Genesis - SNES audio comparison

mic_ · Post by **mic_** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:25 pm

You sure that actually exists?

The music does, I don't know about the game.

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:29 pm

Where can I find these hacky/homebrew-ish things?

Huge · Post by **Huge** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 9:44 pm

Alisia Dragoon got along fine without using samples in the music, though it does not use a musical style that would require much drums (there are some, though). It is also by far one of the best Megadrive soundtracks out there.

Puyo Puyo however can be pretty drum-heavy on some tunes, yet it also does not use the PCM (unlike Mean Bean Machine, which did).

Vectorman also does a pretty nice trance soundtrack and it only uses samples for maybe one heavy drum effect in total.

Dragon Ball Z Buu Yu Retsuden does not use samples for ANY of the battle tunes - mainly because in battle, pretty much every sound effect is sampled. Outside battles, samples are used for drums.

Decapattack had a screwball musical style, but it had perfect drums without using samples.

Now that I think about it, Toejam & Earl Panic on Funkotron did not use sampled drums either, it was all FM (as in, Funk Modulation).
It did use samples for clap effects, though.

Aladdin didn't use much samples either, I think.

Edit: also, neither did Eternal Champions use any sampled drums, but like dragonball, it was a fighting game with a lot of voices. But unlike the dragonball game, it did not use sampled drums outside battles either.

Columns also did not use samples, but it also did not use drums either.

Super Hang-on did not use any samples, even though the original arcade soundtrack was, iirc, fully sample-driven.

Road Rash II did not use many samples in-game, but again had okay drums. Main Menu and other cutscenes did use samples, and had not okay but completely badass tunes. (no surprise since it was composed by the same Rob Hubbard who made some of the most iconic C64 game tunes)

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:33 pm

Sparkster doesn't use DAC.

Rocket Knight Adventures doesn't use DAC.

Castlevania Bloodlines doesn't use DAC.

Contra Hard Corps doesn't use DAC.

Ys III: Wanderers from Ys doesn't use DAC.

I'm pretty sure.

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:08 am

Ys III uses PCM drums, Contra Hard Corps uses multi channel PCM drums

mic_ · Post by **mic_** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 8:18 am

Where can I find these hacky/homebrew-ish things?

I can't remember where I found them originally, but I've put them on my server if you want them: http://jiggawatt.org/muzak/mdx/

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:13 pm

TmEE co.(TM) wrote:Ys III uses PCM drums, Contra Hard Corps uses multi channel PCM drums

multi channel ?

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 4:07 pm

It does even 3 channels, when its doing 3, the sample rate drops from 9...10 to 8KHz. The game should be using signed samples, and can do volumes on PCM aswell as resampling... samples need to be in same bank though. My sound engine does 2 channels with volumes and samples can be all over the ROM, while sample rate is up to 30KHz... no resampling though, my playback+buffering scheme does not allow resampling without major loss in sound quality.

Stef · Post by **Stef** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 6:55 pm

TmEE co.(TM) wrote:It does even 3 channels, when its doing 3, the sample rate drops from 9...10 to 8KHz. The game should be using signed samples, and can do volumes on PCM aswell as resampling... samples need to be in same bank though. My sound engine does 2 channels with volumes and samples can be all over the ROM, while sample rate is up to 30KHz... no resampling though, my playback+buffering scheme does not allow resampling without major loss in sound quality.

3 channels with volume and resampling, all that on Z80 ?
And your sound engine can do volume control with 2 channels at 30 Khz ?
Amazing !

I just rewrote my 4 channels playback drivers (i loose old sources) and i'm just able to play at 16 Khz. I still have some free time though, about 1/4 of Z80 time and the driver is correctly handling mix overflow.

I'm also currently writing a 2 channels PCM driver. Samples are 4 bits PCM compressed and the playback rate is 22 Khz. I was happy with that but compared to your driver it does not sound that good :/
I would love to add volume and resample control to my 4 channels drivers but i just can't do it with a major drop in the playback rate !

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:01 pm

mic_ wrote:I can't remember where I found them originally, but I've put them on my server if you want them: http://jiggawatt.org/muzak/mdx/

Thanks so much! I can play MDX in Winamp with in_mdx.dll + the X68000 driver files, but I'm pretty sure that's not nearly as good as Hoot. I wonder, is it possible to port the MDX's to Hoot?

TmEE co.(TM) · Post by **TmEE co.(TM)** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:29 pm

Stef wrote:3 channels with volume and resampling, all that on Z80 ?

Key: all samples are in single bank, thus no slow bank switching needed.

And your sound engine can do volume control with 2 channels at 30 Khz ?
Amazing !

2 levels for one PCM channel, 2 levels for other, and then 2 levels when both are mixed together.

I just rewrote my 4 channels playback drivers (i loose old sources) and i'm just able to play at 16 Khz. I still have some free time though, about 1/4 of Z80 time and the driver is correctly handling mix overflow.

How do you manage bank switching and buffering ? How scratchy is the sound you get ?

I'm also currently writing a 2 channels PCM driver. Samples are 4 bits PCM compressed and the playback rate is 22 Khz. I was happy with that but compared to your driver it does not sound that good :/
I would love to add volume and resample control to my 4 channels drivers but i just can't do it with a major drop in the playback rate !

Resampling is tough to do, depending on how you manage playback... my engine does not allow easy resampling. All the bank switches and buffering stuff just don't allow it...
For volumes, your friend is self modifying code

sheath · Post by **sheath** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:36 pm

I have a few questions about these MDX files. I am using mxv 2.00b.

Is the YM2151 inferior to the YM2612 (it sounds like it)? If so, is there some sort of marker for how much older the X68000's YM chip was to that of the Genesis, apart from the year of release I mean? In other words, is it one generation, a half generation or four generations older than the Genesis YM chip?

It seems obvious to me that the OKI MSM6258 is superior at sampled audio than the Genesis DAC, is this correct? The fact that it is called an ADPCM chip seems to indicate this also.

Is there a better way to convert MDK files to Wav or MP3 than mxwav? I don't want to have to convert these things one file at at time, and the audio depth seems to change when I do.

SmartOne · Post by **SmartOne** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:49 pm

I'm not sure what mxv v2.00b is, but the best player I know (besides Hoot) for X68000 MDX rips is the Winamp/XMPlay plugin: http://support.xmplay.com/file_comment.php?id=23 (This is a newer version with more features than what I have/had!)

The EXE:

"...places mxdrv and x68sound in the plugins dir but you have to move them back to xmplay dir where they should be"

Apparently.

You can then use Winamp/XMPlay's Diskwrite feature to create WAVs! Make sure you enable 44.1 KHz and disable "AGC" in the plugin's preferences. Otherwise it sounds scratchy.

Shiru · Post by **Shiru** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:50 pm

sheath wrote:Is the YM2151 inferior to the YM2612 (it sounds like it)?

Not, and even vice versa. However, it's said that YM2151 is first Yamaha's single chip synth. It has 8 channels and additional noise generator. YM2612 is from same family, software compatible, but has less channels and different additional features (no noise generator, but DAC mode).

sheath wrote:It seems obvious to me that the OKI MSM6258 is superior at sampled audio than the Genesis DAC, is this correct?

Of course, because it's a dedicated chip.

tomaitheous · Post by **tomaitheous** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:57 pm

The 2151 has additional waveforms other than sine, as well. I don't remember if it was a modification of the sine table or if it was a entirely different set of waveform tables.

sheath: (http://www.gamepilgrimage.com) <- that's not your website, is it? <_<

more like the bastard child of a Z80 and a 6502

Looks like a cross between a R65C02 and a 6809.