VGM

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This article is about the audio format. For game music in general, see video game music. VGM may also refer to the Van Gogh Museum

VGM (Video Game Music) is an audio format for multiple video game platforms, such as Sega's Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive/Genesis, SG-1000 Mark III, and possibly many others in the future.

The normal filename extension is .vgm, but files can also be Gzip compressed into .vgz files. Technically, .vgz files should be named .vgm.gz, but because some popular operating systems' file managers cannot handle file name suffixes that themselves contain a dot, .vgz is used in order to launch a VGM player (eg. Winamp with the proper plugin) and not a data compression program such as WinZip or WinRAR.

On November 20, 2005, VGM 1.50 was officially announced, and a new version of the input plugin released. The new version of the format now supports PCM optimization for the Yamaha YM2612 sound chip, which makes sound files using the chip a lot smaller — sometimes with over 75% of size reduction. The first YM2612 VGM archive, Project 2612, optimized all of its packages soon after.

[edit] External links

SMS Power! - Music Section 8bit music (official VGM format site)
- VGM File Format Official specifications
Project 2612 The world's largest collection of Mega Drive/Genesis VGM Soundtracks
Zophar's Domain: VGM Archive (Sega Master System/Game Gear)
Play Game Music Sega SMS/GG VGM & Midi Music
Chipamp - Winamp plug-in bundle compiled by OverClocked ReMix allowing playback of over 40 chiptune and tracker formats
Audacious Media Player - Audacious Media Player is capable of playing VGM files out of the box on Linux/Unix systems. A patch from this webpage is required to enable playback of VGM files that utilize the YM2413 synthesizer, and PSG Master System and Megadrive/Genesis VGMs are known to work with or without the patch.
Audio Overload - Another program for playing VGMs. Available on Mac OS X, Windows, and x86/x86-64 Linux.