I mean under the word "mod" short name for "music module", or "tracked music" (music made in any "tracker", which means program like Amiga's Protracker or NoiseTracker, or PC's ScreamTracker or Impulse Tracker or ModPlug Tracker or OktaMed). I won't describe details of tracked music here, there are other pages that do that (actually you can visit Amiga section at my Game music page and you will gain more information about structure of MOD and game music there). As a "standard" mods I treat tunes made in the abovementioned players and the files generated by these players are in formats MOD (NoiseTracker or ProTracker module), MED (OktaMed module), XM (eXtended Module made by FastTracker), IT (ImpulseTracker module) and S3M (ScreamTracker Module). Other formats aren't actually "mods" for me, although they are also "tracked". And therefore they are not included in World of game mods.

WHY DON'T YOU ACCEPT EXOTIC TRACKED FORMATS OTHER THAN MOD,MED,XM,S3M AND IT?

Because of two reasons.
First reason is, that I want to make the collection to be completely listenable in most music players (PC and Amiga), with minimum of bad or corrupted songs. That's why I'd like to make the collection compatible with DeliPlayer and ModPlug. DeliPlayer supports many Amiga's exotic formats (TFMX, DW, JP, etc..), ModPlug on the other side supports many PC's exotic formats (AMF, PSM, MTM etc..). Every play-routine has some advantages and disadvantages, that's why I'd like to make the archive sound well on both systems. If you see which formats do suport both players and which support also WinAmp MOD plugin etc., and which formats haven't problems to detect proper length of songs etc., you'll get support for these 5 formats. Many other formats (like AMF) can be simply converted to mods and be included in the archive, other ones simply can't be included until they're remade into mods.
Second reason is, that on the web is site called ExoticA, which is dedicated to Amiga's exotic tunes and all the tunes are easy to find there. If I'd include tunes in exotic formats, 99% of them would be similar to tunes on this site, and I don't see the reason to do something like that.

Btw., don't forget that this archive is primarly designed for listening to big amount of songs in huge playlist during some work for example, without taking care of the songs itself. If you download all the exotic tunes and will want to play them in huge playlist (e.g. under DeliPlayer), then you'll see the reason why I will never include exotic formats here. Some formats don't have the tune time information inside, some won't play in the player anyway, some have blind spaces... Result? You have to skip every second tune in the playlist and instead of listening the music you'll have to select or remove good or bad tunes.

If you are not sure if the game you are looking for has exotic tunes, the Amiga Exotic format info in Game Music Base should help you - most exotic tunes are documented and assigned to games, with possibility to download from sources outside mirsoft.info site.

WHAT'S THE EASIEST WAY TO USE THE 'WORLD OF GAME MODS ARCHIVE' UNDER WINDOWS?

I tried to manage the archive as simple as it gets, you sure don't need to unzip the files and play the tunes unzipped, which takes you a lot of space on your HDD (although you can, if you want). My recommended way is download the archive and use DeliPlayer:

1. Download, install and run Deliplayer from www.deliplayer.com
2. Download game tunes you like.
3. Run Playlist in DeliPlayer and use "Edit/Add directory" option and add directory where zips are located (DeliPlayer automatically recognizes zips and adds them in playlist).
4. That's all, you can now listen to hours of great music. For best performance, here are some my recommendations:

- look at PlayList Options (Config/Playlist) and set "Play Subsongs" option. This option is not set by default and it's good to set it, because mods from some games like Pinball Illusions have plenty of subongs, and without this option will be played only first one.
- customize your PlayList columns (Config/Playlist/sheet Columns). I use display columns "Status", "Full path", "Songname", "Duration" and "Time played". As sort columns I use "Path" and "Songname".
- look in info.txt file inside each zip archive. This file provides many information about archive and game, such a musician, original release dates, type of tunes etc. It's some substitution of "ID3 tags", which aren't provided in mod files. If you can fill any unfilled information and send info.txt files to me, I'd be very thankful ;)

DO YOU KNOW OTHER RECOMMENDED WAY TO USE THE ARCHIVE?

Sure, try XMPlay, this player focuses on exact playback, is rather new and I found some modules which plays this player better than DeliPlayer. Although I like DeliPlayer's user interface more, XMPlay seems to be very good choice too. Yes and of course, it supports archives too, so let's make huge playlists And if you are a bit adventurer, there's another very good music player called KBMedia Player. It is great multi-format player for the MOD files (but also MIDs, MP3s, AVIs, SWFs (!), SIDs, and much much more formats), has ZIP archive support, and it displays also info.txt file from the archives with authors and publisher names of the song properly (this feature hasn't any other player!), has fast and intuitive UI, and its MOD play-routine is based on ModPlug, which means that some mods should be played better and more accurate than in DeliPlayer. It has only "small" disadvantage - its complete in Japanese. But, hey, wait, don't run, I don't know a word Japanese, and I managed to go through these few menus. I recommend you to try it, I wrote some more infos about installing and running this player in the World of Game Mids FAQ section, then you shouldn't have problems with japanese language...

I HAVE SOME TUNES YOU DON'T HAVE, WHAT CAN I DO?

Well, send them to mirsoft.info! Together we can make biggest collection of game mods even bigger, I accept any game music modules, which are not included in this archive and which are in the MOD, MED, XM, S3M or IT format. I don't accept any other formats. So what should you do if you have some tunes?

Read carefully Collection rules on mainpage to know, if the tunes you have really belong to this archive. If you're not sure, ask me.
Create and fill in the "info.txt" file (see below for more info)
Zip all tunes plus the info.txt file in one ZIP archive (no subdirectories), name it exactly as the official game release title is (e.g. "Eye of the Beholder 3.zip")
Use this form to upload data. If the size of ZIP file is bigger than 2MB, let me know first via email, write me the game title and size. I'll contact you with info what to do.
If all is okay, the new tunes should be up in the next archive update.

WHAT IS FORMAT OF THE "INFO.TXT" FILE?

This file contains all information about archive and because the system reads data from it to display information on the main page, this file is required in the archive. Firstly, copy this template to info.txt file in your archive:

Archive created by -=MIRSOFT=-
Look for game MODs at http://gamemods.mirsoft.info

*** Archive info ***
Archiver: Mirsoft
Type: Arranged
Format: XM, S3M
Original Composer: Chris Huelsbeck
Tracker: Janko Hrasko
Num of tunes: 4
Complete: 100%

*** Game info ***
Name: Antrax Challenge
Platform: PC
Year: 2001
Genre: Action
Publisher: AlKaida Interactive
Developer: Usama Binary Division

*** Additional info ***
Write here what you want, or write here some facts etc..

Now, edit the contents step-by-step with the game info. Here is help what means what:

First two lines are here for your comment. You can write some info about your webpage, greet your girlfriend, tell anyone you had a dinner, just anything. But only two lines, please!
Third line is empty.
By fourth line begins the "Archive info". It's information about this archive.
Archiver - this means the person who ripped the tunes, possibly converted them to mods, created this info.txt file and made zip file from that - so write here your name or nick, to everybody know who was so kind and made this archive .
Type - there can be three types:

Game rip - music ripped directly from game

Converted - music ripped from game and converted to MOD format

Arranged - music ripped from game, converted to MOD with changed some instruments, added extra tracks or embellishments to an existing song, all the while keeping the same style of the song.

Remix - keeps the same basic melody as the original song, but is in a different style. It may also contain abstract parts (i.e. interludes, improvisation, single-instrument solos).

Soundtrack - music made according the officially released soundtrack. For example, if "Final Fantasy 6 Original Soundtrack" is officially released, in the archive should be the tunes named and ordered exactly as on CD, but of course arranged to MOD format. These soundtracks are very wanted thing!
Format - type extension of MOD files here (if the game has more extensions, write all of them, comma separated).
Original composer - name of original composer of the song. If you don't know, leave the field empty (so the line will look like: "Original Composer: ").
Tracker - name of the person who made MOD version of the tune. If the tune is ripped from game, the name will be probably the same as name of Original Composer, but if it's arranged or remix, you have to write here name of person who arranged or remixed the original tune.
Num of tunes - how many tunes are included in the archive (in MODs it's the same as the number of files in archive)
Complete - how many tunes from the game are included in the archive. Wanted: 100% complete
soundtracks . But write 100% only if you're sure that really ALL game tunes are included. If you're not sure, leave this field empty or write estimated % there.
With "Game info" begin the information about the game itself. (This should be the same also if the archive will be updated).
Name - full name of the game
Platform - platform which is music ripped from
Year - year of game release. If you don't know, write 198? or 199? or 200? or 19?? and so on...
Genre - Genre of the game. Use one of these genres:
Shooter - kill em all and don't ask anything

FPS - First person shooter (like shooter, but from your own sight)

Jump'n'Run - jump, go, take, jump, bong, aaargh, again

Action - mission acomplished!

Beat'em up - fight, bang, boom, ouch, FATALITY!

RTS - Real-time strategy - build base, order harvester, and TAKE ON THE WORLD!

Strategy - Turn Based Strategy - Your turn, Computer's turn, Your turn, Check, Mate you lose again

Logical - Why do I have so much headaches from them?

Simulator - Why are so many clocks in them

Adventure - My name is Guybrush and I wanna be a pirate!

Classic - Here are all Pac-Mans, Arkanoids, Manic Miners and so on...

Classic Remake - The old classic game released again in new graphics etc..

Sport - He winds up, he shoots, oooh, he misses the net...

Cars - Yes, he's first again. And it was Schumacher again, as we all expected...

RPG - Role playing game - Left, right, forward, forward, monster, aaaaargh!

Mixed - Mix from different genres

Other - All that is not above
Publisher - write name of the company which published the game here.
Developer - write name of the company or person who developed the game. If the company who developed the game is also the publisher, write name of publisher there.
If you want to write something more to the archive, you can write write it under "Additional info" section. This section is OPTIONAL and don't need to be in the info file (if it isn't, the file simply ends with "Developer" line). Here you can write any comments which can be as long as you wish ) (oki, the size of text file shouldn't be bigger than size of the modules ) ).

WHY DO YOU USE ZIP ARCHIVES IN WORLD OF GAME MODS/MIDS, WHY DON'T YOU USE BETTER ARCHIVERS LIKE RAR, ACE OR SO?

The reason why I use zips in World of Game Mods/Mids is because zips are most compatible with music players, and they are also compatible with my web engine (so I can directly read from zip files the info.txt files which can be displayed online, which isn't possible to do from other archivers without having a support from them). And ZIP is also the fastest archiver, which is important not only when handling large playlists in players (maybe it isn't important when you play one file, but it IS different if want to create playlist containing 10000 or more files...), but also for the web angine. These reasons are for me more important than saving few kbytes using the better-but-less-usable archiver.

IS THERE A WAY TO DOWNLOAD ALL TUNES FROM THE ARCHIVES?

Sorry, it's not possible. It was possible in the past, but due to lot of technical problems and also thanks to abuse from some intelligent users (you know it wasn't nice to see the private FTP account in some messageboard easy searchable by Google ;) ), I definitely disabled possibility to download all the files easy way. The only way to do it is to download files one-by-one from the web, sorry...

IS THERE ANY WAY TO CONVERT THE TUNES TO MP3 OR WAV, SO I CAN PLAY THEM IN MY CD PLAYER OR CAR AUDIO?

Sure it is, though this sometimes annoys me, because I like mods or mids especially because of their format - the tunes are very small and smart, and the MP3 conversion only looses the quality and raises the size a lot. So, if you really don't have a reason, don't do this and try always to play the tunes in their original MIDI or MOD format, really lot players on PC play them cool. But I understand that sometimes you will want to burn the tunes to CD and listen in the car player or discman, which often doesn't support formats like mids or mods. So this is brief howto do that:

Download music player, which allows to write sound output to disk instead of your music card. You will create WAV file using this step. It is very important step, because from the music player you choose will depend the output quality a lot!
- For MOD files, I had best experience with ModPlug. Download latest version, play the file, and click "Save Wav" option, where you can set lot of additional settings for the saved WAV file. You can also try recording the WAV using DeliPlayer, which offers different sound output like ModPlug (I cannot say better or worse, simply different ), and also offers to convert lot of Amiga's exotic music formats this way. But it's not free - the shareware version offers only mono stream, you have to buy full version to stream completely in stereo. And last-but-not-least, you can try XMPlay, which offers not only good WAV files writing (normal and normalized), but also direct encoding to MP3 using external MP3 encoder.
- For MIDI files, WinAmp does it well using the Nullsoft Disk Writer plugin (it's provided free with the WinAmp Free Full distribution (at least it was in version 5.02, when I wrote this article). Install it, choose Options/Preferences/Plug-ins/Output, choose "Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in" (you can configure it to choose the path of output file). Now go to Input tab, choose "Nullsoft MIDI player", click "Configure", choose tab "sampling", check "Sampling enabled" box and "Send to Winamp's output system". Re-play the MIDI song and you should get the song saved. Note, you can use the WinAmp saving also for MOD files, but because WinAmp has a bit worse MOD sound playback than ModPlug or DeliPlayer, the resulting WAV file will be worse too (I recognized random silent cracks there sometimes)
When you have WAVs saved, you can burn them as Audio CD, or convert the files to MP3, to save some of space (e.g. CDex does that well) and burn the MP3s, if your audio player supports MP3 playback. Yes, and don't forget to write ID3 tags to MP3s, MP3/Tag Studio does it well.

I WOULD LIKE TO CONVERT MY MP3/DIGITAL AUDIO GAME MUSIC INTO MODS, IS IT POSSIBLE ?

It is possible simply by inserting one big WAV sample into tracker and create simple one-sample "mod" file. However, this technique breaks the basic purpose of tracked music and therefore conversions like this are not accepted on World of Game MODs. Additionally, the "MOD" tunes created this way are mostly huge on size, therefore it doesn't have any sense to convert them into MODs - much better solution is simply to store them in WAVs or MP3s. The "clean" and acceptable way is to re-create the tracked tune in MOD music program by hand, but it's really hard work and don't except that any program will do it instead of you

AND WHAT ABOUT ANOTHER MUSIC FORMATS LIKE SPC OR NSF, THEY CAN BE CONVERTED TO MODS, ISN'T IT?

Yes, some formats (formats for older platforms), can be more or less easily converted to MODs. Hovewer, I don't see any big reason to do it. They will sound best in format they were made in anyway, so why to convert them to MOD?

HM, SO I COULD CONVERT THE SPC OR NSF TUNES TO MODS AND SEND THEM TO YOU?

You could, but I'm accepting only conversions, which bring some use to user. For example, converting Amiga Exotic tune to MOD has sense, because Amiga Exotic tunes are very poorly played in original format, so converting to MODs will bring much better use and play in much more music players. The same e.g. about AdLib tunes. However, pure conversions from SPC, SID or NSF files using some converting program are useless, because they can well exist also in original formats and the conversion will only loose their quality. But you if you will re-track the tunes or do some enhancements, and the result will pass through my little "quality-check", I'll be happy if you'll send them..

SOME ARCHIVES HAVE 0 TUNES, ARE THEY EMPTY OR WHAT?

Yes, some archives have no tunes, and they are empty, they have only info.txt file inside.
Simple answer: It's because in these archives have been only the same files as in another archives, so they have been all deleted.
Detailed answer and why is it so: Before releasing the archives online, my system checks all files inside archives for duplicates. Because often happens that one song plays in more various games, and I simply don't want to have duplicate files in the archives (for example, the game Time Runners has 30 parts and some parts have the same songs - if I wouldn't do it that way, I would have one tune 30 times for every Time Runners game, which is wasting of listening time, disk space etc..). That's why my system checks the files inside archives for duplicates. If the duplicates are found, they'll be left only in the first archive, from the next archives the file will be removed and in the "Additional info" section of the info.txt file will be written something like this: "File cover.mod has been removed because it was the same as in Time Runners 20". Of course, sometimes it may happen (and it also happens), that one game has EXACTLY the same songs as another one, and all its songs are therefore deleted from the archives because of duplicity. Then it's very wise to include empty archives with the information about duplicity of files in them, bucause if I wouldn't, the people would send me the songs to these games again and again because they wouldn't be included in the archives (and I wouldn't remember that they are twice, which would result in many many duplicate files as it may be seen in other big collections).

I'M LOOKING FOR MOD FROM GAME XY FOR LONG TIME AND I HAVEN'T FOUND IT IN YOUR ARCHIVES, CAN I SEND YOU A REQUEST?

No, don't do it please. All tunes I know I've either included in archives or in some cases (e.g. the authors or anybody else wanted to remove them), I've written at least info about that fact. I didn't left nothing for myself, so if you haven't found any info about your wanted tunes, the music either doesn't exist in MOD format or wasn't re-arranged to MOD. But it always means that I know nothing more about it and your music request will be useless.

I WANT TO LINK YOUR SITE ON MY SITE, CAN I?

Yes, you can, and I'll be happy if you'll do it. Though you cannot expect I will link your site for exchange (I have only few very special links in my Linx section and these link to my favourite pages, not to pages, which link to me ). You don't need to notify me about that (although you can and I'll be happy if you do). I'm sometimes searching and browsing the pages which link to me, and I'm really happy if I'll find any feedback. Because I'm not advertising the site anyhow (look here why), it always makes good mood when you see you made someone happy with your site However, I'd like to ask you to obey few simple rules:

The best way is to link to these main areas of mirsoft.info sites:
- http://www.mirsoft.info - Mirsoft.info - Main navigation and all the links
- http://gamemods.mirsoft.info - World of Game Mods - biggest archive of game mods from the World
- http://gamemids.mirsoft.info - World of Game Mids - biggest archive of game midis from the World
- http://gmb.mirsoft.info - Game Music Base - searchable database of Games, Games music and games soundtracks

If you will want to link directly to some game or music information page, you can do it by using the page's URL. These URLs I maintain to be permanent and shouldn't be changed, hopefully. For example, linking to Turrican 2 game info you can use link http://www.mirsoft.info/gmb/game_info.php?id_ele=MTg0OA== or linking to Turrican: Arranged Soundtrack music info link to http://www.mirsoft.info/gmb/music_info.php?id_ele=Mjk4Ng==

If you will want to link directly to game music (MOD or MID) download, please NEVER link directly to download page (so script wogm_download should not be in the URL, because it creates the links dynamically and changes often). Instead of this, make link to music record info page. For example, if you will want to link to Turrican: Arranged/Remixed tunes (MOD), link always to page http://www.mirsoft.info/gmb/music_info.php?id_ele=MTE1Mw== and not to page http://www.mirsoft.info/wogm_download.php?data=..... It's in your own interest, because the second link changes frequently and it will sure appear broken sooner or later.

- and if you will need some picture for linking, here it is

WHAT IS PURPOSE OF SITES 'WORLD OF GAME MODS' AND 'WORLD OF GAME MIDS', HOW MUCH MONEY DO YOU EARN FROM THEM?

Well, to understand why have been these sites made, you have to understand what am I. My very big hobby is game music and I'm very big game music collector. I have collection of game music tunes for many various platforms - SIDs, SPCs, NSFs, MP3s, MODs, MIDs, AdLib formats, AYs, and some more. While some tunes have been very easy to find and download (I simply found site dedicated to some platform like Zophar's Domain for SPCs or NSFs, or High Voltage SID Collection for C64 SIDs), some very good formats simply haven't site on the web that would satisfy me, and if I wanted to have complete collection of these tunes, I had to visit hudreds of sites and make often my own rips of tunes from games. And the biggest problem I had when I searched for two formats - game MODs and game MIDs. I spent many many hours, days and months to make the collection of these formats not only listenable, but also to make some infos to tunes (like author, company who did the game etc..). Important is, that all I did, I did for myself, not for anyone else. I simply wanted to listen to mods and mids and that was the reason why I was doing that.
As the time came, I started to be web programmer. When I have a bit more time, I'm doing some things on my Mirsoft's homepage, and one day I made a routine that allowed me to release my music archive online without spending a time editing the HTML code of the page. I asked Spyros, my provider, if it would bother him much to have bigger amount of data on his server, and because he is very kind guy, he allowed me to do that. And the result was, that I could release all my modules and mids online, without taking me much time for making updates, and I could manage also some statistics like TOP downloads, helps etc... I could also release my SPCs, or other tunes, but it wouldn't have sense, because I downloaded them almost 1:1 from one other site. That's why I released my MODs and MIDs - simply two types of tunes, which took me most of the time collecting them.
From this story results the answer to your question - target of these sites is NOT making money and target of the sites is NOT to be most visited web site in the world with big traffic (the funny thing is, that if the site will have too much traffic and too many people will download the tunes, site should slow down the server and my provider will have the reason to stop me, because I'm not paying him anything ). Only purpose why these sites are made is that it's my hobby, I have made these archives for myself, and it doesn't cost me very much time to help other game music fans not spending hours on searching their favourite tunes like I had to do. Because of that are these archives part of my homepage, and because of that I won't care if someone will have something against it, it won't make me problem delete any archives, and possible stopping the site costs me pressing the few keys . The sites simply aren't main target of my work, main target are the tunes I can listen to. So enjoy them, until they are here!