I've been doing some testing of Midi behavior in games:
Doom 1 & 2 will call for GM1 (Reset to General Midi) using a SysEx (F0 7E 7F 09 01 F7) once when you enter doom and once when you quit.
Good programming, an example for all the rest how it should be done.
Duke Nukem 3D will not use any SysEx, instead it sets each parameter one by one like I did with my Reset.mid.
It will use any mode (GS. GM1, GM2) already set; When you quit it will reset only the volume sliders to 88, leaving everything else untouched.
Bad programming, no reset command so unused parameters will stay as is and may effect the sound of other games.
If you played Doom before, you stuck in GM1/GM2 Mode.
Warcraft 1 & 2 worse than Duke Nukem 3D, it will set each parameter to default one by one without a reset command.
When you quit it will not touch anything and leave the sliders as is.
Simcity 2000: will properly send reset Sysex command (F0 41 10 16 12 7F 00 00 01 00 F7) for old D-110/MT-32 type synths (checked the manuals).
Although newer Sound Canvas (including SC-VA) will not understand them thus do nothing.
Excellent programming for the MT-32 and nothing else.
To test these I actually started recording in my DAW before running a game and stopped after quiting,
afterwards I analyzed the events of the recording to see what midi commands the game calls for.
As you can see, games had no standard as to how to actually program the midi code so each manufacturer did what seemed to him correct or straight forward worked for the particular model he used.
Some use SysEx command to reset and change midi modes, some just manually move all the basic sliders on each channel to default position.
And we have the age factor, so not every old command will work even with the hardware Sound Canvas.
To conclude;
Based on this information that the game developers themselves used whatever they felt like at the time, I will use a better method.... My method. 😊
Just filter out (disable) the Sysex and Controller (0,32) in SAVIHost and use my reset midi for best results and the most expected behavior with every game.
If the SC-VA resembles the behavior of the real hardware, you might want to use this reset.mid with the real sound canvas hardware too.