tep392 Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 This may belong in the 7800 Hacks forum, but I thought it deserved a little more visibility, so I'm posting it here. I've always been impressed with Bob's work on Pac-man Collection, with it's excellent game play, but I've haven't been quite satisfied with the sound. I think Bob got everything he could out of the TIA chip, but I kept thinking it could sound better if it used POKEY. So I decided it would be a fun little project to change the sound to work with the POKEY chip. This is the result. I'm still tinkering with it a little but I'm pretty satisfied with it. I copied the Ms. Pac-man sounds note for note from the 8-bit computer version. The Pac-man sounds are also based on the 8-bit version but I made improvements were I could. Most of the change was to the Introduction and intermission tunes. The music still doesn't have that sound of the arcade machines, which used wavetable sound synthesis, but I think it's pretty good. I might work on it a little more in the future, but for now, I'll use my little free time to just play it. Bob has actually been helping me out by providing feedback and play testing. Thanks Bob! I've tested this with the ProSystem Emulator as well as in hardware with a modified Ballblazer cart. Unfortunately, my Ballblazer cart is acting flaky so I've only been able to do limited hardware testing. Hopefully any you with CC2's or other POKEY carts can test it out for me and let me know if you find any bugs. I also welcome any feedback that would help me improve the authenticity of the sounds. Regards, Perry paccol_pokey.zip 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
128bytes Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 This may belong in the 7800 Hacks forum, but I thought it deserved a little more visibility, so I'm posting it here. I've always been impressed with Bob's work on Pac-man Collection, with it's excellent game play, but I've haven't been quite satisfied with the sound. I think Bob got everything he could out of the TIA chip, but I kept thinking it could sound better if it used POKEY. So I decided it would be a fun little project to change the sound to work with the POKEY chip. This is the result. I'm still tinkering with it a little but I'm pretty satisfied with it. I copied the Ms. Pac-man sounds note for note from the 8-bit computer version. The Pac-man sounds are also based on the 8-bit version but I made improvements were I could. Most of the change was to the Introduction and intermission tunes. The music still doesn't have that sound of the arcade machines, which used wavetable sound synthesis, but I think it's pretty good. I might work on it a little more in the future, but for now, I'll use my little free time to just play it. Bob has actually been helping me out by providing feedback and play testing. Thanks Bob! I've tested this with the ProSystem Emulator as well as in hardware with a modified Ballblazer cart. Unfortunately, my Ballblazer cart is acting flaky so I've only been able to do limited hardware testing. Hopefully any you with CC2's or other POKEY carts can test it out for me and let me know if you find any bugs. I also welcome any feedback that would help me improve the authenticity of the sounds. Regards, Perry Wow! I'm loading this on my CC2 when I get some free cycles. What should I use for the CC2 settings file? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Very Cool!! It sounds great. (Wanna do this for Donkey Kong too? hint.. hint..) One bug though, in ProSystem 1.3 or PSP7800 1.4 - the game will only run if you disable the 7800 BIOS. With it enabled, you just get a blank screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 This may belong in the 7800 Hacks forum, but I thought it deserved a little more visibility, so I'm posting it here. I've always been impressed with Bob's work on Pac-man Collection, with it's excellent game play, but I've haven't been quite satisfied with the sound. I think Bob got everything he could out of the TIA chip, but I kept thinking it could sound better if it used POKEY. So I decided it would be a fun little project to change the sound to work with the POKEY chip. This is the result. I'm still tinkering with it a little but I'm pretty satisfied with it. I copied the Ms. Pac-man sounds note for note from the 8-bit computer version. The Pac-man sounds are also based on the 8-bit version but I made improvements were I could. Most of the change was to the Introduction and intermission tunes. The music still doesn't have that sound of the arcade machines, which used wavetable sound synthesis, but I think it's pretty good. I might work on it a little more in the future, but for now, I'll use my little free time to just play it. Bob has actually been helping me out by providing feedback and play testing. Thanks Bob! I've tested this with the ProSystem Emulator as well as in hardware with a modified Ballblazer cart. Unfortunately, my Ballblazer cart is acting flaky so I've only been able to do limited hardware testing. Hopefully any you with CC2's or other POKEY carts can test it out for me and let me know if you find any bugs. I also welcome any feedback that would help me improve the authenticity of the sounds. Regards, Perry Wow! I'm loading this on my CC2 when I get some free cycles. What should I use for the CC2 settings file? I don't have a CC2, but my guess is you would use the same settings as Ballblazer. It is a 32k rom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 Very Cool!! It sounds great. (Wanna do this for Donkey Kong too? hint.. hint..) One bug though, in ProSystem 1.3 or PSP7800 1.4 - the game will only run if you disable the 7800 BIOS. With it enabled, you just get a blank screen. That's interesting. I've never tried it with the BIOS enabled. Just ran it with ProSystem defaults. This is my first attemp at 7800 programming so I don't know much about the BIOS and emulators. I'm open to suggestions if anyone can point me in the right direction. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Hopefully Groovybee will have a suggestion. He's been working on Prosystem a lot as of late. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 I figured out what I did. This one should work with the BIOS. I made a last minute change and wasn't able to check in hardware because of flaky Ballblazer cart. Let me know if there are any problems. paccol_pokey.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 I figured out what I did. This one should work with the BIOS. I made a last minute change and wasn't able to check in hardware because of flaky Ballblazer cart. Let me know if there are any problems. Bingo! fixed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 It probably just needs the encryption to be resigned. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 I guess this is NTSC, would it be possibe to do a pal version? Great work btw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Hi Guys: Perry did a *great* job on this, and I just wanted to add things that are additional in this version of the game: 1) Added 11 more mazes (for the Random Maze variations), based on the NES Tengen Ms. Pac-Man mazes. There are now 32 total mazes to choose from. 2) Improved Pac-Man shape, and some overall colors 3) More arcade-accurate Monster AI (the 'hiding spot' works! - although you have to be careful with Clyde, but once you get him in his 'zone' you can stay there!) 4) Used 'tiles' instead of sprite positioning (to be more like the arcade) - this means you have a small chance of passing 'through' the monster unharmed - just like the arcade 5) HSC uses the 'Pac-Man Collection' logo instead of just all text. Enjoy! Bob 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 So When can we get this version on Cart? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 Hi Guys: Perry did a *great* job on this, and I just wanted to add things that are additional in this version of the game: 1) Added 11 more mazes (for the Random Maze variations), based on the NES Tengen Ms. Pac-Man mazes. There are now 32 total mazes to choose from. 2) Improved Pac-Man shape, and some overall colors 3) More arcade-accurate Monster AI (the 'hiding spot' works! - although you have to be careful with Clyde, but once you get him in his 'zone' you can stay there!) 4) Used 'tiles' instead of sprite positioning (to be more like the arcade) - this means you have a small chance of passing 'through' the monster unharmed - just like the arcade 5) HSC uses the 'Pac-Man Collection' logo instead of just all text. Enjoy! Bob Thanks for the compliment Bob. I do remember running through a monster once and thinking "Wow! Just like the arcade!". Didn't realize it was a new feature. Very cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bakasama Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 I have a suggestion. Can you put that bump sound when the ghost monsters bump into each other in the first intermission of Ms. Pac-man? So when are Super Pac-man and Jr. Pac-Man are going to pokey sound? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 I have a suggestion. Can you put that bump sound when the ghost monsters bump into each other in the first intermission of Ms. Pac-man? So when are Super Pac-man and Jr. Pac-Man are going to pokey sound? Great idea for the bump sound. Should be able to insert it fairly easily if I can figure out how to replicate the sound. Don't know about the other Pac-man's. Maybe some day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Very nice. I know it was asked already, but when do we get the Special Edition POKEY Cart? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corby Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 my wallet is open if and when this goes on a cart! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lendorien Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Pretty darn cool if you ask me! Maybe if Curt actually does the potential expansion module for the 7800, this would be a great game to use the pokey support that he's got planned. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HammR25 Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 CC2 setting is: 78HSCPOK HSC The sound on this one is much better. Great work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 (edited) If I ship a donor BallBlazer to someone with an eprom burner here, can I get hooked up with this on cart? Jaybird? Edited May 4, 2010 by Underball 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 If I ship a donor BallBlazer to someone with an eprom burner here, can I get hooked up with this on cart? Jaybird? I've got plenty of Ballblazer cartridges on hand, and I can certainly put this on one of my cartridges or on a cartridge someone sends to me, but I don't want to hurt anyone's sales in the process. PacManPlus/tep392, do you have any plans to do an "official" release of this version of the Pac-Man Collection on cartridge? If either of you are thinking about it and are looking for Ballblazer donors, let me know and I'd be happy to supply you with some (or even to help with manufacturing the cartridges, if needed). If not, I'd be happy to make individual cartridges for anyone who's interested as long as the two of you are okay with this idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PacManPlus Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 I hadn't thought about it actually. Perry, how do you want to handle this? I have a handful of Pokey carts (already with the ROM desoldered). Jaybird - how many Pokey carts do you have? Thanks, Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted May 4, 2010 Author Share Posted May 4, 2010 If I ship a donor BallBlazer to someone with an eprom burner here, can I get hooked up with this on cart? Jaybird? I've got plenty of Ballblazer cartridges on hand, and I can certainly put this on one of my cartridges or on a cartridge someone sends to me, but I don't want to hurt anyone's sales in the process. PacManPlus/tep392, do you have any plans to do an "official" release of this version of the Pac-Man Collection on cartridge? If either of you are thinking about it and are looking for Ballblazer donors, let me know and I'd be happy to supply you with some (or even to help with manufacturing the cartridges, if needed). If not, I'd be happy to make individual cartridges for anyone who's interested as long as the two of you are okay with this idea. I hadn't planned on producing them for sale. I still consider it to be Bob's program so I would say it's his call. It does seem that Atariage could lose some sales of the original cart though, so maybe some kind of arrangement were the buyer of the cart donates a small ammount to support this site, unless they have already bought the original. Or maybe it could be sold through the store as a new version. Just some thoughts. Also, if you have a spare cart, I would like to buy one. Seems the pokey chip on mine has bit the dust. Perry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 I think it would be great to offer these in the AtariAge Store as an enhanced version of the game. We can update the label and manual appropriately. The main downside is it's more time consuming to produce the cartridges since you have to modify existing circuit boards. I'd be glad to help orchestrate everything to help get this in everyone's hands.. ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Underball Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 (edited) I don't mind paying, but I do already own the original Pac-Man Collection cart. Maybe some kind of trade in policy for those who already bought the original could be drawn up? Edited May 4, 2010 by Underball Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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