VladR Posted June 12, 2017 Share Posted June 12, 2017 Thanks for clearing that up. It's been a quarter century, after all As for integer/fp - yes - Quake was the first that started using floating point. Perhaps the latency of coprocessor on 386 was too prohibitive to benefit significantly compared to fixedpoint. I'm sure JC tried it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VladR Posted June 12, 2017 Share Posted June 12, 2017 Oh, it was awesome... it really made all the difference in the world. I've posted two videos below that show the comparison. Just listening to the guitar when they do the guitar breaks, it's night and day. The OPL kind of sounds like butt. Yeah, the Roland Sound Canvas was incredibly expensive... I think something like over $500 bucks. I got mine for $35 dollars because the kid who owned it got a new keyboard and upgraded to a Pentium, and said it wouldn't work. It did, I offered to fix it for him, he said he didn't care, and said... how much do you want... he asked for $35 bucks... so that's what I gave him. It requires NO drivers at all, just runs off an address and an IRQ. One of the things that made the Roland sound so good, was its ability to use what's called "reverb." For sound cards, this meant you could have music seemingly play in the distance. So every song wasn't like you had a mariachi band right in your face, but instead... perhaps a full string, brass, woodwind, and percussion orchestra with distance. The big difference between the Gravis UltraSound and the Roland Sound Canvas is that the Gravis had software-loaded patches. This made it uniquely powerful to load patches specifically for a game using 32-voice polyphony. Unfortunately, almost no games took advantage of it, and the Gravis UltraSound spent most of it's life just emulating MT-32 or General Midi, and / or the OPL3. I had a Gravis UltraSound ACE, which was meant to work independently (but installed with) a Sound Blaster. It was a single 16-bit card that didn't do action sounds, just emulated UltraSound. If you ever get the opportunity to hear Star Control 2 with the Gravis UltraSound, the music is done natively with the Ultrasound. It is unbelievably clear... sounds amazing. Those with Sound Blasters would hear constant static. Just from the top of my audio memory, this sounds very similar to Gravis Ultrasound (once our friend bought Gravis, it was Doom time all the time afterwards ). I would have to research both cards to see what differences they had, but it's clearly night and day to SoundBlaster. Which brings us, full circle, back to Jag. While that port didn't have any music, did any other console port of Doom offer a non-CD based music/audio quality, like the Gravis/Roland ? Perhaps Saturn's port (assuming it's not the infamous one done in few weeks) could come close ? Performance-wise, with 8 processors, it better should, but it's 16-bit PCM might not be a match for Gravis. It would be really funny, if the best total Doom experience was possible only on PC... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted June 12, 2017 Share Posted June 12, 2017 All I can say is that anyone who says they like Doom "better without the sound" is lying. To us, or to themselves Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted June 12, 2017 Share Posted June 12, 2017 Well yeh.. decision of typical marketing morons. They rush it to the shelves and the port was incomplete. And the system would've been slowed down anyways because of bus bandwidth - if they did a crude conversion. Too much would've had to be re-written to get it back up to speed. Here's the thing about business ... if you spend more money than you have, you run out of money and shut your doors. When DOOM was created, Atari was seriously broke and struggling to stay afloat. There was concerns that they wouldn't be able to stay alive long enough for the Jaguar to succeed. The Sega windfall came later. DOOM was a hot game and an expensive license for a company with not a lot of money. Likely there were business constraints placed on how much Atari could spend on having it ported (they had to contract that out) and they desperately needed a big name title to market after the reception of the initial games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 (edited) The OPL/SoundBlaster stuff sounds like raspy farts coming out of Kim Kardashian's butt. Especially now that it got deflated. The Roland Sound Canvas sounds like a candy-ass orchestra. It has to be noted that anything better than the original OPL/SoundBlaster quality isn't right. That means the sounds are too good for the blocky graphics. Total mismatch. It doesn't jive well. Yah know? It would be really funny, if the best total Doom experience was possible only on PC... Well so far it is.. What's better? Edited June 13, 2017 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 Did games automatically get better sound with the Roland? Or did they have to be specifically programmed for it? How did it work in a world where SoundBlaster was the standard? And what's the point if no one could afford it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 (edited) They had to be programmed for it. Look up MIDI. But it wasn't that hard. You sent the instrument data or notes to the card and the card belted the shit out. But with like the OPL and the typical arcade sound chip, even like Pokey, GI AY series, SID, and others, you had you build up and control the wave real-time. In otherwords the MIDI boards could read the sheet music. But the FM chips had to be told how to shape the wave - and that took time. It was also possible to have more than 1 soundcard installed. Just assign a different DMA/IRQ and the system isn't the wiser. In fact old betsy is equipped with 2 different soundcards as we speak! Edited June 13, 2017 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 (edited) How did it work in a world where SoundBlaster was the standard? And what's the point if no one could afford it? A lot of games had the General Midi or Roland as an option in the setup menu. And all games supported Adlib/Soundblaster out of the box. Most SoundBlaster cards could accept a MIDI daughterboard. This was an add-on that had instrument samples in rom, extra ram, a DSP, and other chips to support MIDI playback. Doing MIDI was likely easier than OPL, and less processor intensive too. So if you had the extra money, you got the extra card. Or a better card. Like I say, all games supported the bargain bin adlib standard. There's really a lot to read and I don't know of any one crash-course in PC soundcards. http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/ http://nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com/2012/07/sound-blaster-16-trials-and-tribulations.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_16 http://www.retronn.de/imports/soundblaster_config_guide.html Back in the day I preferred the CT1740 and later, the CT4390. But I swear this company made over 230 variants and models by catering to all price tiers and all OEM configurations. With each board being made as cheaply as possible. Edited June 13, 2017 by Keatah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
82-T/A Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 (edited) Did games automatically get better sound with the Roland? Or did they have to be specifically programmed for it? How did it work in a world where SoundBlaster was the standard? And what's the point if no one could afford it? Roland made music keyboards... really professional ones, as did Korg, and Yamaha. The OPL chip on the Sound Blaster is basically nothing more than a glorified Casio Tone Bank keyboard that every little kid had in the 1980s. The big difference with the Roland is that the Roland Sound Canvas "patch" chip is made up of hundreds of musical instrument "recordings." So for example, It was like they would basically take a violinist and have him play open A or C on the A string, and then they'd record it. Then they'd take the pitch of the sound, and change it slightly to change the note. Yamaha chipset is basically faking a musical note by doing all kinds of stuff like Keatah explains. I'm no expert... but there's a difference in the polyphony which is how many something or others that can play at the same time... hahah.. Here's a good example: Start at 3:52 if you want to skip the description... FYI, the MT32 was the old-school variant. They later produced even better cards such as the LAPC/1 (which is what I have) that came as an actual 8-bit ISA card. They also had the RAP-10, and some others. Edited June 13, 2017 by 82-T/A 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skip Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 Also, the resolution looks like it's 224x240, or 256x240. It's definitely not 320x200 - the pixels are too large for that. If you're talking about the video I linked to, that's PC Wolf 3D. Probably running on a 386. The source resolution of the textures in Jag Wolf are 4x that of the PC iirc. I think the Jag game itself runs at 320 x 200 or 240. If it weren't for the slightly ropey music (it's fine, but not CD quality by a long shot) and the fact it's missing the *many* extra levels from 3rd Encounter (which were included on the 3DO port, although graphically this was based on the SNES version!) the Jaguar version could be considered the definitive version of the original Wolf 3D...oh yeah, some people were bummed that you couldn't select the knife when you had guns...I never minded either way, but it was a silly omission. More reading: http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/Jaguar_port_of_Wolfenstein_3D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 The Jag version is also missing enemies facing the direction they're moving. Instead they always face toward the player, like the monsters in 32X Doom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xucaen Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 Listen to the Jaguar Doom podcast. All your questions will be answered. http://atarijaguargamebygame.libsyn.com/14-doom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xucaen Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 All I can say is that anyone who says they like Doom "better without the sound" is lying. To us, or to themselves OK, I won't say I like it better, but I do like it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Dangerous Posted June 13, 2017 Share Posted June 13, 2017 (edited) This video is freaking awesome. Can't get enough of that glorious synth sound!! Thanks for posting 82-T/A Edited June 13, 2017 by travistouchdown 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 All I can say is that anyone who says they like Doom "better without the sound" is lying. To us, or to themselves Sure, it sounds amazing with the Roland, but with the Soundblaster? Meh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feralstorm Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 The Jag version is also missing enemies facing the direction they're moving. Instead they always face toward the player, like the monsters in 32X Doom. That's just not correct. Perhaps you're thinking of Jag Wolfenstein? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Maybe you should look at what I was actually replying to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 At one point in the early 00's, a friend of mine traded me a Roland SCC-1a. Actually he claimed it wasn't worth the shipping price on eBay, so he wasn't interested in selling it there. I offered him a used Logitech USB gamepad in exchange and we shook on it. A few weeks later I tried my hand at installing it in my even-then retro DOS rig. Messed with RCA audio inputs and outputs... Wasn't expecting much. After all, we polked fun at this guy all through High School for saying how great MIDI music was. After some configuration, first game I fired up was Doom. I was floored. Floored! I can't even begin to tell you how many dozens if not hundreds of hours I was on that game, and the music was never even in the realm of this good. At best it was formerly some rubbery electonic atmosphere... This was now MUSIC! In just a few short minutes it danced right past the best of what my SNES could do! Anyway, yeah, I've been hooked on these sound cards ever since then. I wish the Jag could do MIDI somehow, or could be programmed like a wavetable. I hope everyone who wants to see Doom or many other DOS games running the high-end sound cards gets a chance too. It's really spectacular. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Video Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Wasn't there an option to have music if you played two player? I was thinking one jag played sound effects and the other jag played the music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 I wish the Jag could do MIDI somehow, or could be programmed like a wavetable. Uh, the Jag can and does do both those things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Has there ever been a discussion about a Jag outputting a raw MIDI-out signal? Maybe via the jaglink? I'd imagine that would be pretty low processor overhead, or maybe not I don't know. Anyhow the MIDI info could be piped out to a GM synth in this situation, if that part of the code was somehow shoved into the Jaguar version, right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 As said before, MIDI is low-overhead. Simple as dumping numbers from memory in sequence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainBreakout Posted June 14, 2017 Share Posted June 14, 2017 Well, if anyone ever creates a Jaguar MIDI-out adapter, we'll be halfway there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
82-T/A Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 Maybe you should look at what I was actually replying to. Not meaning as a crack, but it's much easier to understand if / when you use the quote button, otherwise (personally), I have a hard time following. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZylonBane Posted June 15, 2017 Share Posted June 15, 2017 In the absence of quoting, it's always assumed the reply is to the immediately preceding post. See for example: this post and your post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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