XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

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Stef
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XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Mon Jul 11, 2016 9:13 pm

I finally completed my XGM player that i started a long time ago (few time after i developed the XGM driver)...
I was really busy with SGDK and private stuff that i had to postpone my XGM player development but finally i find sometime to complete it :)
It's still not perfect, has some bugs (refresh, playback issues with fast tempo...) but still i am happy with it's current state so i think i can release it =)
XGM player is intended to play XGM music through the XGM driver. I developed a tool which allow to convert Megadrive VGM files into XGM format so you can basically see it as a Megadrive VGM player as well... The difference is that it allows to play 4 PCM at same time where Megadrive VGM is normally limited to 1 PCM channel only. But ok, that is useful only for SFX for game as there is no music tracker taking advantage of it :p

What better than a Technosoft compilation to introduce the XGM player :D
Musics from the following games are included in the rom :
- Dragon's Fury
- Elemental Master
- Thunder Force 2/3/4

Because of rom size limitation i could not include all tracks for those games so i made a (personal) selection of 80 tracks.
You can find the download link at the bottom of the message.

Edit:
Released a new VGM compilation for XGM player :) This time it's a tribute to Jesper Kyd and its awesome tracks (mainly from Batman and Robin).
Because of the length of the different tracks i could not put more than 26 so i had to discard a lot of them unfortunately, the selection was difficult :-/
This new compilation also introduce a new version of the XGM Player (version 2), here are the differences:
- bug fixes (still some remains with fast tempo, sometime music pause without any reason)
- added a way to disable the starfield background (START + A)
- added a way to hidden the playlist (except current playing track) for nice blind jukebox parties :p (START + B)

You can find the download link at the bottom of the message.

I also completed my XGM Rom Builder tool so you can build your own compilation (finally).
Note that i developed the tool in java so you need Java to be installed on your system.
The tool is a bit rough but it does the job hopefully, you can find the download link at the bottom of the message.

Edit 2:
Added a new VGM compilation using the last version of my XGM player (V3).
This time this is a Streets Of Rage VGM compilation :) I picked music from all episode but a lot of them come from episode 2 which has imo the best tracks !

Technosoft VGM compilation rom : http://bit.ly/2nw9JRN
Jesper Kyd VGM compilation rom : http://bit.ly/2o74J7o
Streets of Rage VGM compilation rom : http://bit.ly/2ou2k2T
XGM Rom builder tool (updated to v1.2) : http://bit.ly/2nevliZ

Small animation showing the XGM player in action: https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CnHGA82WIAAuo9B.mp4

Image
Last edited by Stef on Tue Mar 28, 2017 1:49 pm, edited 7 times in total.

Manveru
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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Manveru » Wed Jul 13, 2016 12:16 pm

wow, it looks amazing. Congrats Stef. Your OST choosing can't be better :wink:
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. Confucius, 551-479 BC

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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by SegaTim » Wed Jul 13, 2016 1:14 pm

Cool metal sound!

Image

Need font 4x8 px like this:

Image

Stef
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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Thu Jul 14, 2016 10:35 am

Indeed that would be nice to have a smaller font but really that require really a lot of work to support that. Maybe in a future version :)

Sik
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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Sik » Thu Jul 14, 2016 5:08 pm

If you have both planes to spare you could just alternate between them (plane A contains even positions, plane B contains odd positions).
Sik is pronounced as "seek", not as "sick".

Stef
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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Thu Jul 14, 2016 7:27 pm

Neat idea :) But that require indeed to spent 2 plans to display text... and i would like to keep that nice background starfield effect :p
(plus that would require to modify the current implementation where i'm using the window plan).

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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by SegaTim » Tue Jul 19, 2016 10:13 pm

You have this melody pack for playing in VGMMaker?

Stef
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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Wed Jul 20, 2016 7:17 am

Nope, I only have the VGM rip of these musics.

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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by SegaTim » Mon Jul 25, 2016 10:03 pm

XGM format? Yours XGM filis are suitable for BEX?

Stef
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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Tue Jul 26, 2016 8:54 am

Yep, currently the wrapper work with an older XGM driver version, but it works :
http://devster.proboards.com/thread/107 ... ame-driver

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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Fri Aug 12, 2016 9:34 pm

I finally completed my rom builder tool so you can do your own ROM with your own VGM list :)
I also made a new VGM compilation introducing a new version of the XGM player.
I updated the first post to give which give all the information ;)

Also the BEX wrapper has been updated to the last version of the XGM driver.

Stef
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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Tue Sep 06, 2016 6:21 pm

Added a new VGM compilation for the XGM player and updated the Rom builder tool as well (see the first message) :)

Some people reported me some playbacks issues with some MD models (JAP VA0 seems to have random hangs/freeze issues).
For those who are concerned by these issues, can you please report me here what are the problems observed and what is the model of your megadrive ?
That would be greatly appreciated :)
Here is the classic XGM player using the usual XGM driver for reference : http://ow.ly/Z5Fm303X1XW
I made a slightly different version which should be safer : http://ow.ly/IAye303X4AS

If you meet issues with the first version test the second one and report me if it makes any difference, thanks :)

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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Moon-Watcher » Tue Sep 06, 2016 11:40 pm

Tested test1.bin in a Jap VA0. Although music still freezes occasionally :( it is more stable than previous rom :) That's what I feel.
https://app.box.com/s/f8diz82ztmmcyexdjmo9hn6ijabf96fw (system freezed)

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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Wed Sep 07, 2016 7:21 am

Thanks for your report Moon-Watcher. Is it really more stable with this version ? Anyway i will try to provide you more versions to test soon :-)

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Re: XGM / VGM player for Megadrive

Post by Stef » Wed Sep 07, 2016 1:55 pm

Ok, here are 2 more rom to test :)
test 2 : http://ow.ly/meMj303YKZj
test 3 : http://ow.ly/LPGC303YL58

test 2 disable Z80 on controller read operations.
test 3 add disable Z80 on DMA operations.
To be honest, it test 3 fix the issues (but not test 2) then it's really annoying as it means i can't do DMA protection for PCM playback on JAP VA0 :-/
If test 2 fix the issues it's also annoying as disabling Z80 on controller read will also impact PCM playback but i guess i can limit the impact compared to DMA.

If neither of the roms fix the issues then it will be more complicated than planned but at least that would mean the DMA protection can remain in place :)

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