VOGONS


First post, by C0deHunter

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Hey all,
on my real retro PIII system, I am using MUNT for MT-32 compatible games, and although the music seem to fine (I can also visually confirm the instruments being played on the virtual LCD), the sound effects, sound weird. I even verify that I have set the sound effect to Sound Blaster, but with no luck.

Any help is really appreciated!

- PIII-800E
- Abit BH-6
- 256MB SD-RAM PC100
- AWE64 Gold
- Sound Canvas 55 MKII
- SoftMPU
- Windows 98SE (but I am using PhilComputerLabs', *pure* DOS option to play the launch the game from a DOS prompt)

The games that I have tried so far that have the sound effect issue (sound weird)

Prince of Persia
Gods
Space Quest III

PIII-800E | Abit BH-6 | GeForce FX 5200 | 64MB SD-RAM PC100 | AWE64 Gold | Sound Canvas 55 MKII | SoftMPU | 16GBGB Transcend CF as C:\ and 64GB Transcend CF D:\ (Games) | OS: MS-DOS 7.1-Win98SE-WinME-Win2K Pro (multi-OS menu Using System Commander 2K)

Reply 1 of 5, by digger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Have you tried configuring MUNT to emulate a Roland CM-32L or CM-64 instead of a regular MT-32? Those later models added 33 sound effect samples specifically for games. The MT-32 lacks those samples. Not all games make use of those sound effects, but some of them do. Give it a try.

See also http://www.marshalltradecorp.com/coDe/old-gam … -and-cm32l.html for more on the differences between these models.

Reply 2 of 5, by digger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Also, many games (unfortunately) did not allow for the music and digital audio to be configured on separate sound devices. Gods was one of those games. Either you would have FM music with digital audio (if you let it use a Sound Blaster), or MT-32 music without digital audio. For some such games, patches can be found on-line to overcome this limitation. I believe such a patch (or alternative combined sound driver) exists somewhere for Space Quest III and other Sierra games from the same era.

Reply 3 of 5, by digger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

See also this topic, particularly MTBLAST.DRV: Sierra/Dynamix sound driver hacking

Reply 4 of 5, by C0deHunter

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Thank you so much for responding to my question! OK, that MTBLAST.DRV thread seem a bit technical for me, if I download the file, and place it in a particular game folder (the game that I have sound effects issue), would it solve the problem?

Thanks!

PIII-800E | Abit BH-6 | GeForce FX 5200 | 64MB SD-RAM PC100 | AWE64 Gold | Sound Canvas 55 MKII | SoftMPU | 16GBGB Transcend CF as C:\ and 64GB Transcend CF D:\ (Games) | OS: MS-DOS 7.1-Win98SE-WinME-Win2K Pro (multi-OS menu Using System Commander 2K)

Reply 5 of 5, by digger

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

The SNDBLAST.DRV file should go in the same folder as the existing .DRV drivers that come with the game. I believe that's simply the game's root folder. Then you have to run setup.exe (or was it install.exe?) and select this sound driver. I can't remember whether the setup/install programs would autodetect each newly added DRV driver or if you had to overwrite an existing one and then select the sound device of the overwritten driver.

But I think you can Google the specific instructions for adding or replacing sound drivers in Sierra games using the SCI interpreter.

Good luck! 😀