Sound Packs

[toad`sMoke]

I was wondering, what do the sound packs do? improve sound quality or what?

[Dominus]

I recommend reading the documentation. Especially the parts about audio or more specifically the parts about sfx. You may be enlightened after this.

[Edit: granted it doesn't say sfx-packs on the download page and might somehow confuse people]


What is it with the sound packs lately?

[toad`sMoke]

yeah, i read it. but does it make much of a difference?

[SB-X]

I'd say, yes, there is a very subtle difference between having sound packs, and not having them.

[nadir]

Summing it all up, there are 3 soundpacks (2 official, and one non-official)

jmsfx: these have been sampled by J.P.Morris from the original Ultima7 running on a SoundBlaster.

sqsfx: these have been sampled by Simon Quinn from the original Ultima7 running on a Roland MT-32.

drsfx: these have been put together by Dominus from Ultima 9 and from the jmsfx pack above. The samples from U9 are realistic (i.e. real water, birds, etc.) For obvious reasons there are licensing issues here, so we cannot distribute them on Exult's download page.

My preference is for the MT-32 sfx, together with Simon's OGG files (which are also MT-32 renditions of the original music, and for which you need Exult 1.1). The MT-32 was the soundcard for which U7's music and sounds were designed, so if you want to hear it the way it was intended, this is the way to go. I played the original with a SoundBlaster, but the MT-32 is a totally different experience. Nowadays you can get very good renditions of the MIDI music from modern soundcards, but I still prefer that vintage sound.

[Dominus]

and the last, most important issue with the soundpacks is that without them you don't get ANY sfx...

There is actually a 4th soundpack based on mine... but I haven't heard from the guy who did it for a while...

[Ignum]

hmmm... I've downloaded sqsfx and I gotta say, its a big improvement on my old Soundblaster card. But I've tried downloading the SI pack and from two different servers I'm getting CRC errors when I try to unzip it. My connection is stable and like I said, the first pack works perfectly. Any suggestions?

[Simon Constable]

Hello, I'm trying to get the sound pack for BG working and I have read the DOCs that came with the sndfx pack and online here and all I can find is this:-

"Extract the zip files into your Exult data directory and write down the name of the pack in your exult.cfg file (see 2.2.). You don't need to set correct paths anymore if the pack is in the data directory."

Well what is the Exult data directory? This is what I could interpret the "Exult data directory" to be:-

/usr/local/exult
/usr/local/exult/blackgate or /usr/local/exult/blackgate/static
/usr/local/exult/data (I would have to create this data directory)

I have this in /usr/local...

/exult/blackgate/static --> {original U7BG game files}
/exult/serpentisle/static --> {original U7SI game files}

If you were more precise and less general I wouldn't have to bore you with this question. Sorry :S

Cheers,
Simon Constable

[wjp]

The data directory is the directory that contains exult.flx.

Note that you can unzip the sound packs anywhere you want if you provide an absolute path to them in your .exult.cfg file.

[MV]

I've just downloaded the OGG packs, and followed the instructions, but, when I choose a game to run from the menu, it crashes back out to the desktop.

[MV]

Actually, scratch that, I tried it again and it worked. Exult just needed to be exited, then reloaded for the changes in sound type to have effect properly. I notice the OGG is just for music and I still need the sqsxx.flx packs for sounds.