As I own the disk version of this game, I never heard the speech pack.. Is it decent?

It's really good.

appiah4 wrote on 2020-09-09, 12:16:

As I own the disk version of this game, I never heard the speech pack.. Is it decent?

For a "talkie" is really one of the good ones. But it does not allow to select separate Music and Digital devices, hence the thread.

Not much to offer except support - that would be amazing if someone could pull it off. The game deserves it

It's true. Recently i ran the game to test it with my Roland CM64 and unfortunately there is only one option for sound card. If i find free time to play the game, i will prefer the Roland.

you gain concentration when playing without music.
also playing without voice speeds up clicking through bubbles of text.

robertmo wrote on 2020-09-10, 18:08:

you gain concentration when playing without music.
also playing without voice speeds up clicking through bubbles of text.

Correct 😀 . In 90s i loved the cd versions because they had speech. Today, i prefer some versions of adventure games without speech because i want to speed up the dialogues with clicking.

Also, those 8-bit speech audio tracks have aged terribly..

appiah4 wrote on 2020-12-23, 06:18:

Also, those 8-bit speech audio tracks have aged terribly..

8 bit isn't that bad for speech. Infact, someone misstook the quality of the Monkey Island Ultimate Talkie Edition for too good to be Soundblaster compatible, except it was. Games using only 11025 Hz or less are the worst part in making it sound low quality.
And I once mistakenly assumed Star Trek Judgement Rites to be 11025 Hz as it sounded that bad. It turned out, it is infact 22050 Hz, but unlike the first game, the audio is just processed in a horrible way.

carlostex wrote on 2020-09-09, 11:26:

Roland music sounds better (specially with LAPC-i or CM-32L because of special FX)than FM.

Have you tried voice with cd music?

robertmo wrote on 2020-12-29, 16:14:

carlostex wrote on 2020-09-09, 11:26:

Roland music sounds better (specially with LAPC-i or CM-32L because of special FX)than FM.

Have you tried voice with cd music?

Not really. And i'm not too fond of CD audio.

This might be something i might look in the future, maybe a patch for it, although i've never done something this complicated.

What do you mean you can't get Roland Music and speech?

Are you trying to run the game in DOSBox or something?

Running the game via SCUMMVM (which the GOG version defaults to using) with the system setup to use an MT-32 device (well, for this game, CM-32L and above) does both Roland and voice - in my case I am using a loopMidi option to connect to Falcosoft Midi Player with Munt VSTI using CM-32L ROMS.

Daemonrunner wrote on 2021-01-04, 16:24:

Running the game via SCUMMVM (which the GOG version defaults to using) with the system setup to use an MT-32 device (well, for this game, CM-32L and above) does both Roland and voice - in my case I am using a loopMidi option to connect to Falcosoft Midi Player with Munt VSTI using CM-32L ROMS.

I should have not posted this topic here.

I don't really care about emulators so SCUMMVM is really not an option for me. In fact, i loathe some SCUMMVM GOG releases which do not include certain files, making them Impossible to run on period correct hardware.

But if SCUMMVM can do it, the game most certainly can be patched to the same effect.

Bump.
I just pulled my CM-64 out and realised this issue.
This game really deserves a patch if anyone can do it

Still no patch? Started playing this now and realized that it's either way speech or mt32

I'm interested in that to.
@NewRisingSun did alot of such patches for other games.
Maybe he is reading this.
Let's hope...

I would really like to play the cd version with speech and Roland for the music. This game has extra sound effects with Roland CM32L/CM64/LAPC-I . For instance there is a scene in this lady's apartment where the dog barks. The barking can be heard with Roland CM32L/CM64/LAPC-I but not with the Roland MT-32.

REMOVED. It has also a version of Beneath a Steel Sky with enhaced music and it is really great. I think it is written with Yamaha.

Personally I am lot more into real equipment than emulators.

The attached loader program modifies the game in memory to have Roland music with SB speech/sfx. There are no Roland sfx when using SB speech/sfx because it is one or the other with those drivers; however, I think it works well with the MT-32 because there is less need for the extra sounds of the CM-series.

The program has a no-CD feature that allows the game to be run entirely from HDD, and it's probably easiest to just put it where the config and save files are stored.

AFAIK, all CD-ROM releases are supported -- version 0.0368 (Europe, UK, Germany) and version 0.0372 (US, Taiwan) -- the freeware release is version 0.0368

Note that speech + text can be selected from the in-game options (F5 key)

Example running from an HDD directory with all files from the CD copied to it:
SKYDRV CFG=.

Example running from the CD:
D:
C:\SKY\SKYDRV CFG=C:\SKY

Keep in mind that the loader program executes SKY.EXE in the current directory when trying other arrangements. The CFG= parameter specifies the directory where the config file and save files go -- \STEELSKY is the default if not specified.

Update: The loader program now uses the hardware configuration rather than always relying on the game's auto-detection. The "Port Addresses" in INSTALL.EXE all default to auto-detection, so if SB sound is not working on your system then select port, IRQ, DMA and "Save Setup".

Thank you so much @ripsaw8080 ! 😀