I noticed SCC1_Florestan.sf2 loaded and tried dropping in different SoundFonts to see if music sounded differently, and it worked! (even a large 100MB+ one).
Does that SF control how all in-game audio sounds (like a Bronze sword hitting a Goblin-specific)? Or just music?
Is the one 2004Scape uses legit authentic from 2004?
Did RS design sounds with a specific SF, and did it differ from what users/clients got?
I’m curious about certain songs like Dark2 and Sad Meadow. There’s parts that are way louder than others with default SF, but those same parts change with different SFs making them sound less-harsh and more normalized volume (I didn’t note exact SF names then but will mess with it more soon; I think one was “Halls of” or something).
@Pazaz did all the client stuff so he’d be best-qualified to answer this, but here’s what I know.
In 2004 the RuneScape client applet could not play sound – instead it relied on Internet Explorer to synthesize MIDIs.
This meant sound was Windows-only and only worked in IE. If you use the authentic Java client to connect to a local server, you’ll have no sound for this reason.
In 2006, Jagex moved the synthesizer into the client for better compatibility. By 2007, they were shipping their own soundfont as well, which is a big part of the reason all the 2007 music tracks sound different.
As far as how all of this affected Jagex’s actual sound design I can’t say, but I assume they reconfigured some things when they changed soundfonts. Some of the 2007 tracks are very different.
Lost City has sound in the webclient today thanks to a MIDI sythesizer called tinymidipcm written in C that runs in the browser via WebAssembly.
The soundfont sent to the client (SCC1_Florestan.sf2) is the same soundfont that Microsoft shipped with Windows XP, emulating what users would have heard at the time. As far as I know this affects all the audio in the game.
SCC1_Florestan.sf2 seems to hash-match __Florestan_Basic_GM_GS.sf2 (thread) but it’s described like it’s a modified version to fix volume, of a conversion of the XP gm.dls to sf2?
~10MB SC-55 SoundFont v1.2a1.sf2 (RLND.zip) seems the best with volume balance (Dark2, Sad Meadow barely) and good overall! (Baroque, Flute Salad, Crystal Sword) Attack2 sounds cooler too.
Mostly everything else (list) had that ear-piercing early tone in March2
I have a few SoundFonts on video with Baroque and Attack2 tracks along with how I switch the SFs:
(1:27-1:47 particularly loud until I lower vol; iirc that’s the loudest time that happens)
I really like SC-55 SoundFont v1.2a1.sf2’s Attack2! (4:04) It’s cool Timbres of Heaven’s 400MB SF loaded (TyrolandGS.sf2 is 800MB but didn’t work).
Video doesn’t have March2, but that track should come with its own warning label But it and Sad Meadow are probably the most interesting ones with how they change volumes with certain parts with different SFs.
Can that Java client be ran in IE with Java plugin today?
I’m really curious about that March2 track It doesn’t seem like Jagex would ship that as-is with the volume on the violin being super-high, but I’d be interested in trying tracks on WinXP in the conditions for the official client to know for sure.
(TyrolandGS.sf2 is 800MB but didn’t work).