[SDL] ALSA midi support in SDL_mixer?

[Stephen Anthony]

On December 8, 2007 9:35:17 am Patrice Mandin wrote:
> Le Sat, 8 Dec 2007 00:48:48 -0330
>
> Stephen Anthony <sa666666 at gmail.com> a écrit:
> > I was wondering if there were any plans to add ALSA midi support to
> > SDL_mixer.  It seems that it only supports Timidity (software midi)
> > or /dev/sequencer (hardware midi in OSS).   However, Timidity tends
> > to not sound very good and is CPU intensive.  And /dev/sequencer
> > support doesn't currently work in ALSA using oss-seq emulation (and
> > the support has been removed from OSS anyway).
> >
> > Since ALSA seems to be the way forward for sound in Linux, has
> > anyone ever attempted this?  Is it worth my time to investigate
> > this, or will SDL_mixer be replaced soon by SDL 1.3??
>
> Maybe this could help you:
> http://bugzilla.libsdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509
> Or is your problem different?

Thanks for the info, but I make sure Timidity is not installed so that 
hardware midi is used whenever possible (I have a SB Live card and 
don't need software midi at all).

I think the problem in in the ALSA OSS /dev/sequencer emulation itself, 
since the ScummVM application can be toggled to use OSS sequencer or 
ALSA midi support, and it doesn't work with the OSS stuff either.

So while the problem may indeed be in the ALSA drivers for OSS sequencer 
emulation, I feel SDL_mixer should use the defacto standard for sound 
in Linux.  I'm just wondering if the work will be justified :)

Steve