SoundFonts and mods

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Opcero
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SoundFonts and mods

Post by Opcero »

Unless I'm mistaken, The StreamingAssets/soundfont readme.txt file tells players to adjust the .ini to be filename.sf2 for any mods to take effect, but with the existence of .sf3 should the readme reflect that not all mods will use the .sf2 format?

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pango
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Re: SoundFonts and mods

Post by pango »

The only use of the soundfont is the MIDI player, internal to Daggerfall Unity; I don't quite get why you mention mods...

Whether you can use an .sf3 file instead of a .sf2 one, I don't know... I'd say, give it a try ;)
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Opcero
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Re: SoundFonts and mods

Post by Opcero »

Got it. Thanks for clearing that up!

Also, if you happen to know, if I want to use the vanilla midi-OST mod, should I have "alternate music" checked or unchecked? Will one override the other?

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pango
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Re: SoundFonts and mods

Post by pango »

Alternate Music selects, as the tooltip text says, the OPL-3 optimized MIDI tracks (instead of the General MIDI tracks).
So if you don't use a music mod it should work best with an "OPL3-like" or "SoundBlaster-like" soundfont.

With a music mod, DFU will try to play different tracks among what the mod provides, so it could be either a rendition of the OPL-3 specific track, the same result if the mod provides the same sample for the 2 possible tracks, or maybe it won't work at all if it doesn't contain OPL-3 specific tracks (which may be the case for some, since that "alternate music" option is relatively new).
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Skyrim4Lyfe
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Re: SoundFonts and mods

Post by Skyrim4Lyfe »

SoundFonts only come in two versions, the original (no longer in use) version from the 90's that was made for the AWE SoundBlaster cards and the 2.X versions that are widely in use now. There is no 3.x version of SoundFont and the tech is considered to be deprecated as far as Creative Technologies is concerned, but it is still widely in use in the music industry. The ".sf3" SoundFonts are a hacked version of the 2.X format that uses super-efficient compression for the samples - intended to allow use on low-end hardware - and those files do not work with DU or any other port that uses SoundFonts. If you want the authentic MIDI experience with DU, you have to use a SoundFont based on the samples of the Sound Canvas synths (SC-55/SC-88) that were in use when the game was made and published. You can easily find such files if you look on retro gaming forums and the archive.org file section.

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pango
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Re: SoundFonts and mods

Post by pango »

... or tracks recorded on the real thing: https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/11
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