The Quest for Sound Effects in 3D Pinball Space Cadet with Wine

When attempting to play 3D Pinball Space Cadet using Wine, I encountered an unexpected issue. Despite setting WINEDEBUG=+mci,mcimidi and running the game, it was unable to open the MIDI sequencer device. The problem arose when trying to load the file PINBALL.MID, a media type L that was not recognized by the system.

To resolve this issue, I added specific lines to the system.ini file in the ~/.wine/drive_c/windows directory. This allowed the game to successfully open the MIDI sequencer device, but it still failed to play the music. Instead, the terminal printed a mysterious error message: 'Couldn't load driver for type L'PINBALL.MID'.'

Further investigation led me to discover that the issue was related to the soundfont used by Wine. By using the mcishell tool, I was able to open and play PINBALL.MID with no problem. However, when launching the game with music enabled, the catchy tune remained unheard.

After some trial and error, I managed to get fluidsynth running as a user systemd service, making it relatively easy to set up. Despite references to ALSA in other articles, the whole process worked seamlessly in PulseAudio mode.

In the end, I decided against booting Windows 98 solely to play Pinball with music. Instead, I opted for a more straightforward solution: running the game within my Windows 98 VM under qemu, reducing background load on my system to ensure smooth operation.

The journey was not without its challenges, but ultimately, it was worth it. The experience of getting MIDI working with Wine taught me valuable lessons about troubleshooting and problem-solving in computing. And, of course, I got to enjoy the iconic sound effects of 3D Pinball Space Cadet once more.

3d pinball space cadet sound effects