MT-32 emulator development: Good news!

noize · Post by **noize** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:51 pm

A couple of days ago, both Canadacow and KingGuppy posted that they have gotten back on their MUNT project under active development together with MoK.

KingGuppy: "The results should be available in the near future."

Good news for all of us MT-32 and CM-32L owners!

http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,2873.0.html

http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.p ... c&start=20

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:38 pm

Don't you mean 'good news for non-MT-32 and CM-32L owners?'

Kirben · Post by **Kirben** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:10 pm

MusicallyInspired wrote:Don't you mean 'good news for non-MT-32 and CM-32L owners?'

No, since you still need to own the actual ROMs.

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 12:29 am

Actually, the legal status of the ROMs is not quite clear. There are some reasons to believe that it's copyright has expired. See http://www.artworxinn.com/alex/history.htm

SuperDre · Post by **SuperDre** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:47 pm

Hmmm.. that's funny, because I even helped someone out (provided all the commands for the MT32) who made an MT32 emulator (Mega-Em) for the GravisUltrasound long looooong ago.. (Still have the card laying around somewhere), I'm pretty sure he didn't ask permission, and he didn't use the actual ROM.
The emulator was created by a user, but later even shipped with the gravis ultrasound itself..

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:18 pm

What you describe sounds like a simple tool which converts the MT-32 variant of the MIDI standard to General MIDI. That's easy and well-known, and not the kind of emulation we are talking about here, which does require the original ROMs to work properly.

MusicallyInspired · Post by **MusicallyInspired** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:37 am

Kirben wrote:
MusicallyInspired wrote:Don't you mean 'good news for non-MT-32 and CM-32L owners?'
No, since you still need to own the actual ROMs.

My point is, why use an emulator when you have the real thing?

rented mule · Post by **rented mule** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:14 am

MusicallyInspired wrote:
Kirben wrote:
MusicallyInspired wrote:Don't you mean 'good news for non-MT-32 and CM-32L owners?'
No, since you still need to own the actual ROMs.
My point is, why use an emulator when you have the real thing?

So you can enjoy it on a laptop away from the MT-32 you own? So you don't have to find a way to hook your MT-32 up to an iPhone/Android phone? So you can keep your MT-32 in pristine condition and tucked away safely?

Stay tuned for more reasons.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:57 am

rented mule wrote:
MusicallyInspired wrote:
Kirben wrote: No, since you still need to own the actual ROMs.
My point is, why use an emulator when you have the real thing?
So you can enjoy it on a laptop away from the MT-32 you own? So you don't have to find a way to hook your MT-32 up to an iPhone/Android phone? So you can keep your MT-32 in pristine condition and tucked away safely?

Stay tuned for more reasons.

MT-32 emulation requires a lot of CPU, so it's unlikely that a mobile phone will handle such a task. However, not everyone owns a MT-32, so munt is a fantastic solution!

rented mule · Post by **rented mule** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 11:35 am

md5 wrote: MT-32 emulation requires a lot of CPU, so it's unlikely that a mobile phone will handle such a task. However, not everyone owns a MT-32, so munt is a fantastic solution!

Eh? iPhone's are running on ARM chips clocked at around 600MHz and multicore CPUs for smart phones are right around the corner. That's plenty for MT-32 emulation.

fingolfin · Post by **fingolfin** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:53 pm

Cool, so they improved the performance? It used to barely work on a 1.2Ghz Pentium IV

.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 1:40 pm

rented mule wrote:Eh? iPhone's are running on ARM chips clocked at around 600MHz and multicore CPUs for smart phones are right around the corner. That's plenty for MT-32 emulation.

Well, the version of Munt included in ScummVM constantly eats up 50% of my PC's CPU. In the past, the sound in DOSBox builds with Munt included would be choppy for this reason, e.g. check this thread:
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?t=19363

The version of Munt included in ScummVM is also quite choppy on MacOS, though I believe that fingolfin fixed that with double buffering.

So... judging by the current version of munt build in ScummVM, the iPhone will most probably NOT handle MT-32 emulation. But, if munt's performance is improved, then it might be likely. With the current situation, it isn't.

rented mule · Post by **rented mule** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 1:59 pm

md5 wrote: So... judging by the current version of munt build in ScummVM, the iPhone will most probably NOT handle MT-32 emulation. But, if munt's performance is improved, then it might be likely. With the current situation, it isn't.

Perhaps...but software and hardware evolve. Even if the current implementation is inadequate for current mobile phones, it'll run just fine on phones manufactured two years from now.

Again, that's only if nothing changes on the software end.

SuperDre · Post by **SuperDre** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:30 pm

fingolfin wrote:Cool, so they improved the performance? It used to barely work on a 1.2Ghz Pentium IV .

hehe.. but an ARM proc isn't the same as a Pentium IV... LOL.. But then again, who want a dumb iPhone anyway... LOL.

md5 · Post by **md5** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:52 pm

SuperDre wrote:
fingolfin wrote:Cool, so they improved the performance? It used to barely work on a 1.2Ghz Pentium IV .
hehe.. but an ARM proc isn't the same as a Pentium IV... LOL.. But then again, who want a dumb iPhone anyway... LOL.

Of course it isn't. But it's not as powerful as a desktop PC