Ultimate game versions/Ultimate audio versions

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 12:43 pm

Hm. I still don't fully understand.

In simple words: On this PC where I use ScummVM, I use the extracted ROM-Files for the MT32 emulator in ScummVM, because this PC has only PCI.
So no MT32 Card actually built in, only ROM-Files.

What does the use of ROM-Files mean for the --enable-gs setting?

Does the --enable-gs setting make any sense without a real MT32-Device built in?

Thank you for your answers!

Joachim

Cirion81 · Post by **Cirion81** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:00 pm

Hello Joachim,

I would assume that using the --enable-gs flag with enabled MT32 emulation doesn't make sense.

--enable-gs (at least in my understanding) should be enabled iff you own a real GS device (not just a GM or a MT32).

Though it would be interesting to know if these additional flags are ignored with the MT32 emulation. You could try and tell us if you can spot any difference.

-Christian

LogicDeLuxe · Post by **LogicDeLuxe** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:19 pm

joachimeberhard wrote:I use the extracted ROM-Files for the MT32 emulator

Then just select MT-32 emulation as the midi device! The settings for true MT-32 and GS should be irrelevant in that case.

Cirion81 wrote:I own a Roland SCDB-55 which is similar to the Sound Canvas, and through my recherches on the net I gathered it has a MT32 compatibility mode.

MT32 compatibility on any Sound Canvas compatible wavetable means nothing more than there is a bank which maps the default instruments of an MT32. It can be used for games which DO NOT program their own MT32 sounds, though most do this. Unfortunately the synthesizer part of MT32 and GS are not compatible at all. ScummVM's own translation is optimized for the games and usually works better than the MT32 bank of GS. Though you should try and judge for yourself, as this would be a matter of taste, and may even differ with different GS wavetables.

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:24 pm

Thank you, LogicDeLuxe!

Joachim

Cirion81 · Post by **Cirion81** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:34 pm

Hello LogicDeLuxe

thanks a lot for your input! I just had the idea of actually comparing the GS/MT32 combination with the MT32 emulation (don't ask me why I haven't tried earlier

).
I tested out several music tracks and the GS only "mapping" sounds more closely the the MT32 emulated version than the GS with MT32 "mapping". For example the E-Bass is substituted with a Piano

which up until now I wasn't sure if using the Piano was intended by the composer. So at least for me that issue is settled, GS only it is.

@Joachim: does your MT32 emulation work with the latest CVS ScummVM? Mine keeps crashing as soon as the first note is played. An older CVS (from August, 11th) does work. So I'm just courious if it is my PC, or if there is a general bug to report.

LogicDeLuxe · Post by **LogicDeLuxe** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 1:52 pm

Cirion81 wrote:For example the E-Bass is substituted with a Piano which up until now I wasn't sure if using the Piano was intended by the composer.

The MT-32 doesn't even have a Piano sample.

Well, there is a preset called piano, though it's just a synthesizer sound. In fact, this is the most criticised drawback of that device, I think.

Cirion81 · Post by **Cirion81** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:10 pm

The MT-32 doesn't even have a Piano sample.

whoa, thats strange! Then why the hell does the Sound Canvas device map the E-Bass with a Piano when used in MT32 mode. Either the used MT32 mapping command doesn't work with my device, or Roland thought MT32 could use a nice piano

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:12 pm

For me, yesterdays CVS works great with MT32-Roms.

Say, do you use a VIA chipset?

It's well known that VIA chipsets are very likely to cause MT32 emulations to crash.

Cirion81 · Post by **Cirion81** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 2:29 pm

Yes, I have a VIA chipset (assuming that you are talking of the motherboard chipset) - a VIA Apollo KT133A to be precise.

I have several versions of ScummVM lying around on my HDD and just did some experiments:
ScummVM 0.8.0CVS Oct 12 2005 does work
ScummVM 0.8.0pre Oct 19 2005 doesn't work

In the CVS changelog I found this:

2005-10-18 02:28 sev

* sound/softsynth/: mt32.cpp, mt32/i386.cpp: Backport fix for bug
#1221549 "MT32emu: doesn't compile under gcc 3.4.2 / i386"

so this change seems to have introduced this bug. I think this should be worth a bug-report.

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:11 pm

Yes I was talking about mobo-chipsets.

Say, could I somehow get your October CVSes?

I also need to test a bug.

With CVS 10/23/2005 it was still possible to play the later FMTowns Kanji games.

Maybe you could upload it somewhere so I can test it?

Best regards

Joachim

Post by **sev** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:34 pm

joachimeberhard wrote:It's well known that VIA chipsets are very likely to cause MT32 emulations to crash.

Can you elaborate more on this? Is it regression or it always was the case?

Eugene

joachimeberhard · Post by **joachimeberhard** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 6:33 pm

@Sev:

Well, I have seen screenshots from 2 different people where ScummVM or MUNT causes a segmentation fault in windows.
They asked me because my friends know the Windows troubleshooting knowledge I have (Comes with the job

)

I asked them to tell me the involved modules on their system.

2 or more of them contain files starting with via*.dll

One System was an Athlon64 with a fairly new chipset.
The other one from a K6-2/450 with an old VIA chipset.

Since I wanted to know why that happened I looked up google.

And there (I really don't remeber where) they wrote that neither the generic Windows nor the latest VIA drivers solve this problem.

That's all I know, but seeing that I just guessed Cirions chipset right just because of the problem he described probably means something.

Cirion81 · Post by **Cirion81** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 10:49 pm

@sev & jochimeberhard

just to clarify - I hadn't any segmentation fault, because I assume this should render a beautiful blue screen.
ScummVM just crashed with the standard message: program <already exited> has caused an error and was closed. A look into the windows event showed, that no protocol or event has been recorded

.

GUN · Post by **GUN** » Thu Nov 24, 2005 11:13 pm

joachimeberhard wrote:
One System was an Athlon64 with a fairly new chipset.
The other one from a K6-2/450 with an old VIA chipset.

hey .. you've forgotten me ..

K7VT4APro .. the "newest" Chipset for K7 CPU :S ..

hm .. on an older Version it works ???

who can i find such a 8.0pre Version , and i will test it

Deano · Post by **Deano** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 9:46 pm

I'm a little confused along simmilar lines:
I think I'm right in that MT32 emulation provides the best sound where available, but what happens when I run a game without MT32 support - what does it then default to?
Presumably if it's a game with CD-Audio it overrides any of these settings?
And which drivers do use soundfonts, and what exactly does mixed adlib/midi mode do?
I've read the readme but can't figure this out.