I'm currently training up four characters in the Musical Instrument skill. The ultimate aim is to be able to play group compositions. I am able to sync four clients with a very small delay between them now. It's not perfect, but probably as good as I'm going to get. It works surprisingly well for Catches, Rounds, and Glees.

I would like some advice on composition, or music creation, software to run on Windows 8.1

I don't mind if it's paid or Freeware, ease of use is important to me. Just started experimenting with MuseScore.

I've never had formal music training, so writing and reading music is slow for me. That being said I used to make my living as a musician many moons ago.

The next step is getting my scores/compositions into Planeshift. I've come across four proposed methods so far. Each having it's own idiosyncrasies and limitations.

Sheet Editor, as explained by Korumak: http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=40531.0

Firiban's External Music Editor: http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=40547.0

Gilrond's Manual Editing Method: http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=40219.15 [ Method and discovery outlined within the post]

Sajut's PSTune: http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=41427.0

If anyone has a viable alternative here and is willing to share I would be most interested. So far I've manually entered notes onto the sheets in-game. It's doable, but extremely fiddly. Also not really viable for Pan Flute, half of it's useable notes are above the staff. This means there isn't a guide for placing a note. Difference of a pixel means a different note.

Thank you for reading. Planeshift has one of the few Player Music systems ever implemented in a MMO, we are very fortunate to have it. I hope Lucubro will be able to offer further refinement in the future.

Set all your graphics options as low as they can go in the Launcher. Hope for the best. I know it's not very helpful. There has been improved support for Intel chipsets I understand. Try searching for posts.

Good luck.

Thanks Ligh. Background Loading enabled/disabled was one of the settings I experimented with. I've been through them all, and made a checklist to test in combinations.

That being said, I have been in-game running 2 clients for the last 3 hours without a single crash. Either I'm on a roll, or something has changed behind the scenes.

*keeps fingers firmly crossed.

[modified] Within seconds of posting first crash of the day. Character shooting arrows at Training Dummy in Arena crashes. [That'll teach me to push my luck]

Many thanks, works a treat. I updated to 0.6.0. yesterday but backed up all the folders. Simply copied them over again after installing PSExtended 1.1.

Awakening.

With a major update on the way should users do anything special before updating? Will the updater try a "repair" for example? Should we back up folders, or use the standard PS tactic of "suck it, and see if it goes bang!"

Returning to PS after a long absence, must say this is amazing. Currently running PSExtended 1.0.1 do I also need to apply the patch, or is that an update for earlier versions?

Thank you.