Betrayal at Krondor: MT-32 and soundblaster (digital)

[Hunter]

You can probably guess what this is about. I'm running Betrayal at Krondor in DOSBox and the music sounds lovely with the MT-32 setting, but for some reason only "some" digital sounds are present. But, if I choose the SoundBlaster, I get all the digital sounds at the cost of the music sounding synthesized.

For instance, in the introduction are two lighting bolts with thunder. If I pick the MT-32 I only get one thunder sound but with the soundblaster, not only does the thunder sound better, but I hear it twice.

I'm guessing the answer is "decide what you like more, music or sounds and pick one," but I thought I would bring up the subject here. I know some other series (SQ) have this issue, but interestingly enough some games are apparently designed for separate sound and music hardware (example: conquest of the longbow) and others are not. What is that, a budget cut?

I already tried copying the configuration program and drivers from longbow to BaK. Does nothing.

[Collector]

Rarely does it work to swap drivers between SCI games. Occasionally it does if the games are close enough to each other. Also, while Sierra shared some code with Dynamix, BaK is not an SCI game, so would share very little in common with Longbow. There is an MTBLAST.DRV that allows both MT-32 music with SB digital sounds, but it work with very few games and would be very surprised if it would work with a Dynamix game.

The good news is that if you get a copy of the CD version of the game you can have the music in the form of Redbook Audio CD tracks with digital sound effects.

[Hunter]

It's weird, because I am getting "some" sounds, but I get the impression that they aren't consistent or all there. Longbow was just a random guess I made (successful in that its program was designed for separate sound and music inputs). Antara has the same engine, do you suppose there's any possibility of compatibility there? I could always try this MTBLAST.DRV that could work; the worst it can do is nothing.

I own a sealed copy of the CD version...the thing about that version is, and I haven't actually sought out the CD version to confirm, is that, according to people who have played it, the music doesn't loop. At all. It will play once and stop, which, considering the amount of reading and cutscenes in the game I do not desire. I wonder how it sounds (AFAIK MT-32y). Again, I haven't tried it myself so if this is all wrong, let me in on the secret.

As it is I'm contemplating playing the game through again just to hear the other sounds, but the story would be dull the second time around.

[Collector]

Antara is different from BaK. It has a lot of SCI like code in it, but is still not SCI. I doubt that it could be of much help, anyway, in that it was released at a time when the MT-32 was starting to be ignored. I can't say about the looping as I was never able to get into the game enough to play it for very long.

[Hunter]

Heaven forfend. Thanks for the information, though. I checked the BaK help web (a comprehensive site on the game) and apparently every character has a voice introduction...I didn't even know.

I may just have to play this one twice!

[oasis789]

Confirming that trying to use MTBLAST.DRV (from Sierra) in RESOURCE.CFG does not work. It is effectively the same as MT32.DRV, no digitized sound effects.

Between MT32 and Sound Blaster, I chose to go with Sound Blaster and Redbook Audio music.