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How did that exactly work with the SNES and SMD? Where they actually just made from tones in there sound chips or where they recorded, then compressed to the cart?
Also when it came to voices, why were most, if not all of them in English?
These are 2 of the best examples I could find for both systems.
(skip to 1:17)
They were definitely just prerecorded clips. Both systems are easily capable of playing PCM samples.
Both were recorded voices that were then converted to smaller file sizes by means of lowering the frequency of the audio. In the SNES' case the hardware supported compression types that made it easier for developers to use more digital samples without loading up the cartridge with uncompressed sample data. This is because everything you hear on the SNES is sample based, the music, sound effects, voices, everything is a sample.
The Genesis used the Master System's PSG and the YM2612 FM Synth chip to produce most music and sound effects. The DAC for the YM2612 was supposedly only designed to replace one of the FM channels, and early docs encouraged developers to halt all other sound while playing that sample (listen to Altered Beast, Golden Axe or Revenge of Shinobi). Somebody more technical can explain why this is, but I understand it as a timing issue, and it was challenging to say the least to play FM and DAC Samples at the same time without causing the tell-tale garbled sound that the Street Fighter games on Genesis made famous.
I think some MD games actually made use of the hardware speech synthesis support offered by the YM2612. (I think the Sports Talk games may have taken that route -it would certainly take FAR less space than using PCM samples)
As for compression, all games using SMPS support 4-bit DPCM playback and some other drivers may have supported other compressed formats. (several supported plain 4-bit PCM too -including GEMS . . . and, honestly, more games probably should have at least done that -6/8 kHz 4-bit PCM samples tend to sound better than 3/4 kHz 8-bit samples, so if you're limited to those sort of bitrates and only simple PCM formats, 4-bit PCM is a decent option -hell, Afterburner used only ~3 kHz samples AND only 4-bits . . . and even worse as it's crappy non-linear PSG 4-bit playback at that)
Interesting...
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/ar...nteresting.jpg
I'm pretty sure english is the second language in Japan.
That sounds really good but the rom sizes needed to do it is pretty hefty plus can you actually make sound that good in an actual game?Quote:
Originally Posted by Christuserloeser
Takes up the whole cart :p.Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Shocker
If you find more cart space, yes, but you won't have any sound effects.Quote:
Originally Posted by Da_Shocker
Sure you could have sound effects. FM and PSG sound effects, mind you. I never talked to Tiido about running my voice through the PSG. I wonder how that would sound.
On one of the Japanese Super Famicom Shooter, there was speech though out the game
The Z80 is 100% busy with the playback. You cold use the 68000 to do them I suppose.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Redifer
Well, you could still have that same quality in much more limited ROMs . . . just limit it to short clips. (after all, some of the highest quality PCM used on the MD was inQuote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
pretty small ROMs -Data East used 16 kHz 8-bit PCM in Atomic Runner and Vapor Trail -both 1MB- and Mega Turrican is also only 1 MB -and you can also have huge games with very crappy quality PCM, like both SFII games -low bitrate AND sloppy playback) 26 kHz 8-bit PCM is only 1.625 times the bitrate of those 16 kHz examples.
As for SFX . . . that would depend on the context (the context could be PCM speech/SFX being used at those qualities -26 kHz 8-bit), and you could either have contention for the single PCM channel, or software mix multiple channels. (Tiido's engine does 2 23 kHz PCM channels -plus all FM/PSG handling- via the Z80 alone)
No . . . the Z80 is not maxed out at all with 26 kHz PCM (tight coding could allow more than 44 kHz and still enough time to manage PSG/FM on top of that -and Tiido's 2-channel driver actually does more work than that since it's mixing 2 channels at slightly more than 1/2 that rate with the associated overhead of mixing -bank-switching, with buffering to minimize that overhead, plus adding -of course, the YM2612 limits the actual DAC output to around 26 kHz, so there's no point in going beyond that).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamahl
Using the 68k+Z80 can also cause more problems (due to contention over the Z80 bus -and the Z80 being halted during 68k accesses), though good coding could minimize those too.
However, some current drivers/demos do use 100% (or nearly) Z80 time for playback alone . . . but the better examples of those are also pushing hefty decompression. (like Chilly Willy's 22 kHz CVSD/TADPCM playback demo . . . or Stef's 4-channel 16 kHz 4-bit DPCM driver) And some more limited examples obviously do far less with full Z80 resource dedicated to PCM too. (the Vapor Trail driver dedicates the Z80 to PCM for 16 kHz . . . but that still looks great compared to some of the bad examples -like 68k+Z80 drivers pushing only 4 kHz -though many of those may be just ROM space limited- . . . and some doing 4 kHz as well as having horrible distortion/timing problems -as with Capcom's driver, albeit with 2 channels at least)
Also, the WAVPlay engine used in Joe's video is actually the 68k version (using the 68k to handle playback alone) . . . there is a Z80 version that works just as well, but Tiido lost it. (or couldn't dig one up at the time of the video and didn't want to code a new one)
Tiido's Z80 player actually got pushed beyond 44 kHz in testing iirc, but that testing is part of what established the 26 kHz effective limit of the DAC. (anything beyond that tends to be missed writes)
I'd love to work with Tiido again on some demonstrations we could show on Game Sack. I'd like to hear the PSG sample playback maxed out as well. I wonder if something could be written to do both YM2612 sample playback and PSG sample playback simultaneously.
I talked with him about that. There isn't much point to doing PCM on the PSG. You get better quality mixing channels to the DAC than using it + PCM emulated on the PSG.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Redifer
The big problem with PCM playback on the genesis has to do with the horrible banking mechanism available to the Z80. No matter how you try to play multiple PCM samples it's what'll bite you in the ass.
Oh, I misunderstood then. I though 26kHz was the limit of how much the Z80 could do, not a limit on the DAC.Quote:
Originally Posted by kool kitty89
The PCE can do better :p.