When im playing Lands of Lore 2, the music is diffrent from the original, lower quality, the general tone is the same but is more electronic like 80s games. The settlers 2 gold edition has this to. Can i opt for the original music or am i screwed? I liked the original music better.

Dont know how these two games handle music, but many older games used Midi sounds to generate the soundtrack, i guess because it saved disk space. Unfortunately these libraries changed over time (with Quicktime on Mac OS for example) and the result was different sounding music. But im just guessing ;)

I haven't played those particular games but in some cases you can definitely improve the soundtracks. Just this past weekend I modified my GOG versions of Space Quest 3 and the first couple of Wing Commanders to use the MT-32 soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEP05TtOfE

If it's a game using midi, download virtualmidisynth http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth and get a decent soundfont (the SC-55 ones are probably the closest to Roland sounds, but it's a matter of taste) and see if this gives you a better sounding music.

For dos based games, you may also want to check the setup programme (usually a shortcut in the gog programme folder). Unless it has digital sound, you might want to check "General MIDI" rather than "Adlib" or "SoundBlaster".

I may download one of those two games later and have a look.

EDIT:
Okay, so both appear to have midi support, and Settlers 2 is calling through the general midi, so will be improved by virtualmidisynth. Lands of Lore 2 is slightly more complex; it has the option for midi or digital music, but it looks like it's porting the midi through the soundblaster (or adlib emulation) rather than through general midi. If I could get into the setup files for LOL2, I might be able to change this, but don't have time to fiddle with it at the moment.

But in short, assuming you're on Windows vista or above, get virtualmidisynth and have better midi sounds.

I always prefer Soundblaster/Adlib to GMidi or Roland. Only SB gives sharp (instead of whoozy) tones and chiptune-like sounds (instead of orchestra). Regardless with which soundbank, be it 8MBGMSFX.SF2 from SB, or 200 MiB large GM.

GOG doesn't, the developer does...

How do you mean?

Which (MIDI) sound card did you have on your old PC?

I quickly tried both, and the issue seems to be a bit different with those two games:

Lands of Lore 2: The GOG version apparently uses Adlib (Sounblaster) OPL-2 FM-synthesis music, which does indeed sound rinky-dinky cheapo electronic music, if you are used to MIDI music. That's the kind of music you got with the game if you didn't have a MIDI (General MIDI?) sound card, but only e.g. a vanilla Soundblaster or Soundblaster 16.

Since the GOG version of LOL2 is the DOS version of the game, I tried to run INSTALL.EXE or SETUP.EXE to change the sound source, but they wouldn't run as they were complaining they can't find some language file on CD #1. So it may take some more work to change the sound source in Lands of Lore 2, maybe one needs to mount the first CD first (is it even included with the GOG version), or change some game config file manually. Maybe the Lands of Lore subforum has instructions for this?

Note: I don't recall for sure which MIDI cards LOL2 originally supported? Did it have support for General MIDI, or Roland MT-32, or both? If it had support only for MT-32, then it makes sense GOG set the default to Adlib/Soundblaster FM-synthesis music, because for MT-32 music you need either a genuine MT-32 compatible Roland synthesizer, or use the Munt emulator.

Settlers 2: As far as I could tell, this game defaults to General MIDI music. So in this case how it sounds depends what kind of General MIDI card/sound source you have now, and what did you have on your old PC. On my PC, the Settlers 2 MIDI music sounded great, probably because I use a good General MIDI soundfont.

Nowadays, by default Windows uses its own internal "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" for playing any MIDI music, which is a bare-boned and mediocre-sounding General MIDI player. If you want to make General MIDI sound better for games, then you need to install e.g. VirtualMIDISynth on your PC, and download some better General MIDI soundfont to be used with it. I suggest either ChoriumRevA.sf2 or the "Timbres of Heaven" soundfonts, I like those two (99% of the time I use ChoriumRevA as it sounds pretty close to Sound Canvas SC-55/SCC-1, surpassing its quality).

Note though that what you heard as the MIDI music in your old PC wasn't necessarily "the original", it was just what you were used to back then with your sound card. General MIDI music sounds different based on what MIDI card you have.

(I see pds41 already said pretty much the same I also said in the previous message, but oh well. :))

Anyway, I digged a bit deeper on the Lands of Lore 2, and I wrote the instructions to here:

https://www.gog.com/forum/lands_of_lore_series/how_to_get_better_midi_music_in_lands_of_lore_2/page1

In short, edit LOLSETUP.INI in the LOL2 installation directory with Notepad, and make sure the MIDI section looks like this (I actually had to install the retail version of LOL2 (from CDs) in a DOSBox session to find the correct parameters):

[MIDI]
DeviceName=MPU-401
DeviceDriver=56
DeviceID=0xa001
DevicePort=0x330

Then you should get better General MIDI music during the gameplay (with whatever MIDI device you have on your PC, nowadays it is usually the mediocre Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth that comes with Windows by default).

To make the General MIDI music even better (with the fixed Lands or Lore 2, and Settlers 2, and any other games with General MIDI music), install VirtualMIDISynth and a replacement General MIDI soundfont, as suggested before. As said, at least for me Settlers 2 GOG version was apparently already set to play General MIDI music so you shouldn't need to change the Settlers 2 sound setup itself, only to tell Windows to use better General MIDI soundfonts.

GOG sells whatever the developer/publisher provides. They don't actively change high quality music files because they like shitty MIDI files, or anything.

If a game lacks high quality music files it's either because the developer/publisher can't provide them or doesn't own the rights anymore, not because GOG removes/changes something as the thread title implies.

On some old games, I actually preferred the PC Speaker sound I was used to hear before I got my soundcard. :-)

Wolfenstein3D ?

For Settlers 2, if you still want to check that you surely have General MIDI selected as the music source, do e.g. this:

1. Edit dosboxSettlers2_single.conf file with Notepad in your Settlers 2 installation directory (e.g. C:\GOG Games\Settlers 2 GOLD\ )

2. At the end of the file, add setup.exe in its own line right after "cls", like this: This way the setup utility will be run just before the game. Save the file dosboxSettlers2_single.conf.

3. Run Settlers 2 Gold normally, you should end up in the setup utility.
- "Setup sound"
- "Select and configure MIDI music driver"
- Choose the first one on the top of the list, "General MIDI (Roland MPU-401 interface or 100% compatible)"
- "Attempt to configure sound driver automatically"
- "OK"
- "Done"
- "Quit program"
- "O.K."

4. You can remove or comment out with # the setup.exe from the dosboxSettlers2_single.conf so that it is not run every time you run Settlers 2, up to you: Note though, it seems Settlers 2 has CD music too, you can select the CD tracks with e.g. F10. To me though they don't sound any better than General MIDI music (at least with a good General MIDI soundfont, e.g. ChoriumRevA), so apparently those CD music tracks were originally composed with some General MIDI synth anyway.

I recall F15 Strike Eagle 2 and LHX.
Gods, from the Bitmap Brothers also had excellent sound on PC Speaker.

I don't recall playing Wolfenstein 3D with the sound card.

Monkey Island 2's internal speaker intro music is surprisingly good.