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You are here: MacNN Forums > Enthusiast Zone > Gaming > Classic Adventure Games on Mac vs on PC with MT32s

Classic Adventure Games on Mac vs on PC with MT32s
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Horsepoo!!!
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May 27, 2008, 10:38 PM
 
Back in the days, adventure games were made on PC and ported to Mac. The PC version had a plethora of audio options (considering PCs didn't have a built-in soundcard that outputted sounds other than 'beep' and 'boop'). PC users could buy a number of soundcards. The most popular were the SoundBlaster soundcards but there were other audio options such as the MT32 synthesizer which produced high quality sounds and music.

Back in those days, I didn't know all this. Well, that's not true, I knew that the SoundBlaster existed since my friends with PCs were talking about it. Of course, I was living an ignorant and bliss life because my Mac (all Macs) had decent soundcards built-in by default.

I used to play my Sierra and LucasArts adventure games with high quality sound and music, completely oblivious that shittier sound existed. Of course, my friends were saying "OMG, wow, SoundBlaster...it's so AWESOME." To me it always sounded pretty meh when I actually got to play some games at their place. But now I realize why they were so excited to get SoundBlaster cards...their PCs had built-in soundcards that could output exactly two sounds: "beep" and "boop". No wonder that when they got a soundcard that could output a harmonic scale of (admitedly shitty) sounds, they'd jump with joy! Seven sounds is clearly a larger number than two! (ok I exagerate, the SoundBlaster could output more than seven sounds.)

I do remember seeing in the Sierra and LucasArts booklets mentions of MT32 Roland for PC but never gave it much thought considering A) I was on a Mac and the sound was great. B ) none of my friends had an MT32.

But recently, I've been looking at YouTube videos and listening to .ogg recordings of MT32 music from Sierra and LucasArts games and I was like "Hey, that's how the classic Sierra and LucasArts games always sounded like."

Am I crazy? Seriously, there might be a bit more reverb effects in the MT32 synth versions but the sound is essentially the same. So I dunno...I'm not sure whether I have to feel happy or sorry for the people that had to buy expensive MT32 Roland synth boxes to enjoy great sound and music in their old games back in the days.

I see YouTube videos of people showing off their MT32 Rolands playing Space Quest 3 and 4 tunes or Monkey Island 1 and 2 tunes like it's the most amazing thing in the world. And people post comments like "Nothing like MT32 sound."

I saw a video comparing Prince of Persia for DOS with Prince of Persia for some other retarded platform and the remake of Prince of Persia on xbox 360...omitted in the comparison video was the Mac version with the better graphics and better sound than the DOS and other platform (obviously the xbox version looks and sounds better but it also plays differently so it shouldn't count ).

So, yes, I was living an ignorant and bliss life back in the days. But I truly was on the better platform (during those days...from 1995 to 2008 though, I can't say the Macs had truly superior game ports). But now I realize that even in 2008 everyone else is living an ignorant and bliss life about the past...completely unaware that games sounded and looked better on the Mac.

I can't tell if I should guard this secret or let it out. I don't think it should be a secret anymore. People should know that they were on the wrong platform back then. And had they known back then, perhaps Apple wouldn't have lost so much market share between 1994 and 2006...but that's a different story.

Anyways...I just had to let this all out. I hate seeing so many ignorant PC users. Too bad I'm on the wrong forum to educate these guys. Google will assure that people that search for "MT32" will find this thread though.
     
hokie17
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May 27, 2008, 11:49 PM
 
Just a FYI, I recently played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on ScummVM and it worked perfectly in Leopard.
Al MB 2.4GHz 2GB DDR3
     
StuartinKingston
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May 28, 2008, 04:09 AM
 
Same here, kicked up the Indiana game too on Scumm in Leopard and worked no prob... looking forward to Scumm doing something for the non-hijacked iPhone.
     
Horsepoo!!!  (op)
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May 28, 2008, 08:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by hokie17 View Post
Just a FYI, I recently played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on ScummVM and it worked perfectly in Leopard.
Well...I can guarantee that it wasn't "perfect" since ScummVM simply doesn't handle the audio the same way the Mac version did.

I wrote the rant above because yesterday I realized that the Mac data files for the LucasArts games produce much different audio than the PC data files in ScummVM. The Mac data file produces much better sound on the 'default' setting. However, this doesn't mean that the Mac version used to sound like this...quite the contrary. The Mac version sounded much like a Roland MT32 (perhaps the sound sample was a tad lower in quality on the Mac but it was definitely richer than what we hear in ScummVM).

If Classic Mac emulation wasn't such a pain in the arse, I'd get some sample music from Indy or Monkey Island so you guys can compare it with what ScummVM outputs as sound. I'd also show MT32 output as a comparison.

In fact, I'll try to get BasiliskII running. Such a pain in the arse though...I had all the files to get Mac emulation running a while ago but I deleted everything because I find it such a hassle to use.
     
Horsepoo!!!  (op)
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May 28, 2008, 09:29 AM
 
Ok...that was faster than I expected.

Here's how Monkey Island 2 on the Mac sounded like (unfortunately it's recorded from BasiliskII's emulation and compressed with AAC, the sound used to be a tad better): MI2.m4a

PC SoundBlaster: YouTube - Monkey Island 2 Opening Sequence
PC Roland MT32: YouTube - Monkey Island 2 Intro (mt32 midi music)
     
   
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