VOGONS


Missing soundcards

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First post, by zbiggy

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Hello!

Looking at dos games setups and soundcards emulated by dosbox I found some fine cards unsupported. They offer better sound quality than sound blaster.

Sound Blaster Pro DAC: 8bit 22,05kHz stereo

The cards which are missing:
Windows Sound System (known as WSS or MSS) DAC: 16bit 48kHz stereo
MediaVision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (known as PAS16) DAC: 16bit 44,1kHz stereo
Adlib GOLD (known as GOLD sound standard) DAC: 12bit 44,1kHz stereo (could play 16bit samples)

It would be good to support them.

greetings,
Zbiggy

Reply 1 of 9, by priestlyboy

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Mrr, cross posting... Delete his later post in VDMSound. It doesn't belong there.

Ieremiou
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Helping Debug DOSBox.

Reply 2 of 9, by `Moe`

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SB 16 (supported by dosbox): 16bit, 44.1kHz (or even 48?)

So what's the deal? Games that don't know SB16 are too old to come with 44.1kHz samples anyways, so emulating a PAS seems rather pointless to me. Look at data files of older games, you'd be astonished what low sampling rates they use. I've seen ugly 8kHz, but seldom more than 22.05kHz (that seems to be the usual sampling rate - probably due to the dominance of sbpro).

Reply 3 of 9, by Harekiet

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Hehe yeh lot's of low samplerates, mostly because of the nasty size of large high samplerate sound :)files

Reply 4 of 9, by priestlyboy

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I have discovered that Space Quest 4 does not "sound" right unless you put the OPLRATE and RATE to 44100.
This is for Soundblaster Cards of course.
I don't know why but it fixes the bad sounding notes that are emulated.
Otherwise every other game sounds just fine at 220500. Weirdness.

Ieremiou
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Helping Debug DOSBox.

Reply 5 of 9, by zbiggy

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The WSS and PAS cards have better documentation. SB has some bugs like "reverse -stereo" bug. If someone could write emulator for these cards, games could run more stable.

Reply 6 of 9, by Freddo

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The "reverse -stereo" bug is indeed annoying, but it only affects SB Pro and not SB16.

Reply 7 of 9, by zbiggy

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There are other bugs. This one was only example. Some games simply do not work because of buggy SB driver. Emulation of alternative WSS or PAS could increase chance that game will run.

Reply 8 of 9, by eL_PuSHeR

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I think games supporting WSS or PAS natively are somewhat scarce. SB was the defacto standard for old games after Creative took Adlib crown and stormed the market with its SB soundcards.

Reply 9 of 9, by zbiggy

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Yes. You have right. It was stupid idea. I find dosbox soundcard support enough for everything.