MOHAWK: Myst: Moving sliders in observatory cuts out background music

[angstsmurf]

This is a minor thing that has always annoyed me more than it should. In the original Mac version of Myst (and in RealMyst), the background music will keep playing when you move the sliders to change the date in the observatory, but in the Windows version it is cut off in an ugly way.

Compare
​https://youtu.be/bj4ztO-ijBM?t=4m32s
(Mac version) to
​https://youtu.be/D30r0iRH73Q?t=1h28m57s
(Windows version, the one supported by ScummVM)

I have no idea if this is a bug, some kind of API limitation or if somebody actually preferred it this way.

[bgK]

The code explicitly pauses the background music when starting to drag the button, and resumes it afterwards. So I guess someone liked it that way.

[angstsmurf]

Personally, I prefer to think that there was some technical reason that made playing music and effects at the same time sound bad on some soundcards. But there's no accounting for taste.

[bgK]

I'm leaving this as is since the behavior seems intentional.

[angstsmurf]

Just something I noted when listening to the first Youtube video (the Mac version) again: the sound of the sliders actually gets distorted sometimes. So that might be what they were trying to fix by silencing the background music in the Windows version. Of course it doesn't say on what hardware (or emulator) the video was captured, so it doesn't really prove anything.

Also, the first comment on the video says this "And the music doesnt[sic] stop playing when a button or a door makes a noise.. or another sound effect plays," so I suppose this is something that happens in other places in the game as well.