Horrendous MIDI Lag
Is there any way to preload midis? or at least some kind of practical way to trick it into preloading? In my opinion, it usually takes midis longer to load then several sequences of graphics, wav sounds, or anything else... Midis routinely disrupt the cinematic flow of dmods, suddenly shutting off and halting the game until the next midi explodes through the speakers... Anyone else feel me on this one?
Hmm... that's a pretty interesting idea. I'm basing this on a part of computer my knowledge of computer lore that isn't as strong as others, but when Dink was released, most SoundCards had midi hardware. This meant that midis were played directly by the SoundCard, and thus, took very little time to load. Nowdays, as midi playback is pretty much obsolete for games and other applications; newer soundcards use a software emulator to play midi files, and thus it is much slower to load than in the old days.
This is the reason that sometimes on my computer, I take out my Audigy and use the board's native SB 128 PCI for midi playback. Although, a lot of new cards you can now do cool things like load Soundfonts over other instruments... which, sadly, is really only useful in a few cases. I know I had an Aw-choir SF and realistic Piano that worked really well in place of the standard soundbank ones.
This is the reason that sometimes on my computer, I take out my Audigy and use the board's native SB 128 PCI for midi playback. Although, a lot of new cards you can now do cool things like load Soundfonts over other instruments... which, sadly, is really only useful in a few cases. I know I had an Aw-choir SF and realistic Piano that worked really well in place of the standard soundbank ones.
It is a bug in Windows XP. I looked into fixing it for 1.08, but there really isn't a way to fix it without finding a new way to play midi files.
*Sigh...* I guess I'll have to live with the 5 second game freeze every time it loads the battle sequence.
5 seconds? That's a lot of time. I have this problem too, sometimes, but it's less than 2 sec.
Well that's in the case of a certain midi. It's probably just because it's larger one... I'm thinking maybe the lag could be tamed somewhat by going into the midi and cutting out any repeated sections, and just using a loopmidi(); command.
This won't work in some situations, I'm sure because of certain pieces' song structure, but this technique could definately be useful in several situations.
This won't work in some situations, I'm sure because of certain pieces' song structure, but this technique could definately be useful in several situations.
It is a bug in Windows XP.
Well, no, not really. The problem is rather that most sound cards don't have MIDI chips on board anymore, but load all instruments from one file called GM16.dls. This is called software synthesizing and is unfortunately a lot slower than the better sound cards, which have an instrument chip on the sound card.
Well, no, not really. The problem is rather that most sound cards don't have MIDI chips on board anymore, but load all instruments from one file called GM16.dls. This is called software synthesizing and is unfortunately a lot slower than the better sound cards, which have an instrument chip on the sound card.
Ah... that would explain why I'm having such a noticable lag lately, I've been using a laptop while I'm up at my dad's, which I'm sure has an extremely crappy integrated sound card.
Redink, I think I sent you a patch for the pausing. Did you ever look into it?
Merlin: I forgot. I suppose I should work on creating that 1.08+ version with some optional tweaks / requirements, eh?
Two versions of 1.08?! redink1, it's bad enough that there's one, but two? That'd be clogging up the internet. You see, the internet, it, it's a series of tubes...
Maybe he should have gotten v1.08 right the first time around.
/snark
/snark
