoundFont within Creative's AudioHQ application and the music sounds great.

I know for sure that it's playing MIDI music because while in the RTZ game, I can bring up Windows' Volume Control application and fiddle with the MIDI volume slider and change the volume of the music.

Here's how my "dosbox.conf" file is in the sound/music/midi area:

================================================

[mixer]
# nosound -- Enable silent mode, sound is still emulated though.
# rate -- Mixer sample rate, setting any devices higher than this will
# probably lower their sound quality.
# blocksize -- Mixer block size, larger blocks might help sound stuttering
# but sound will also be more lagged.
# prebuffer -- How many milliseconds of data to keep on top of the blocksize.

nosound=false
rate=44100
blocksize=2048
prebuffer=10

[midi]
# mpu401 -- Type of MPU-401 to emulate: none, uart or intelligent.
# device -- Device that will receive the MIDI data from MPU-401.
# This can be default,alsa,oss,win32,coreaudio,none.
# config -- Special configuration options for the device. In Windows put
# the id of the device you want to use. See README for details.

mpu401=intelligent
device=default
config=3

[sblaster]
# sbtype -- Type of sblaster to emulate:none,sb1,sb2,sbpro1,sbpro2,sb16.
# sbbase,irq,dma,hdma -- The IO/IRQ/DMA/High DMA address of the soundblaster.
# mixer -- Allow the soundblaster mixer to modify the DOSBox mixer.
# oplmode -- Type of OPL emulation: auto,cms,opl2,dualopl2,opl3.
# On auto the mode is determined by sblaster type.
# All OPL modes are 'Adlib', except for CMS.
# oplrate -- Sample rate of OPL music emulation.

sbtype=sb16
sbbase=220
irq=7
dma=1
hdma=5
mixer=true
oplmode=auto
oplrate=22050

[gus]
# gus -- Enable the Gravis Ultrasound emulation.
# gusbase,irq1,irq2,dma1,dma2 -- The IO/IRQ/DMA addresses of the
# Gravis Ultrasound. (Same IRQ's and DMA's are OK.)
# gusrate -- Sample rate of Ultrasound emulation.
# ultradir -- Path to Ultrasound directory. In this directory
# there should be a MIDI directory that contains
# the patch files for GUS playback. Patch sets used
# with Timidity should work fine.

gus=true
gusrate=44100
gusbase=240
irq1=5
irq2=5
dma1=3
dma2=3
ultradir=C:\ULTRASND

[speaker]
# pcspeaker -- Enable PC-Speaker emulation.
# pcrate -- Sample rate of the PC-Speaker sound generation.
# tandy -- Enable Tandy Sound System emulation (off,on,auto).
# For auto Tandysound emulation is present only if machine is set to tandy.
# tandyrate -- Sample rate of the Tandy 3-Voice generation.
# disney -- Enable Disney Sound Source emulation. Covox Voice Master and Speech Thing compatible.

pcspeaker=true
pcrate=22050
tandy=auto
tandyrate=22050
disney=true

================================================

The config=3 line in the MIDI section above points it to the Windows Mapper device # for my SB Live! 's loaded Soundfont.

I found out what number it was by using the "mixer /listmidi" command in DosBox's command line.

If left at the default of "config=" then it will use whatever Windows has mapped for the preferred device for MIDI music in Control Panel->Sounds and Multimedia->Audio

If you are running all this on a Mac or Linux system, hopefully you have a good wavetable MIDI setup and should set the music in RTZ to Roland and configure DosBox to point to whatever MIDI device your OS uses and sounds best.

If he's missing the forest theme then thats not normal.

I used to have this exact problem when I was playing the CD version of this game on a 486 with DOS 6.22. From memory, there is a batch file (RTZ.BAT) which loads the sound drivers and then loads the game executable. The last line in the batch file unloads the sound driver after the game exits.

This was a long time ago so my memory is probably pretty hazy but I believe I had success by running each line manually - i.e. typing them into the command line, not running through the batch file. Load the sound driver then run the game executable- see if this helps. If not try running the game then exit and run it again- I think this will work sometimes (from memory, this is actually how I noticed the problem- I quit the game, left the PC for a while and came back, started RTZ again- and noticed that there was digital music where there hadn't been before). If that still doesn't work, try loading the sound driver, unloading it then load it again, then run RTZ.

Hope this helps