VOGONS

FIFA International Soccer (CD) sound effects

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First post, by Titus03

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I found the game some time ago, as EA Classics -release, and installed it by using DOSBox.

It seems that this release has all the resources for MIDi-music, but they can't be used anymore, as on floppy disk -release. This release contained CD-music, as we know. (Curiously, I tried using similar MIDI-configuration for this release that works on floppy disk -release, but it didn't do anything.)

CD-music is fine, so this is not something I'm concerned about.

Let's go to the main subject:

When I run the game normally:
- set up sound card (tried every possible selectable sound card, except Adlib Gold)
- then run the game.

-> I can hear the crowd chanting and commentary, but not kicks and whistles.

Then I disabled commentary and began a match.

- I can hear crowd chanting, but not kicks and whistles.

Then I downloaded this patch, and ran the low-memory-version of the game (with commentary off, obviously):

- I can hear crowd chanting, kicks and whistles.

Weird. This makes me thinking:

- Does the game use the same audio channel for commentary that was reserved for kicks and whistles on floppy disk -release and low-memory-version, so the game is actually designed that way?

or

- Should I hear everything on CD-release, but for some reason I can't hear kicks and whistles?

Thanks.

EDIT:

I found some videos of the CD-release from YouTube, when I searched for "FIFA International Soccer Special Edition". There were no kicks and whistles sound effects on those videos. Those videos may be created by using DOSBox, which is not sure. My guess is that those sound effects are not available on real DOS either. I can check this later, or if someone is faster, he / she may confirm if this is true or not.

- Titus03 -

Reply 1 of 3, by JSO

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I'm looking for this version for years!

When I was first played it on 1995 it was a cd ripped version. 8 Floppy disks compressed.

I remember that on my 386DX25 then I had no music, but I remembering the intro I saw on youtube.

Probably the video was captured using DOSBox.

You can check the Sega CD version and check it with an emulator if sound effects and music are working as they should be.

DOS IS THE POWER OF OUR CHILDHOOD MEMORIES!

Reply 2 of 3, by sinhhilo

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si, tengo el mismo problema con la versión "special". Además, con la versión de disketes, el problema que tengo es que el silbato lo oigo muy agudo y recuerdo que eso en mi vieja PC no sucedía. Es más, desde la configuración de sonido uno podía solucionarlo.
alguién pudo solucionarlo?

Yes, I have the same problem with the "special" version. In addition, with the version of disketes, the problem I have is that the whistle I hear very sharp and I remember that on my old PC did not happen. Moreover, from the sound configuration one could solve it.
Could someone solve it?

Reply 3 of 3, by TeleTubby666

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Just found the actual cause of this, years after the fact, so for anyone who still stumbles onto this thread:

The CD release’s effect-player explicitly skips effect 11 (the kick-off whistle) and effect 12 when played through the FM path — two conditional jumps turned into unconditional “always skip”. The “4 MB” build has the exact same skip. On top of that, the CD build also reserves a fixed ~408 KB block of DOS memory for its sound data at start-up, which leaves too little conventional memory for the FM instrument bank (SAMPLE.AD, ~3.9 KB) to load — so even with the skip removed, the FM driver never gets its instrument data and stays silent on the CD release.

Fixing both (5 bytes for the CD build, 4 for the “4 MB” build) gets the whistle and effects playing through FM again, while leaving the driver’s one digital voice free for crowd chants and (CD build) commentary — all four together, on Sound Blaster-compatible cards.

I packaged this as a small DOS/Python patcher: https://github.com/TeleTubby666/FIFA-Fixer (also fixes the AMD K6 start-up crash, unrelated issue). Tested on real K6-III+ hardware with an AWE32 for the “4 MB” build; the CD-ROM sound fix itself so far only in DOSBox-X.

One loose end, @Titus03: I grabbed the fifa.zip you linked. The FIFA.EXE inside it is just the plain, unmodified “4 MB” build, byte-identical to what I have as the unpatched reference — same effect-11/12 skip and everything. So that download by itself wouldn’t have changed anything; whatever made the whistle and kicks audible for you was something else in that test (sound card selection, driver routing, commentary being off freeing up the single digital voice, etc.). If you remember your exact FIFA.CFG/card setup from back then, I’d be curious — it might point at a routing path I haven’t accounted for yet.

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