Sierra Games in Hoot

[snakemeat]

If you don't know, Hoot is an emulator focused on music.  While it currently supports primarily older Japanese computers, it also has PC/AT support.  It has the ability to output music directly to your MT-32 and other MIDI devices, so it's a natural fit for VGM lovers.  An FAQ on setting it up is available at the Hoot Archive, maintained by Knurek.

Recently, one of the kurohane.net coders added what is called a "patch" to allow for musical playback of Sierra SCI0 games.  This allows one to enjoy all of the tunes using the original files from the games.  The patch and source can be found here.

Fortunately, someone has already taken the time to separate out these files and put them in the beta Hoot archive located here.  I have been told that all SCI0 games are supported with the exception of KQ4 and LL2.  For some reason, these are not functioning with the patch.  The Sierra games are located under the PC folder and have the following filenames:

conq1_at.zip
hoyle_at.zip
iceman_at.zip
lbw1_at.zip
lsl3_at.zip
pq2_at.zip
qfg1_at.zip
silpheed_at.zip
sorc_at.zip
sq3_at.zip

There have also been some other additions for the Western PC crowd take a look.  Some nice RPG greats.

Lastly, by editing the "hoot.ini" file you can tell the program to output to your hardware, assuming it is properly setup in Windows (MIDI is not going to MS Wavetable or whatever).  I changed the following settings in "hoot.ini" to get it to work for me, hopefully they will work for you (if not, it's easy to experiment and find the right numbers for yourself):

output_device=1
output_midi_device=0

[MusicallyInspired]

Interesting. But SCI Viewer can already do this...and to all SCI games (from KQ4 up to games like SQ6). And a lot more easily.

Still nice to see.

[snakemeat]

Ah, so it does.  For some reason I had forgotten about that tool.  Well, Hoot does have adlib emulation which may appeal to some people.  It also displays the fun little messages too.  Maybe SCI Viewer does too, but I cannot seem to find it.  In any case, it offers another method of enjoying these great tunes.  I'd highly suggest checking out some of the other tunes as well.  Some Might & Magic sets and Ultima sets are there along with a whole bunch of other of those Japanese games.

[jharris01]

That web page is very confusing to navigate. Felt like I was playing Where's Waldo with the download link! 

[Marten]

Which web page?

If it's the one I am guessing, it's the one with all of the question marks resulting from most of the page being in Japanese.   I don't understand why http://snesmusic.org/hoot/v2/faq.php, in English, would point to a page in a totally different language.

Fortunately, there is Translate.Google.com....

http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsnesmusic.org%2Fhoot%2Fv2%2Ffaq.php&sl=ja&tl=en&history_state0=

[jharris01]

Actually I was referring to http://snesmusic.org/hoot/v2/faq.php, but you are right the download page is even more confusing if your PC lacks the necessary fonts. The download link is sort of buried there without a distinctive mark to make clear that is the link to press. A big "Download Here!" image link or button wouldn't hurt. No biggie though I was able to figure my way through. Thanks.