Opened 4 years ago

Last modified 4 years ago

#11587 closed defect

SCI1.0 games don't respect "Prefer digital sound effects" checkbox — at Initial Version

Reported by: MusicallyInspired Owned by:
Priority: normal Component: Engine: SCI
Version: Keywords: digital, sound, effect, midi
Cc: Game:

Description

For as long as I've been using ScummVM since it integrated FreeSCI and when the appropriate "Engine" menu tab was first introduced, it doesn't seem to matter whether "Prefer digital sound effects" is checked or not in Engine Settings for SCI1.0 games, it always used digital sound effects regardless and will not use the alternate MIDI sound effects when MIDI sound effects do in fact exist. I've been using DOSBox for Sierra games generally and decided to put Sierra games on my phone recently with the latest version of ScummVM available for Android and it seems this issue was never noticed or rectified. Also persists in the latest desktop version.

It doesn't play nothing when unchecked, it uses digital sound effects either way. It seems as though every SCI1.0 game is affected. SCI0, SCI0.1, and SCI1.1 games do respect the checkbox and will play MIDI sound effect alternates when unchecked (test examples: SQ3, KQ1SCI, KQ6 (floppy) respectively), but SCI1.0 games persist in playing digital sounds seemingly across the board. One would have to use DOSBox to hear MIDI sound effects for these games as it currently stands.

Here is a short list of SCI1.0 games I've tested and where digital/MIDI sound effects exist and how to tell quickly what the issue is:

-SQ1SCI EGA/VGA: Skip intro, the Deltaur ship grapples onto the Arcada and causes a digital sound effect "clamp" sound (should have MIDI alternative when checkbox unchecked). Shortly after the ship doors open with a digital sound and the computer warns of the self destruct with digital speech as a sound effect. The door sound has a MIDI alternate sound but the self destruct computer speech does not (as you'd expect).

-SQ4 Floppy EGA/VGA: Skip intro, the flying shuttle hovers over Xenon and then takes off into the distance producing digital sound for both (should have MIDI alternatives when checkbox unchecked).

-PQ3 EGA/VGA: Skip intro, Sonny Bonds gets off the elevator, elevator has a digital sound when the doors open and close (should have MIDI alternatives when checkbox unchecked).

For SQ4 particularly it's very beneficial to be able to deactivate digital sound effects while playing with the MT-32 for music as the sounds are all just lo-fi digital samples of MT-32 sound effects, which you'd get in full quality with MUNT or an MT-32.

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