Miles Sound System
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The Miles Sound System (MSS) is a suite of programs and sound drivers that make it easy for developers to play music and sound effects in their programs. The library was originally developed by John Miles, and called the Audio Interface Library, but was purchased by RAD Game Tools in 1996 where development continued, initially with the help of John Miles as a contract employee until 2011. The software has been very successful and included in close to 6,000 games over the years.
The software library itself contains special drivers that can play music and sound effects on 14 video game platforms in the following formats: MP3, BIK, OGG, VOX, WAV.
Contents
Release History
The first driver was released in 1991 as the Audio Interface Library. It was developed for around five years, until around version 3.03d when it was purchased by RAD Game Tools, and they changed the name to
Versions 0-3 were the initial Audio Interface Library developed by John Miles from it's first release in 1991 to around 1996 when RAD Game Tools bought it and changed the name to the Miles Sound System, since that was how most developers referred to it anyway. To the best of his memory, Miles said that version 3.03d was the last version he developed before the sale. Version 3 continued to receive upgrades by RAD through 1997. These versions were entirely focused on DOS and 16-bit and 32-bit versions of Windows. Music was stored in XMI and sound effects were stored in VOC. Later releases of version 3 incorporated DirectX and could play CD audio and WAV files.
Version 4 was released in February of 1998. It added MIDI support, ADPCM VOX file format support, and took advantage of MMX on the chips that had it.
Version 5 was released in October of 1998. It added MP3 support and added various 3D sound modules.
Version 6 was released in October of 2000. It added support for streaming audio formats for voice chat. 6.1 in 2001 added Macintosh support, and 6.5 in 2003 added Xbox support. Official 16-bit Windows support was dropped.
Version 7 was released in May of 2005. It added discrete multi-speaker output from 4 to 8.1 surround sound, Xbox 360, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, and 64-bit Windows support. It also added OGG, XMA, and XMA2 support.
Version 8 was released in February of 2010. It added support for the PlayStation Portable, iOS, Linux, and 3DS. It also added BIK support and removed native DOS, Xbox, and older Macintosh support.
Version 9 was released in July of 2011. It added support for the PlayStation Vita, Wii U, Android, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Output
While earlier versions of MSS were dedicated to DOS and Windows and limited to 8 and 16-bit hardware, the software expanded with 32-bit operating systems and more modern gaming platforms including 3DS, Android, iOS, Linux 32, Linux 64, Macintosh 32, Macintosh 64, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, Wii, Wii U, Windows 32, Windows 64, Xbox 360, and the Xbox One.
Currently, the library supports full digital audio as mono, stereo, headphone, 3 channels, 4 channels (and DTS), 5.1 channel (and DTS), 6.1, 7.1, 8.1, and more.
Games
Since 1991, over 5,800 games use the Miles Sound System and its precursor, the Audio Interface Library.
Links
- radgametools.com/miles.htm - Official.
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_Sound_System - Wikipedia.
