Nightkin wrote:Why is Adlib the one choose for Indy 4?
I'm not sure what sev meant, but Adlib is not the only choice for
Indy 4. It happens to be my personal choice for it, but that's beside the point.
The original PC version of
Indy 4 supported, I believe, PC Speaker, Adlib and MT-32 music. ScummVM currently only supports the Adlib and MT-32 music. As I said above, the MT-32 music is
almost General MIDI, but unless it's played through a MT-32, ScummVM has to approximate it.
I haven't heard what the MT-32 music really should sound like, and on my hardware the MIDI approximation sometimes sounds a bit off, so that's why
I use Adlib instead.
Nightkin wrote:How do I know which soundcard to choose for which game Monkey, BASS, and so on?
I'm only familiar with the situation in the PC versions of the games, not Amiga or Macintosh or FM Towns versions, etc. With that in mind...
The more recent games have digitized music, so for them the music driver makes no difference at all. Similarly, it has no effect on the games that use CD audio tracks for their music.
For the rest of the games, the music driver does matter. The list of available ones may look daunting, but for most games there are only two that matter: Adlib, and the native MIDI driver. Most of the remaining games support MIDI music in some way, and that's what I would try first. However, there are a couple of games that do support MIDI where I still prefer Adlib.
Some games are too old to support MIDI. For the EGA versions of
Loom and
The Secret of Monkey Island there are patches that add MIDI music. You should be able to find them on LucasArts's support web pages. (I believe ScummVM will produce an error message if you try to play MIDI music for them if the patch is missing.) If not, try Adlib.
Some games are too old to even have Adlib music. That's where the PC Speaker and PCjr music drivers come in handy. I think LucasArts supported the PC Speaker and PCjr music at least up to
Fate of Atlantis, but ScummVM only supports it for some of the older games.
So which is the best? Well, if you ask any random player, he will probably tell you that by sheer coincidence, the very best sound in the universe just happens to be produced by whatever he first played
The Secret of Monkey Island on. Even if it was the PC speaker.
You'll just have to experiment to find what suits you. If the music driver isn't valid for the game, ScummVM should fall back to using a sensible default, so if they all sound the same to you, that's probably what's happening.
