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[drspa44]

I saw in the music for projects section, a post containing this:

Flash games uses MP3 files. Nintendo DS, Playstation Portable and Gamepark (GP32 / GP2x) devices uses MOD and XM files. The Gameboy Advance uses S3M files (I think), and Java ME games (mobile phones) uses GM MIDI.

I'm in agreement with the flash and mobile phone formats, but are all the others correct? I'm especially interested in the format Nintendo DS uses, owning one myself. I'd of thought that they would use a non-tracker format more like the PSF. Is this true? It sounds a bit like tracker music (you can sort of have that sixth sense for those sort of things!). If I had the roms for the games, how would I go about extracting the music.

I find all this quite hard to believe. I always thought that the module scene sort of died out after 1998 or so and fewer games use them - at least, that's what I've heard others say and what I see from peering into my games!


A final question, what's the difference between a MID and a SMF?

[Saga Musix]

Of course, the console players don't always use the exact format given above. For example, a Gameboy doesn't have an S3M player for sure, but it should be very easy to convert S3M files into its proprietary format, if that answers your first question.

[raina]

Mr_lou's talking about the formats in the scope of his to-be-launched IndieGameMusic.com which is supposed to feature music from (including but not limited to) sceners who are experienced with and can produce music using trackers. That's the reason for mentioning them. Playing modules on the mentioned portable devices is possible if/when player code for them exists but that doesn't mean it's a standard for the system. I don't know about PSF but most game music formats are just containers for song data and executed player code, both of which could be anything as long as the output fits the platform specs and limitations. A MOD/XM/S3M file is only half of that.