Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2023-08-16, 06:44:Cheers! I remember you mentioning that before, but I wasn't sure about the exact details. Thanks for the clarification! […]
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grommit2007 wrote on 2023-08-16, 02:12:
The inability to load the SYNTHGM.SBK file appears to occur on SoundFont Bank Manager versions when Creative changed the color scheme to brushed aluminium (~late 2004 onwards, starting with Audigy 4 Pro, which I have found to be the earliest card using said SFBM versions). Basically, on later SFBM versions, any loaded SoundFonts have to contain some RAM samples (RAM samples in the context on ROMless cards like the Live! and later means samples not loaded in from SFMAN.DAT or CT1MGM.ROM). It should work fine on older versions before this change (it also works on AudioHQ on the SB Live! and Audigy 1).
Cheers! I remember you mentioning that before, but I wasn't sure about the exact details. Thanks for the clarification!
I have done further testing and I have found that custom RAM+ROM+NRPN SF2+MIDI files do work with the later cards, I have attached a recording of LETMESAY.MID/LETMESAY.SBK by Niko Boese (converted to LETMESAY.SF2 after loading in SFBM). Note the filter swell (at 1:18) and squelch (at 1:38 and 2:11) that is absent on software SoundFont synths. Also, some of these MID+SF2/SBK combos will sometimes override the samples of any loaded SF you have in order to load the ROM samples.
That's really cool! I wonder if it might be possible to make Final Fantasy 7 sound correct on SBLive/Audigy cards by manually loading SYNTHGS.SBK together with the game's own soundfont. I remember that by default, FF7 sounded a bit off on those cards compared to how it plays on a real AWE64.
And thanks again for sharing these discoveries with us all!
On that note, I have extracted the music from Hi-Octane, Magic Carpet 2 and Battle Arena Toshiden for DOS and have noted the following observations:
Hi Octane and Magic Carpet 2's .sbk files are structured in such a way in that they replace certain instruments in the base GM banks, as such SYNTHGM.SF2 or SYNTHGS.SF2 (or even CT2/4/8MGM.SF2) have to be loaded beforehand. In other words, BULLFROG.SBK is a Bank 1 SoundFont which draws down certain instruments from the base GM set. These games use Miles MSS with 4 sets of XMI files for FM, GM, MT-32 and AWE.
Battle Arena Toshinden's .sbk file (FATMAN.SBK) is structured in such a way that it is basically SYNTHGM.SBK with certain instruments replaced entirely, as such it has to be loaded into Bank 0. Due to this, you cannot load CT2/4/8MGM.SF2 and play back the extracted AWE MIDIs (the game uses 2 or 3 sets of HMI MIDI files, for GM, AWE and FM IIRC).
WRT to FF7, it does not detect the Audigy Rx as a supported SF device, despite the SFMAN APIs being present in the driver for some reason (they work perfectly with FSMP x86 for auto SF loading and removal). This is on Windows 11 Pro x64, for reference.
I am curious as to whether the APIs are still present on the Live! and Audigy in Win9x though, and if testing can be done to see when this problem first occured.
I will record Battle Arena Toshinden, Magic Carpet 2 and Hi-Octane playing on my Audigy Rx with their AWE specific MIDI files and SoundFonts and post the recordings to this thread later.