A bit ot: Is there a list of games where the Yamaha MIDI option (General MIDI) is intended as the optimal requirement. I have a version of Super Street Fighter 2 with MIDI option. I know the original very well from the Super Nintendo. I tested all the options available to me. FM sound 8bit and 16bit. Then AWE32 and MIDI from the Dreamblaster S2. It sounds most authentic with the DB50XG. Unfortunately I don't have the Roland option (like the X2GS SE). So what do you think: Was Roland seen as the standard for the normal General MIDI back then, or were there games where the normal General MIDI was optimized for Yamaha, albeit without additional XG options.

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-03-31, 09:00:

Was Roland seen as the standard for the normal General MIDI back then, or were there games where the normal General MIDI was optimized for Yamaha, albeit without additional XG options.

Many western developers used a Roland SC-55 for composing game music during the early-mid 90s, so it sounds the best when played back on that device. Japanese developers usually favored Yamaha's products (whether OPM, OPN, OPL or XG) so their games often sound best on those.

The MT-32 page on the Vogons Wiki has a column titled "original synth" which denotes what device the game music was originally composed on. It's useful for reference purposes

Ok this makes sense, thx!

megatron-uk wrote on 2024-03-30, 08:28:

The sound configuration utility for Albion, which uses the Miles sound system, has a discrete option for choosing the DB50 for music:

albionxg.png

I don't know if this is actual XG music, or 'just' GM mapped to the DB50/DB60/XR385, as my XR385 board is currently packed away. I can't remember ever testing it to see if it was any better/different to the GM/Sound Canvas option.

Albion has only one set of music files and uses the same music driver for DB50-XG and for General MIDI, so it doesn't have any special support for XG.

Are other instruments perhaps used in the XG setting or tuned differently without using the additional XG options? Or does it not work that way? The XG MIDI stuff is still new to me, but I'm happy to learn.

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-04-01, 09:22:

Are other instruments perhaps used in the XG setting or tuned differently without using the additional XG options? Or does it not work that way? The XG MIDI stuff is still new to me, but I'm happy to learn.

To answer your question, GM is covered under XG, so there is no difference in sound between a GM and XG MIDI - when played on XG hardware - unless the MIDI data is formatted or tweaked to use XG commands and to take advantage of XG MIDI's additional instruments, features, and capabilities, which can vary wildly from hardware to software and hardware to hardware. To make it more confusing, there are two different kinds of XG (Regular XG and Sondious -XG), three tiers of XG hardware/software synths with different instruments and performance capabilities, and backwards/downward compatibility of XG MIDI data between various XG hardware and software synths is not always there, but forward/upward compatibility is pretty much guaranteed, so you can take an XG MIDI file that was made on an older/lesser XG synth and have it sound great on the newer/higher-end synths, though you can't always do that with a MIDI file done on the newer/higher synths because the instruments/sounds used can be different. For games, what I said means mostly nothing, as the few games that used XG were almost entirely composed with the S-YXG50 (soft-synth) or DB50XG/DB51XG (MIDI daughterboard) and MU50/MU10 (hardware), which is basic XG and not the more advanced, with bells and whistles. In today's world, you can get by and meet your needs by using the S-YXG50 VST and FalcoSoft's VST Host MIDI Driver and MIDI Player and completely forget about XG hardware, unless you are looking to run a vintage hardware setup and require correct hardware or you are running a newer/current PC (The last Yamaha XG modules are compatible with current systems) or you just need the advanced musical functions and capabilities of the last XG hardware for whatever reason.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2024-04-01, 11:46:

In today's world, you can get by and meet your needs by using the S-YXG50 VST and FalcoSoft's VST Host MIDI Driver and MIDI Player and completely forget about XG hardware, unless you are looking to run a vintage hardware setup and require correct hardware or you are running a newer/current PC (The last Yamaha XG modules are compatible with current systems) or you just need the advanced musical functions and capabilities of the last XG hardware for whatever reason.

If using old hardware, another option is to get a Yamaha YMF7x4 card. Those are XG compatible and sound great in games which support it, such as FF7. The driver panel even has a Sondius-XG checkbox.

There's an XG capable music player on the driver CD, along with sample music files. I made some recordings of the sample tracks here and also of some FF7 music here.

Is that included player the XG MIDI player that I keep seeing in people's YouTube vids? If so, I always wondered where that came from. I've been mostly using FSMP for my XG playback, but the S-YXG50 player is (surprisingly) fully functional with the S-YXG50 VST - albeit completely basic and simple - on current Windows systems.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2024-04-01, 14:01:

Is that included player the XG MIDI player that I keep seeing in people's YouTube vids? If so, I always wondered where that came from.

It's called Ystation and I think I got it from this driver CD along with the sample XG music files.

It's been a few years since I made those recordings, so I'm not entirely sure whether it was that exact CD image. My YMF744 card is currently sitting in storage so I can't double check at this time.

I know it's a bit OT again, and I apologize for that. I think my DB50XG, which was broken, still doesn't work properly. Difficult to reproduce, but occasional hanging notes occur. Is this a known bug? And no, it has nothing to do with the Creative hanging note bug that Daughterboard runs on an AZT 2320 card. I read something about a reset command. How do you send it and when is it used? Before or after a certain game, or a certain running time? Sorry again for my beginner questions.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-03-30, 17:05:

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-03-30, 15:12:

Yeah the setting are working, but not the game. I dont have luck with these early Win95 games.

Have you applied patch 1.02 after installing FF7?

Also, the game doesn't like it if the system has more than 512 MB RAM, even after applying R. Loew's PATCHMEM. I had to manually limit the available RAM to 512 MB using MSCONFIG to get FF7 to run on my Athlon64 rig,

AFAIR I played FF7 on my Athlon X2 4200+ with 2 Gb RAM. And a Yamaha 754 soundcard. Never had any RAM problems, and played it with a dual USB/PS gamepad, with PS buttons layout.

fillosaurus wrote on 2024-04-04, 05:22:

AFAIR I played FF7 on my Athlon X2 4200+ with 2 Gb RAM. And a Yamaha 754 soundcard. Never had any RAM problems, and played it with a dual USB/PS gamepad, with PS buttons layout.

This is the error that I would get on my Athlon64 system:

The nonsense about the swap file was weird, because I didn't disable it, and there's of course plenty of space on the C: drive. Anyway, the problem went away after limiting the RAM to 512 MB, and came back if I undid the limitation. For whatever reason, that was the cause on my system.

Demolition-Man wrote on 2024-04-01, 23:25:

I know it's a bit OT again, and I apologize for that. I think my DB50XG, which was broken, still doesn't work properly. Difficult to reproduce, but occasional hanging notes occur. Is this a known bug? And no, it has nothing to do with the Creative hanging note bug that Daughterboard runs on an AZT 2320 card. I read something about a reset command. How do you send it and when is it used? Before or after a certain game, or a certain running time? Sorry again for my beginner questions.

The card needs to be tested with an external wavetable interface board, like the Serdaco CHILL board adapter. Only then, will you truly know if it's still broken, which it might be. At this point, it's becoming less likely to get used daughterboards that aren't suffering from failing/failed components or damage from use, so steps need to be taken to identify problems and repair whatever is possible.

It has been repaired. Two capacitors and the RAM were changed.
Three games have caused problems so far. Super Street Fighter 2 after the 1.5 patch, which enables MIDI. The MIDI doesn't work properly in the game either. And slightly suspicious, two Lucas Arts games. TIE Fighter CD, and Dark Forces. The music works there but then notes hang in other MIDI applications until the PC is restarted.