Super Street Fighter 2 - new Z80 driver

Following what have been done with Street Fighter 2' (see here) i decided to have a look in Super Street Fighter 2 game. As they both suffer from terrible voices sound i suspected they used the same Z80 sound driver and indeed they are almost identical (not 100% but *very* close). So i just patched SSF2 the same way i did for SF2 :)

Here are the original samples for those interested :
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...sf2/sample.wav

It's crazy to see they spent 700 KB just for PCM (3 times the amount used in SF2'), a big part is wasted in the stupid echo effect on dying :p
Also this time they heavily filtered samples, it sounds less scratchy but also a lot more muffled and similar to how it sounds on the SNES version i guess.

Something that surprised me is that they wasted lot of ROM space in storing data (GFX) in inefficient ways, with more compression they could definitely achieve to get the game fitting in 4 MB... also they used to fill unused areas by some "fake" data (repeated patterns + some random data) so you may think the rom does not contains any free parts even if it actually does ;) I have no idea why they did that but that make things more complicated for me to relocate the driver...

Anyway here is the rom, i have to admit i quickly patched it (removing useless bus req mainly and driver change of course) so i hope it's ok (tested it half a hour on real hardware) :
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...2/SSF2_mod.bin

Note the patched rom is based on the US version as the SF2' patch. Enjoy !

Ah if only the music was fixable too. The music is absolutely terrible.

Sound effects are way better.

I agree, while i was testing it i realized how much this version is a back step compared to SF2 CE on many parts :-/ Terrible music but even GFX are sometime really disappointing... it's depend from the level but some of them are awful. It looks like they needed more colors for character and so reserved less for background.

It's quite interesting, Capcom were easily in the top 5 game designers back then and yet they were total shit at programming.

I always thought this one was almost acceptable for Mono half hearted audio, the voices were less scratchy than SCE was, but man the colors in most levels are terrible.

Nice job, the SFX/voices are much better now.

Too bad the music is still mediocre... i don't care too much for the graphics, they are acceptable IMO, but the music... just listen to the x68k version.

Maybe you can look at Saturday Night Slam now, it probably has the same driver from SF2 or SSF2.

Yeah, the colors suck baaaaaaaaaaaaaadly in this one. But, man, the improvement on the voices is AWESOME! Thanks a lot, Stef!
The music is godawful as well. Only a Sega CD mode 1 hack + Pyron color hack can make this game really good IMO.

Looking forward to Saturday Night Slam Masters! :p
At the very least, the music on that one has a lot of PCM drums and it's not as bad as in this one. And the colors aren't abysmal either.

Appeared almost two feelings together ....

Happiness to see that Stef followed our request on this game ...

Sadness after seeing the work of capcom is so bad that even with the new driver i had to play like this..
https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2577/3...875_z.jpg?zz=1

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

It's quite interesting, Capcom were easily in the top 5 game designers back then and yet they were total shit at programming.

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Perhaps they were just shit at working with limitations. Can you think of an arcade game they made that came out poorly?

I mean, as much as we rag on the SNES' processor, there's still no reason for Super G'nG to chug like it does.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by midnightrider

Perhaps they were just shit at working with limitations. Can you think of an arcade game they made that came out poorly?

I mean, as much as we rag on the SNES' processor, there's still no reason for Super G'nG to chug like it does.

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Still, most capcom SNES ports were great, the exception being the shitty Captain Commando port. (Final Fight is bad, but it' just a 8megabits early game)

They were pretty lazy with the genesis, at least they were much better with Saturn.

Capcom's 16 bit console games always stuck with me as beyond horribly programmed. Megaman X2 is one that particularly stands out to me. As much as I like the series, that game constantly slows down all over the damn place, and for seemingly no real reason. Capcom related Genesis games aren't any different, like Mercs (even though I don't think Capcom programmed that themselves) and Wily Wars, not only does that one slow down, but it's so buggy.

Furthermore, Capcom never could program good FM. Not a single game they made has any notably impressive FM, and not only that, even the sample quality of their CPS1 games sucked badly. What the hell is up with that?

:rock: AWESOME!!!!!!11onze
I always preferred Mega Drive version of Super Street Fighter II over the SNES version, even though the sound of it was a disappointment.
But now... i see a dream coming true!!!
Many thanks Stef ;)!!!


I wonder if it is possible to increase the volume of the instruments FM? Always noticed that the Voices Samples covers the music.

OK, so Stef made us all happy by fixing SSF2 voices, and Pyron seems to be going to hack the colors. Now, how hard is it to hack some good music into the game?. I have seen a lot of great Mega Drive fan covers of well known videogame music, so it seems there are some guys with the talent to do SSF2 music justice in the Mega Drive. But would it be posible to hack better music tracks into the game?
Darn, i hate to be such a greedy bastard, and having no talent at all to help on this stuff, hehe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LinkueiBR

I wonder if it is possible to increase the volume of the instruments FM? Always noticed that the Voices Samples covers the music.

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Yes and no: What we can do is to lower the volume of the voices/sfx which raises the volume of the music in the overall mix so the result is exactly what you're asking. :-)

I did the same with SF2CE and the effect is rather nice as the music is of much better quality than the scratchy voices.


@ everyone: the music sounds A LOT better on real hardware so stop complaining guys =P

I wouldn't say the music is horrible. It's just been sequenced with the bare minimum of effort and is just sort of there. At least it never really distracts you with how bad it is, which the pre-Super SF2 ports on SNES do with their horribly tuned instruments.

I imagine the sample rate for the sounds could potentially be almost doubled with proper optimization. I don't know why Capcom baked in those echo effects into the samples. As far as I'm aware, the Genesis is perfectly capable of playing samples at different amplitudes. If there only was some way of extracting and importing sounds on a file-per-file basis without settling for just a single wav "reel", I bet I could do a lot to improve the sound quality.