search

joncampbell123 / dosbox-x

DOSBox-X fork of the DOSBox project
GNU General Public License v2.0
2.76k stars 381 forks source link

MT32 "crappy midi" emulation problems #310

Open joncampbell123 opened 7 years ago

joncampbell123 commented 7 years ago

I'm told that even with the MT32 ROMs the sound is terrible.

I personally don't have the means to test and develop MT32 emulation, so I'll need help with this from someone with the MT32 ROMs and knowledge of the synthesizer code.

Jarvik7 commented 7 years ago

Is there still a strong need to compile-in MT32 support? If you output to system midi it should be possible to connect it to an installation of munt/roland SC app/an actual MT32/SC etc. I think the code base already supports this.

joncampbell123 commented 7 years ago

Personally, no, but there are people on the Vogons forums asking for it in Windows builds, so it's a consideration even though it's one I can't provide myself.

sikthehedgehog commented 7 years ago

Couldn't the same be argued about MIDI support itself, since it's pretty much nearly always bound to sound awful? (and so far I could never get it to work on Linux, I'm not sure if I have a configuration issue or if it's even functional)

MT-32 was a pretty important part of DOS history so I guess it's worth emulating just for that reason. Whether it sounds good or not is up to each one... DOS games weren't particularly known for good synth music. The DOS stuff in vgmrips tends to lean towards Asian games for a good reason, despite the bulk of DOS games coming from the West.

This said, going from Wikipedia so take this with a grain of salt, but apparently MT-32 had some severe issues regarding its DAC (I have no idea how they managed to get away with that): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_MT-32#Sound_quality_problems

joncampbell123 commented 7 years ago

I'm not the one interested in MT32 emulation, ask the people on the Vogons forums asking for it. I'm happy to accept patches to improve it, but MT32 emulation is not my focus right now.

heydojo commented 6 years ago

Powerlord's comment here (about halfway down) pretty much sums up why and how I would love to see mt-32 emu working. mt-32 being output to general MIDI so that we can use a soft synth with a custom soundfont outside of dosbox-x. Just as can be done with any GM games or demos already. Doing so would eliminate the need to use munt. Games which support GM; sound so much better using a soft synth and a decent soundfont.

Jarvik7 commented 6 years ago

Powerlord is incorrect. MT32 is a midi controlled synthesizer (not wavetable). It (LA synthesis) has more in common with SoundBlaster/Adlib (FM synthesis) than it does with general midi. The fact that it has nothing to do with wavetable means it cannot be replaced or improved with a soundfont. This is the reason why MUNT even exists. There are some soundfonts called mt32, but they are meant to just be a rough approximation of the music using GM when real mt32 support isn't available. The MT32 'mode' in SC sounds bad for the same reason.

Dosbox already supports outputting the midi signal so you can play through the munt app or output to a real MT32/CM64 device. Not sure if that's still functioning or not under dosbox-x however.

heydojo commented 6 years ago

Hi @Jarvik7 thanks for the info. I just read this . And it explains that the mt32 likely does things to method specific PCM based samples (shipped in the ROMs I guess,) so I can see why it needs separate emulation.

As an aside, I can't get mt32 support to work in dosbox-x. I think a recent munt patch might need applying.

Edit: I forked Dosbox-X and have the latest munt working. Thanks Guys!

madbrain76 commented 4 months ago

I don't care about the Windows build support for MT-32, but I very much do care about it for DOS games. I grew up with an MT-32 and am still very fond of all the music in the games. But I sold my hardware MT-32 a while back, unfortunately.