im not gonna be much help with this 🤣, i heard the best card to use for FFVII is a yamaha model, thats probably what the software is for, if you want the best sound i know the music has been ripped from the playstation version for the PC, i was expecting the PC music to be just the same or even better, IMHO it sounds awful compared to the original playstation, its the same for FFVIII some of the sounds/instruments are missing and its just bad.

jaskamakkara wrote on 2024-10-25, 21:52:

Have to say I don't know much about MIDI and soundfonts etc etc, so I am hoping there is an easy answer to my question - how do I get the best MIDI sound out of the original PC version of FFVII in W98SE?

In my view, Yamaha XG hardware will provide the best music in FF7. You can get that by either using an external XG MIDI device like a Yamaha MU80, or an internal PCI sound card like a Yamaha YMF724/744. You can hear how that sounds in this video. The software synthesizer which ships with the game is the next best thing, but it's fairly demanding on the highest quality settings, so you may experience stuttering unless you have a very powerful CPU.

Alternatively, you can get some pretty good results with Creative's AWE 32/64 cards, as long as they have at least 4 MB RAM on-board. That way, you can even have the proper vocals in One Winged Angel (which don't work with XG music) but the overall instrument sample quality isn't as good compared to Yamaha hardware. As for the SBLive/Audigy cards, I haven't tested those thoroughly, but I think I wasn't able to get the music to sound quite as good as on the AWE, not to mention Yamaha XG hardware.

You can find more details in this thread: Final Fantasy VII and VIII definitive MIDI thread

Yamaha MU80 looks like the way to go, just checked that video sounds pretty nice, better than i remember!

the retail disc set from Eidos for FF7PC came bundled with Yamaha XG Softsynth 50 midi drivers, for people that lacked hardware wavetable synthesis. It also supports AWE32/64 via soundfont banks.

In theory, one could use a VSTI midi plugin, after converting the SF2 files that are in the ~/data/midi/sf2 folder of the game's install location.

https://github.com/Falcosoft/vstdriver/releases/tag/v1.9.0

Concerning the game's use of SF2 files-- the AWE32/64 cards came with a proprietary MIDI driver that exposed an API for instructing it to load and unload soundfonts programatically. The game uses this to load appropriate sound banks into the cards as they are needed.

It's possible to shoehorn these together with free tools into a single soundfont midi bank for use in a sonftsynth.

Just install the soft synth on the cd. It works. The only thing you will miss is the one winged angel voices. Use the xg midi.

Hopefully you have a 3d fx card as well? That gives the best retro experience. If you are using a nvidia card, you will likely have a bad time at the whirlwind maze, and need to go to software mode.

I played the game on a 3dfx and awe32 with 8 meg, and the music has balance and wrong instrument issues, as well as lack of features that should have been possible on the awe32 itself (the filter sweeps in "Hurry!" 100% were doable, as well as the missing pitch bends in "Underneath the Rotting Pizza"). The only midi file that really couldn't have been fixed was You Can Hear the Cries of the Planet, which requires portmanteau controller that awe32 didn't support.

I'm pretty sure the soundfont router from the disc only worked with an awe32/64 card. there's a combined font you can get and use with the awe32 midi option, and if you load it to user bank 1. I forget where it was. you cna load the 4 meg manually to user bank 1, and that gets everything but one winged angel working.

That said, this really is a poor choice of game to retro play.

a much better option is to buy it on steam, install 7th heaven, and configure the following mods.
1)30/60fps mod (bumps the framerate and animations up to snuff, and makes the tifa, cait sith, and battle square slots not suck and fixes the bike minigame. set it to full 60fps)
2) ff7music (puts in the genuine playstation music, fixing ALL music issues. enable the synch option)
3) kactuar (lets you put in button prompts. use ps4 icons)

and hook up a dual shock 4. Sorted.

OK guys, thanks for all the inputs. All the stuff about soundfonts etc is a little confusing for me, I need to do some learning about this subject I think. I have installed the Yamaha software synth off the FFVII install disc and it actually sounds pretty good so I am happy with that for now. I found actually that the General MIDI data sounded better than the Yamaha XG MIDI data (at least to me) - is this to be expected? (Just to clarify - this is with selecting the Yamaha Soft Synth as the MIDI device).

jaskamakkara wrote on 2024-10-27, 08:32:

I found actually that the General MIDI data sounded better than the Yamaha XG MIDI data (at least to me) - is this to be expected? (Just to clarify - this is with selecting the Yamaha Soft Synth as the MIDI device).

They are slightly different, but which one sound better is a matter of personal preference.

I'd say that selecting General MIDI while using a Yamaha device (or the softsynth) makes the music sound closer to the original PlayStation version of the game. Selecting XG enhances the music further, but it also makes some slight changes compared to the original soundtrack. I personally like the XG music better (most of the time), but to each their own.

P.S.

If I remember correctly, you can configure the Yamaha softsynth to use higher quality samples through either a setup utility, or a Control Panel applet (not sure which). Might be worth playing around with that as well.

The bundled one uses a control panel applet. It can go up to 128 voices, but on period hardware, this is too taxing on the CPU.

Incidentally, one can TRICK the game into presenting the AWE composed music tracks by re-naming the .LGP files. EG, rename the awe.lgp to midi.lgp. One can then consolidate the AWE SF2 files into an appropriate soundfont bank, and present it to a softsynth of your choice that accepts soundfonts (on linux with wine, Fluidsynth satisfies this niche. On windows, a more involved process of renaming/replacing the GM.DLS file in /windows/system/drivers with one baked from this combined soundfont and using the windows wavetable emulator, will suffice.) and have the vocals and such.

VIntage software to do that, is things like sf2ed, but modern software is stuff like polyphone.

https://github.com/davy7125/polyphone

MOST Of the intstrument sets wont collide, but a few will. You have to be a bit discerning n what you are doing to successfully merge the soundfonts into a single instrument bank for use with a random soundfont supporting softsynth.

The contents of the .LGP files are JUST ordinary windows RMI MIDI files that just call instrument IDs, so renaming the .LGP files has the appropriate effect of making the game call for OneWingAngel voice samples, without the AWE option set, and without futzing with the proprietary driver situation.

wierd_w wrote on 2024-10-27, 08:59:

The bundled one uses a control panel applet. It can go up to 128 voices, but on period hardware, this is too taxing on the CPU.

Yeah, I just installed the game on my test system, and the softsynth defaults to "XG Lite" with a low number of voices. It's possible to switch it to "XG Soft" and then increase the number of voices and enable reverb, chorus and variation. These settings can be changed under Control Panel > XG Synth Driver. Here's what I did:

But as you say, this will tax the system a lot more, so it might not be the best idea to use these settings unless one has a 1 GHz CPU or better.

OK thanks guys, I will have a tinker with the control app and see if I can get it sounding even better. I am running this on a period machine (PII MMX) so I doubt I can push it too far.

I might look into this trick of getting the AWE soundfonts working - I guess I can use the Creative soundfont utility for this purpose?

The linked github for polyphony supports all the requisite formats.

EDIT: Except it does not speak .DLS

This has always been an issue. I am trying to remember what software I used to bake a .DLS back in the day... (But I *DO* remember that windows does NOT check or verify the origin of the GM.DLS in the /windows/system/drivers folder, and you can readily replace it with a much more sophisticated soundfont, then reboot, and it will work just fine.)

I see various rumors/claims that ModPlug Tracker can load an instrument set in .SF2, and then save it as .DLS, so maybe it's a work around to accomplish this.
http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/programs/MODPlug_Tracker/

OK, thanks again for helping - I will look into this.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-27, 09:11:

Yeah, I just installed the game on my test system, and the softsynth defaults to "XG Lite" with a low number of voices. It's possible to switch it to "XG Soft" and then increase the number of voices and enable reverb, chorus and variation. These settings can be changed under Control Panel > XG Synth Driver. Here's what I did:

---

But as you say, this will tax the system a lot more, so it might not be the best idea to use these settings unless one has a 1 GHz CPU or better.

I could be wrong, but wasn't the PC version of FFVIII bundled with a newer version of the soft synth than FFVII? I'm not sure what the changes were, but it might be worth checking out if people are playing around with it.

SScorpio wrote on 2024-10-28, 11:48:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-27, 09:11:

Yeah, I just installed the game on my test system, and the softsynth defaults to "XG Lite" with a low number of voices. It's possible to switch it to "XG Soft" and then increase the number of voices and enable reverb, chorus and variation. These settings can be changed under Control Panel > XG Synth Driver. Here's what I did:

---

But as you say, this will tax the system a lot more, so it might not be the best idea to use these settings unless one has a 1 GHz CPU or better.

I could be wrong, but wasn't the PC version of FFVIII bundled with a newer version of the soft synth than FFVII? I'm not sure what the changes were, but it might be worth checking out if people are playing around with it.

i've just been looking into the yamaha softsynth and i was wondering if it would make any difference using a later version, just bought a Typhoon CMI8738 sound card, i was reading about it on the dosdays site and the previous version had a Yamaha XG chip, when they switched to the cmedia chip they put the Yamaha S-YXG50 software on the install disc, until mine arrives im not sure if it has it on the cd as it looks like a different disc, so i've looked online for a copy and i've found a few other versions, theres S-YXG100, S-YXG2006LE and S-YXG-DM, is the missing instruments/vocals a limitation of the S-YXG70 software and would using a later version fix the missing sounds and be better sounding than the S-YXG70?

DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-28, 12:53:

is the missing instruments/vocals a limitation of the S-YXG70 software and would using a later version fix the missing sounds and be better sounding than the S-YXG70?

No. The PC version of FF7 was coded so that the vocals in One Winged Angel only work when using the game's custom soundfont. That soundfont gets loaded into memory automatically if you have an AWE card with 4MB RAM, but it might be possible to add it manually on SBLive/Audigy cards as well. The Yamaha XG music simply wasn't designed with those vocals in mind, regardless of what synth or device you use.

BTW, One Winged Angel is the only song on the entire soundtrack that even has vocals. That's probably the reason why the devs never bothered with it all that much.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-28, 13:19:

DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-28, 12:53:

is the missing instruments/vocals a limitation of the S-YXG70 software and would using a later version fix the missing sounds and be better sounding than the S-YXG70?

No. The PC version of FF7 was coded so that the vocals in One Winged Angel only work when using the game's custom soundfont. That soundfont gets loaded into memory automatically if you have an AWE card with 4MB RAM, but it might be possible to add it manually on SBLive/Audigy cards as well. The Yamaha XG music simply wasn't designed with those vocals in mind, regardless of what synth or device you use.

BTW, One Winged Angel is the only song on the entire soundtrack that even has vocals. That's probably the reason why the devs never bothered with it all that much.

In order to hear vocals in One Winged Angel with an SB Live!/Audigy you have to load lb2.SF2 to Bank 1 manually (with the help of SoundFont Bank Manager).
BTW, here is an Riff Midi version of One Winged Angel with embedded SF2 soundfont:

You can play it with FSMP
https://falcosoft.hu/softwares.html#midiplayer

or you can use the web based SpessaSynth:
https://spessasus.github.io/SpessaSynth/

DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-28, 12:53:

SScorpio wrote on 2024-10-28, 11:48:

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-27, 09:11:

Yeah, I just installed the game on my test system, and the softsynth defaults to "XG Lite" with a low number of voices. It's possible to switch it to "XG Soft" and then increase the number of voices and enable reverb, chorus and variation. These settings can be changed under Control Panel > XG Synth Driver. Here's what I did:

---

But as you say, this will tax the system a lot more, so it might not be the best idea to use these settings unless one has a 1 GHz CPU or better.

I could be wrong, but wasn't the PC version of FFVIII bundled with a newer version of the soft synth than FFVII? I'm not sure what the changes were, but it might be worth checking out if people are playing around with it.

i've just been looking into the yamaha softsynth and i was wondering if it would make any difference using a later version, just bought a Typhoon CMI8738 sound card, i was reading about it on the dosdays site and the previous version had a Yamaha XG chip, when they switched to the cmedia chip they put the Yamaha S-YXG50 software on the install disc, until mine arrives im not sure if it has it on the cd as it looks like a different disc, so i've looked online for a copy and i've found a few other versions, theres S-YXG100, S-YXG2006LE and S-YXG-DM, is the missing instruments/vocals a limitation of the S-YXG70 software and would using a later version fix the missing sounds and be better sounding than the S-YXG70?

XG50 or XG70 or a card with a Yamaha XG chip is all you need for games, as that's what the games were meant for and all XG games are covered by those choices. XG2006 is XG Lite and doesn't work too well with a lot of XG music and XG100 is only intended for musical use, with advanced effects and sound modeling.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-28, 13:19:

No. The PC version of FF7 was coded so that the vocals in One Winged Angel only work when using the game's custom soundfont. That soundfont gets loaded into memory automatically if you have an AWE card with 4MB RAM, but it might be possible to add it manually on SBLive/Audigy cards as well.

Falcosoft wrote on 2024-10-28, 16:18:

In order to hear vocals in One Winged Angel with an SB Live!/Audigy you have to load lb2.SF2 to Bank 1 manually (with the help of SoundFont Bank Manager).

Time to clear-up this misconception.

lb2.SF2 will get automatically loaded when using an SB Live! or Audigy if the game and SoundFont MIDI Router have been properly configured beforehand.

For an SB Live!, that configuration is as follows:

Additionally, if you want to use the "Game 3D - Final Fantasy 7" Environmental Audio preset, my suggestion would be to disable the reverb on the Wave/DirectSound output, but that's more of a personal preference than anything.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-10-28, 13:19:

DudeFace wrote on 2024-10-28, 12:53:

is the missing instruments/vocals a limitation of the S-YXG70 software and would using a later version fix the missing sounds and be better sounding than the S-YXG70?

No. The PC version of FF7 was coded so that the vocals in One Winged Angel only work when using the game's custom soundfont. That soundfont gets loaded into memory automatically if you have an AWE card with 4MB RAM, but it might be possible to add it manually on SBLive/Audigy cards as well. The Yamaha XG music simply wasn't designed with those vocals in mind, regardless of what synth or device you use.

BTW, One Winged Angel is the only song on the entire soundtrack that even has vocals. That's probably the reason why the devs never bothered with it all that much.

yeah i did wonder whether the vocals could be reproduced with the softsynth, i though at the very least the version with the game would be capable of it, at least they provided a soundfont, guess they'd have to considering it's one of the most iconic tracks in the game, sadly i threw out my AWE64 gold years ago as i decided its obsolete tech, which im now kicking myself over, never would have though 15 years down the line i'd be needing it, looks like i'll have to go the SBlive route for now.

Falcosoft wrote on 2024-10-28, 16:18:

In order to hear vocals in One Winged Angel with an SB Live!/Audigy you have to load lb2.SF2 to Bank 1 manually (with the help o […]
Show full quote

In order to hear vocals in One Winged Angel with an SB Live!/Audigy you have to load lb2.SF2 to Bank 1 manually (with the help of SoundFont Bank Manager).
BTW, here is an Riff Midi version of One Winged Angel with embedded SF2 soundfont:

The attachment AWE - 4-16 One Winged Angel.zip is no longer available

You can play it with FSMP
https://falcosoft.hu/softwares.html#midiplayer

or you can use the web based SpessaSynth:
https://spessasus.github.io/SpessaSynth/

i just had a listen and compared it with the version from the 4cd OST, a side from the instruments which sound different the vocals are actually pretty damn good, ill have to have a play around with this when i've got some time.

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2024-10-28, 16:35:

XG50 or XG70 or a card with a Yamaha XG chip is all you need for games, as that's what the games were meant for and all XG games are covered by those choices. XG2006 is XG Lite and doesn't work too well with a lot of XG music and XG100 is only intended for musical use, with advanced effects and sound modeling.

thats good to know, i was gonna try out each one to see if there was any major difference, i just assumed the later versions would have more sounds/instruments, which i suppose would be pointless especially if the games weren't designed for it and cant make use of it, i guess the XG50/70 will do just fine until i get round to settling on a card with an XG chip