Is MIDI handled by the emulator or the plugin?

[Stevedroid]

I've been messing around with various emulators tyring to find one that's perfect in all areas with FF7 (with little luck I'm afraid, all are good in some areas but weak in others, and none combines all the strenghts).

Anyway I noticed that the midi music was quite different between ePSXe and SSSPSX even though I was using the Eternal sound plugin with both.

For example the initial midi track in the train area has a "trumpet" part with some notes that are sustained for a while. ePSXe holds these notes correctly, however SSSPSX plays short blasts that do not sound right. So does the emulator control midi or is it the plugin?

Anyway to fix the problem SSSPSX? Sucks because the game seems to run better on SSSPSX, but the music sounds much better in ePSXe.

[dbhankins]

I just tried both and couldn't tell any difference in the music. Perhaps you're not using the same sound plugin with the same settings in both.

If the trumpet part you're talking about is when the music gets "exciting", when AVALANCHE jumps off the train at the beginning and knocks down the first two security guards and Cloud fights the next pair, then I have to say that with the same plugin and settings they sounded identical. To my ears, anyway. I let each play for several minutes, paying special attention to the beginnings and ends of notes.

Now the attack and decay at the beginning and end of the notes is softer with a real Playstation (I checked against that too), but the two emulators sounded the same to me.

I've attached an image of the Eternal 1.41 settings I'm using - BTW, the "lori" reverb seems to give the softest attack/decay of all the reverb settings, and I tried them all.


Dan

[Stevedroid]

I just tried it again and the problem was gone! I know for a fact it was there before - maybe just some odd bug related to running a bunch of different emulators in the same session.

Yay! SSSPSX for teh win

Thanks for all the help BTW.

-edit-

See post below, but in short, I found out it was related to starting from save states.

[TheMaister]

I'm not so sure about this. A year ago when I used PSXeven, the sound went always twice as fast as it should. (I played FF7 - PAL) I think this was a bug with the emu.

My theory is that MIDI's are handled by the CPU (emu) and the sound output is handled by the SPU.
Why don't you ask the emu-authors or Pete?!

[hushypushy]

there are no MIDIs in PSX games.

PSF files maybe...?

[TheMaister]

But PSF's are equivalent to MIDI's. It's basically the same.

[hushypushy]

equivalent in that they both use a preset list of instruments, yes. so are MOD files so why dont you include them? basically the same...yes. but the same? nope.

"is MIDI handled by the emulator or the plugin?" ---in response, no, because no PSX games use MIDI

[Seta-San]

midi uses math in order to approximate the sounds of real world instruments. That calculation produces a wave that can be output to the sound system.

[Stevedroid]

I was able to duplicate the problem and it does seem to be a problem with SSSPSX - specifically the save states.

Whenever I restore from a save state the music has the problem where the notes aren't held correctly. I'm assuming it's related to the timer or something like that. Anyway, when I start a new game it's fine. I'm not sure whether or not save games will have the problem (I haven't really had a chance to actually play the game up to a save point), but I'm guessing it's a different enough mechanism that it would not.

[hushypushy]

that's just an inherent problem with save states. a lot of sound problems are caused by save states. a lot of time you'll load up a save state and there wont be any music at all.

[TheMaister]

Originally Posted by hushypushy

that's just an inherent problem with save states. a lot of sound problems are caused by save states. a lot of time you'll load up a save state and there wont be any music at all.

Yeah.. It will especially happen when you make a savestate in a FMV or where there are XA sound.

[hushypushy]

i get sound problems in FF7 when i load save states...its ok though when i switch areas it fixes itself though; no big deal

[fireblaster_lyz]

Besides,
I tried save-stating during MDEC sequences (as in FF9, using ePSXe 1.6.0) without any significiant problems.

(That's was luck :: Running the CD and save-stating it)

I remembered I was using Thread in the Eternal's SPU config at that time.

[F-3582]

Originally Posted by Seta-San

midi uses math in order to approximate the sounds of real world instruments. That calculation produces a wave that can be output to the sound system.

Nope. Sorry to say that, but what you describe is the way Pulse Code Modulation (aka PCM aka .wav) works. MIDI only describes which instrument/sample/noise to use, the pitch, volume etc. which is used as a language for Synthesizers and PCs or other stuff to communicate. This information is used on an existing wavetable and even sometimes produces some listenable result.