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new samples, a new tune,


SpiceWare

949 views

and a bug fix too!

  • new samples from iesposta for Blast Off and Battlestations
  • new start of game tune from iesposta
  • fixed a bug where you could destroy a station by hitting a closed station core.
  • revised the SECTOR # display logic


The bug with destroying the station was caused because the hit energy core test was always being run. As such, if you hit the red pixels in this image the station would be destroyed. The test now only runs if the core is open.
blogentry-3056-0-29843700-1500248508.png

 

Last time, as mentioned in the comments, I didn't like how the SECTOR # was hiding the radar during the ship's ramp-up, so I was planning to do this for the SECTOR # logic:

  • show SECTOR #
  • play opening tune
  • show Score/Radar/Lives
  • play Blast Off sample
  • ship starts to move


Turns out the opening tune is only played when you start a new game. So I ended up going with this:

  • show SECTOR #
  • if appropriate, play New Game tune
  • play Blast Off sample
  • show Score/Radar/Lives
  • ship starts to move


For Harmony or Stella (requires Stella 5.0.0 or newer)
draconian_20170716.bin

Please reference Rules of the Game for what's been implemented and what's to come.

  • Like 1

5 Comments


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Surprisingly enough, the new samples:

  • Battlestations - 990 bytes (the packed data)
  • Blast Off - 1243 bytes
used less space overall (2233) than the placeholder samples (2405):
  • Battlestations - 1335 bytes
  • Blast Off - 1070 bytes
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What are the sample rates/bit depth targets you're aiming for? Wondering if some of my audio engineer cohorts at work might have some nifty method of downsampling.

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4 bits per sample. The CDF playback rates that iesposta is currently using for those two samples are:

  • Battlestations - 95000
  • Blast Off - 110000

Though I don't know what those would be when translated to Hz.

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Nathan: Both are less than 4000Hz.

I always used 4000Hz as a minimum, but wanted to try less.

"Blast off" at 4000Hz (packed) was around 1832 bytes.

This new sample is 1243 bytes. That 600 bytes smaller. What I did was decrease the duration, which increased the frequency (sounds like chipmunk).

 

Things really start to artifact when going lower, except if the sample is very low like "battle stations". Then it can take a very low rate and still sound good.

It's the mid-range and highs that start to artifact when the playback rate drops very low.

What I intended to do was to make the arcade sample play back a little faster but sound the same. I haven't had success doing that. The shorter I make the sample, the more "chipmunk" it sounds.

 

I was surprised that the playback through emulation sounds noticeably poor, but on real hardware during game play it sounds awesome.

 

I watched a video of the Atari 8-Bit Bosconian, and this 2600 version is already better IMHO.

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