First post, by gadgetmind
I recently resurrected the source code for an old DOS game called "Carrier Command", and it's now building cleanly from source and running nicely in doxbox.
When it was released in 1988, sound cards hadn't really arrived, so it just used the PC speaker. I'd like to add Sound Blaster 16 support (or anything else!), but would like to talk thought the ins and outs of samples versus FM first.
My current thinking is to use the FM synth for background (engine etc.) noises, and as it's similar to the chip in the Sega Genesis, I can use a fair few ideas from the port of Abrams I did for that platform. (I got a bit carried away there and even did depth cued and doppler shifted helicopter effects!) Basically, I need the ability to kick a sound off and then tweak settings for volume, pitch, etc., on the fly. I might do explosions etc. the same way, or these could be samples; it's the singleton nature of samples that bothers me.
I'm happy to start from scratch (but using previous 68k code in Abrams and the ST/Amiga versions of carrier as inspiration), recode everything in x86 assembler, bodge the old variable (and high!) interrupt system for zere crossing sound, and create my own FM "instruments" from scratch.
However, I don't have a lot of free time, so I'm more than happy to make use of anything that already exists.
All suggestions welcome.
Ian (ex Realtime Games)