DOOM could have had PC Speaker Music
Recorded: Dec. 3, 2025, 3:04 a.m.
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DOOM could have had PC Speaker Music! Quote Post by minki » 2025-12-02 I'm guessing everyone here has played DOOM before, or at least seen someone else play the game. Introducing: The PC Speaker sndserver patch! A few weeks ago, I had written a file format for efficiently playing PC Speaker tunes on a 32-bit system, requiring only a few integer operations to turn the data into a valid call for the input/misc/pcspkr device. The format being called pcsp and working as follows: Now, all I really had to do to get PC Speaker music working in DOOM, was to implement a priority mixer for it in sndserver. Surprisingly, running the game with and without the patch showed no noticeable speed differences. Will this patch become public? Yes, soon. Top Post Reply Print view 1 post Return to “Software shenanigans” Jump to Cursed Hardware Board index Delete cookies Contact us 1982 style by Ian Bradley Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Limited Privacy Terms |
The discussion thread, titled “DOOM could have had PC Speaker Music!”, centers on a personal experiment undertaken by minki to integrate the PC Speaker sound driver into the game DOOM. The core premise revolves around the often-overlooked inclusion of this driver within the game’s original code, intended for systems lacking dedicated sound cards prevalent during the late 1980s and early 1990s. The experiment’s motivation stems from the speculation surrounding the driver’s design – whether it was due to the computational demands placed on the hardware, particularly on faster processors like the 486, or simply a conservative architectural choice by the game’s developers. minki’s investigation began with the realization that many PCs of the era did not possess a sound card capable of effectively supporting DOOM’s initial sound drivers. The PC Speaker driver was present, primarily serving to replicate basic sound effects, and was frequently disabled. The central question became whether the driver could have been utilized for full music playback, even on systems with the processing power of a 486. To address this, minki developed a patch, specifically a “pcsp” file format, designed to efficiently translate PC Speaker tune data into a format suitable for the input/misc/pcspkr device. This format utilizes a system of 32-bit tone cells, characterized by a 16-bit frequency value in Hertz, a 4-bit duration scale (representing seconds multiplied by 10^-scale), and a 12-bit duration value. This intricate design aimed to minimize processing overhead by optimizing the conversion process. The implementation involved integrating the “pcsp” format into the sndserver, using a priority mixer derived from the existing Adlib target. Critically, the experiment yielded no noticeable performance difference when running DOOM with and without the patch in place, suggesting that the added complexity did not negatively impact the game’s speed or responsiveness. Currently, the patch is not publicly available, as minki has only implemented the soundtrack for the E1M1 level. The scope of the project extends beyond simple integration, with minki simultaneously working on resolving existing issues with the sndserver on modern Linux systems, reflecting a broader ambition to make older devices more useful in contemporary computing environments. The project’s core value lies in demonstrating the feasibility of using this forgotten audio driver to reinterpret a classic game, and showcasing the potential for retro-computing initiatives to address contemporary technical challenges. |