Re: Amelio's ouster

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article Geoff Kaiser <SuperKais@MacConnect.com> writes...

>> ...QuickTime MIDI uses the DAC to emulate wavetable synthesis (through
>> mixing channels) but this requires an extremely fast and raw CPU speed
>> to do it properly. If your machine is too slow, your going to get very
>> distorted sounding instruments and playback.
>
>That's BS. Many Mac games use Quicktime for their high quality stereo
>music, not just SND and AIFF files like in the old days.
>
>A few days ago I tried out Bedlam II and its music via Quicktime is great,
>and I sure don't see any performance hit; playability is great--no problem
>at all. And I definitely don't have an "extremely fast CPU"...

http://www.happypuppy.com/mac/50-html/bedlam-dm2.html :

"Bedlam II is the modern equivalent of the classic arcade game Space Invaders.
 The players scroll from side to side at the bottom of the playing field. They
 must shoot the aliens as they descend toward them. If any alien gets past the
 player or the player looses all their lives, the game is over."

    Space Invaders (a 20 year old arcade game) isn't very CPU intensive, and
judging by the screen shots of this game, it is a perfect example of what I
was talking about before with dress-up's of late 70 and early 80's games with
nothing more than a nicer color palette and digitized sounds. Tell me how
QuickTime MIDI works with Duke 3D and Quake once they're out... :)

>It's true that the IIgs had a built-in synth and the Mac doesn't; I will
>concede that it'd be nice if it did have one built-in, but my point is
>that in many cases it's not needed. (And by the way, most average
>Windows users don't know what "wavetable synthesis is, either)

    Whether a PC user knows about wavetable synthesis or not is not
important. Purchasing a sound card for their computer is a must-have
item now (obvious exceptions are PC's bought for offices or networks)
and the majority of cards are now _only wavetable_ and can cost as
little as $20. Whether they understand the difference or not, they
will have a hardware based synthesizer as it's just standard.

    Now if a software mixing is 1) Going to eat lots of CPU time and 
slow everything else down and 2) Never going to sound as good as a
real hardware based synthesizer [I can attest to this fact, having
tried a Roland plug-in on a P166/83 with a _real_ Roland to compare]
how can you claim "in many cases it's not needed"? Is it merely 
because Apple is smarter than the rest of the computer industry and
whatever they do (or rather do not do) is the always right thing?

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca