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SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / Re: IBM Music Feature on SCI1 and SCI1.1 (Listen to Space Quest 4 CD with the IBM MF

« on: September 21, 2020, 05:32:23 PM »

And is there a reason to stop at SCI1.1? Sierra retained MT-32 support even in some SCI2 games (assuming that MT-32 is being used as the basis for FB-01 patch files).

EDIT: I assume it's because a compatible FB01 or IMF.DRV was never written for SCI32 interpreters. Is it at all possible to easily modify the driver?

That's exactly the reason. And to be honest i think the IBM card is too limites for SCI32 games. But for SCI1 and 1.1 it would be immensely cool. The support is already there and driver works, all it needs is a specific optimized patch file for each game. The fact that Space Quest 4 sound good with the patch file from another game its just blind luck. It has potential to sound better.

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SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / Re: IBM Music Feature on SCI1 and SCI1.1 (Listen to Space Quest 4 CD with the IBM MF

« on: March 22, 2020, 12:05:54 PM »

By the way, forgot to mention: the patch.002 i used was extracted from Conquests of Camelot, seemed to be the best match for this game. Different Patch.002 files from other games can sound decent or just plain horrible. I haven't found one that sounds minimally good with Leisure Suit Larry 1 VGA for instance.

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SCI Community How To's & Tutorials / IBM Music Feature on SCI1 and SCI1.1 (Listen to Space Quest 4 CD with the IBM MF

« on: March 22, 2020, 12:02:55 PM »

Hello there! First time posting here!

So King's Quest V, Jones in the Fast Lane, Mixed Up Mother Goose and Quest for Glory 2 were the last 2 games with support for the IMFC. Well...oficially. The way the SCI engine works, IMFC support is absolutely intact for all games that use SCI1 and SCI 1.1 engines. All you need is the appropriate driver and a patch.002 or 2.pat file (renaming patch.002 to 2.pat works).

The patch.002 file contains all the instruments the game will use in a certain order. So it seems to be possible that if instruments are arranged properly to each game soundtrack, IMFC support can be quite good. In fact you can use or extract any patch.002 from any Sierra game that officially supported the IMFC and try it out with any game without IMFC official support.

As an example i made a quick video showing off Space Quest 4 CD with music playing on the IMFC + digital sound coming from my SB compatible card:



In theory, if the patch file structure is understood and knowing which default instruments to choose on the IMFC it is possible to create/optimize a patch file for each SCI1 and SCI1.1 game without official support for the IMFC. This would increase the number of games with good IMFC support, in fact probably more than double that number. Maybe if there is an easy way to know which instruments on the MT-32 are used and where are used one can optimize the Patch file for the IBM card

Only problem is the limited availability of these cards, which could be somehow mitigated if in the future DOSBox gets IMFC support. Good news is that there is one person working on it.