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WHY does FastDoom FM music sound so much better than the original DOOM?

Open vanfanel opened this issue 11 months ago • 6 comments

That's about it. I have been trying FastDoom on the TinyLlama and the Pixel 86 PCs, based around ICOP SOMs and CRYSTAL audio, and the game sounds incredible! None of the many sourceports I have on GNU/Linux, including CrispyDoom or GZDoom, using FM music emulation, come anywhere near the "full" FM music that FastDoom seems to have.

But how? Why? These sourceports use the Nuked OPL3 emulator, which should be equally good, but FastDoom produces a different audio, definitely more... organic, full, I don't know how to describe it.

vanfanel avatar Feb 04 '25 20:02 vanfanel

FastDoom uses the Apogee Sound System for its sound / music engine instead of DMX due to legal reasons, as the DMX source code has never been officially released. The Apogee Sound System, used in ROTT, Duke Nukem 3D, and other Apogee games, sounds slightly different from DMX and natively supports dual OPL2 and OPL3 configurations.

viti95 avatar Feb 04 '25 22:02 viti95

Also Crystal sound cards use a different OPL3 implementation, ESFM sounds slightly different

viti95 avatar Feb 04 '25 23:02 viti95

Thanks @viti95

So, is Apogee Sound System stereo while DMX music was mono? Do you know if the CRYSTAL OPL 3 audio is emulated somewhere?

vanfanel avatar Feb 05 '25 19:02 vanfanel

So, is Apogee Sound System stereo while DMX music was mono?

Yes, the Apogee Sound System is stereo and supports dual OPL2 and OPL3 cards.

Do you know if the CRYSTAL OPL 3 audio is emulated somewhere?

I’ve been looking into it, but Crystal sound cards are not yet emulated (neither DOSBox, 86Box or MAME)

BTW I made an error in my previous message; ESFM is the OPL3 implementation used in ESS sound cards. What I meant to say was CrystalFM, which is the implementation used in Crystal sound cards.

viti95 avatar Feb 05 '25 20:02 viti95

Have you heard the CrystalFM implementation? What's so different with regards to SB's original OPL? Seems way richer to me, more "organic", it's hard to describe.

vanfanel avatar Feb 06 '25 20:02 vanfanel

So, is Apogee Sound System stereo while DMX music was mono?

Yes, the Apogee Sound System is stereo and supports dual OPL2 and OPL3 cards.

Do you know if the CRYSTAL OPL 3 audio is emulated somewhere?

I’ve been looking into it, but Crystal sound cards are not yet emulated (neither DOSBox, 86Box or MAME)

BTW I made an error in my previous message; ESFM is the OPL3 implementation used in ESS sound cards. What I meant to say was CrystalFM, which is the implementation used in Crystal sound cards.

Crystal cards are emulated in 86Box, but the OPL3 emulation is always the Yamaha original one for those.

Cacodemon345 avatar Feb 17 '25 06:02 Cacodemon345

FastDoom uses the Apogee Sound System for its sound / music engine instead of DMX due to legal reasons, as the DMX source code has never been officially released. The Apogee Sound System, used in ROTT, Duke Nukem 3D, and other Apogee games, sounds slightly different from DMX and natively supports dual OPL2 and OPL3 configurations.

original doom actually had OPL3 support, passing a special parameter. I tested it with my OPL3LPT and it works.

jsmolina avatar May 21 '25 18:05 jsmolina