VOGONS


First post, by Muz

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I found out the game just only use PC speaker for old DOS machine, how to increase the volume of the DOS speaker?

Reply 3 of 18, by Disruptor

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Basically leileilol is right.
On some systems you can play PC speaker sound through the sound card.

The volume of the internal speaker cannot be increased.

...

"Study your Kanji" xD

Reply 6 of 18, by Shreddoc

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You can get rather quiet PC speakers, eg. some of the small motherboard-based ones. Which, when coupled with a thick case (and perhaps under a desk as well), would be barely audible.

Conversely you can get far louder ones, eg. 5-7cm actual little speaker cones, which side-by-side can sound easily twice as loud as their quietest piezo cousins.

When I went through an Apogee phase a year or two back, I needed to upgrade the former to the latter, as the speaker in the PC I used was too quiet otherwise.

But then things became too loud after the change. So I spent a moment to wire a spare resistance pot in there - thus my PC speaker does have a volume control of sorts. But not really in the sense that the OP requires.

Either way, my point is that PC speakers come in a variety of loudnesses.

Reply 7 of 18, by Pierre32

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Yep, and another option is to look at how the speaker is mounted. Funnily enough it was this very game that pushed me to fix mine. It was originally housed in a plastic cage, just hanging out there in the air. I hard-mounted it to the front of the chassis (you can see the two slightly askew screws in the second pic). Big improvement!

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Reply 8 of 18, by Shreddoc

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In some ways, it's funny that we have these things inside the PC case at all, right? I know it doesn't greatly matter in the context of these tinny beepers! But for humorous imagination's sake : is there any other situation where people seeking the best-sounding version of something, would ever say:

Carefully choose and arrange your speaker inside a semi-sealed, roughly joined together metal box of random dimensions and contents, and place it somewhere off to one side

?? 🤣

Reply 11 of 18, by dr.zeissler

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I checked it parallel on Amiga/PC/Tandy it's great and it looks and sounds very different on these three machines.
On the PC I can increase the PC-Speaker Volume, because the Bridgeboard A2286/8 has a Speaker-out and my SC1630 has a speaker in.
So the essvol can change the volume of the pc-speaker. It's absolute best to route the PC-Speaker over the soundcard.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 12 of 18, by Pierre32

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Yeah it's a nicely presented game. As Calvero points out it supports much more than the PC speaker in DOS, but it's one of those DOS games that works some PCM magic on the speaker, and that is worth checking out.

A video showcasing more DOS games that do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzNbGa05dfg

Reply 15 of 18, by NewRisingSun

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There is only one non-budget version of the game. The sound card is selected via command line parameter ("adlib", "cms", "mt32", without dash or slash), or after the title screen by pressing ESC to bring up the main menu, then pressing 4 to select the music device. Sound effects will always come through the PC Speaker.

The Amiga version of the game imitates the Roland MT-32 music.

Reply 16 of 18, by Disruptor

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Bondi wrote on 2022-01-23, 10:33:

Budokan has actually more sound options
budokan.png

This is for music output.
Sound effects are still played on PC speaker.

Reply 17 of 18, by Riikcakirds

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dr.zeissler wrote on 2022-01-23, 10:25:

I checked it parallel on Amiga/PC/Tandy it's great and it looks and sounds very different on these three machines.
On the PC I can increase the PC-Speaker Volume, because the Bridgeboard A2286/8 has a Speaker-out and my SC1630 has a speaker in.
So the essvol can change the volume of the pc-speaker. It's absolute best to route the PC-Speaker over the soundcard.

What version do you think is the best. I guess the PC VGA version has more colors than the Amiga port. Someone also mentioned the Amiga sounds are sampled from the MT32, not sure if this is just for music or if the Amiga has additional SFX vs PC version.