hi. could anyone supply me with the sfArk decompressor?

Here's a link to the sfArk decompression utility:
http://specsamples.zapto.org/Soundfont_Tools/
The file is sfark_setup.exe

VirusTotal lists it as being clean.

Hope it helps!

Not sure how well it will apply to games . . . but this is the best soundfont I've heard.


http://www.bismutnetwork.com/04CrisisGeneralMidi/Soundfont3.0.php

Be warned uncompressed its around 1.5 GB.

Thanks for this, even if it doesn't apply to the games. :)

I didn't realise MIDI could sound that different! Oooh, I never thought about Daggerfall. *reinstall*

Here is a link to some Sound

Bumping to avoid the archiving process. There's some good info in this thread.

Can anyone reupload this? The link's down

Why? There are multiple ways to use replacement General MIDI/GS soundfonts in Windows nowadays.

I personally use VirtualMIDISynth with the ChoriumRevA soundfont, it sounds am-azing! Timbres of Heaven is a good soundfont too, but I feel it sounds "wrong" in some games, like the title music of Tie Fighter (the horn instruments are too loud with Timbres of Heaven, eclipsing rest of the instruments).

As for DOS games with Roland MT-32 support, use Munt instead.

Is that a better way?
I just don't want my games to sound like adlib

First of all, I am unsure if WinGrove is even supported nowadays. Googling for it, I got an impression it has compatibility issues with newer Windows versions, already in Windows Vista and 7.

If you want the best and most genuine sound support for your old games which support MIDI music:

1. For games that support only Roland MT-32:

- Change the game sound options to Roland MT-32. How you achieve this, depends on the game.

- If not already present, install the Munt (MT-32 emulator) driver to your PC and edit DOSBox config file to point to that MIDI device.

2. For games that support General MIDI/GS:

- Change the game sound options to General MIDI (or Sound Canvas). How you achieve this, depends on the game. This alone will already give you General MIDI music in the game, but it will be using the default "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" driver in Windows, which doesn't sound that great. Better than Adlib, though.

- Install e.g. CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth and download a good General MIDI soundfont for it. I suggest Chorium Rev.A soundfont, it is a good quality General MIDI/GS soundfont suitable for old MS-DOS PC games, but you can experiment with several different soundfonts to find one you like the best. Technically speaking, "Timbres of Heaven" soundfont has probably the best instruments I've heard, but its instrument balance seems a bit different than what many games expect (meaning some instruments may sound louder and some quieter in some game music, what the original composer didn't probably intend).

- Edit the DOSBox config file to point to the VirtualMIDISynth MIDI device.

If a game supports both Roland MT-32 and General MIDI, it is usually advisable to use the General MIDI option, it usually sounds better with such games and the MT-32 support in those games is merely an afterthought. Especially this is true with some Sierra adventure games that support both. There are some exceptions to that though, e.g. Dune 2 has great support for both Roland MT-32 and General MIDI/GS (it sounds great, but different, on both), and IIRC the original floppy version of X-Wing is supposed to sound better on MT-32.

I use FluidR3 because that's the one the author of the website said he's using. I remember trying some other one and it was just... too good? Made it sound more like an orchestra, not a retro video game.

Incidentally, which soundfont would make it most similar to the generic MIDI driver that Windows 3/95 was using? Or would that be simply to use "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth"?

Oh, why not just use Timidity and find a good old SB64 or SB16 midi table... Its only 8 MB.

Timidity++ is not good for MT-32/CM-32L games.

Yeah it makes sense to try out different (popular) soundfonts to get one that sounds good to one's ears. It may also depend a lot on the games one is using for testing, some soundfont might sound more pleasant on certain game while another better on another game, because the games use different instruments or because they use different sound balance etc...

I am affected by having a real Roland SCC-1 (Sound Canvas) which I always used for playing General MIDI games, so I was trying to find a soundfont that resembles it (the instrument balance etc,), and also because I kept reading that for many DOS game General MIDI composers, Sound Canvas was the very MIDI synthesizer they were using, ie. with Sound Canvas you would get the music exactly as the composer intended.

Chorium Rev A reminds me somewhat of Roland SCC-1 (balance between instruments etc.), but it is better than a genuine SCC-1 which is not surprising because SCC-1, as well as other General MIDI sound cards of the time, were really restricted by the amount of their ROM/RAM.

Timbres of Heaven has even better quality instruments than Chorium Rev A (it is much bigger, after all), but in certain games I could hear its balance was quite different to what I was used to, like in the Tie Fighter intro music. I tried others as well (among them FluidR3, SGM and WeedsGM3), but to me they just sounded poorer and "wrong" overall. EDIT: It is interesting though that Chorium Rev A is considerably smaller in size than e.g. FluidR3 or SGM, yet I find its instruments more pleasant...

Yeah I've seen some others trying to find a soundfont that would sound similar to their SB AWE32 or Waveblaster, I guess everyone just wants what they were used to. Heck, some people even prefer playing their DOS games with Adlib/Soundblaster, because they were not used to hearing the music with Roland MT-32 or General MIDI.

I always thought that default Windows soundfont has remained the same, but I am mostly assuming. I find it lacking mainly because even though the description says it is a genuine GS/Sound Canvas soundfont licensed from Roland itself, it doesn't sound much like SCC-1 to me, and it seems to be lacking all the extra features that Sound Canvas had over General MIDI, and which many DOS "General MIDI" games utilize (like extra drum sets, reverb/echo effects etc.).