It's intentional as X-wing is rather sensitive about conventional memory and will only ever mix one PCM sound effect while falling back to FM for other sounds while a digital sound plays.

leileilol wrote:

It's intentional as X-wing is rather sensitive about conventional memory and will only ever mix one PCM sound effect while falling back to FM for other sounds while a digital sound plays.

Indeed. I have it on my DX4-100. Features a SB16 (1992 - CT1740) and 16Mb of RAM.
The game is very picky about free conventional memory. Although 600kb+is enough to start the game, it will revert back to FM sounds for the effects swiftly with those numbers. I remember this happening on our old 486 back then in the 90s as well.

More recently on the machine mentioned above I have 623kb+ free, which results in this not happening. You might be able to get rid of this by squeezing more conventional memory out of your system.

Oh wow! Thanks!

Thinking back, I was still running QEMM about that time and that always freed up a plenty of memory.

I'm probably going to have some questions about freeing up memory if I can't figure it out. But first I'll sift through my two DOS book. 😀

MCGA wrote:

I'm thinking this is because my SB16 doesn't have enough memory?

To clarify, SB16 doesn't have its own memory (to play PCM sound from). Instead, the card accesses system RAM directly through a so-called DMA channel.

Remember that old hardware questions should be asked in Marvin. This is for DOS games on modern systems.

Moved.

Thanks, got it, on the memory and also posting in the wrong place. I just saw DOS games, so took the top level lazy route. 😀

X-Wing can take advantage of EMS memory for audio/sound effects, very common among DOS games before 32-bit DOS protected mode became the norm with DOS4GW. Conventional memory at high 580KB~600KB should be good enough and easily achievable with modern DOS. Check out its README, it clearly mentions that EMS memory is desired for max audio/sound effects fidelity.

Yep, it's taking advantage of EMS and on the Starfighter Reference card they highly recommends 588k. But I know that's not enough, at least not for my 486. 😀

I got my conventional up to 617k and the canons are still cutting out and switching to FM before I complete a mission. I'm hoping I can get it up to 623k when I get some time.

I installed QEMM on my 486 and it freed up 634k. Blah... X-Wing's canon sound still cut out and this time right away.

I was handling the music with my Korg daugther card at the time on the AWE32. Maybe that was a factor? Or it was just that I was using a Pentium 90@100.