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Video Tweak Guide: System Shock Classic and Enhanced Edition

In this video I am tweaking the GOG release of System Shock. It covers the Classic Edition as well as the Enhanced Edition.

The video covers:

- Comparison FM vs. General MIDI vs Proteus SoundFont
- Using VirtualMIDISynth and Proteus SoundFonts
- Configuring the game to use General MIDI rather than FM
- Tweaking the graphics
- Boosting the Sound Blaster sample rate
- Tweaking the CPU cycle speed to avoid a game-braking bug
- Burning a full DOS installation CD
- Forum support for the Enhanced Edition
- Patch so text matches speech


♦Relevant links to this video♦

Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth

Deemster's Proteus SoundFont: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=44943
Howdy Phil,

I feel kinda stupid for asking this but here goes:

How can I get MIDI output on the SS1 Enhanced Edition? Running one of my SC-55's on a modern rig (Windows 7) with a Roland UM-ONE and of course I have the classic edition working fine. BTW, your vid was great as I didn't know that there was a simple .bin to burn for one of my retro rigs. I'll give that a try soon enough. But I love the control scheme of the enhanced edition, as well as the 1024x768 res and would love to hear my SC-55 pumping out real tunes instead of the lower quality recordings.
Great video. Is it possible to make the Enhanced edition audio better? Been so long since I have meddled in this kind of stuff.
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Kodai: Howdy Phil,

I feel kinda stupid for asking this but here goes:

How can I get MIDI output on the SS1 Enhanced Edition? Running one of my SC-55's on a modern rig (Windows 7) with a Roland UM-ONE and of course I have the classic edition working fine. BTW, your vid was great as I didn't know that there was a simple .bin to burn for one of my retro rigs. I'll give that a try soon enough. But I love the control scheme of the enhanced edition, as well as the 1024x768 res and would love to hear my SC-55 pumping out real tunes instead of the lower quality recordings.
Nice to see that you have all the good gear now :)

It seems that the Enhanced Edition outputs to the default / first MIDI device in Windows. When you install VirtualMIDISynth, it becomes the default device. You can load different SoundFonts and confirmed that the music changes.

So to use your SC-55, I can see 3 options:

- Tell the game to use the UM-ONE (AFAIK not possible at the moment)
- Make the UM-ONE the default MIDI device in Windows with Vista MIDI mapper (AFAIK not possible on Windows 8 and higher)
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darthspudius: Great video. Is it possible to make the Enhanced edition audio better? Been so long since I have meddled in this kind of stuff.
Yes this, follow the same process as for classic edition:

- Install VirtualMIDISynth
- Load a SoundFont
Post edited September 27, 2015 by philscomputerlab
Hmmm, my default device is my UM-ONE. Always worked with everything else, including the install of System Shock Classic (both floppy and CD version). This enhanced edition just does not want to use my SC-55. Any other ideas?
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Kodai: Hmmm, my default device is my UM-ONE. Always worked with everything else, including the install of System Shock Classic (both floppy and CD version). This enhanced edition just does not want to use my SC-55. Any other ideas?
That is odd. What device does it use on your machine? The Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth?
No, I have the default midi out set to my UM-ONE and the SC-55 currently selected (with a handful of other modules hooked up via a switch box so I can select the correct module for the right game IE MT-32 old, CM-32L, MU2000, etc). Never had an issue like this one. When I run the enhanced game it sounds like its using Microsoft GS though and there is no midi being sent out to the UM-ONE. Really strange.
That's a shame. What OS do you use and what tool to make the UM-ONE default?
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Kodai: Howdy Phil,

I feel kinda stupid for asking this but here goes:

How can I get MIDI output on the SS1 Enhanced Edition? Running one of my SC-55's on a modern rig (Windows 7) with a Roland UM-ONE and of course I have the classic edition working fine. BTW, your vid was great as I didn't know that there was a simple .bin to burn for one of my retro rigs. I'll give that a try soon enough. But I love the control scheme of the enhanced edition, as well as the 1024x768 res and would love to hear my SC-55 pumping out real tunes instead of the lower quality recordings.
avatar
philscomputerlab: Nice to see that you have all the good gear now :)

It seems that the Enhanced Edition outputs to the default / first MIDI device in Windows. When you install VirtualMIDISynth, it becomes the default device. You can load different SoundFonts and confirmed that the music changes.

So to use your SC-55, I can see 3 options:

- Tell the game to use the UM-ONE (AFAIK not possible at the moment)
- Make the UM-ONE the default MIDI device in Windows with Vista MIDI mapper (AFAIK not possible on Windows 8 and higher)
avatar
darthspudius: Great video. Is it possible to make the Enhanced edition audio better? Been so long since I have meddled in this kind of stuff.
avatar
philscomputerlab: Yes this, follow the same process as for classic edition:

- Install VirtualMIDISynth
- Load a SoundFont
excellent, thank you. :)
Thank you for this, really, very useful.

But one question:
Why would you want the text to match the speech?

There is extra information in the original text.
I assume in the patch you retain the same audio, so why cut out potentially useful/interesting information?

It actually makes sense for it not to match, for someone to leave an audio summary with the written log anyway, IMO.

I'm just curious if there was any reason to bother with a patch for this other than personal preference for it to be the same.
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bad_habit: Thank you for this, really, very useful.

But one question:
Why would you want the text to match the speech?

There is extra information in the original text.
I assume in the patch you retain the same audio, so why cut out potentially useful/interesting information?

It actually makes sense for it not to match, for someone to leave an audio summary with the written log anyway, IMO.

I'm just curious if there was any reason to bother with a patch for this other than personal preference for it to be the same.
Yes it's personal preference, you're right. Good point about the text having additional information. The good thing is: You have a choice :)

On the Classic Edition there was no text, at least when I tried it, it was just the voice. IMO that was more immersive. So I'm not sure if the combined text and voice is a feature of the Enhanced Edition only?


So to use your SC-55, I can see 3 options:

- Tell the game to use the UM-ONE (AFAIK not possible at the moment)
- Make the UM-ONE the default MIDI device in Windows with Vista MIDI mapper (AFAIK not possible on Windows 8 and higher)
So its still not possible? I want to use Roland SCVA plugin..
THread necro!

The link for the sound font is dead (actually the onedrive link that the vogons page is using).
Does Mok's XP patch or the mouse-look/highresolution patch fix the cycles issue?
Post edited August 16, 2017 by YitzhakLevi
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philscomputerlab: Deemster's Proteus SoundFont: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=44943
Can't seem to find Deemster's Proteus SoundFont anywhere, since all links I find are dead, could you share it somewhere?

Cheers.