Make EQ's music (MIDI) sound Significantly Better.

[Knuckle]

Originally Posted by Maestrobob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Dumping the mp3s into your EQ directory won't affect your install at all, so you'll be fine. Just know that if you're trying to get the EQ client to use them in game, it won't unless you change all of the zone emitter files (*.emt in the EQ dir) to point to the mp3 instead of the xmi. You can open any zone_emt file in your EQ dir with a text editor to see what I mean.

If you are using my soundfont to play back the in game MIDI music, it should work perfectly fine with VMS. Your soundfont chain is correct (synthusr-samplefix-BASSMIDI.sf2 only). If it's not working, then it's likely VMS is not set as the default MIDI mapper. Windows 10 has a terrible habit of changing default midi back to the MS synth on my box constantly, and if you recently rolled back it has probably reset the registry values for it. You'll have to use something like Coolsoft's MIDI mapper to change it back. -> https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/midimapper

Bob thanks again for your help, your program definitely works and i do have midi mapper set up as such below.

my question to you and anyone else, does it feel like music does not trigger often enough? is there a fix or confirmation into this?

[pdub]

This is a TL;DR of what I had to do to get EQ music sounding right on Win10 , Feb 2021. Big THX to Maestrobob for doing his musical magic and fixing the soundfont file manually somehow!! Bob is doing The Great Work!!

1. Download the soundfont file that Maestrobob graciously provided. I will quote it here, but check his original post to make sure he hasn't provided a newer version:

Originally Posted by Maestrobob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The updated soundfont is here -> https://bit.ly/307B2VT

2. Download OmniMidi here, install it (get latest setup exe): https://github.com/KeppySoftware/OmniMIDI/releases

3. Run OmniMidi Configurator, click the + button on the right hand side, browse to & select the soundfont .SF2 file (that you downloaded in step 1). It should be the ONLY soundfont file loaded in OmniMidi Configurator. There is no need for the 1mgm.sf2 or any of those other soundfont files; ONLY load the one provided from maestrobob!!

NOTE - I open OmniMidi configurator every time i start up windows / before I play EQ, because Win10 seems to 'overwrite' the default MIDI device. OmniMidi will check this when it starts up, and ask you if you want to fix it (click yes)

4. I also use the Coolsoft MIDI Mapper prior to launching EQ to quickly ensure that OmniMidi is set as the default MIDI device. I dont think this is required, but it is a nice tool to view and set the Default MIDI device without having to manually browse/update registry values.

5. Also, it seems like in-game you need to turn ON "Enviroment Sounds" in the options, as apparently some (if not all) music in game is considered an environment sound. Unfortunately, this means you will also hear the annoying wind tunnel noises, or ocean breeze noises in some areas. I manually toggle environment sounds off when those annoyances start playing, and then turn them back on otherwise so i can hear music.

Again many thanks to Maestrobob for his excellent work on the fixed soundfont file, it makes the music sound great.

[Gustoo]

Nothing can sound better than original MIDI I hope nirgon is working around the clock to correct this.

My music doesn’t trigger reliably like in combat and stuff it’s odd.

[foxchris509]

Pretty cool thanks for this! Sounds great im really diggin it

[Maestrobob]

Originally Posted by pdub [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is a TL;DR of what I had to do to get EQ music sounding right on Win10 , Feb 2021. Big THX to Maestrobob for doing his musical magic and fixing the soundfont file manually somehow!! Bob is doing The Great Work!!

1. Download the soundfont file that Maestrobob graciously provided. I will quote it here, but check his original post to make sure he hasn't provided a newer version:

Thanks, pdub. That bit.ly link will always redirect to the latest version of the fixed soundfont.

As an aside for those interested; The SoundFont spec itself went through several revisions back in the mid to late 90's and there are some features that were removed/changed. For example, version 2.01 (the version used by Miles SS in the EQ engine in 1998) had a velocity to filter cutoff modulator that was removed in version 2.04 of the spec, to which BASSMIDI and other software synths adhere.

The end result is that while it is very close, the music will never be 100% faithful to what it sounded like on a real AWE32 under Win9x with period correct drivers. Until we have completely accurate 2.01 emulation, this current method will be the absolute closest we'll get to having correct sounding music playback on modern hardware.

I would like to also give huge thanks to shortok, who has put a ton of time, money and effort into recording EQ's music on real hardware (you can find his captures here). Having those references for comparison has been a massive help.

[bivouac]

Thanks for sharing a way to hear this music as it was meant to sound! I enjoyed it in P99 for a while, but I had to stop using it after I ran into some technical issues between VirtualMIDISynth and other games.

In December, I read someone's post on the P99 reddit about adding new music into Kunark zones using a tool to convert the sound trigger files into the newer, less cryptic, EMT format. Since then, I've done a similar conversion for all Trilogy zones with Maestrobob's mp3 transfers instead.

TrilogyEMT v0.1

The install is detailed in the readme, but it's basically drag-and-drop into your EQ folder. The EMT conversions aren't perfect and there's more I hope to add to them. Please share any feedback if you try it out.

[Maestrobob]

Originally Posted by bivouac [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The install is detailed in the readme, but it's basically drag-and-drop into your EQ folder. The EMT conversions aren't perfect and there's more I hope to add to them. Please share any feedback if you try it out.

Thank you, bivouac. This is exactly how I believe the music should be implemented going forward, and how I've personally played P99/TAKP/Live over the past months. It would be great if a package like this were to eventually be added to the official P99 file distribution.

This method fixes many issues with using the current in-game MIDI engine, including the pitch bend modulator not resetting (out of tune notes after a while). It also removes any software synth dependency and should work the same for everyone on all configurations.

The only major downside is that any global .xmi (gl.xmi) music, with the exception of combattheme1/2 and deaththeme, will still rely on MIDI playback since there are no EMTs associated with them.

Here are my trilogy EMTs for comparison -> http://bit.ly/2MZJyC6

The mp3 names in my package are changed to match the XMPlay output from my mp3 zip, otherwise the data should match.

[bivouac]

Originally Posted by Maestrobob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The only major downside is that any global .xmi (gl.xmi) music, with the exception of combattheme1/2 and deaththeme, will still rely on MIDI playback since there are no EMTs associated with them.

I managed to work around this somewhat. This fix involves modifying eqgame.exe, which may get your account banned on a server you do not own.

I opened eqgame.exe in Notepad and Ctrl+F searched to find gl.xmi, then changed it to gl.mp3. As far as I know, Titanium only references gl.xmi at bankers, merchants, and class trainers. I settled for using the banker/merchant music as "gl.mp3" since I assume mp3s can't have multiple tracks like an XMI. It worked as expected on a local eqemu server.

[Maestrobob]

Very interesting... I wouldn't have expected opening the game binary in notepad would've revealed specific filenames. I loaded eqgame.exe into HxD and saw a ton of strings and direct filename calls, including some Miles SS stuff.

Makes me think it could be possible to hack the executable enough to fix the gl music triggers. That's a little above me, so maybe someone with more experience could give their opinion. It really sucks that so many of the gl subtracks were disabled - having the swimming music, sneak music, all 3 battle songs, and the string/wind/brass/percussion bard instrument queues back would be fantastic.

[void221]

About this TrilogyEMT v0.1 ...

i installed first this Coolsoft MIDI Mapper and this OmniMidi .. the music was really better , but i also got some game crashes so i deinstalled these 2 programs again and installed this mp3-variant TrilogyEMT.

i played now not much but i run to any places in freeport with new music for testing.
everthing works fine and i have got no game crashes ... tomorrow i will play all day long and keep an eye on this.

thank you for your work , this makes the game really better.