In an post I made in February, 2004 on this newsgroup I reported on the
various attempts to emulate the special audio hardware that some
versions of the Ultima games use. Well, now I have come to update my
intial findings.
In the case of Ultimas III, IV and V for the Apple //e, they can utilize
one or two Mockingboard Sound Cards. (It may be possible to get 4 and 5
to work on an Apple //gs with Mockingboards installed with patches.)
Three Apple II emulators for the PC can emulate the Mockingboard Sound Card:
ApplePC
This emulator is DOS based and is ancient. Its last version, v2.52 was
released in 1996. It maps Mockingboard Sound Channels to Adlib Sound
Channels, which as the author states leads to inaccurate sounding tones.
It can only emulate three Mockingboards (three AY-8910 sound chips)
in total while Ultima V can support four. It is difficult to get
running at the proper speed because it doesn't have a built in frame
limiter. It requires the ROMS contained within AppleWin's distribution
to run. Not recommended.
AppleWin
This emulator has seen many variations from the original 1994 core.
Recently (2002) a version from T. Charlesworth has enabled Mockingboard
emulation, but the Mockingboard sounded horrible and the Apple Speaker
sound studdered. With version 1.12.4, the author is now using MAME's
AY-3-8910 core, which is very accurate and does the chip justice.
Additionally, a more cycle accurate core has eliminated the trademark
sound stuttering as well as improved compatibility across the board. On
the downside, this version still displays some roughness on certain
tunes. AppleWin has always had a simple interface and is highly
recommended.
Apple in PC (AiPC)
This emulator is a far more recent one, surfacing out of nowhere in
2003. It was the first to use MAME's AY-3-8910 emulation and was the
first to do the Ultima music justice. Its interface still could use
some work. It can be difficult to find and you should settle for
nothing less than the latest version, 0.1.25. (Contact me for it.) Its
video quality is excellent and "fuzzy" like NTSC artifacting should be.
This emulator is also highly recommended.
Also, the PC Versions of Ultima VI, VII, VII Pt.2, Underworld,
Underworld 2, Savage Empire and Martian Dreams used the Roland MT-32 LA
Synthesis midi module for the best quality versions of their tunes.
Ultima VIII did not really support it, it preferred the Roland Sound
Canvas. This was far superior to the music outputted by the Adlibs and
Sound Blasters of the day. Unfortunately, the Roland module is not made
anymore, is rare and expensive to buy used, and is difficult to properly
interface to a modern PC.
However, there is hope. There is a version of DOSBox that emulates the
Roland MT-32 for dos-based games. But it has three drawbacks:
1. While the sound coming from the emulator is very close to the real
MT-32, there are still some notes that are not quite true and the reverb
is not yet under user control as it should be.
2. The emulator requires a fast CPU to run the games at full speed
without sound stuttering.
3. It requires a copy of "Mt32_pcm.rom", the rom inside the MT-32
module to work at all. This is very difficult to find. Good luck!
Get it here:
http://www.artworxinn.com/alex/
GH
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