As discussed in great detail in another thread about MIDI music in X-Wing (1993), I've installed VirtualMIDISynth and got it working with the FluidR3 soundfont.

The music in the 1993 version sounds pretty good with that soundfont, but I'm having one problem: some sound effects are screwed up (like gunshots instead of lasers, bells instead of beeps when adjusting lasers/shields).

It seems like maybe those sound effects are getting replaced by MIDI instruments, in addition to the instruments in the music. It's been 20 years, but I don't remember that happening with my Roland MIDI hardware daughterboard back on my old PC in this game.

Anybody else experiencing this issue? Any suggestions on how to configure things to get MIDI music and the "real" sound effects in the game? Should I try a different soundfont, or are there settings somewhere that I can tweak?

Any help is appreciated!

JRjr

For what it's worth, the 'overlaying' and replacement of certain effect when using the Roland plus soundblaster option happens for me as well on actual midi hardware. I assume that if you have the intended hardware (I do not), which is either a Roland CM compatible module (or possibly 2nd gen MT-32), effects should blend better and sound allright. Not sure if this can be fixed with the right soundfont.

I believe the Collector's CD-ROM version (the one we don't have) had these separated, but also replaced the original MT-32 music with a slightly inferior converted version of the General Midi music.

If I recall, the floppy version's sounds were always actually using instruments and were not actual sound samples. Therefore it would sound different depending on your sound card (or soundfont) loaded. The 1994 DOS CD release uses digital sounds instead and so it can use a separate device for them.

I'd like to perhaps make an upgrade patch to convert the Floppy to the CD version since most of the files are the same, but I don't know about the legality of that.

Anyway sndwv, if I had to choose between *barely* gimped MT-32 music or having bad sound effects, I'd pick the former, because it still sounds better than Adlib or General MIDI does.