Hey guys, sorry if this has been brought up before, but I didn't see anything on it. I am currently putting my own MIDIs I made into my game, and am having a few problems. Firstly, Even though I put in "Loop Music 100000 times" as an event, there is this "pause" that happens after the end of the MIDI. It wouldn't be so bad, but it's almost as if everything sorta stops for a half second when it happens. I used .wav files for the Great Piggy Escape, and it was able to loop seamlessly, so is there a way to avoid this "pause"?
Secondly, when I put some small .wav files in for sound effects something started happening graphically which gets annoying. I don't know if it's because both a MIDI is playing and sporadic .wav sounds or not, but little black "dots" seem to get pasted around the playing screen. If you scroll them off the screen and return, they are not there, so it's not permanent, but it's still annoying as hell. Even in the map selection screen (with no .wavs) this still happens sometimes. Any idea what's up with that, or did that happen to somebody else too? If it's a memory thing, my computer IS sorta old. 500MHz, 256RAM, GeForce 2 video card, regular riptide standard HP soundcard.
Thanks for any help, aside from that things are turning out great!
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"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
For the MIDI, I don't think there is a solution, MIDI is not the fastest.
Secondly, have you updated your display drivers? I really don't see how waveform sounds can generate visual noise. Do you have the accessibility option for visual sound effects (or what ever the hell it is)?
Use a MOD. Go to modarchives.com for the MODs themselves, and modplug.com (it's working now!), then use the DMC2 object to play it. I'm sure you know how to do that (if you don't, post it). Yeah...and you could always convert the MIDI to a WAV, but boy, that would be one large file.
Oh yeah, and it isn't necessary to do that MIDI code you did.
Here's what you did:
I believe I have the correct (and most recent) drivers installed- the noise didn't happen until I started playing MIDIs in my game. I suppose I won't know if it's just my machine until I test it out on another computer, but that will be a long way off from now. (It's a complex game and will take a long while to finish.)
I want to use the MIDIs because of the file size of them, unless I can convert them into a MOD and use DMC2 to play them. By the way, I have NO idea how to do any of that LOL. I looked around a bit and saw that DMC2 has DLL issues, and wasn't sure if I should use it. If it gets rid of the MIDI pause, that'd be awesome.
On my copy of MMF1.5, I have Modfusion3X or something but I can't add it to my program. The icon for it is a grey square with a red question mark on it.
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"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
DaVince This fool just HAD to have a custom rating
Registered 04/09/2004
Points 7998
16th October, 2005 at 05:44:56 -
Newer sound cards depend on MIDI instruments via a file instead of via a hardware chip, namely GM.DLS and/or GM16.DLS. Because the computer has to read this file every time a MIDI file is loaded, a short pause occurs.
Fortunately, you can convert MIDIs to Modules with ModPlug Tracker ( www.modplug.com ). The converted modules are only about twice to 5 times the size of MIDIs (keep in mind it's using samples instead of predefined instruments). Modplug Tracker also allows you to create modules.
The problem with the pauses between the MIDI-loops have been solved a long time ago. You don't loop the midi 10000 times, but 0 times. The midi will loop infinitly without the pause between them.
No, it doesn't get rid of the pause. MIDI just takes a moment to start. Modules can easily be created from a MIDI yes. MODPlug Tracker is a very excelent program once you figure it out. I'm using it myself and I still don't know how to use everything.
What I mean is that when there is that slight pause after a MIDI ends (and before it loops) the game does indeed pause for a millisecond.
What's more annoying are the black dots that pop up on the screen at runtime. It only happened after I added the MIDIs and .wavs.
I will try the modplug tracker tonight. Also, do they require any additional .DLL files that I'll need to distribute to the end user?
And one last thing if I may: I noticed that when you add a MIDI to the project, it loads it into a list to use throughout the application, should I choose. I can't find a way to remove these loaded MIDIs though. If I were to convert and re-add my songs as MODs, I'd like to remove the original MIDIs to make the overall .exe smaller when it's finished.
Shew! That's all, thank you!
EDIT: modplug.com isn't working for me, ack!
Edited by the Author.
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"Del Duio has received 0 trophies. Click here to see them all."
"To be a true ninja you must first pick the most stealthy of our assorted combat suits. Might I suggest the bright neon orange?"
DXF Games, coming next: Hasslevania 2- This Space for Rent!
MODPlug goes down sometimes. I can email you the player and tracker if you really want 'em. They're small. I would also like to know how to remove old MIDIs from the list. I always just do music last for my stupid little games.