[Base Music] OpenMSX v0.3.1

[Trolley Trev]

Hey guys! Long time no see!

Moved house like a month ago and have been without internet until today. So i decided I'd dl the l8est omsx and discovered my song was cut

So, i jumped on here and had a poke around and found it was because it was causing a bug.

I've had a look at the file and these are the only conclusions I've come up with:

The people experiencing the bug all reported it was during multi-tasking and that it only happend during my song.

Of all the midi files associated with omsx, mine is 2x as big as the next biggest (92kb as opposed to 46kb) This would be the reason the crash occurs on my song and not anyone elses.

This is due to the large number of notes and length in the song. unfortunately, this is something i cannot change or it would destroy the song!

This is what I think: If the developers would prefer to cut my song, that's fair enough, it's their game. (But i'll slip mine into a slot on my own comp though! ) but in my opinion, the crash is caused not by my song but by the 'bug-ees' trying to do too much on their computers. If you try and play say cod4 and compile an mpeg at the same time for example, cod 4 will lag like hell and probly crash. That's not the game's fault!

As for issues with sound drivers, my song was written using the gm sound set that comes with windows. some cound cards have their own sound sets for midis. if that is the case, this too could be causing the crash... again not my fault.

When the midi 'pauses' but holds on to one note, this is lag in a midi file. to test this, play a midi file in media player and open a system hogging program and you'll no doubt experience this 'midi lag' too.

Imo, if people want to multi-task, that's not a bug in the game. Unfortunately, playing midi's is a time consuming process for a computer and mine being so large has come off as being the weakest link!

But anyhow, that's enough from me

[planetmaker]

Hi,

nice to hear back from you again, Trolley Trev. I did have to remove your song as it was causing crashes to OpenTTD with certain configurations, so much more than a minor acoustic inconvenience. See http://dev.openttdcoop.org/issues/1202 and https://secure.openttd.org/bugs/task/3941

Personally I don't know exactly what causes this issue (I don't use windows myself), nor can we fix a windows sound driver, but obviously a crash due to a song is not acceptable and we have to work around that. I'll be very happy to include a fixed version of your song (or another one by you) as I like that song also a lot.

Claiming that it is the fault of the people who experience the crash - that's not something which is going to help nor true. A crash must not happen and should not happen - irrespective of what other tasks are running in parallel. People reporting a crash are not buggers who just don't know what they do - they are our users. They are those who actually _care_ to even tell us. They spent like hours finding out what was causing the issue; There will be many times more with the same problem who cannot even be bothered to tell us. In any case, the only thing which should be affected by doing many things at once on a computer is the playback speed; a crash obviously is much more and I'm saddened by your scorn and ignorance in that respect.

I propose you revise your song accordingly and check back with the people who wrote the bug reports whether they can reproduce the crash with your re-worked version. As said, I'll be happy to include a revised version as are also at least some of those who found the problem.

Cheers,
pm

[Trolley Trev]

Sorry for my perhaps rash reply earlier.

To be honest, I don't know what I can do to fix my song as I'm not sure what it is that is actually causing the crash.

The particular second intervals that were mentioned in the bug report don't seem to have anything out of the ordinary in the midi :-S

If anyone knows about midis perhaps they may be able to make the necessary modifications?

I'll re-attach it here so you don't have to go hunting!

[Bad_Brett]

Are there any plans to make mp3 files work? Because I was thinking about recording some classical tunes for my desert mod. I think mp3 support really would improve the atmosphere in the game.

[planetmaker]

Are there any plans to make mp3 files work? Because I was thinking about recording some classical tunes for my desert mod. I think mp3 support really would improve the atmosphere in the game.

There are no such plans as mp3 support currently (as usual it's missing the *someone* who's interested enough in it and works on it) But why don't you record those tunes as midi?

[Bad_Brett]

There are no such plans as mp3 support currently (as usual it's missing the *someone* who's interested enough in it and works on it) But why don't you record those tunes as midi?

Well, of course I'll do that if that's the only option in the near future. But it's almost impossible to make guitars, harmonicas ...and vocals sound good in midi. I assume that there's no option to include soundbanks, so the sound would also differ a lot depending on what soundcard the player is using, right?

[planetmaker]

I fear for the forseeable future midi is the only option. And afaik your fear that you cannot provide sound banks is right, too. Still... would be nice, if you give it a try and let us hear what comes from it. If it's bad, you exporting it to mp3 is still an option. People then could still play it with their own mp3 player which everyone has on his/her computer.

[orudge]

Many years ago, I worked on a patch for MP3/Vorbis/FLAC support in OpenTTD. I did "restart" work on this maybe a year or so ago to create something that integrated better with OpenTTD's current structure, and that was a bit cleaner and tidier, but nobody seemed to be interested in it and I myself then found myself rather busy. I guess at the moment I don't see the point in working on it if it's not going to get in, and also I'm somewhat lacking in time just now unfortunately. But if there is sufficient demand for it, then perhaps I can give it another stab.

[planetmaker]

But if there is sufficient demand for it, then perhaps I can give it another stab.

I guess the *demand* is there - given the many and frequent requests for something like that. It "just" needs a clean implementation, I guess.

[NekoMaster]

You know it shouldn't be to hard to play mp3's in an external music player while playing openttd. I don't get why people never relise that on most computers you can play Openttd and run a media player in the background for music.

[Trolley Trev]

I don't get why people never relise that on most computers you can play Openttd and run a media player in the background for music.

Yeah, but it's not the same!!

[Bad_Brett]

You know it shouldn't be to hard to play mp3's in an external music player while playing openttd. I don't get why people never relise that on most computers you can play Openttd and run a media player in the background for music.

But it's not the same thing. People will just listen to their own mp3 then... I want OpenTTD to feel like a complete game, and a complete game usually have in-game music that is not midi. What would be even cooler was if there was a way to connect the music to what's happening in the game. Maybe have happy songs when you're doing profit and play sad songs when train crashes into cars...

Orudge will be my hero if he can get mp3's working and if it's somewhat decent, I really think it should be in trunk.

[NekoMaster]

I guess you guys have made your point on the mp3 in game thing. I have to admit though, having era appropriate music would be nice (including some of CS Locomotions music converted from wav to mp3)

[Eddi]

a complete game usually have in-game music that is not midi.

where the hell did you get that from? i know lots of games that have a midi soundtrack. Age of Empires being one of the high-profile ones. and that is significantly newer than TTD

[NekoMaster]

a complete game usually have in-game music that is not midi.

where the hell did you get that from? i know lots of games that have a midi soundtrack. Age of Empires being one of the high-profile ones. and that is significantly newer than TTD

and though not a midi, older console game music is composed in a similar manner as Midi's, and they turn out good music (most of the time, usually SNES RPG's and a few Genesis RPGS)

[Bad_Brett]

a complete game usually have in-game music that is not midi.

where the hell did you get that from? i know lots of games that have a midi soundtrack. Age of Empires being one of the high-profile ones. and that is significantly newer than TTD

The current version of OTTD is from 2010. Tell me which games that are release today, that use midi _without_ any plugins... just the old Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth or whatever you may have. I'd say that there are very, very few, simply because it sounds really bad. Sure, with decent soundfonts, you'd be able to do a rather good soundtrack. But using the built-in MIDI sequences will lead to horrible results.

The thing is, that everybody here loves TTD, just as I do. And I have a feeling that a lot of people like me believe that the "old" games were a lot more enjoyable than the new ones. So it feels that some people are afraid what will happen if someone touch their babies.

But here's what I believe. I don't think that new games are boring because they have better graphics and 7.1 sound. I think they are boring because very few new games actual have interesting gameplay.

OpenTTD on the other hand, already has interesting gameplay. And with some effort, it could also have amazing graphics and sound effects. I think it's time to let go of the nostalgia and realise what huge possibilities there are. Whether or not SNES games had good music or Age of Empires (and I wouldn't call a game from 1997 significantly newer than a game from 1995) used MIDI is irrelevant. Adding mp3-support doesn't mean removing MIDI-support. The more options that become available, the more the game will continue to develop.

[planetmaker]

And with some effort, it could also have amazing graphics and sound effects. I think it's time to let go of the nostalgia and realise what huge possibilities there are. Whether or not SNES games hade good music or Age of Empires used MIDI is irrelevant. Adding mp3-support doesn't mean removing MIDI-support. The more options that become available, the more the game will continue to develop.

We're waiting for your effort then; it seems to majorly bug you, so you might make a major contribution to what concerns you

[Bad_Brett]

And with some effort, it could also have amazing graphics and sound effects. I think it's time to let go of the nostalgia and realise what huge possibilities there are. Whether or not SNES games hade good music or Age of Empires used MIDI is irrelevant. Adding mp3-support doesn't mean removing MIDI-support. The more options that become available, the more the game will continue to develop.

We're waiting for your effort then; it seems to majorly bug you, so you might make a major contribution to what concerns you

It doesn't bug me, I just believe that OpenTTD has so much potential.

If no one else is willing to do it, I will definately try to do it myself... But even though I've got some programming skills, I'm mainly an artist/musician when it comes to game design.

But basically, I understand if you say "It's not a top priority right, we'll see if there's time for it in the future". But what I don't get is why someone would debate whether or not it's a good idea to include it. Of course it's a good idea. If someone is willing to do it or not is another discussion.

Also, as a side note, even if you somehow prefer retro sounding Nintendo tunes, mp3 or ogg would still be the best option, because:

1) Constantly loading midi samples could possibly make the game lag, especially during fast forward
2) MIDI sound is totally dependent on what hardware you have. A MIDI tune will never sound the same on to different systems. Even if you want the MIDI sound, converting it to a mpr would be a better choice.

[orudge]

a complete game usually have in-game music that is not midi.

where the hell did you get that from? i know lots of games that have a midi soundtrack. Age of Empires being one of the high-profile ones. and that is significantly newer than TTD

Actually, to nitpick a bit, AoE and RoR have an option for a MIDI soundtrack, but by default, they uses CD audio. AoE 2 uses CD audio only, and AoE 3 uses MP3. Plus, the original AoE came out in 1997, it's not that much newer than TTD!

[icefiresr]

Hello there, i can not get the music to work.

I extract the newest version from here http://bundles.openttdcoop.org/openmsx/releases/0.3.1/ into the GM folder, choose it in game option, but still no music at all. The tracks keep skipping in the music browser in-game in lighting speed.

Please help.