Opened 21 years ago

Closed 21 years ago

Last modified 5 years ago

#673 closed defect (outdated)

ALL: Bad -e Windows Midi emulation

Reported by: SF/anonymo Owned by: SF/jamieson630
Priority: low Component: Port: Win32
Version: Keywords:
Cc: Game:

Description

Same midi driver. Same soundbank.

With version 0.3 the sound is a meer drum sound.

With version 0.2, it is very correctly emulated/mapped.

there is a problem with the latest version.

Ticket imported from: #669279. Ticket imported from: bugs/673.

Change History (14)

comment:1 by SF/bluesteel_v2, 21 years ago

Additional info: Most instruments in 0.3 aren't mapped correctly, music sounds completely different using -eadlib emulation. With - ewindows most instruments are just played with a simple drum/piano instrument. I'm also getting MT-32 errors like this one: WARNING: MT-32 instrument "Fzooom " not supported yet! (taken from the very beginning of Atlantis)

In 0.2 this worked just fine. Tried various Midi-systems (Microsoft GS Synth etc.), different soundfonts, with exactly the same results.

I'm pretty sure this also applies to Simon1, I played Simon1Talkie and the music was just strange; again very different from what I got with -eadlib.

comment:2 by fingolfin, 21 years ago

Owner: set to SF/jamieson630

comment:3 by SF/anonymo, 21 years ago

Priority: normallow

comment:4 by SF/anonymo, 21 years ago

Priority: lowblocker

comment:5 by SF/jamieson630, 21 years ago

Priority: blockerlow

comment:6 by SF/jamieson630, 21 years ago

Just played a little ways into FOA and MI2, using the latest from CVS. Aside from one missing instrument, everything seems to be playing correctly, including the emulated MT-32 custom and stock instruments.

What "latest" version are you using, exactly? 0.3b release, or the CVS build? Where specifically are you getting all drums? Can anybody else verify this problem under -ewindows?

Lowering priority -- this is NOT a Priority 9 bug as it does nothing to interfere with one's ability to complete a game.

comment:7 by SF/bluesteel_v2, 21 years ago

Well, I also just played a bit FOA. The sound is not completely wrong I have to admit, I did quite a bit comparison between eadlib, ewindows and the midi files from highland.mixnmojo.com.

Some of the songs sound a bit strange when played with an advanced MIDI-system compared to Adlib, for instance the FOA track "A research lab somewhere in Germany". I tried with the MIDI-file, when I play it over my soundcard's midi- system (tried various soundfonts) the background intruments are far too loud, you can barely hear the melody. When I play it with the "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" the melody is much louder/clearer. Somehow this trick doesn't work with ScummVM, there the background is always too loud. I see this is a problem with the MIDI itself so there may be no (easy) way around it.

But there are several MT-32 instruments which aren't implemented yet, and they don't even get muted which results in some really wired sounding songs.

Not supported MT-32 in FOA (examples): Fzooom (Very first note played) squirrel boom15 Mellow Str Arabongo

There may well be others, that's just what I could gather from my savegames.

Strange thing is, (some of?) those instruments DID work with 0.2.0, I didn't test too much because of the incompatible saves. But at least that very first note (Fzooom) plays correctly with 0.2.0.

I tested this with 0.3.0b and a recent cvs build (0.3.1cvs 2002- 12-28)

Would be nice if you could look over the MT-32 mappings, there seem to be quite a few missing instruments. Also, why were those there in 0.2.0?

comment:8 by SF/anonymo, 21 years ago

Latest version I used is 0.3b.

comment:9 by fingolfin, 21 years ago

Summary: Bad -e Windows Midi emulationALL: Bad -e Windows Midi emulation

comment:10 by SF/matt_hargett, 21 years ago

Tested this in indy3 VGA with current CVS. When using Windows MIDI, all the music parts are played using the piano. It's like the instrument isn't getting set or something.

comment:11 by SF/trinity78, 21 years ago

tested with daily build (4 may) indiana jones 4 atlantis german disk version windows 2000 professional

i noticed some problems with midi emulation

- sometimes the midi sound/music is very low and at other location very loud (i.e. tikal - jungle). this seems to be the effect that bluesteel_v2 descibed in his post (2003-01-24 17:39) - another strange effect is that the left audio channel is much, much louder as the right audio channel. the right audio channel is barely hearable. and no my headphones are not broken :) , because using adlib, both audio channels are equal loud - if you load a game the music is gone

- here is a list of the missing mt32-instruments i have noticed so far:

Fzoom, ghostwhosh, Fire Pit, squirel, *whip3, *woodkknock, mtlheater1, boom15, scrape2, gloop2, boxclika1, Mellow str, Arabongo, *ooh!, *aah, *shotFar4, carstart, crsrt/idl3, gunShotNea, stonewheel6, spindle4, chains, street ...

comment:12 by SF/jamieson630, 21 years ago

Okay, the final word:

- Emulation of Roland tracks in GM tends to give a wide dynamic range to the music, causing some areas to sound very quiet in comparison with others. I may eventually implement a non-linear volume map for MT-32 emulation.

- I'm not aware of any panning problems with MT-32 emulation. If someone else can verify that MT-32 emulation seems to consistently route all the music over one stereo channel predominantly, I will look into the issue.

- Changes to the savegame structure should allow you to load a savegame and have your music resume normally. (This only effects NEW savegames, not existing savegames.)

- The remaining MT-32 custom instruments will probably not get GM emulation, because they're simply too bizarre to properly render using GM sounds. I've changed the warning for unsupported instruments to a level-2 debug message, so it won't normally show now.

- I know very little about Indy3, but I suspect it has Adlib tracks and SPK tracks ONLY. Adlib tracks are not emulated under -ewindows (or any other native GM driver), and until recently, we would attempt to play SPK tracks (for which we have no proper support) in the absence of any other usable resource. I've changed that so SPK are ALWAYS skipped over, so if a piece of music has only ADL and SPK resources, it will not get played at all under native GM drivers. This means Indy3 may very well be silent until we can get SPK tracks emulated in Adlib.

I'm closing this... bug?... now, because at this point I really don't know what does or does not need fixed. If you have any problems related to using native GM drivers with games that were not designed for GM, please use Adlib. MT-32 emulation (the only way to get the older games to work under GM) is a work in progress.

comment:13 by SF/jamieson630, 21 years ago

Resolution: outdated
Status: newclosed

comment:14 by digitall, 5 years ago

Component: --Unset--Port: Win32
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