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vga256

okay so this is badass

one of my most cherished and irreplaceable retrocomputing devices is my peerless Roland SC-55.

while the MT-32 has been emulated quite well, the SC-55 always lagged behind in emulation - most attempts at it sounded pretty terrible, even using good soundfonts.

(and hauling around my SC-55 + midi & 3.5mm & usb cables just to play games in dosbox was painful)

in comes Nuked-SC55: it is a chip-level emulation project that just *nails* it.

it took about 30 seconds to build with cmake. i'm now going to try integrating it with dosbox, so i can finally play 90s DOS general midi games! (ultima viii pagan, here i come)

demo songs with the LCD screen (which is also accurately emulated!)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4Z5y2

nuked-sc55 source:
github.com/nukeykt/Nuked-SC55

windows binaries:
github.com/nukeykt/Nuked-SC55/

fwiw to compile (requires cmake):
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make

Jun 06, 2024, 01:14 · · · Web · 17 · 51

if anyone figures out how to run nuked-sc55 on a mac with dosbox (boxer), i'd love to know how you did it.

happy to confirm that the SC-55 emulation with Nuked-SC55 is *perfect*. i don't mean "pretty close" or "99%" ... it is the same sound coming out of my physical hardware. 👏 incredible work by the author and their team

track: Ethereal Void, by neno vugrinec (Ultima VIII: Pagan)

@vga256 FWIW, it works nicely with DREAMM for LucasArts games (though it's a bit quiet). @alexkaiser might know more about getting it to play with DOSBox.

@aaronsgiles @vga256 Sure! I'm using DOSBox Staging (best DOSBox for Mac users by far, but no UI like Boxer) but it works in every DOSBox version.

Instead of using loopMIDI on macOS you use the internal Audio-MIDI-Setup.app.

Go to Windows -> Show MIDI Studio and configure it like in the screenshot.

Now the MIDI IN of Nuked-SC55 should show up in DOSBox when using 'mixer /listmidi' and can be configured in your config file.

@alexkaiser ah, yeah - I should have clarified - I only run Boxer on my machines. I already had configured Audio MIDI Setup to enable the IAC Driver, but it still wasn't showing up in Boxer using /listmidi.
Are you using these settings in your dosbox config as well?
[midi]
mpu401=intelligent
mididevice=coremidi

@vga256 Hi, this config is correct for Staging.

@vga256 I've used Xcode before to build Nuked-SC55 on macOS but its like 12GB to install.

How can i set "Build Configuration" to "Release" in Nuked when using Cmake instead?

@alexkaiser good question - i have no idea.

@alexkaiser cool! will give it a shot soon - since building from cmake seems to produce a binary that doesn't accept keyboard input on my machine

@alexkaiser update: i've got it compiled via xcode and running 👌 it turns out my earlier cmake build was borked because I forgot to copy ./data/back.data to the binary's folder.

it's a cpu killer though - uses 1 thread at 100%, and uses the same thread as macOS UI 😆 looks like it'll need some fine tuning.

working great with dosbox-x - so there's something borked with Boxer's midi implementation. no idea what's going on there - will have to write up a git issue

@vga256 @alexkaiser forgive the rando, but this is the most helpful link google returned to me searching "nuked sc-55 macOS". I got it built successfully and working with ScummVM via IAC driver! Thank you

@dareelcatskull @vga256 I uploaded a Mac executable build using cmake and the more optimized fork by jcmoyer here:

https://archive.org/details/nuked-sc55-for-macos

CMAKE build instructions:

git clone https://github.com/jcmoyer/Nuked-SC55.git
cd Nuked-SC55
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
cmake --build .

Copy data/back.data and ROMs to the same directory as built binary.

You might need to install the following dependancies:
brew install git
brew install cmake
brew install sdl2
brew install pkg-config

Internet ArchiveNuked-SC55 for macOS : nukeykt : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveNuked-SC55 for macOSBuild using cmake, including ROM files ready to run.Using jcmoyers fork:https://github.com/jcmoyer/Nuked-SC55

@vga256 @alexkaiser Excellent! I'm writing a blog post up right now and I'll include this link. Listening to some Roland Bossa Nova atm :)

https://chiptune.app/browse/Roland%20SMF%20MIDI%20Disks/RJL-2007J%20-%20Bossa%20Nova%20Time%20(1992)%20(Masashi%20&%20Kazuko%20Hirashita%20+%20Ikuo%20Kakehashi

Only works in Chrome because Web MIDI but you can download the files and play however you want!

@alexkaiser @vga256 FYI, I had to `brew install rtmidi` to get the binary to run. The help menu is great!

@vga256 It is so satisfying to watch each instrument’s channel

@vga256 Nenad Vugrinec did an outstanding job with this soundtrack. I'm re-playing U8 with my SC-55mkII and it's an absolute treat listening to it. I'm glad that everybody can finally enjoy the game as it was meant to be.

@dukeboitans that's wonderful. it's too bad that almost no gamers had an SC back in the early 90s - this soundtrack might have won some awards!