It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
Theme HospitalFixing the dreadful default MIDI rendition(10 posts)(10 posts)
(10 posts)
Pages:
1
This is my favourite topic
Posted February 03, 2015
high rated
Theme hospital has some of the most glorious MIDI music ever composed, but if you never owned the big box CD version you'll probably never know that because the GOG download version comes configured poorly. Even if you do have the CD version, you have to do some prodding at it because the installer doesn't know what its Roland MIDI driver is called, so if you select MIDI passthrough, you'll get no music at all.

To get a decent rendition of the music, go to your theme hospital install directory, navigate to the sound directory and open the mdi.ini file in a text editor.

Replace its contents with:

;
;Bullfrog Sound Config File for Miles Sound System V3.50E
;

DEVICE Roland MT-32 MIDI with MPU-401 MIDI Interface
DRIVER MPU401.MDI
IO_ADDR 330h
IRQ -1
DMA_8_BIT -1
DMA_16_BIT -1

Save the ini file and load theme hospital. Enjoy the glorious sounds of Theme Hospital as it was intended.

If your sound card is awful at rendering MIDI sensibly, you can use somehting like VitualMidiSynth and experiment with different sound fonts.
Posted January 28, 2017
avatar
JeevesMkII: Theme hospital has some of the most glorious MIDI music ever composed, but if you never owned the big box CD version you'll probably never know that because the GOG download version comes configured poorly. Even if you do have the CD version, you have to do some prodding at it because the installer doesn't know what its Roland MIDI driver is called, so if you select MIDI passthrough, you'll get no music at all.

To get a decent rendition of the music, go to your theme hospital install directory, navigate to the sound directory and open the mdi.ini file in a text editor.

Replace its contents with:

;
;Bullfrog Sound Config File for Miles Sound System V3.50E
;

DEVICE Roland MT-32 MIDI with MPU-401 MIDI Interface
DRIVER MPU401.MDI
IO_ADDR 330h
IRQ -1
DMA_8_BIT -1
DMA_16_BIT -1

Save the ini file and load theme hospital. Enjoy the glorious sounds of Theme Hospital as it was intended.

If your sound card is awful at rendering MIDI sensibly, you can use somehting like VitualMidiSynth and experiment with different sound fonts.
thank you so much for this, the music was doing my head in...im amazed no one else has bothered to say thanks!
Posted January 29, 2017
Thanks, I've been playing the game with the default midi settings. Just switched it and the Roland does sound better :)
Posted June 01, 2017
Thank you so much for the Roland settings. It does sound so much better. I added another step because the game played music while loading but not during the game.

1. Look for Launch Settings shortcut 2kb file in your GOG Games\Theme Hospital drive
2. Double click to load Dos command box to set up the sound settings. I changed default settings from Creative Blaster to 1 of the newer Creative drivers. (Roland not available in my original settings)
I also changed the Creative driver for the audio settings as well. Just used one of the other options available. Not sure which one worked for me.
3. Start the game and let the music play.

Yay! Love this game! So many happy memories :D
Posted January 17, 2018
avatar
JeevesMkII: Theme hospital has some of the most glorious MIDI music ever composed, but if you never owned the big box CD version you'll probably never know that because the GOG download version comes configured poorly. Even if you do have the CD version, you have to do some prodding at it because the installer doesn't know what its Roland MIDI driver is called, so if you select MIDI passthrough, you'll get no music at all.

To get a decent rendition of the music, go to your theme hospital install directory, navigate to the sound directory and open the mdi.ini file in a text editor.

Replace its contents with:

;
;Bullfrog Sound Config File for Miles Sound System V3.50E
;

DEVICE Roland MT-32 MIDI with MPU-401 MIDI Interface
DRIVER MPU401.MDI
IO_ADDR 330h
IRQ -1
DMA_8_BIT -1
DMA_16_BIT -1

Save the ini file and load theme hospital. Enjoy the glorious sounds of Theme Hospital as it was intended.

If your sound card is awful at rendering MIDI sensibly, you can use somehting like VitualMidiSynth and experiment with different sound fonts.
god bless you, I confirm that it works also in the mac version. now I can finally hear the original music and not the remastered ones!
Posted January 21, 2018
Ah yeah that is a nice improvement.
Posted June 08, 2018
Awesome! Thank you for this! I just bought the game since it was on sale. I had to replace my old broken laptop running 32-bit Win 7 and the CD version won't work on my new one running 64-bit Win 10. Just a few minutes into the game, I noticed immediately something was different with the music. I couldn't stand it and was really bummed about it. I'm so glad to have come across your post. Thanks so much! ^_^
Post edited June 08, 2018 by hirokada
Posted November 20, 2018
avatar
JeevesMkII: Theme hospital has some of the most glorious MIDI music ever composed
Yes! <3

The Roland MIDI sound is far superior, thank you very much :)
Posted March 10, 2019
I would use this as sounds even better from my CD ver that i have


DEVICE Yamaha WaveForce(TM) DB50-XG General MIDI
DRIVER MPU401.MDI
IO_ADDR 330h
IRQ -1
DMA_8_BIT -1
DMA_16_BIT -1
Posted March 14, 2019
Anyway GOG (\origin) versions is only for MAC... well, or for playing online from GOG Galaxy. Still native WIN version is better. There is some minor compatibility tweaks - as always - but i can play WIN-version from CD even in WIn8 x64. Even online in Win7. Windows 10 as i know have better compatibility (better worked comp-ty settings and no "rainbow" colors from WIn10-updates)

Windows version extremely laggy if you plug headset, if yours is not a USB (3,5 jak).
Post edited March 14, 2019 by QWEEDDYZ
Pages:
1
This is my favourite topic
Community
Theme HospitalFixing the dreadful default MIDI rendition(10 posts)(10 posts)
(10 posts)