Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

Dipsh t Admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:11:01 GMT

"Paul why no coverage on this???

blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft

Why wont they kill XP? Does Marry cover Windows new better?"

See here for coverage: windowsitpro.com/.../microsoft-to-allow-downgrades-from-windows-7-to-xp--well-duh.html

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

lotsamystuff — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:30:30 GMT

"Juvenile is having to drag Waethorn out of the McDonald's ball pit, kicking and screaming."

As much as I hate to encourage the author, that was just laugh-out-loud funny.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

Waethorn — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:27:34 GMT

Oh, and if you think you've heard other themes in some of the Sierra soundtracks, it's common for the signature Sierra parody to leak into the musician's repertoire.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

Waethorn — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:25:22 GMT

FYI: Illiminable's codecs don't automatically link OGG file associations for you - you do that yourself. You can pick your fave DShow player that way though.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

Waethorn — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:23:22 GMT

BTW: If you want to listen to some of the music on that site and don't have OGG codecs, Illiminable makes DirectShow codecs that let you play OGG files in Windows Media Player. Easy to install, and surprisingly easy to uninstall as well, which is rare for codecs.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

Waethorn — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:14:55 GMT

"referring to the diabolically bad General MIDI soundbank that early PC soundcards were equipped with"

Actually the first sound cards to offer it were from Roland - a company that pioneered General MIDI. They are world-reknowned for their sound bank and other sound card makers try to emulate the tonal properties that Roland reproduces with their sound bank. Creative licensed a lower-quality version for low RAM requirements on the Sound Blaster PCI sound cards. Microsoft also licensed that same low-quality version for the software synthesizer used in all WDM drivers for sound cards that lack a proper synth. Many sound cards also don't reproduce the Reverb and Chorus effects of the Roland devices either, so the quality suffers. Other cards use weak 1MB and 2MB sound banks. Roland uses 24-32MB sound banks with hardware compression. There's a world of difference. Then you have Roland GS, which expanded General MIDI from 128 instruments to upwards of 400 on most devices at the very least. Yamaha did their own variation and most Yamaha XG devices include support for ALL of the Roland GS, PLUS their own set of 300+ additional instruments, equalling usually over 600 instruments for even low end devices (like that DB50XG that I mentioned). Then there's the effects that Yamaha added which were a completely incredible improvement over Roland's limited selection.

Just to note, I had an incredible pair of songs that were designed for Yamaha XG devices. They were 2 parts of a song theme called "In the mouth of madness" (if I can remember correctly), and they used all of the electric guitar effects on XG devices to completely simulate a live rock guitar performance. They were amazingly realistic. I'd like to find them again if possible.

Many decent sound cards used the Roland GS or GM sound banks. Many also didn't. If you had an FM synth, then I feel sorry for you, but every sound card I had played amazingly realistic instruments. I never used on-board Sound Blaster wavetable sound banks or one of those cheap Zoltrix sound cards though. I gave enough of a damn to find the cards that were favoured by the game makers - Roland devices. Later, I took a chance on the Yamaha XG daughterboard, but the reviews called Yamaha's stuff revolutionary, and having Roland GS compatibility meant I didn't lose anything. I was also heavy into MIDI music creation in Cakewalk. There was a good Yamaha XG editor called "XGedit". Amazing program.

Anyway, there were good cards and bad cards. If u had a bad card, well, that's just too bad.

If you want to hear how game music was designed to sound by the original musicians, check out this page:

http://www.queststudios.com

The Roland MT-32 was a revolutionary tone module. So was the Sound Canvas (which introduced General MIDI to the world). The sound banks aren't perfect, but they were designed to be inspirational to other sound engineers. Unfortunately most sound card makers either licensed low-memory versions of Roland's banks, or poorly emulated it with an inferior copy. There are better devices now though. The Roland XR is a amazing. Quest Studios has some songs that are rewritten for the XR with its improved instrument banks. Although the instruments are more realistic, they aren't quite as balanced as in the Sound Canvas, so they tend to clash a bit more. It still sounds good though.

Just to compare, try this:

http://www.queststudios.com/sierra/lsl/lsl6gm1b.zip

That's a General MIDI version that you can play with your existing card, whatever type of synth it uses.

Then you've got the original version played from a Roland Sound Canvas as the designers intended here: 66.49.226.244/.../lsl6_1b.mp3

Just for fun, you've got the Roland XR version too: 66.49.226.244/.../lsl6(25).mp3

....that sax is actually supposed to be more electric synthy sounding actually....The XR version doesn't get it quite right. It's still pretty good though.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

SnakeDoctor — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:05:55 GMT

Ahh I see thanks for the clarification.

However this statement is an oxymoron is it not? "to annoy the more immature Mac Trolls on here" I mean you are being "immature" to annoy immature people?

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

mikegalos@msn.com — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:56:44 GMT

clarification for SnakeDoctor

(btw: are you really a snake who managed to earn a doctorate? What in? What type of doctorate? From what University? I just want clarification.)

No. I'm not paid to annoy the more immature Mac Trolls on here. It's both a hobby and a service I provide to the community for free. It's, as the Linux crowd would say, my way of providing a contribution to a "gift economy". Think of it as a truthy potlatch.

(And, techncally, I am not a Microsoft employee although I do consult to them)

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

SnakeDoctor — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:43:56 GMT

Mike, you work for Microsoft. Do you work in the advertising department? You seem to jump on here and promote new Microsoft ads as soon as they come out. Is this in a official capacity?

As an employee of Microsoft are you saying customers who prefer Apple computers are juvenile? Is that the official Microsoft stance?

I just want clarification.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

mikegalos@msn.com — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:32:55 GMT

Speaking of juvenile, now we know what age finds Macs "kinda popular": www.youtube.com/watch

Hmm. Wonder if robertsjoe is out of school yet.

And now let the juvenile reactions begin...

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

SnakeDoctor — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:15:21 GMT

waethornsmom for president!!!!! Canadian president.

Paul why no coverage on this???

blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft

Why wont they kill XP? Does Marry cover Windows new better?

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

gorath — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:09:49 GMT

Waethorn. You certainly seem to understand MIDI, no doubt, but there's no need to be so anally retentive about it.

Even musicians who have used MIDI in all it's various forms will have understood Kenmcnamee's remark - referring to the diabolically bad General MIDI soundbank that early PC soundcards were equipped with, which was the source of most in-game music back then.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

Waethorn — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:38:57 GMT

"A .MID file can be played from a game or a website without an external MIDI interface being involved."

I never said a MIDI interface has to be external. An MPU-401AT used to be the most common type of MIDI interface used the world over, and it was originally designed as an ISA card. Many card manufacturers emulated the UART mode of the MPU-401 processor, but many weren't compatible with the native stream mode, so some games wouldn't play unless it was on a true Roland card. I found the most compatible to be, surprisingly, the SB16. I used the MPU-401 interface on an ISA SB16 card with the WaveBlaster connector to hook up a Yamaha DB50XG daughterboard. Eventually I moved to an Aureal Vortex PCI card, which implemented an upside-down version of the WaveBlaster implementation. Sound cards now just simulate a basic MIDI interface in the drivers. Most sound cards and on-board audio chipsets just have a software synth too. There still has to be a MIDI processor somewhere to send the MIDI commands to the synth. Sound cards essentially emulate all of the MIDI processing with the CPU, so it's hard to differentiate the processes of a computer-based software synth. The drivers do most of the work. Hardware synths will use a hardware interface, and usually the MIDI interface is the only method of communication with the synth. Without a MIDI interface, a hardware synth usually has no method of communication. It's just silicon with a sound bank sitting there doing nothing. The term MIDI *interface* is fitting, considering how most synths work.

Synths, whether they be in hardware or software (like in most sound cards now, or as a separate application) that work with MIDI music software can be thought of like a web browser. HTML is a high-level language that's (mostly) universal. Some web browsers interpret the same commands differently though. What you actually get as output is translated eventually down into a lower-level language that your computer can interpret, and the result is the output on your screen. HTML is the equivalent of MIDI. Some synths interpret certain MIDI commands differently than others though (like with CSS representation), and some even accept proprietary commands (System Exclusive MIDI commands are a good example - just like how IE has proprietary commands). The synth (computer platform) doesn't understand MIDI (HTML) directly though, so it has to be translated into something that the firmware identifies (usually done by the synth firmware or by a secondary commlink that resides between the sound bank and the MIDI interface - this is analogous to how HTML is translated into C++ or another lower-level language, down eventually into machine language). The output of the synth (displayed output of HTML) is dependent on the manufacturer (programmer) based on standards compliance to the MIDI spec, and type of audio synthesis (base HTML engine).

"While creative, that is quite juvenile."

Juvenile is trolling a website with more than one fake handle.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

stevejobs — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:25:04 GMT

Juvenile is having to drag Waethorn out of the McDonald's ball pit, kicking and screaming.

re: Server Quest II: A Day in a Geek's Life

mrbeanie45 — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:30:49 GMT

@waethornsmom: While creative, that is quite juvenile.