I had the Mac version of Quake II.
They encoded the game as an audio CD, so you could toss the disc in a boombox and listen to the soundtrack when you weren't playing. Very cool!
They encoded the game as an audio CD, so you could toss the disc in a boombox and listen to the soundtrack when you weren't playing. Very cool!
THPS and Crazy Taxi had some of the best soundtracks ever compiled.
[0]: https://consolemods.org/wiki/PS1:List_of_Multi-Track_PS1_Gam...
If the game didn't require accessing data on the CD after installation, you could even swap the CD with a different album and listen to what you want.
Only later Pentium 233mmx could handle mp3 decode in background + game (UT or Q3 Arena lets say).
[1]. Yes it is possible to play mp3 at 386SX 33mhz using magic with mplayer or mpg123(?) or (forgot the name) but it needs to be downgraded to 11khz, mono and other tricks.
Either CD player would play audio itself (passed over analog audio connector), with the game occasionally changing track #. Zero CPU time.
Or a DMA controller would read digital audio from the CD, and CPU pass that on as-is to audio hardware. Lots of audio data streaming, but easy on the CPU.
Never knew about the 4 pin link.