[Martin Howe]

Hi All - Please help; I have just started the long haul to replace Windows with Linux and as usual it's games that are the biggest problem

I have built EDuke32 for Linux (Mint 18, an Ubuntu 16 derivative) and it works fine apart from the music.

As I understand it, MIDI on EDuke32 in Linux is supposed to use SDL's built-in "Timidity lite". If I download the TimGM6mb.sf2 package it sounds awful and playback seems to be fluidsynth, not Timidity.
There is an EDUKE32_MUSIC_CMD variable, but only cryptic documentation (one line!) on how to actually make it use of it, no ideas about which MIDI player to use on modern Linux systems or machines (usually Realtek, Intel HD, etc.); I mean do SoundBlasters even exist any more LOL?
Furthermore I have some much better FluidSynth soundfonts and also a full-strength Timidity++ setup, which I use for (G)ZDoom and these sound awesome.

So firstly, is there any way to tell EDuke32 to use better music?

Secondly, the music stutters and I keep getting warnings about fluidsynth not being able to pin sample data in memory - on a machine with 12GB physical RAM!

None of the usual fixes work: low-latency kernel, /etc/security/limits.d/martin.conf with priority 85 and unlimited memlock, adding myself to the audio group.
The music plays just fine on (G)ZDoom like this (though these warnings are irritating) but sounds awful on EDuke32.
Am I doing something extremely stupid here?

[Hendricks266]

Our MIDI support sorely needs some work.

[LoneFox]

Generally audio-related problems on linux are caused by some crapware, such as pulseaudio or OSS emulation, between the application and ALSA drivers. Does

export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa

help?

[Martin Howe]

LoneFox, on 20 November 2016 - 01:08 PM, said:

Does

export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=alsa

help?

Thanks - sounds a bit better, though still getting Fluidsynth complaints about pinning samples.

[NightFright]

Maybe this is the time again to bring up the suggestion to implement something like Fluidsynth which can handle soundfonts. Right now, the only reason why I have to use a virtual MIDI synthesizer for Windows is because EDuke32 doesn't have one on its own. MIDI music in Duke3D can sound so much better if it is run through a proper SC-55 soundfont instead of the crappy one provided by Windows.

(G)ZDoom basically gives the best example how it could work: Download the Fluidsynth DLL, set up the soundfont either via ini/cfg or ingame menu and you have MIDI music that doesn't suck any more. However, I guess if it was that easy to implement, it would have been done already a while ago.

[Martin Howe]

In case it helps anyone else, installing eawpatches makes the music more complete.
https://help.ubuntu....eSynthesisHowTo

[Martin Howe]

Four years on ... and I am using Linux again. The situation has improved a lot since then.

EDuke32 now has a .SF2 synth built-in, which makes things a lot easier. So in case anyone else is using Linux and wants the classic MIDIs, you only need add a .SF2 soundfont into wherever you installed EDuke32 and point it at that in 'music setup' after changing the music device configuration to use the .SF2 synth. Of course you still need the soundfont file; I have GZDoom and Raze installed as well and their .sf2 file works fine; to my ears it sounds just like EDuke32 on Windows.