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Reply 21 of 85, by HunterZ

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There are a few Win9x games that use MIDI. Final Fantasy 7 comes to mind.

We really need a good way to run Win9x games in an emulated or compatibility-layer environment that allows selections of synths and things while still providing good hardware acceleration of older DirectX/OpenGL calls.

Wine does this on Linux, so I've been using that a bit for those older Win9x games that aren't too happy on newer Windows versions.

Reply 22 of 85, by Joey_sw

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iirc FF7 also came with its own Soft Midi Player (Yamaha brand i think?),
that output into Wav channel instead of SW Synth or FM Synth channel.

Windows version of Heroes of Might & Magic 2, can also configured to use Midi instead of CD Audio for its music.

-fffuuu

Reply 24 of 85, by HunterZ

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Joey_sw wrote:

iirc FF7 also came with its own Soft Midi Player (Yamaha brand i think?),
that output into Wav channel instead of SW Synth or FM Synth channel.

Yes, it comes with a Yamaha XG software synthesizer, but I don't think it works in modern Windows. I think it also may act as a Windows MIDI driver, which means you may not be able to use it with FF7 unless you can set a default MIDI output in Windows.

Reply 26 of 85, by jwt27

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robertmo wrote:

Is there any advantage of using MIDI over cd audio in the above games?

Well the most obvious advantage is that you could use your own synth, which you may prefer over the CD tracks.

Reply 27 of 85, by KarjamP

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I have an idea:

Why not use DLL injection to intercept calls to MIDI device no. 0 (ie, where the MIDI Mapper was) and send it through to another MIDI device on the computer?

IE, one could try to inject a DLL into a process to mimic the removed MIDI mapper.

Reply 28 of 85, by HunterZ

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robertmo wrote:

Is there any advantage of using MIDI over cd audio in the above games?

In the case of games that support both, the CD audio (aka Redbook Audio) tracks are often recordings of the MIDI tracks made with whatever the best synth the developer was able to get a hold of at the time.

There is better hardware and software synth technology out there now that would probably result in better sounding music than the CD audio tracks.

Also, MIDI is a much more dynamic way of producing music than pre-recorded audio tracks. The Windows versions of X-Wing and Tie Fighter are abominations because they ditched the DOS versions' extremely dynamic MIDI soundtracks in favor CD audio tracks.

KarjamP wrote:

I have an idea:

Why not use DLL injection to intercept calls to MIDI device no. 0 (ie, where the MIDI Mapper was) and send it through to another MIDI device on the computer?

IE, one could try to inject a DLL into a process to mimic the removed MIDI mapper.

You wouldn't need injection to do that; most games look in their folder for a DLL before looking in the Windows folders, so you could just use a replacement DLL in the game's folder that is a wrapper to whatever is built into Windows.

That's not a bad idea. The only downside is that you'd have to put the DLL in the game folder of every game you want to use it on.

Well, that and you'd need to find someone who could actually write the wrapper for you 😀

Reply 30 of 85, by KarjamP

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That relies on the MIDI Mapper that was in Windows versions prior to Windows 8, so I don't know if it WOULD work or not.

Besides, I had tried changing that memory address manually, and it did nothing.

And I don't know if it really DID work or not for you, it's just that I'm not so sure if it's the solution to this problem.

EDIT: This didn't work for me.

I don't know how you got it to work, but as I've said, I've already tried modifying the "default midi device" registry entry manually to no prevail.

Reply 31 of 85, by Sammy666

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wocko1 wrote:

Try this one. I'm running W8 Pro, and this one seems to work.
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/36315/MIDI-out-setter

THANKS!!! IT WORKS!
"MIDI out setter" seems the only Midi Mapper so far, that really works with Windows 8!

Tested on a fresh installed Windows 8 32-bit Professional (in VMware).
"MIDI out setter" needs .Net Framework 3.5 (contains .Net 2.0 & .Net 3.0) to run.

as MIDI Player:
(Note: You have to restart your player to apply MIDI Mapper changes)
* Windows Media Player 12 (Win8 build-in)
* Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1
* Media Player Classic Home Cinema 1.6.7.7114

as MIDI Output Device:
* Microsoft GS Wavetable (Win8 build-in)
* MUNT MT-32 Emulator (v1.20)
* CoolSoft Virtual MIDISynth (v1.81)
Edit: * Hardware synth connected via USB-MIDI interface

Works fine 😀

Edit:
Other MIDI Mapper that are working on my test system:
* Vista MIDI Tool (aka Vista MIDI Fix), needs also .Net Framework 3.5 (contains .Net 2.0 & .Net 3.0)
http://www.benryves.com/products/vistamidi
* CoolSoft Virtual MIDISynth`s build-in MIDI Mapper (since v.1.8.0) can used to change Win8 default MIDI Output
http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

Tested and not working:
* Vista MIDI Picker (shows no MIDI output devices)
* Putzlowitschs Vista MIDI-Mapper (MIDI output changing has no effect)
* BASSMIDI MIDI synthesizer driver 3.21 (brings MIDI playing programs immediately to crash, after uninstalling the default Windows MIDI is not set)

Last edited by Sammy666 on 2013-05-02, 23:54. Edited 10 times in total.

Reply 32 of 85, by HunterZ

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I hadn't heard of CoolSoft Virtual MIDISynth. It looks like it uses Un4seen's BASSMIDI library, just like BASSMIDIDRV.

Anyone know if anything significant is different between the two?

Reply 34 of 85, by Sammy666

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robertmo wrote:
Sammy666 you can also try these: http://putzlowitsch.de/2007/08/07/sichtwechsel/ http://kode54.net/bassmididrv/ […]
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Sammy666
you can also try these:
http://putzlowitsch.de/2007/08/07/sichtwechsel/
http://kode54.net/bassmididrv/

Done, see my first post.

Reply 35 of 85, by KarjamP

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@Sammy666:

I don't know how it worked, but I'll see if I can fiddle around with that program again to see if there's something I've missed. 😐

I'll change it to something else then back to my synth of choice to see if that'll work.

Reply 37 of 85, by KarjamP

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Just tested it again, this time, selecting a different synth.

I don't know how this worked for Sammy666, but me, owning a Windows 8 Pro OS, it doesn't.

This site could explain what's really happened when Sammy666 amd Wocko1 tried to change the default MIDI: Windows rearranged the synths so that something other than Microsoft's poor reproduction of a Roland Sound Canvas softsynth as to make that one ID 0 instead of that synth.

The maker of Coolsynth - who made said post that I was referring to - doesn't know how it gets rearranged, but what he DOES know, it's impossible to change the default MIDI by hand using those tools that did it for Vista and 7 (and thus, the app must specifically specify what MIDI device to use when you want to use something other what Windows itself selects).

(BTW, don't listen to anyone who suggests that Coolsynth could do it - the maker, knowing that it's impossible to change the Default MIDI by hand, disabled the option for Windows 8 devices in its recent releases).

EDIT: According to that author, the reason why it seemed to have worked for Wocko1 and Sammy666 is because they WEREN'T changing the default MIDI device of the system, but rather, changing the "Windows Media Player default device".

They are two entirely different things, and I know of at least one classic game that doesn't use the Windows Media Player's default device as its own (An old version of Hugo's House of Horrors to be specific).

Reply 38 of 85, by Sammy666

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I did a new MIDI Mapper Windows 8 test run on a different computer.
This time with real MIDI hardware (USB-MIDI Interface connected via DIN cable to a hardware synth).

- installed VMWare Player on Win7 64-bit

- installed Windows 8 Pro 32-bit in VMware Player (no Win8 updates, no extra tools, nothing)

- deinstalled Windows 8 Media Player (only to see what happens)!

- started "MIDI out setter" MIDI Mapper, Win8 note pops up, downloaded and installed .Net Framework 3.5 automatically

- started "MIDI out setter" again, it shows the MS Wavetable Synth as MIDI output device

- downloaded Media Player Classic (MPC cannot change the MIDI output by itself) as MIDI player

- played a midi file with MPC and hear the beautiful sound of MS Wavetable Synth 😉

- connected the USB MIDI interface and hardware synth to the computer

- started "MIDI out setter", now it shows MS Wavetable Synth and the USB MIDI interface. Selected the USB-MIDI interface as MIDI out device.

- played the midi file again with MPC and...

Tataa... I hear the sound comming from my hardware synth!

So, "MIDI out setter" is working well as MIDI Mapper in Win8 to change default midi device. With virtual and hardware MIDI devices.

@ KarjamP:
Don`t know what is wrong on your system, that none of the working MIDI Mappers is working for you.
Maybe a bad .Net installation, driver, tuning tool, tweaking ...
You can try to install Win8 in a virtual machine (VMware Player, VirtualBox) or try a fresh Win8 installation to find it out.

BTW, "Windows Media Player default device" and "Windows 8 default MIDI Out device" is the same.

Reply 39 of 85, by KarjamP

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The reason why it seems to work for you in both the virtual machine AND the real computer, Sammy666, is not because you've successfully changing the default MIDI Device of the MIDI mapper, but you're actually changing the default MIDI device of Windows Media Player and all the programs that use its MIDI interface as a MIDI player (Media Player Classic is one of them).

If you were to read the link in my article, some people referred to some tools that seemed to "work" (including the one that you've used), but in actual fact, they're changing the value of "Windows Media Player default device".

(in case your wondering, both the normal Windows Media Player and the classic version doesn't technically give you the option to change it via the interface {but here, it's changed via the registry} ).