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[pubby8]

Hello, I am new here so apologies if wrong section.

I want to add some sort of module music a video game I am making, however I wanted some insight on the different types before I do so.

First off, how much computer power will playing modules use? What is the fastest format to play, what is the least fast?

Do all mod music play the same on different players? I have heard that .it may not playback correctly, is this true?

What are the sizes of the filetypes? Is .mod the smallest and .it the biggest?

Best library/method for playing?

What format do you reccomend for video games?

[Saga Musix]

It would sure help if you told us on which platform (PC/Nintendo DS/whatever) you are actually working on, or else you will get lengthy replies which will not be very useful to you, as there are great differences between the stuff you can use on various platforms.

[pubby8]

It would sure help if you told us on which platform (PC/Nintendo DS/whatever) you are actually working on, or else you will get lengthy replies which will not be very useful to you, as there are great differences between the stuff you can use on various platforms.

Windows/mac/linux at least. Maybe BSD.

Also, what are thoughts on .midi music?

[Saga Musix]

Also, what are thoughts on .midi music?

The overhead for getting proper cross-platform MIDI playback is rather big - you will need a soundfont, and a decent soundfont is often dozens of megabytes in size.

Unless you want your software to run on *really* low-spec hardware (by that I mean anything below Pentium 2-class hardware), you won't have to care a whole lot about the format you're going to use. The best playback library out there is BASS, which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It has the more accurate MOD/S3M/XM/IT playback. The CPU usage for these formats is very low, something close to 0% even on not-so-modern hardware - it can increase quite a bit if you use IT lowpass filters, though.

I have heard that .it may not playback correctly, is this true?

If you want 100% correct playback, this is true for any of the module formats. IT support is rather mediocre in some libraries like FMOD, however the same is true for many little details of the XM format.

[pubby8]

The overhead for getting proper cross-platform MIDI playback is rather big - you will need a soundfont, and a decent soundfont is often dozens of megabytes in size.

Unless you want your software to run on *really* low-spec hardware (by that I mean anything below Pentium 2-class hardware), you won't have to care a whole lot about the format you're going to use. The best playback library out there is BASS, which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. It has the more accurate MOD/S3M/XM/IT playback. The CPU usage for these formats is very low, something close to 0% even on not-so-modern hardware - it can increase quite a bit if you use IT lowpass filters, though.
If you want 100% correct playback, this is true for any of the module formats. IT support is rather mediocre in some libraries like FMOD, however the same is true for many little details of the XM format.

Ah, bass.dll. I've actually used this before - but never knew if it was "the best"
I will look into it and try it out.
Can I assume that .xm is the best format?

Anyway, the reason I ask about midi is because I want to make songs that of are of the same quality or more (format wise) as AoE1:
like this
I know that these songs are in midi format.
Anyways, I thought OS already has midi soundfonts? Do linux (and mac) have a standard collection of midi instruments?

I don't need something that sounds identical on other systems, as long as it sounds good.

[Saga Musix]

Can I assume that .xm is the best format?

IT is far superiour to XM. And with BASS, you will have great high-quality playback of both formats.

Anyways, I thought OS already has midi soundfonts? Do linux (and mac) have a standard collection of midi instruments?

Windows comes with an extremely low-quality soundfont, Mac I don't know, Linux doesn't come with any built-in MIDI support (you will have to install additional packages for a MIDI synth, but I can't help you on that). BASS has a MIDI plugin which works with soundfonts, you can pick your own high-quality soundfont - but beware, soundfonts with good orchestral instruments tend to be very large. And if you need really good orchestral music, you'll probably want to use some streaming format like OGG Vorbis anyway, as I don't think that there are many talented people out there who write good(-sounding) orchestral music in raw General MIDI or in a tracked format.[/quote]

[pubby8]

IT is far superiour to XM. And with BASS, you will have great high-quality playback of both formats.
Windows comes with an extremely low-quality soundfont, Mac I don't know, Linux doesn't come with any built-in MIDI support (you will have to install additional packages for a MIDI synth, but I can't help you on that). BASS has a MIDI plugin which works with soundfonts, you can pick your own high-quality soundfont - but beware, soundfonts with good orchestral instruments tend to be very large. And if you need really good orchestral music, you'll probably want to use some streaming format like OGG Vorbis anyway, as I don't think that there are many talented people out there who write good(-sounding) orchestral music in raw General MIDI or in a tracked format.

Hm, before I compose an IT, are there any features in openMPT that will make files that will not work in BASS, or end up playing laggy/incorrect?

Do you know of any completely free sound banks that offer decent quality, yet are small filesize? I have a hard time finding sound samples on the internet!

[Saga Musix]

Hm, before I compose an IT, are there any features in openMPT that will make files that will not work in BASS, or end up playing laggy/incorrect?

There is no official list, but what comes to my mind:
- vst plugins (dx plugins are OK, but they can consume a lot of processing power)
- any pattern effects that are not letters
- modern/alternative tempo mode
- mixmode rc3 (uses a different panning, won't be the default anymore in OpenMPT 1.19)
- anything in the "sample quality" frame in the instrument tab, cutoff/resonance variation, pitch/tempo/lock
- oooh and don't forget to enable the "More Impulse Tracker compatible playback" in the song properties.

Do you know of any completely free sound banks that offer decent quality, yet are small filesize? I have a hard time finding sound samples on the internet!

If you consider 20mb small, Chorium might work for you:
http://www.un4seen.com/download.php?extra/ChoriumRevA.rar

[pubby8]

20mb too big. Thanks though. I was hoping for something that would be around 0-4 mb, if that's at all possible.

I will try .it format. I hope it works.
Also, anyway to have many songs use the same instrument without duplicating them?

Edit: I think I am going to use midi
I found a 512kb soundfont which will work good. I can then have a very high quality one availible to download for those who want good quality.

[Saga Musix]

Also, anyway to have many songs use the same instrument without duplicating them?

Just put all songs in the same module, and separate them in the order list by a "---" pattern.