[voodoo do-er]

anyone know where I can get them ?
any games will do  (I have to many)
 
but skyrim is on the top of my list
 
 
thanks

 

[chewy4]

I'm pretty sure most games already have lossless sound.

 

[Eric_C]

How would you get them? The sfx from the game are the "original recording" already, so how much higher quality can you go?

 

[voodoo do-er]

err well not lossless, but better sounding then the crap most games have
TBH I have the skyrim OST and it has much better music then in the game
maybe I should find a way to replace the games music with it
 
edit
I know M&B does not have lossless music (128kbs ogg)
I found some of its music in 320kps ogg ect

 

[Eric_C]

That sounds like an interesting project. But that would only work for music--we're stuck with whatever sfx that's in the game, unless the devs release the "higher quality files" (assuming they even exist).
 
It is a fact, however, that game audio just isn't as high quality as recorded music. You may be looking at a timesink with very little reward.

 

[voodoo do-er]

ya I can see me wasting too much time on this
I wish games still used midi's and mod files, all you need to do is up the instrument libs to get better sound.

 

[Eric_C]

HAH! Back in those days the sound was pretty bad to begin with, so...
 
I think the most significant thing a gamer can do for sound, is get surround sound. And maybe a virtual surround device (like the MixAmp or DSS) for headphones.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

HAH! Back in those days the sound was pretty bad to begin with, so...
 
I think the most significant thing a gamer can do for sound, is get surround sound. And maybe a virtual surround device (like the MixAmp or DSS) for headphones.

 
In a rather ironic twist, game recording samples have increased in quality (to the point where they're at least 44100 KHz instead of 22050 KHz, not factoring redbook CD audio), but game positional audio has taken a steep nosedive ever since XAudio2 + X3DAudio and FMOD Ex became dominant. I'm still rather bitter about that, especially because we might still have proper 3D audio in games today if Aureal didn't get sued, bankrupted, and eaten by Creative.
 
As for mods to improve audio, there's an Old Unreal Multimedia Patch for the original Unreal (including Gold) and Unreal Tournament that adds OpenAL and FMOD audio renderers, so you don't need to futz around with DirectSound3D wrappers like ALchemy to get good sound.
 
The recent patches for Thief 1/Gold, Thief 2, and System Shock 2 also add native OpenAL support. These games need it even more because their DirectSound3D implementation really doesn't like non-hardware audio devices (so Creative's USB audio devices and other software OpenAL devices don't work properly with these games when wrapped through ALchemy).
 
These community patches won't improve the source audio any, but native OpenAL helps a lot with getting proper 3D positional audio under Windows Vista onward, after Microsoft stupidly axed DirectSound3D.

 

[voodoo do-er]

HAH! Back in those days the sound was pretty bad to begin with, so...

lol
umm you must of had a sound blaster lol
grab a GUS and love the sound of your old games

it's a common misunderstanding that old games had bad sound
most old games used midis and mods, witch where nothing but sheet music. the sound quality was as good as your synthesizer/soundcard
that and a lot had CD music too, got to love that.

 

[voodoo do-er]

In a rather ironic twist, game recording samples have increased in quality (to the point where they're at least 44100 KHz instead of 22050 KHz, not factoring redbook CD audio), but game positional audio has taken a steep nosedive ever since XAudio2 + X3DAudio and FMOD Ex became dominant. I'm still rather bitter about that, especially because we might still have proper 3D audio in games today if Aureal didn't get sued, bankrupted, and eaten by Creative.

As for mods to improve audio, there's an Old Unreal Multimedia Patch for the original Unreal (including Gold) and Unreal Tournament that adds OpenAL and FMOD audio renderers, so you don't need to futz around with DirectSound3D wrappers like ALchemy to get good sound.

The recent patches for Thief 1/Gold, Thief 2, and System Shock 2 also add native OpenAL support. These games need it even more because their DirectSound3D implementation really doesn't like non-hardware audio devices (so Creative's USB audio devices and other software OpenAL devices don't work properly with these games when wrapped through ALchemy).

These community patches won't improve the source audio any, but native OpenAL helps a lot with getting proper 3D positional audio under Windows Vista onward, after Microsoft stupidly axed DirectSound3D.

when it comes to old games I have a old rig with a GUS PnP pro
but thanks for posting that

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

when it comes to old games I have a old rig with a GUS PnP pro
but thanks for posting that

 
A Gravis Ultrasound PnP? Lucky son of a...I want one of those, even if few games really leveraged it due to the Sound Blaster architecture taking more of the market.
 
However, the likes of Unreal, Thief, and System Shock 2 were made in the Aureal Vortex/Sound Blaster Live! era, so you'd need one of those cards or better to get the most out of their audio. The late 1990s was quite the advancement for PC gaming audio thanks to 3D sound being the next big thing...(and to think we've given that up for mere 5.1/7.1 surround!)

 

[voodoo do-er]

A Gravis Ultrasound PnP? Lucky son of a...I want one of those, even if few games really leveraged it due to the Sound Blaster architecture taking more of the market.

However, the likes of Unreal, Thief, and System Shock 2 were made in the Aureal Vortex/Sound Blaster Live! era, so you'd need one of those cards or better to get the most out of their audio. The late 1990s was quite the advancement for PC gaming audio thanks to 3D sound being the next big thing...(and to think we've given that up for mere 5.1/7.1 surround!)

it did not come cheap
if I recall I paid 65$ for it not long ago

that being said Unreal used mod's for is music, that and the pnp pro has 3d sound (no eax)
I wish the PnP pro had surround, only the old classic had that. but my amp can output 2 channel sound into real surround sound

edit
BTW it has full 100% sound blaster support
I can change it's instrument lib too

 

[NamelessPFG]

I'm well aware that UnrealEngine1 games used tracker music, but I'm pretty sure it's software-synthesized and wouldn't utilize the GUS architecture directly.
 
Also, they use DirectSound3D (OpenAL with the Old Unreal multimedia patches), which I don't recall any DOS-era ISA sound cards supporting natively like the Aureal, Creative, and Crystal Semiconductor cards of the day.

 

[LimeANite]

Not so much music, but Skyrim has the "Sounds of Skyrim" mod series that adds additional sound effects (animal noises, ambient sound, etc) to the game.  You can find them on Steam Workshop.  Given that this exists, I'd say that it's possible to add more/better music using the Creation Kit.

 

[Roller]

Indeed GUS cards were quite good, for the games that supported them. A relatively close second was AWE32 cards for games with wavetable synthesis support.

It's not unheard of games that had far better in-game music by replacing the music packed with the game with official (sometimes even unofficial) OSTs.

Haven't checked for Skyrim mods yet, though.

Also, IIRC, GUS cards had Soundblaster Pro compatibility, not Soundblaster 16, which reduces sound quality due to lack of channels and lower sampling rates. It's interesting that even on such legacy hardware, the Pro moniker didn't equate higher quality audio, something that's replicated on the current Creative USB devices that have regular and Pro versions, with Pro versions underperforming when compared to regular models.