soundparams.mes

soundparams is a heretofore unmodded ToEE mes file that controls the spacial distribution of sounds on the screen so as to approximate things being distant, near, loud, quiet, etc. If you're a user of a custom widescreen resolution, you may have noticed that ToEE's dynamic sounds (hit sounds, creature attack sounds, footsteps, etc.) seem to be centered near the top left of the screen, which is to say, all sounds play loudest here, and in any other location the sounds become more attenuated the further from the top left you get, to the point that things happening near the bottom right may be completely silent. The reason for this is that the unmodded soundparams.mes works on the assumption that your screen width is 800 pixels. That was fine back in 2003 when most screens probably were 800 pixels wide, but in 2012, when the widest supported resolution width for ToEE is 1680, it skews the audio to the top left, presumably because the x and y axes start there. Let's demonstrate.

Below is a screen shot of our intrepid party taking on some awful kobolds in the scrub wilds. This screen was captured at 1680 x 1050, ToEE's largest supported resolution. See our heroes fight on all fronts - left, right, top, bottom, and center.



The inlay is an area 800 x 600, the default resolution for ToEE at release, I believe. The x and y axes start in the top left for both.



Being as audio is set to be centered and loudest at the center of the screen, 1680 x 1050 ToEE and 800 x 600 ToEE should have their centers defined where the lines cross in each instance below.



Now naturally, since soundparams was unmodded for any widescreen resolutions, the center was still defined as the 800 x 600 position, which in the 1680 x 1050 screen is in the top left. That's why currently in ToEE if you're using a widescreen resolution, you can hardly hear anything at all going on in the bottom right.



The good news is that we can easily fix this. 1680 is larger than 800 by a factor of 2.1, so we simply multiply all the entries in the original by 2.1 and presto, we have an evenly distributed sound field. In our battle image, everybody at all the shown positions can hear sounds of battle, with the sounds being loudest in the middle and panned to the left and right respectively on the left and right side battlefronts, with moderate attentuation. (A stereo image only exists left to right, so the upper and lower battlefront sounds simply get attenuated. They don't play 'up' or 'down.')



The bad news is that this fix won't apply to all resolutions. People still playing on 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 will have things skewed to the opposite effect, while users of say 1440 x 900 or something else in between will remain somewhat skewed as well, though less so than before. I suspect though that going forward, 1680 x 1050 will become the default resolution for ToEE. It's already what I assume for map limits and so on. I wonder though if this file could be auto-corrected along with resolution selection in TFE-X?

 

Practicality update: I'm liking the effects of this for the 1680 x 1050 resolution. Audio is much more robust, most noticeably in places like Verbobonc, where you can hear someone's footsteps on the cobblestone far to the right and someone else'd footsteps on the wooden boardwalk far to the left while you yourself pad around in the grass somewhere in the middle. It's not insanely tuned it, as if hearing things way out of your earshot, just about half the screen width again over the edge of the map to each side, which is what was originally intended. This means you can hear someone coming a bit before you see them. Nice.

 

I have I think a 21 inch monitor and the native resolution is 1680 x 1050. I strongly suggest playing at your monitor's native resolution (assuming it's supported by ToEE), because that will look way better detail wise than any other. Speaking of which, 1280 x 1024 sounds really small for a 19 inch monitor. I used to have one and the native res was 1440 x 900. For reference, just look at any of the screenshots above to see how everything looks to me on-screen. The characters are by no means too small IMO, though the text tends to be. But you get a very large scope in terms of battlefield and whatnot. I think it's awesome.

It wouldn't cause lag but there can be hangups if you're system gets confused about what it's displaying and where. That's also not an issue if you run the game at native res because there is no scaling done.

Yes, I really do. I'm sure your 40 inch monitor's native res is far more than ToEE can withstand, but in that case you should use the highest supported - 1680 x 1050. We tend to get nice and comfy with familiarity so it might take a little getting used to but I bet you'll love the increased visibility after a bit, unless you have vision issues or anything like that. I can see how such people would be better suited to lower resolutions.

As long as you have no scaling set in your graphics card properties, they will play at the resolution the were made, which is really small by today's standards. That means you'll see a little box in the middle of your screen. That's preferable though so that your monitor doesn't have to go through the settings change routine. Also, scaled movies look fuzzy and stupid because they're generally not displayed in their original aspect ratio.