Xenon 2 Megablast with Mega Music :-)

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I made game mod where plays music from mass storage in intro, and during game play too - then plays another audio track. This has some benefits: no additional RAM needed, so works on STEs with 1MB only too.
Audio tracks can be very long - up to size of partition on disk, SD card. What means over 2 hours . 3MB per minute.
And user can use own audio files instead supplied ones - so any music or whatever. Idea came when I saw how much remixes of Megablast music exist (and can DL) . I used 2 ones, what liked most, but tastes are different, as we know. Format must be: 25033 Hz sample rate, stereo, 8-bit signed, RAW (no header). Easy to convert into such with freeware Audacity. Len between 100KB (2 secs, not recommended ) and 510 MB.
Test version with basic ACSI disc access, so max 1GB - if your SD card or disk is bigger, still may use on first 2 partitions. http://atari.8bitchip.info/XENON2A.ZIP 24 MB .

Youtube record:

IDE version soon - so Falcons, STEs with IDE adapter too ...

[GadgetUK]

Great! Assumed this is STe only - using DMA audio?

[fedepede04]

awesome

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Yes, DMA audio is a must for. Should work on TTs with UltraSatan or similar (ACSI port) too .Please test.

[piter]

wow!!! awesome ! I try on TT later..

[Zogging Hell]

Cool, I've always actually preferred the Atari version of Xenon II as the Amiga's sample background track always got a bit tiresome (repetitive), and the sound effects were quite lack lustre compared to the STs. The background music here is much better though and the sound effects are still the originals so this is quality!

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I did IDE and ICD versions too, so may run on Falcons, from Flash cards over 1GB, any partition. TT with UltraSatan for instance too. Minimum is STE with some mass storage.

Downloads here:
http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/xen2s.html

[tresas]

Wow!!! Excellent work!!!

I could never believe that I will see something like this in this life.

Is this possible to happen in games like Shadow of the Beast and Blood Money?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Well, yes, this is certainly possible with other games too. I had that in mind when started to work on . But it needs some time, probably couple days of work (in full time) to mod game properly. And in some may appear serious timing problems, especially if use Timer-B .

Another big problem, and it took me some extra time is that PSG and DMA audio levels are unbalanced - PSG is much louder. There should be microwire mixer setting for it - to lower PSG volume, but it works not. As I see by schematic, there is HW bug. So, only way to make it well is to lower PSG sound level in code - but that's another headache, and is not always possible.

 

Currently thinking about Giana Sisters - there is Zamuel_a STE, scrolling version with DMA audio effects - this means one problem less - no need to bother with volume balance, but will be some others, for sure .

[dougal22]

These are the music tracks of the Commodore Amiga CDTV version

[calimero]

On 6/8/2020 at 6:12 PM, dougal22 said:

These are the music tracks of the Commodore Amiga CDTV version

I just stumble on eab thread about Amiga CDTV - somebody ask if there is any quality software...

 

E.g. Xenon 2 on Amiga CDTV use this “trick” to play soundtrack from CD

 

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1486660&postcount=30

[ParanoidLittleMan]

9 hours ago, calimero said:

I just stumble on eab thread about Amiga CDTV - somebody ask if there is any quality software...

 

E.g. Xenon 2 on Amiga CDTV use this “trick” to play soundtrack from CD

 

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1486660&postcount=30

Typical Amiga "ah, we are so much better" talk - "technically its poor as its mostly an ST port " . Nonsense - you can port SW made for "technically inferior" HW, but then - you do it for better HW, so it can be better game - it's all matter of effort and knowledge.

 

Playing background music from CD(TV) is not same as playing it from hard disk. In case of CD player all what SW needs to do is starting proper track in certain  moment. And  stopping it if playing is aborted, game over ...

Background music play from mass storage must do it all time during game play, with CPU code, which must load shorter segments of digital audio. To avoid need for MBs of RAM.

If it is 50 KB/sec data rate (like in this case) it can be loaded during Vblank, in 1 KB long segments - that will be fine for PAL and NTSC.

Luckily DMA audio playback with STE does not load CPU or RAM additionally, so all load is that 1 KB data load from disk. What normally takes about 1-2 mS with Flash card based storage (seek time included) . It may cause smaller game play slowdown (in some situations), of some 5-10%, what is not bad, or even may help to pass some parts easier ?