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First post, by dnewhous

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Can wing commander II do digital speech with the Adlib soundcard?

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Reply 1 of 3, by root42

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I do not think so. IIRC speech required SoundBlaster and EMS for Wing Commander II. But it's a long time ago, so I might be wrong...

Also, AdLib and digital sound effects require quite a bit of CPU work, since it similar to PWM output on the PC speaker. Only few games allowed that, like Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies. And I think a few Legend adventures used AdLib PWM for sound effects, which were few anyway.

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Reply 2 of 3, by tpowell.ca

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root42 wrote:

I do not think so. IIRC speech required SoundBlaster and EMS for Wing Commander II. But it's a long time ago, so I might be wrong...

Also, AdLib and digital sound effects require quite a bit of CPU work, since it similar to PWM output on the PC speaker. Only few games allowed that, like Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies. And I think a few Legend adventures used AdLib PWM for sound effects, which were few anyway.

Speech on Wing Commander does require a Sound Blaster card.
As for PWM digital sound from an Adlib, I had never head of that until I played Star Control II. It also features that output mode, but as you stated, its VERY demanding on CPU resources and doesn't sound very good.

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Reply 3 of 3, by gdjacobs

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PWM audio requires a very high switching frequency to sound good. Some modern amplifiers use the technology to good effect, but when applied to Adlib or PC Speaker it will only ever be second rate.

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