Timidity ALSA MIDI in ScummVM pops and scratches

[Arkay Firestar]

Hi all,

I recently updated to the latest ScummVM and was excited to be able to play favorites like SQ6 without more costly DOS emulation.

I installed Timidity and eventually remembered that while Scumm always crashes for me with “Timidity” selected, if I run the separate Daemon, it seems to get the ALSA output working and that generates sound.

But all of the games, even less demanding ones, exhibit popping and scratching. Is the Pandora just not powerful enough to handle the MIDI output in Scumm?

I have a 1ghz unit and tried this with all three MIDI install options (to SD card). Thanks in advance!

 

[levi]

I doubt performance is a problem; I installed timidity and selected the most intensive sample set for it, for use with ptitseb's port of castle hydra labyrinth (or whatever that game is actually called) and the system didn't seem to be struggling at all on my GHz Pandora running at 1.1GHz. ScummVM might be a little higher load that that, but I'd expect you to be able to determine a different pattern or frequency of dropouts varying on the intensity of the thing it's emulating in that case, which you're not reporting.

 

[Arkay Firestar]

I doubt performance is a problem; I installed timidity and selected the most intensive sample set for it, for use with ptitseb's port of castle hydra labyrinth (or whatever that game is actually called) and the system didn't seem to be struggling at all on my GHz Pandora running at 1.1GHz. ScummVM might be a little higher load that that, but I'd expect you to be able to determine a different pattern or frequency of dropouts varying on the intensity of the thing it's emulating in that case, which you're not reporting.

Gosh, this community is so cool.

I’m running at 1.0GHz. I started with eawpats and focused on SQ5 as my main test subject.

The popping and scratching happens especially during the Sierra logo, then again when Roger Wilco walks out into the hallway and actual gameplay music runs.

I closed Scumm, uninstalled eawpats, and tried the much smaller and allegedly lighterweight handheld option and started again. Exact same behavior at the same places.

And to be clear, no settings other than audio output set to Timidity [ALSA] and general midi set to the same. Mixed adlib/midi has been checked and unchecked; same behavior. I’ve tried all three of the audio emulation options: mame, dosbox, and ALSA direct, no difference.

Question for you:
- Are you able to select the Timidity non-ALSA option in Scumm and get it to work?

 

[levi]

My Pandora is out of action at the moment unfortunately; I broke the LCD connector some years ago, and more recently my TV out cable spontaneously separated.

What are the non-ALSA options you can select in ScummVM? We don't have pulseaudio as far as I've seen, but are there any other options, like OSS?

 

[Arkay Firestar]

My Pandora is out of action at the moment unfortunately; I broke the LCD connector some years ago, and more recently my TV out cable spontaneously separated.

What are the non-ALSA options you can select in ScummVM? We don't have pulseaudio as far as I've seen, but are there any other options, like OSS?

Admittedly adlib works fine, but it never sounds like I remember the games sounding, since I had better sound cards back in the day. If that’s the only option then I’ll roll with it.

The other options include creative music system emulator, IBM PCjr, PC speaker, adlib, or no music :-/

 

[levi]

Oh right, so ALSA is the only linux sound system supported directly. I don't like the sound of playing using the PC speaker; that's only a beeper isn't it?

Can anyone with a working Pandora at the moment reproduce this?

 

[M-HT]

The problem is, that Timidity Daemon uses the best (=slowest) resampling by default which is very slow on Pandora.

Extract the file timidity_d.sh from the attachment to your SD card (where you have Timidity Daemon pnd) into the following directory:
pandora/appdata/timidity/scripts/

(If you're using different filesystem than FAT on your SD card, you should probably set executable permissions on the extracted file.)

This should override the running script for Timidity Daemon to use linear interpolation for resampling which is much faster.

 

[Arkay Firestar]

The problem is, that Timidity Daemon uses the best (=slowest) resampling by default which is very slow on Pandora.

Extract the file timidity_d.sh from the attachment to your SD card (where you have Timidity Daemon pnd) into the following directory:
pandora/appdata/timidity/scripts/

(If you're using different filesystem than FAT on your SD card, you should probably set executable permissions on the extracted file.)

This should override the running script for Timidity Daemon to use linear interpolation for resampling which is much faster.

That 100% solved the issue!!! I really cannot believe it worked, and after so many years of fiddling too. THANK YOU!!!