No Midi Device Support?

[TimeLoss]

Is there midi device support or any plans to include an option for midi output?

ROTT has one of the greatest of all time midi soundtracks. Just checked out the demo and it did not include midi device support - Just the soundtrack in ogg files. System Shock Enhanced Edition has midi device support so I was hoping ROTT Ludicrous Edition would have this option aswell.

[Lidl Castro]

MIDI would have been a nice option, so I could play it with my SC-55.

[Somali Pirate Radio]

Same. Got a Sound Canvas module sitting next to me right now.
...
OR I can hit the actual DOS system and play the original with AWE music.
(I actually need to rebuild that system, I have some odd problems currently.)

[DefectiveByDesign]

Windows 10 doesn't support midi ootb. You'd have to install virtual midi synth or something similar. If you have original midi hardware, then you need a USB converter.

Classic sound features have died due to both gamers and microsoft not respecting sound cards.
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/general-midi-and-soundfonts.html
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/roland-midi-emulator-project-20.html

[Crashed]

Originally posted by DefectiveByDesign:

Windows 10 doesn't support midi ootb. You'd have to install virtual midi synth or something similar. If you have original midi hardware, then you need a USB converter.

Classic sound features have died due to both gamers and microsoft not respecting sound cards.
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/general-midi-and-soundfonts.html
https://www.philscomputerlab.com/roland-midi-emulator-project-20.html

You can still install a third party MIDI mapper:
https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/midimapper

You might also notice that GZDoom (bundled with Return of the Triad) can enumerate installed MIDI devices even on Windows 11; the APIs are still there.

[Dextrose]

Either way, it's easy to swap out the soundtrack so people could record the midis using whatever soundfont they want and replace the oggs

[DefectiveByDesign]

Originally posted by Crashed:

You can still install a third party MIDI mapper:
https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/midimapper

You might also notice that GZDoom (bundled with Return of the Triad) can enumerate installed MIDI devices even on Windows 11; the APIs are still there.

Right, but GZDoom is the exception. They even support HRTF, after Microsoft completely destroyed 3d audio on windows while keeping it on the consoles. That, and you 100% need that midi mapper, because you can't use high quality midi without it. Plus even with the software, you need a soundfont, and soundfont quality is completely hit and miss. I have basically one soundfont that I like after trying around a hundred. The file size does not reflect actual quality, but you do need around 100mb to sound good.

Originally posted by Dextrose:

Either way, it's easy to swap out the soundtrack so people could record the midis using whatever soundfont they want and replace the oggs

Which has been the hack every game did since microsoft ruined Midi and CD music.

Not saying they ruined CD music directly, so let me explain some history. After we got the Xbox, gaming websites kept publishing "PC is DEAD" articles non stop for years, maybe a decade. Microsoft also ruined the operating system every update since Vista to work worse with gaming.

Vista started breaking a lot of backwards compatibility, directplay, directinput, directsound3d, midi, gameport, shortcut folders as a GUI. Games Explorer kinda replaced the ability to make your own organized game shortcuts on the desktop, but that's removed in windows 10. The taskbar and start menu also got worse every version of windows. MSN Gaming Zone that I played Quake2 on, no more, GFWL, etc.

This did not stop with OS features, but like I said PC websites constantly said PC is dead, and nonstop pushed SFF mini PCs, which were complete overpriced garbage with no future proofing. SFF did not take off, which was obvious astroturf BS, so it went away, but what DID catch on was the removal of CD drives, which was replaced with GLASS frontpanels that have no airflow to see your dumb RGB fans using proprietary controllers. Not only has CD drives been removed, but so has support for hard drives and SATA SSDs. The functionality of RAID was completely nerfed for consumers, and we are left with 2TB NVME drives and TWO slots on your motherboard. All while games take up 100-200GB PER GAME now with no legitimate reason why they are so huge.

Valve / Steam is literally the ONLY reason why PC gaming hasn't died. Steam bypassed all the BS that Microsoft did to ruin PC gaming, but they also contributed to the death of physical media.

So yeah, there are workarounds, but we should have never needed them either, and the state of PC gaming today is due to PC gamers and Valve, as almost everyone else had an interest in destroying PC gaming.

Developers don't have experience using Midi, it's been discontinued, and you need experience coding older software. Which is why GZDoom does what it does, while nobody else supports it. You also have to realize that even if developers coded MIDI support, they need to get permission to distribute 3rd party workarounds, or make the users DIY. Not gonna happen. If you want MIDI, you basically need a source port or DOSBOX.

The last soundcard to support MIDI was the X-FI, which also supported 3D midi, which there was one card before that used it in a single game. I think it was the adlib gold. Microsoft destroyed soundcards, 3d sound, and midi. I will also point out DXDIAG had a midi test that used a custom Microsoft synth, which was superior to the roland GM, but there was literally no way to force it as a midi output for old games. I think there might have been one soundcard I came across in windows 98 that used it, which was the best way to play doom, but I forgot what it was and never got it back. So yeah, midi is dead, and we have OGG now, not that OGG is actually good either.

[Crashed]

Originally posted by DefectiveByDesign:

Originally posted by Crashed:

You can still install a third party MIDI mapper:
https://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/midimapper

You might also notice that GZDoom (bundled with Return of the Triad) can enumerate installed MIDI devices even on Windows 11; the APIs are still there.

Right, but GZDoom is the exception. They even support HRTF, after Microsoft completely destroyed 3d audio on windows while keeping it on the consoles. That, and you 100% need that midi mapper, because you can't use high quality midi without it. Plus even with the software, you need a soundfont, and soundfont quality is completely hit and miss. I have basically one soundfont that I like after trying around a hundred. The file size does not reflect actual quality, but you do need around 100mb to sound good.

If you try GZDoom you sill see that it does in fact enumerate all installed MIDI devices. Coolsoft MIDIMapper simply sets itself as default in the registry to replace the missing Windows MIDI Mapper, and in GZDoom will appear as its own device too.

[Crashed]

Coolsoft actually has a writeup about how MIDI devices are handled, specifically in Windows XP and below, Vista and 7, and 8 and above.

It all worked up to Windows 7, but getting worst version by version:

• Windows XP: device #0 is MIDIMapper, #1 is MGWS
  
• Windows Vista / 7: same as above, but MIDIMapper configuration disappeared from control panel (registry settings were still available, so some third part tools were released as workaround)
  
• Windows 8 and newer: no more MIDIMapper, registry keys hack not working anymore!

Why do I need it?

Well, in fact you don't need it, but only if your MIDI clients (players, games, DAWs) allows you to select a specific output device.
If not, then go on reading...

On Windows 8 the MIDIMapper device has been completely removed so MIDI softwares are now REQUIRED to select a specific device (no selection still means #0).
I wrote "REQUIRED" because, worst of all, MGWS is now installed with some sort of "dynamic" ID: #0 out of the box, but it becomes #1 if you install another one (like VirtualMIDISynth[coolsoft.altervista.org] or an USB MIDI device).

So for the TL/DR it's not a waste of effort to support MIDI out as Windows still has support for MIDI out drivers; you just need to enumerate the installed devices and allow the user to select which one to use.

[DefectiveByDesign]

Originally posted by Crashed:

If you try GZDoom you sill see that it does in fact enumerate all installed MIDI devices. Coolsoft MIDIMapper simply sets itself as default in the registry to replace the missing Windows MIDI Mapper, and in GZDoom will appear as its own device too.

I know that, but it's the only game engine that does. All other midi games require the midi mapper, if they run at all. GZDoom not only shows you the devices, but has it's OWN internal midi player that you can select as well. It works similar to DOSBOX svn builds, which is the preferred method of playing old games. Also, soundcard midi doesn't work as well as software emulated, due to the OS/Drivers. This goes back even to creative's hanging note bug on mp401 to SC55. Hardware midi worked fine for a walled garden setup, but new functions required new hardware, and nobody liked the walled garden. So software MIDI was superior as soon as it was available, but it wasn't a thing on 9x, so we only got the good midi after midi was deprecated. To do it today, you'd need an internal device manager and soundfont. Why bother? This became unnecessary with Unreal using tracker music. Tracker music solved all of the software problems associated with midi, while providing a similar experience to the highest end midi setups. Then once space stopped being an issue and we had HD codecs, games just used music directly.

The only issue with midi is trying to play old games, as new games didn't use it. It was cool to be able to change the entire sound of instruments with different soundfonts, but I don't think developers liked the hassle or needed the functionality moving forward.

This is basically only an issue with ROTT, and Age of Empires Gold. My soundfont makes the AOE midi sound like the CD soundtrack, and ROTT sounds better than any Roland. It's just not going to be a priority for most devs though, and they'll use prerecorded music instead. I'm fine playing ROTT with DOSBOX, it's only the remaster people who have to deal with it.