Sargon: Lossless would be even better. :-) For me the limit where I can't hear any difference anymore compared with higher bitrates is at 192 Kbs (mp3's) but I know that many people think lossless is really important. I don't know how much bandwidth costs but perhaps creating a lossless package for the games that uses cd music would be a lot cheaper in the long run.

Since GOG is GOG I have a lot of faith that they will actually fix this problem for HoMM 2. Maybe not right now but sooner or later I think they will do something about it if we are vocal about it.

Perhaps the users could submit ripped lossless audio files to GOG for some of the games with low quality and\or clicks and pops in the audio. If a lot of the data, including the music for some games actually are ripped from personal copies of the staff of GOG there shouldn't be any legal problems in using copies that users have ripped from their original cd's?

Perhaps there could be a place in the support section where you could make a complaint about the music in some game and then upload a version that you had to agree that you had listened through yourself for any defects. Then a member of the GOG staff could read the complaint, do some comparison between the two and then listen through the audio that was uploaded once. If found satisfactory he\she could then forward it to some other staff member that just need to update the game files.

GOG should make some notification system that automatically puts a label like "Updated" on the games in your shelf that have been updated since you bought them. When you download the game again the label could go away. Perhaps the label that is placed there automatically could say "minor update" and when a more important update has been made the person that updated it could edit the label to say "have been impoved" or "updated".

gamebin: I'd prefer lossless myself, but 192 should be the absolute minimum. If the games got packed with 192, but there was an optional lossless package for people, then that would be ideal.

Stockpile: Lossless would probably be enough for me to jump on the HoMM 2 wagon myself. I've only played HoMM III so that's probably why I need a little push like this to spit 9.99$ in the bucket. Not that I've taken any ABX tests or anything, but I think of lossless as extra value for the money and would appreciate it if it doesn't take too much effort for the GOG staff.

damien: Is this now fixed?

vv221: This is fixed. HoMM2 now uses 192kb/s OGG Vorbis.

I didn’t try it yet, but you should be able to use the FLAC lossless soundtrack from the extras as a soundtrack for the game, just by placing the files under "music/" and editing "homm2.inst".

damien: so it is not fixed, but there is a workaround?

vv221: The problem itself (low quality soundtrack) is fixed.

What I suggested is a method to get a lossless soundtrack if you’re not satisfied with 192kb/s OGG Vorbis.

damien: thank you. But what we now have is the redbook audio mentioned here?

vv221: I don’t know what "redbook" stand for.

What we have now is:
_in game, compressed music of good quality (OGG Vorbis 192kb/s), when it was formerly compressed music of bad quality (96kb/s, I don’t know which codec was used)
_as a downloadable extra, a lossless version of the soundtrack (FLAC)

The downloadable soundtrack could be used in-game if you want to stick to lossless music during your gaming sessions.

damien: thank you this is helpful. sorry if this is a dumb question but even when it is good quality compressed music, should it not still be inferior?

damien: Also, my understanding is if you replaced the compressed files with the downloadable FLAC files, you will have uncompressed audio without any sync problems? The songs will play when they should?