EQ Music: Reimagined

[Grimluck]

Originally Posted by paulgiamatti [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's certainly possible, but it appears to be a bit more difficult than I initially suspected. The main reason for this is that the EverQuest client doesn't actually play sound files when it plays music; it plays MIDI files, which are essentially event lists or instructions for virtual instruments. Basically, it just uses your sound card to reference these instructions and synthesize the audio, and the default instrument sounds that most sound cards end up using sound pretty cheesy. This is why if you have a really old, crappy sound card, EQ music will sound significantly cheesier than if you have a new, up-to-date sound card.

So it would require some actual alteration of the game's code in order to make it load and playback something other than MIDI, and honestly I'm not even sure where to begin doing that. There might be a way to modify the synthusr.dls file in your EQ directory to make it use the virtual instruments that Grimluck is using, but that's assuming all he's doing is replacing virtual instruments with other virtual instruments.

I'm having to put in quite a lot of work to make them sound accurate, not to mention the mixing and mastering I have to do. Even if somehow we modified that file to make it use the instruments I use, it would take an incredible amount of CPU power to make it seamless. Not to mention all of the licenses that one would have to buy. Basically, it's not an option. However, I'm sure it's possible to modify the code to make it play an .mp3 file (which a quick scan through your EQ directory shows this is already possible). In that sense, it would be very likely. But, man, would it be awesome to be able to listen to these files while playing!