                       The Game Room

                      Peter M. Kendall

                   Cheap Thrills: PC Sound

  This column is addressed to those of you who do not yet have a
  sound card for your PC: I have bad news and good news for you.
  The bad news is that you have been missing out on a significant
  portion of the fun in your games; the good news is that the
  situation can be easily and inexpensively remedied. In this
  column we'll review some of the basics of sound cards,
  particularly insofar as they relate to games.

  This entire discussion is predicated on one simple fact, namely
  that your PC squeaker--excuse me, that's speaker--is probably the
  worst sound reproduction device you will ever encounter. It's
  worse than a bass-blasting car stereo or a shrill ghetto blaster,
  even worse than those horrible $7 digital clock radios which are
  already too numerous in our society. It may, of course, be argued
  that the squeaker was never intended to do anything more
  complicated than giving you some sort of audible indication of
  activity in your PC. On the other hand, this opinion was brought
  to you by the same people who figured that nobody would ever find
  a use for more than 640K of memory. But we digress; at least we
  all agree that the squeaker must die.

  Digital Audio

  Sound cards for the PC began to appear around 1989. The two
  best-known ones were the Ad Lib Synthesizer card and the Creative
  Labs Sound Blaster. Both cards are capable of simultaneously
  playing at least eight synthesized melodic voices. An important
  difference, which gives the Sound Blaster a great advantage, is
  that it also incorporates a digital-to-analog converter (DAC)
  chip, which gives it the ability to reproduced sampled
  ("digitized") sounds.

  Synthesized sounds, as their name implies, are tones which have
  been electronically produced and modified to resemble "real"
  musical instruments or sounds. Sampled sounds are recordings of
  actual audio events stored in a digital form; they are more
  complex and take up more disk space than synthesized sound, but
  they deliver more "realistic" sound quality.

  This distinction has become more significant within the past year
  or so, inasmuch as game manufacturers are making increasing use
  of sampled (digitized) sounds, including such things as human
  speech, for which users, not surprisingly, have a keen ear for
  quality. The intense competition between game manufacturers
  virtually ensures that new technology will be readily
  incorporated into new games. As for the digitized speech already
  available, take my word for this: to have a face pop up on your
  super-VGA monitor, look you straight in the eye, and begin
  speaking to you is an experience not to be missed!

  Compatibility

  Any discussion of hardware and software must eventually address
  the question of compatibility: well, friends, not to worry. The
  standards set by Ad Lib and Sound Blaster (SB) have been so
  warmly embraced by game manufacturers that virtually every major
  game produced since 1990 supports these two cards. Even the
  better shareware games of the past two years feature Ad Lib/SB
  support! As for hardware, you might find a "bargain" at a swap
  meet, but it might or might not have some compatibility problems.
  However, you can still buy a genuine Sound Blaster, brand new,
  for less than $100 by mail order, and there are several other
  good, inexpensive brands available today, all of which are
  designed to be Ad Lib/SB clones.

  Multimedia

  The recent advent of multimedia has provided new opportunities
  for sound card manufacturers. The "second-generation" cards which
  are now reaching the marketplace offer such features as real
  stereo sound, tone controls, more advanced and flexible recording
  and mixing capabilities, as well as interfaces to external sound
  equipment. A complete discussion of multimedia and of the new
  hardware is beyond the scope of a Game Room, in which I might
  more appropriately comment on things like the sublime pleasure of
  listening to the sounds of Duke Nuke'm blasting the Energizer
  Bunny into oblivion. Nevertheless, I must argue that the new
  cards represent great technological advances, and if your budget
  can tolerate an additional hundred dollars, a card like Media
  Vision's Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (my personal favorite) or the new
  Sound Blaster 16 is a good investment which should take care of
  all your PC audio needs for the near future.

  Did You Remember Speakers? Speakers?!?

  No sound card would be of much value if it were forced to rely on
  the PC squeaker. Fortunately, this is not the case, which brings
  me to the Great Secret of Cheap Thrills, namely that every sound
  card has the capability to drive a small speaker, or even a pair
  thereof. The venerable Ad Lib had a 2-watt amplifier built in;
  the Sound Blaster has 4 watts and the newer cards have 8 watts (4
  per channel). Granted, this amount of power will not replace your
  100-to-150-watt home stereo or fill your computer room with
  sound, but it will do an adequate job driving a speaker sitting
  two or three feet from your ears. Go find the old el-cheapo
  "bookshelf" speakers which are gathering mildew in your basement,
  drag them upstairs and wire them in: you may be amazed at the
  result.

  If your listening preferences run to more exotic options, the
  vogue "multimedia-compatible" items are amplified speakers. These
  desktop-sized devices have built-in power amplifiers to augment
  your sound card's output; they range in price from $20 a pair up
  to several hundred dollars. Personally, I am not absolutely
  convinced of the advantages of such designs, especially with the
  newer, more powerful sound cards, but with sound, all you have
  left, in the final analysis, is personal taste; try whatever
  speakers you might have, or buy new ones. Let your ears be the
  judge.

  Upgrading your PC's sound can be accomplished in numerous ways,
  of varying complexity. Having tried a number of combinations
  myself, I will vouch for the fact that even the simplest upgrade
  will be at least an order of magnitude beyond the performance of
  your PC squeaker; it will enhance your enjoyment of the games you
  already have, and the games of the future will be even better.
  It's like going from black-and-white TV to color: you cannot go
  back!
