Print

XM!

10 (50%)

IT!

10 (50%)

Total Members Voted: 19

[Koli]

I prefer XM, mostly because it had better hardware support in the ol' DOS days. Getting IT's filters to work back in those days was quite tough because of the variety of sound cards available

[Saga Musix]

the variety of soundcards was not really the problem. almost all soundcards weren't able to do hardware mixing at all (GUS and AWE are exceptions) so everything had to be performed in software anyway. When IT filters were introduced (this was very late, 1996 or even 1997 IIRC), the IT format was already quite advanced, but CPUs were still slow, so you had to have a MMX-capable CPU in order to get filters in Impulse Tracker. But seriously, I think it's very blindfold to judge a format by hardware support. I mean, would you as an artist despense with sexy filters just because of the hardware? Especially nowadays, when every IT player (well, except WinAmp -_-) can handle filters?

[Koli]

To be honest I haven't come across many IT modules that make "very good use" of the filters, so I can't really judge on it 

[Saga Musix]

oh, you're definitely missing a lot then ;P
Listen to Zanoma's files for example... There are just 4 of them, but they nicely show how good filters can work. (Listen in ModPlug)
Oh yeah, and of course my tunes...

[raina]

Doesn't IT play them? Are they not real .ITs?

[Saga Musix]

they sound better in modplug because Zanoma also made use of S99 effects (Reverb) which can only be played in Modplug Player / Tracker.

[raina]

Yeah, old question, sure, but how's it nowadays?

So is it about .XM and .IT or something ModPlug introduced and decided to call the same? Doesn't that make .XMs have filters as well and what, maybe VST? I don't know, I seriously have no idea about Windows trackers.

[Saga Musix]

well, this (not-so-serious) question was meant to compare the original formats, not MPTM (modplug's own format which should replace the custom IT extensions in "an unknown phuture"*)...

*where's that line from?

[drspa44]

(modplug's own format which should replace the custom IT extensions in "an unknown phuture"*)...

*where's that line from?

Unknown Phuture by Elwood 

[pailes]

You guys are always talking about IT "filters" but as a matter of fact there is only one type of filter in IT. And that's a low pass resonant filter. There is no IT "filters" or whatever, it really sounds like IT had a crazy bunch of them. I just wanted to get this straight.

Another word about hardware support:
At the time IT introduced virtual channels with NNAs (and later the low pass filter) the de-facto scene standard sound card was still the GUS and many, many composers had one. But all the fancy IT features were only available with software mixing and I think that's one reason why a lot of people did stick to FT2 and XM.