Status of SCI games

md5 · Post by **md5** » Mon May 11, 2009 6:28 am

HelixNRG wrote:Given that there's a lot more work to do on SCI1 games and newer, Will SCUMMVM v0.14.0 include support for all the older SCI0 games?

- Alex

It's too early to say

filipetolhuizen · Post by **filipetolhuizen** » Sat May 16, 2009 1:58 pm

Larry 1 VGA remake is working well. There are just a few issues with music and it only seems to be playing in Adlib (there is MT-32 support in the original game). Support for the Macintosh version would be nice as it has better sound/music.

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Sat May 16, 2009 9:44 pm

There is a General MIDI patch for LSL1VGA, but it probably wouldn't be recognized by ScummVM. MT-32 is supported, but is not optimized for it. As far as the Mac version having better sound, I would doubt it, as by that time the Sierra ports to other platforms tended to be very poor.

filipetolhuizen · Post by **filipetolhuizen** » Sat May 16, 2009 10:37 pm

Where can I get the patch? I googled for it and couldn't find it.

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Sun May 17, 2009 2:15 am

http://www.sierrahelp.com/Utilities/Sou ... es.html#GM

filipetolhuizen · Post by **filipetolhuizen** » Mon May 18, 2009 2:47 am

Thanks. I tried it, but no go... It says 4.PAT is missing. I also noticed that Adlib and SoundBlaster sounds are playing at the same time when running lsl1vga in scummvm. There is also a thick purple line on the top of the game during the questions. Larry 3 has also MT-32 support but only plays music in Adlib when running in scummvm.

Collector · Post by **Collector** » Mon May 18, 2009 5:27 pm

From the readme of the patch:

The driver will expect the patch file to be named "4.PAT" so you must rename the appropriate patch file for each game to "4.PAT"

KainXVIII · Post by **KainXVIII** » Mon May 18, 2009 7:04 pm

Will support of external digitized sountrack be added (like in Simon the Sorcerer) ? Want to play SQ3 with mt-32 digitized music ^_^ (downloaded from http://www.spacequest.net/sq3/soundtrack/)

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Mon May 18, 2009 7:34 pm

Not possible. Completely different engine.

Pix2 · Post by **Pix2** » Mon May 18, 2009 8:47 pm

It definitely is possible (See http://pix.www.idnet.com) and is already working (more or less) provided you are using Windows or PSP.

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Mon May 18, 2009 11:22 pm

Ah, really? I was kind of hoping it wouldn't be possible as it really shouldn't be. You just can't play these old MIDI-based games with digital soundtracks (especially ones with advanced music engines like iMuse and SCI). There's lots of stuff going on all at the same time behind the scenes that the game does to the soundtrack. It's not just played back and looped and/or not looped. MIDI channels are muted, unmuted, soloed, cued at certain points for looping (not just to the beginning of the track again) and triggering game events, and volume adjusting on certain instruments at a time. A digital music pack can't really recreate that and the result for games that really depended on it would be very jarring and break the atmosphere. Not to mention you'd be missing out on a lot of everything I just mentioned above.

Seldon · Post by **Seldon** » Tue May 19, 2009 4:59 am

MusicallyInspired wrote:Ah, really? I was kind of hoping it wouldn't be possible as it really shouldn't be. You just can't play these old MIDI-based games with digital soundtracks (especially ones with advanced music engines like iMuse and SCI).

I always thought, that all above applies to iMuse only, the SCI sound system is much simplier. Besides, you can't (or at least it's not very convenient) hook your MT-32 to your Symbian phone or palmtop.

KainXVIII · Post by **KainXVIII** » Tue May 19, 2009 9:17 am

Pix2 wrote:It definitely is possible (See http://pix.www.idnet.com) and is already working (more or less) provided you are using Windows or PSP.

Thanks, i will try your modified build (but official support maybe will be better - fewer bugs , etc) =)

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Tue May 19, 2009 1:11 pm

Seldon wrote:
MusicallyInspired wrote:Ah, really? I was kind of hoping it wouldn't be possible as it really shouldn't be. You just can't play these old MIDI-based games with digital soundtracks (especially ones with advanced music engines like iMuse and SCI).
I always thought, that all above applies to iMuse only, the SCI sound system is much simplier. Besides, you can't (or at least it's not very convenient) hook your MT-32 to your Symbian phone or palmtop.

Well, it's not as advanced as iMuse (what is!) but it definitely does all of what I listed there and having a digital music pack will severely impact the way the music is supposed to be heard regardless.

Take KQ5 for instance, on one of the first desert screens where the vegetation is disappearing and the sand starts the closer you walk to the left the volume is increased in a specific instrument (a high string note I believe). A wind sound effect also increases in volume and the volume of a channel with bird tweets is lowered.

Also for the introduction sequence there are a bunch of song cues in the sound file that the game looks for before it proceeds to the next step of the introduction. So the game waits until a certain length of a song has been played and then once it reaches that point it continues on with the rest of the sequence. This is how the game knows when to make Mordack stop storming the Castle Daventry and finally make it swirl up into the sky and disappear.

And vice versa. The song file will loop a sound file at certain loop points until the game says to suddenly switch to another song file and (because it's in MIDI) the result is a seamless almost "real band-spontaneous" transition between music pieces. Like the sequence where Graham talks to Cedric in the intro. There's like 4 or 5 different musical pieces that loop and wait for the game to complete some of its text conversations before it changes tracks to suit the atmosphere of the conversation. You just can't duplicate that stuff with digital music packs.

And regarding a real MT-32 on a Symbian/palmtop, get the MT-32 ROMs. I hear MUNT's MT-32 emulation is getting much better lately. I think before too long we'll be running with perfect MT-32 emulation (which would be far better than any music pack).

md5 · Post by **md5** » Tue May 19, 2009 1:33 pm

MusicallyInspired wrote: Also for the introduction sequence there are a bunch of song cues in the sound file that the game looks for before it proceeds to the next step of the introduction. So the game waits until a certain length of a song has been played and then once it reaches that point it continues on with the rest of the sequence. This is how the game knows when to make Mordack stop storming the Castle Daventry and finally make it swirl up into the sky and disappear.

That is very true. SCI does sync certain animations with music events. So, I'm unsure if these music packs will work for SCI...