Or better yet, Buy a real Rastan Saga arcade board http://cgi.ebay.com/Taito-Rastan-Jamma-Arcade … 8QQcmdZViewItem, grab the ROMs from somewhere online, visit www.MAME32.com, download MAME32 and play the real thing with proper YM262 music, sounds and sampled effects

I think the Rastan music in the PC version was supposed to sound that way. I mean it was originally low.

dh4rm4 wrote:

Or better yet, Buy a real Rastan Saga arcade board http://cgi.ebay.com/Taito-Rastan-Jamma-Arcade … 8QQcmdZViewItem, grab the ROMs from somewhere online, visit www.MAME32.com, download MAME32 and play the real thing with proper YM262 music, sounds and sampled effects

Obviously, for all Arcade to PC ports that is an option, but does not fix the problem, does it? Should all reports of Arcade to PC ports such as the Atarisoft titles: Ms. Pac-Man, Centipede, Moon Patrol...etc. be disregarded or replied to in a similar fashion as well?

My post wasn't requesting how to play the original Rastan Arcade game or what is the best version of Rastan (In which your reply would make sense), but rather it concerns the volume of the background music with respects to the PC port under DOSBox when using Adlib as the soundcard choice.

eL_PuSHeR wrote:

I think the Rastan music in the PC version was supposed to sound that way. I mean it was originally low.

I do not recall it being low at all. I distinctly remember this game and it's music. I first obtained it when all I owned was a XT-compatibile computer. A whopping 640KB and CGA 4-color graphics with PC speaker sound only.

It wasn't until years later I obtained my next PC which was a P100 (Original Pentium line 100Mhz) with an Ensoniq Soundscape Sound card. Selecting the Adlib sound and playing on that machine blew me away...The music was as loud and clear as the sound effects.

Again, I am extremely confident the music is not suppose to be so extremely low...if someone can look into it or test on "real" hardware, it would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I said 'better yet' and never inferred that your choice was a poor one in playing the PC port. With reference to your memory of how the music sounded, it probably hasn't failed you - it's quite possible that the music did sound loud via your Ensoniq Soundscape but maybe you might also remember that the SoundScape wasn't actually an OPL2/3 FM equipped card but rather it used it's OTTO synthesiser to emulate Adlib OPL2 playback. Therefore it's probable that Rastan sounded not only louder but possibly different via your Soundscape than it would've through a true OPL2/3 equipped card like the SoundBlaster or Adlib both of which DOSBox emulates pretty darn well.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1995_articles … soundscape.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoniq_Soundscape_Elite

Could the MIXER internal DOSBOx command do anything about it?

butterfly wrote:

Could the MIXER internal DOSBOx command do anything about it?

I tried it. The FM setting I increased. The music does become louder, unfortuantely so does the sound effects. It appears both music and sound effects are affected by the FM adjust. The others (Except MASTER obviously) has no effect.

Consequently, the sound effects are now too loud when adjusted to hear the music correctly.

Nonetheless, thank you for the information and idea, butterfly. I appreciate it.

Any other suggestions (from anyone)?

dh4rm4 wrote:

...it's quite possible that the music did sound loud via your Ensoniq Soundscape but maybe you might also remember that the SoundScape wasn't actually an OPL2/3 FM equipped card but rather it used it's OTTO synthesiser to emulate Adlib OPL2 playback. Therefore it's probable that Rastan sounded not only louder but possibly different via your Soundscape than it would've through a true OPL2/3 equipped card like the SoundBlaster or Adlib both of which DOSBox emulates pretty darn well.

If that is the case, why are the sound effects so much louder? When I had the Ensoniq Soundscape both the music and sound effects were at normal volume levels. As the emulation is currently the sound effects are much louder than the music in Rastan.

After playing the game again all I can say is that your memory both of the game itself and your Soundscape's adlib FM emulation fails you. Rastan sounds as it should on a real AdLib card. The reason why sound FX and music are both affected by the FM portion of the DOSBox mixer is due to the fact that RASTAN only supports the AdLib Music Synthesiser, so both music and sound effects are generated via FM. This would clearly explain why the music is softer than the fx - this was the case in many games where AdLib was doing both sound fx and music, the player's and enemy actions had to take precedence over the background music.

My statements regarding the FM emulation provided by the Soundscape still stand and go a long way to explaining the difference between the performance of a real AdLib/OPL2/3 on a Soundblaster and your Soundscape - basically the Soundscape gets it 'wrong' and plays the effects and music at the same level. The Gravis Ultrasound (another card that doesn't have a true FM synthesiser) had similar issues when emulating AdLib support in it's heyday too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdLib

dh4rm4 wrote:

My statements regarding the FM emulation provided by the Soundscape still stand and go a long way to explaining the difference between the performance of a real AdLib/OPL2/3 on a Soundblaster and your Soundscape - basically the Soundscape gets it 'wrong' and plays the effects and music at the same level. The Gravis Ultrasound (another card that doesn't have a true FM synthesiser) had similar issues when emulating AdLib support in it's heyday too.

I guess my next inquiry then is in future versions of DOSBox will such behaviors be taken into consideration?

Thanks for the replies, btw.

did u try the dosbox mixer??? "mixer" command

lightmaster wrote:

did u try the dosbox mixer??? "mixer" command

Please see my earlier response to butterfly.