Id Software was Lazy – DOOM could have had PC Speaker Music
8 days ago
- #PC Speaker
- #retro gaming
- #DOOM
- DOOM originally had a PC Speaker driver for sound effects but was often disabled due to poor performance.
- It was speculated that real-time audio via PC Speaker was too resource-intensive, especially on older processors like the 286.
- A patch called 'PC Speaker sndserver' was developed to enable PC Speaker music in DOOM, proving it feasible even on a 486.
- The patch uses a custom file format 'pcsp' for efficient PC Speaker audio playback with minimal CPU overhead.
- Initial tests showed no noticeable performance impact when running DOOM with the patch enabled.
- The patch will be released publicly after more soundtracks are implemented and modern Linux compatibility issues are addressed.
- The article suggests that id Software could have included PC Speaker music in DOOM but chose not to.