Covox is already supported via the Disney Sound Source emulation.

Before posting this, I did see a vague reference about that here:

https://www.dosbox.com/wiki/Sound

Unless you can point on where Disney Sound Source support was designed to be a direct replacement for Covox Sound Master I would still like to see an official Covox emulation.

Incidentally in one of the tests I did with SimCity version 1.07 (1989), the game reports Covox Sound Master not present EVEN THOUGH Disney Sound Source was selected in DOSBox.

Steve

The Disney sound source is in most regards an enhanced version of the earlier Covox Speech Thing. But there are some differences.

The Disney sound source adds a 16-byte FIFO buffer. But unlike the Covox Speech Thing, it is limited to just 7KHz.

If you want to have an implementation where you can select the Covox separately, have a look here:
https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-stag … rallel-port-dac

Thanks Rob. That was very interesting.

So I don't know if there's a functional difference between the Covox Speech Thing and the Covox Sound Master (latter is used by the 1.07 version of SimCity).
That may be why SimCity fails to detect Disney as being a Covox when SimCity is configured to use Covox Sound Master.

Are you saying that if this below (lpt_dac = none AND lpt_dac_filter = on) is added to the DOSBox conf file's [speaker] section that it opens up more configuration options for Covox?
That gives me more to experiment with. I assume no hardware is actually necessary or is it?

[speaker]
# lpt_dac: Type of DAC plugged into the parallel port:
# disney: Disney Sound Source.
# covox: Covox Speech Thing.
# ston1: Stereo-on-1 DAC, in stereo up to 30 kHz.
# none/off: Don't use a parallel port DAC (default).
# Possible values: none, disney, covox, ston1, off.
# lpt_dac_filter: Filter for the LPT DAC audio device(s):
# on: Filter the output (default).
# off: Don't filter the output.
# <custom>: Custom filter definition; see 'sb_filter' for details.
lpt_dac = none
lpt_dac_filter = on

As an experiment I tried two variations with ltp_dac = covox AND none (added to bottom of speaker section along with lpt_dac_filter = on).
SimCity still says [Covox] "Sound Master not found."

Steve

First of all, that was a link to the dosbox staging wiki, which is a dosbox fork. Those settings don't exist in vanilla dosbox.

Second of all, I don't know much about the Covox Sound Master, other then that is it not the same as the Covox Speech Thing. The Covox Speech Thing was a parallel port dongle with just a DAC. While the Covox Sound Master was a ISA sound card.

http://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Speech_Thing
http://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Sound_Master

Even if you set aside the Speech Thing, it's important to note that over the years Covox released various sound cards under the "Sound Master" brand, some of which were incompatible with one and other. The Sound Master Plus (which I believe was supported only by Alone in the Dark) was a completely different card than the Sound Master II, for instance.

This article on Great Hierophant's blog does a thorough job of diving into the various Covox sound devices.

The Video Game Music Preservation Foundation Wiki is also a very useful resource, for instance this page about the Sound Master Plus. To sum it up: the Sound Master Plus is basically an Adlib card with an integrated LPT DAC on a non-LPT I/O address. No DMA or FIFO buffer or anything. If they had bothered to also integrate a game port on that card, and offer Disney Sound Source compatibility as well, it may have been an affordable alternative to Sound Blaster cards, and likely easier for game developers to add support for. Heck, if they were just going to stick with a dumb unbuffered 8-bit DAC, they could have easily and cheaply offered stereo support by integrating two DACs.

You can also find more info on all these sound cards in other threads here on Vogons.

_Rob wrote on 2022-12-30, 21:46:

First of all, that was a link to the dosbox staging wiki, which is a dosbox fork. Those settings don't exist in vanilla dosbox. […]
Show full quote

First of all, that was a link to the dosbox staging wiki, which is a dosbox fork. Those settings don't exist in vanilla dosbox.

Second of all, I don't know much about the Covox Sound Master, other then that is it not the same as the Covox Speech Thing. The Covox Speech Thing was a parallel port dongle with just a DAC. While the Covox Sound Master was a ISA sound card.

http://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Speech_Thing
http://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Sound_Master

Yep, and adding the two settings adds nothing because the DOSBox app itself has to be programmed to recognize them. Now I know.

Thanks for confirming CSM and CST are completely different types of hardware.

Steve

digger wrote on 2022-12-30, 21:59:

Even if you set aside the Speech Thing, it's important to note that over the years Covox released various sound cards under the […]
Show full quote

Even if you set aside the Speech Thing, it's important to note that over the years Covox released various sound cards under the "Sound Master" brand, some of which were incompatible with one and other. The Sound Master Plus (which I believe was supported only by Alone in the Dark) was a completely different card than the Sound Master II, for instance.

This article on Great Hierophant's blog does a thorough job of diving into the various Covox sound devices.

The Video Game Music Preservation Foundation Wiki is also a very useful resource, for instance this page about the Sound Master Plus. To sum it up: the Sound Master Plus is basically an Adlib card with an integrated LPT DAC on a non-LPT I/O address. No DMA or FIFO buffer or anything. If they had bothered to also integrate a game port on that card, and offer Disney Sound Source compatibility as well, it may have been an affordable alternative to Sound Blaster cards, and likely easier for game developers to add support for. Heck, if they were just going to stick with a dumb unbuffered 8-bit DAC, they could have easily and cheaply offered stereo support by integrating two DACs.

You can also find more info on all these sound cards in other threads here on Vogons.

Thanks digger,

So after reading your first link which had a lot of good info, I came to the conclusion it may not be worthwhile to implement Covox (anything) into DOSBOX, since so few games used CMS.

Now the focus is on getting the Tandy Digital option to work properly with SimCity version 1.07 which right now seems barely better than PC Speaker. I have a feeling it should sound at least better than now.

Steve

ssybesma wrote on 2022-12-30, 23:29:

So after reading your first link which had a lot of good info, I came to the conclusion it may not be worthwhile to implement Covox (anything) into DOSBOX, since so few games used CMS.
[/quote]

I assume you meant CSM (Covox Sound Master)? Because CMS is the acronym for Creative Music System (a.k.a. Game Blaster), which is a different sound card entirely. 😁

Oops, my bad!!! Yes, I meant CSM.