VST using Gens ym2612 emulation

[Shiru]

Effect E8x sets the panning for a channel. 1=left, 2=right, any other value=center. To be sure that you have all the channels centered at start of a song, use E80 on every channel in the very beginning of the song.

There is n digital samples support in TFM MM, and it is not easy to add them into VGM file. There are ways, but nothing ready-made.

[superjoebob]

Thanks again, it sounds like TFM MM is my best bet for the moment .

Out of curiosity, a document outlining the VGM file format doesn't exist, does it? I'd like to take a shot at writing a few tools.

[Shiru]

VGM Format Specification

[SmartOne]

Genesis Plus GX has the most accurate open source audio core (let alone everything else). Come on, people, stay up-to-date!

[TmEE co.(TM)]

Its Wii.... and I'd like to hear what my TMFplay ROMs sound like, so far only emulator that almost gets PCM right is Kega Fusion, with Regen following it...

[SmartOne]

The code is not Wii-specific, and there is an SDL port. Have you tried your ROMs with it?

[TmEE co.(TM)]

I've not looked very hard, but all I have ever found is the Wii stuff...

EDIT: found PC version, but it seems it needs something better than a Tualatin PIII I currently only have access to...

[Eke]

yeah, the SDL version is clearly unoptimized and much slower than the old version. I didn't really put any serious work in it, it's just there so I can debug stuff on PC more easily or for people who wants to test their program since genesis plus tries to emulate many (and sometimes useless) stuff like console locks, undocumented behavior, etc.

YM2612 core is basically the MAME one with some improvements based on Nemesis & others recent discoveries. It should be as accurate as Kega/Regen, but probably no more, no less.

The only TFM ROM I have to test is the one with Tails/Sonic in the background. It sounds fine as far as I remember. There is also a sample demo from you that sound ugly in all emulators because it makes use of the FM status bit which nobody emulates.

This is pretty much all demos I know of, are there others I should test ?

[TmEE co.(TM)]

I more meant that it needs better CPU as in SSE2 support... I got illegal instruction errors whenever I tried to load a ROM.

Here's a music ROM... its PCM will sound crap on most emulators :
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/21/ ... AY1234.BIN

[Eke]

I see, it must be the compilation flags, I will try to add a less restrictive one.

Thanks for the new ROM, it seems to sound fine as far as I can tell... is there a particular one I should test especially ?

PS: wow, some tracks are really crazy, you like drums, for sure

[TmEE co.(TM)]

Yep, I do like strong percussion ^^

It would be nice if you could make an output recording of "One Last Step".
Here's a HW recording of that one : http://8bc.org/music/TmEE/One+Last+Step/

[superjoebob]

I've been composing my music in TFM MM ( No drums ) and putting the VGM into a file that I play on the Genesis with a flash-able cartridge. Of course this leads to crackly output from the Genesis headphone jack, and sometimes the music feels like it's stuttering a bit.

This is an example of the best audio output I can manage from the Genesis right now. As you can hear, not very clear.

I'm at the point where I'd be willing to do absolutely anything to be able to compose for the Genesis/MegaDrive properly, any tips on how I can compose properly and get better sound output from my Genesis? I've pretty much stopped composing anything but Genesis tunes lately, and all I have to work with are half-baked VST's and soundfonts. I've been trying to create a proper VST (Obviously ) but I haven't been able to figure out how to get output from any 2612 emulation source, and beyond writing a VGM tracker there's not much else I can think of.

[Charles MacDonald]

I've been trying to create a proper VST (Obviously ) but I haven't been able to figure out how to get output from any 2612 emulation source, and beyond writing a VGM tracker there's not much else I can think of.

What problems are you having with the YM2612 emulation?

Would you need some kind of example to help getting started, such as a program that set up the emulation and wrote to a few registers, then logged the output to a WAV so you could see how to get things going?

Or is it the FM programming in general, like what values you have to write to which registers to get useful sounds?

VGM is more of a format for logged audio and less for say music playback in a Genesis game, but it's certainly possible to have a tracker that would write VGM output.

[Shiru]

I've been composing my music in TFM MM ( No drums :( ) and putting the VGM into a file that I play on the Genesis with a flash-able cartridge. Of course this leads to crackly output from the Genesis headphone jack, and sometimes the music feels like it's stuttering a bit.

Crackly output is probably because you use TL=0 for slots, you should use lower values, like 10, for max volume. Stuttering could be caused by VGM export bug, which corrupts the data sometimes, so you should check the VGM file with a plug-in/player to see if it sounds correctly.

[TmEE co.(TM)]

This is an example of the best audio output I can manage from the Genesis right now. As you can hear, not very clear.

I'm at the point where I'd be willing to do absolutely anything to be able to compose for the Genesis/MegaDrive properly, any tips on how I can compose properly and get better sound output from my Genesis?

That sounds horrible like a typical MD2 does. But I created a fix for it, though its on the complex side : http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3719
if you cannot build it yourself I can make one for you for 21EUR, and I can alos install it myself and do few other mods to the MD for a reasonable fee aswell... ^^

(I more asked for a recording from the Genesis Plus GX emulator though )