I don't remember Heroes I having any music other than CD music. Heroes II did have two options (MIDI and CD). One of us must not be remembering it correctly. 😀

dr_st wrote:

I don't remember Heroes I having any music other than CD music. Heroes II did have two options (MIDI and CD). One of us must not be remembering it correctly. 😀

Heroes of Might and Magic has two music options: 8 bit mono and CD stereo. On various systems, from Windows 98-based Pentium 100 to Windows XP laptops, I have never been able to use CD stereo music --the game always gives me error message that it's unable to play CD music. However, in this lowly AMD system, I could play it without problem.

It should be noted that I have never had any trouble playing Heroes II of Might and Magic CD music --on any system.

What sound card was in the laptop and the Athlon II? Maybe the game had some issue with the Vibra and whatever was in the laptop, but not with the card in the Athlon II.

clueless1 wrote:

What sound card was in the laptop and the Athlon II? Maybe the game had some issue with the Vibra and whatever was in the laptop, but not with the card in the Athlon II.

Well, the various laptops use typical Realtek AC97 on-board sound, and Heroes of Might and Magic cannot play CD music --only 8 bit stereo.

The lowly Athlon II PC also uses typical Realtek AC97 on-board sound, and it is successful in playing Heroes of Might and Magic CD music. In fact, this is the very first time I could play HOMM CD music. It's totally unexpected. I thought I had to cope with 8 bit music as usual, but this time, it's CD stereo all the way!

Perhaps the game uses a faulty method of trying to decide which drive letter has the CD music, and your Athlon just happens to have everything set up right? One hard drive on C, one CD drive on D, and no other letters?

Jorpho wrote:

Perhaps the game uses a faulty method of trying to decide which drive letter has the CD music, and your Athlon just happens to have everything set up right? One hard drive on C, one CD drive on D, and no other letters?

That's what I thought as well. After all, certain games require the CD to be placed in drive D: in order to play Red Book audio CD. Examples are Warlords III: Reign of Heroes (Windows) and Archimedean Dynasty (DOS games). However, my Pentium 100, which wasn't unable to play Heroes of Might and Magic's CD music during gameplay, had its CD ROM drive designated as D:\. The various Windows XP laptops I had, which weren't unable to play the game's CD music either, had varying drive letter for its CD/DVD drive. I have tried physical drive and NRG image, while also experimented with various drive letters for CD ROM, to no avail.

This time, I use NRG image and mount it to Nero Image Drive, designated as G:\., and CD music works! 🤣

I recently came back to this topic and stumbled on the following thread:
http://heroescommunity.com/viewthread.php3?TI … 304&PID=1051082

Based on that, it looks like CD music (actual Red Book tracks) is only present in the Windows version. However, the original (pre-Compendium) DOS versions 1.0-1.2 featured 16-bit stereo music (not as CD audio, but as higher quality music files). However, the Heroes DOS version 1.3 (Compendium) release did away with that and only left the 8-bit mono music for DOS, while the Windows version still utilizes the CD tracks.

So I assume that you are playing the Windows version? Or if it's the DOS version, do you have the HEROES**.62S files under the SOUND directory?

cd players have 2 audio conections an analog and a digital did you have both connected ?
also in control panel there is an enable digital audio check box