lynx_snd experimental stuff

[+karri]

Hi, I glanced through a few different sound packages and Handy Music and Chipper are both very cool. Handy Music is much larger than Chipper and it has support for sfx sounds and priorities for channels. So you can interrupt the music with game sounds without messing up the system.

 

Chipper on the other hand is small and uses timer 7 as a sound interruptor at 240Hz. I was a bit sceptic about how much CPU power it uses. So I added Sage's popcorn tune to pong. If any of you have a Lynx nearby so please tell how well it plays on the real hardware.

 

The sound support is checked in to the svn but the syntax will change a bit still.

 

 

The psychedelic light show flickers with the music on purpose.

pong.zip

Edited December 12, 2012 by karri

[vince]

The sound is pretty good, but graphics are blinking.

 

I joined a record from a real lynx. (Error You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file )

 

http://devlynx.ti-fr.com/AtariAge/pong(modified%20by%20karri).wma

Edited December 12, 2012 by vince

[GadgetUK]

Fantastic, I will check this out later!

[+karri]

The sound is pretty good, but graphics are blinking.

 

I joined a record from a real lynx. (Error You aren't permitted to upload this kind of file )

 

http://devlynx.ti-fr...d by karri).wma

 

Thanks.

 

The purpose of the blinking was to see if there is any CPU time left. The steady part of the screen (the top part without stripes) is the time it takes to draw the next screen. Blinking starts when the system is idle. So it appears that the CPU could still handle an application that is 3 times more complex than pong. This demo has collision buffer activated for the whole screen, 4-channel sound updated at 240Hz and the framerate is 75 Hz.

 

The Lynx is really an amazing design. Many modern CPU's/OS combinations have much worse user response times.

[GadgetUK]

I have to say this is quite amazing! You really should consider adding a few different modes and AI difficulty settings or something to this and actually sticking it on a cart. Sages music goes really well with this, it sounds flawless, looks flawless and the coloured raster lines give it a totally awesome retro feel (think C64 and spectrum loading lines ). I've not looked at the code yet but i've got to take my hat off to you - I am putting this on EPROM now to play on my Lynx

[GadgetUK]

Runs perfectly on real hardware. One thing ive noticed related to Handy is that sound only starts in Handy after like 3 or 4 seconds - i've noticed the same thing in the game ive been writting, yet on the actual hardware it starts instantly.

[+karri]

You really should consider adding a few different modes and AI difficulty settings or something to this and actually sticking it on a cart.

 

Lol. Feel free to make a pong game out of this. My dreams for a new Lynx game are going in a slightly different direction. As a matter of fact it is starting to take shape. I have even teamed up with another AtariAge lurker and started development...

[GadgetUK]

Excellent!!!!! Yet another possible game in the works!

[+karri]

The Lynx sound driver has a few C-commands now.

 

typedef struct {
   unsigned char *chan0;
   unsigned char *chan1;
   unsigned char *chan2;
   unsigned char *chan3;
} song_t;

extern song_t popcorn;


 lynx_snd_init();


 lynx_snd_pause();
 lynx_snd_play(0, popcorn.chan0);
 lynx_snd_play(1, popcorn.chan1);
 lynx_snd_play(2, popcorn.chan2);
 lynx_snd_play(3, popcorn.chan3);
 lynx_snd_continue();

 

The lynx_snd driver does not currently have any priorities so you probably need a channel for sound effects also.