I've only just noticed that when the MT32 is playing music and the Soundblaster is doing the various sounds that a few sound effects are played at random by the MT32 as well. I don't remember this when I used to play the game on a 486, does anyone else remember this being the case? I'm not sure if it's an original issue with the game or just a side effect of emulation.

It's quite noticeable as sometimes the footstep sound and the "bashing into a wall" sound gets replaced. I've watched the MUNT output showing it playing the various samples on the MT32 so I know I'm not going crazy!

I've checked this in 86box, dosbox-staging, dosbox-x and regular dosbox and found the same in each one.

I also noticed that if I change the music source to Soundblaster it doesn't try to use the SB synth to play the sound effects.

ehh.. isn't the Sound Blaster used only for digitized speech in that case?

i think it's normal for the "music" device to be used to play sound effects in that game. either using the LA synthesis (or sample playback) of a Roland / MT32 or using the FM synthesis of a Sound Blaster type card.

i would be more surprised that the Sound Blaster were playing sounds at all in that configuration. but maybe i am misremembering.

The topic creator is correct. Conrtrary to UU1, UU2 DOES have sound effects. And indeed, it's not perfect

It always behaved exactly like the topic creator described for me, as it did on the 486 back in the 90s.
It happens when two sounds "try" to play at the same time or almost the same time.
If a soundblaster effect has already started playing (like the swinging of the sword) and another starts before the
swinging sword finishes, the "adlib" sounds plays instead.
The soundblaster, at least in this game, could only play one digitized sound effect at a time.
This WAS also definitely the same thing for Dune 2, I replayed it recently.

in that case.. do you think this is a bug or defect worth fixing, if possible?

i guess if it were possible, the game should be modified to play multiple digitized sounds concurrently. maybe mixing sounds requires too much processing power (on some hardware?).

but if not, should it be modified to not play digitized sound effects at all, instead playing effects through the music device and using the digitized sound device only for speech?

ideally the player would have an option to choose.. i guess?

It turns out I had the wrong soundblaster emulation selected. It has to be SB Pro 1 or it doesn't work properly.