Oh great. FF8's got a rather awkward error with DirectMusic...any ideas?

[Goku7]

OK, so I recently started playing FF8pc again (my fiance finally gave me my pc version discs back after she bought the ps1 version), and now I find out that something's seriously borked:

The .SGT files are not looping properly.  At all.  Instead of looping where they are supposed to, they are all looping from the start of the song.

So I figured, OK, maybe the loop point itself was changed or erased during whatever edits I made in DirectMusic Producer.  Checking the files in DMP indicated that the loop point data is intact -- but the problem seems to have spread beyond FF8, as every time I hit play in the program, it starts from the beginning of the song.  Something, somewhere is telling it to ignore the current timestamp/position indicator and start from the beginning.  As far as I know, no such option is set in the program.

As someone who has a decent amount of experience using .sgt files and DirectMusic, I declare that I AM STUMPED.
My Specs:

P4 1.5Ghz
512 MB DDR RAM
Win98SE
3Dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Maxi-Sound Fortissimo (Hardware XG-MIDI chip, uses YMF744 chipset)
DirectX 9.0c (with the Nov. 2007 minor update)

Reinstalling DX9 doesn't seem to fix the problem.  I'm considering reinstalling an earlier DX version (Probably 8.0/8.1), but I have a feeling that that may not work, as DirectMusic hasn't really gone through that many changes since DX8.

[nfitc1]

Win98SE
3Dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP

:O

Oh for the days.... So sad the Voodoo line didn't make it. It didn't support OpenGL very well, but Glide would have topped it in time. I guess with OpenGL and Direct3D someone decided Glide would be too much? I loved my Voodoo5 and I still miss it sometimes.

Anyway, you probably have your midi device set to something other than the default. Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> Audio tab will let you set devices. If you don't have Microsoft Wavetable (or something similar), try (re-)installing your sound card's drivers.

[Goku7]

Ok....that's odd. Now its looping correctly, with the exception of that last file I edited in DMP.  Whatever got corrupted the other day seems to have mostly fixed itself.  Tempermental Computer?

Win98SE
3Dfx Voodoo5 5500 AGP

:O

Oh for the days.... So sad the Voodoo line didn't make it. It didn't support OpenGL very well, but Glide would have topped it in time. I guess with OpenGL and Direct3D someone decided Glide would be too much? I loved my Voodoo5 and I still miss it sometimes.

Yeah, I miss those days as well.  My first 3D card was a 3dfx Voodoo2 2000 PCI; it made a HECK of a difference in FF7's performance on my at-the-time P1 233Mhz w/ 48MB of totally mismatched RAM.  About 3 or 4 months after I got it, I decided to do my first 3D driver upgrade, so when I casually went to the 3Dfx site to grab 'em, I see this "dear john" letter saying they got bought out by nVidia and discontinued, with no hope of support.   I was pissed at nVidia for doing what to me looked like such an underhanded move on the competition.  I'd find out the real story of what happended later, and I know that 3Dfx's demise was mainly their own doing.

Anyway, you probably have your midi device set to something other than the default. Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> Audio tab will let you set devices. If you don't have Microsoft Wavetable (or something similar), try (re-)installing your sound card's drivers.

Heh...it's been a long time since Win98, hasn't it?  So many name changes to the applets from version to version.  '98 called it "Multimedia".

Anyway, I actually don't have your standard MIDI device layout you see on most computers.  MS-GS Softsynth isn't there, but my list of available devices is pretty huge.  Check it out:

DS-XG MPU401 OUT
DS-XG Synthesizer
MIDI for Creative Audigy Audio Processor (WDM)
SB Audigy 2 ZS MIDI IO [E000]
SB Audigy 2 ZS Sw Synth [E000]
SB Audigy 2 ZS Synth A [E000]
SB Audigy 2 ZS Synth B [E000]
YAMAHA SXG70 Driver

Out of those, none are actually valid, DLS-supporting ports for the DirectMusic interface -- its supposed to use a couple of special DirectMusic-only synthesizers that are normally hidden from everyday MIDI applications.  Only DirectMusic-aware programs like FF8pc and Winamp can see the others, which are called:

Microsoft Synthesizer
YAMAHA XG SoftSynthesizer
SB Audigy 2 ZS DirectMusic Synthesizer [E800]

So that's what, 11 distinct MIDI devices on one system?  I think I went a little overboard on my sound setup....

-edit-
Memo to self: PROOFREAD YOUR POSTS FOR TYPOS.