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Another Galaga thread


discotronic

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I've tried out the demos you sent over Playsoft, and I can't help but notice how harsh my music sounds on them. Is that because of the compression or is it something that I could fix? Because I'm not sure why they sound like that. Synth's version sounds perfectly fine. However, there are definitely some notes near the end that need fixed and I'm not the biggest fan of the waveforms used.

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27 minutes ago, Jaden (JRH) said:

I've tried out the demos you sent over Playsoft, and I can't help but notice how harsh my music sounds on them. Is that because of the compression or is it something that I could fix? Because I'm not sure why they sound like that. Synth's version sounds perfectly fine. However, there are definitely some notes near the end that need fixed and I'm not the biggest fan of the waveforms used.

Haha I thought you intended that distortion! If you play your file in RMT there's no distortion but if you export it as an Atari executable you get the distortion (you can try it, just select "file -> export as" and choose XEX).

 

I think the distortion is caused by having the volume too high in the instrument envelope. I changed it from FEDC to 7654, exported it to a XEX and it sounded fine.

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To convert from RMT to SAP-R I export the RMT to a XEX and then record the SAP-R in Altirra. When doing this it makes a difference whether Altirra is configured for PAL or NTSC; in PAL it records the audio registers 50 times a second but in NTSC it's 60 times resulting in a bigger file.

 

I did this for all of Jaden's RMT files, making PAL and NTSC versions of the SAP-R files and then compressing them with LZSS -8:

RMT FILES                               LZSS PAL FILES                  LZSS NTSC FILES
205 Galaga - Challenging Stage.rmt       96 challenging_pal.lzss        102 challenging_ntsc.lzss
144 Galaga - Extra Life.rmt              74 extra_life_pal.lzss          87 extra_life_ntsc.lzss
292 Galaga - High Score.rmt             291 high_score_pal.lzss         372 high_score_ntsc.lzss
147 Galaga - Insert Coin.rmt             37 insert_coin_pal.lzss         42 insert_coin_ntsc.lzss
670 Galaga - Perfect!.rmt               319 perfect_pal.lzss            570 perfect_ntsc.lzss
309 Galaga - Results.rmt                283 results_pal.lzss            356 results_ntsc.lzss
366 Galaga - Start.rmt                  598 start_pal.lzss              751 start_ntsc.lzss
2,133 bytes                             1,698 bytes                     2,280 bytes

I generated 2 versions of the build with the start tune - the 60 version uses the NTSC data, the 50 version uses the PAL data but skips the playback routine 1 frame in every 6 to correct the speed for NTSC.

 

The advantage of the 50 version is that the data is smaller but I think you can hear a slight difference between the two.

 

jaden_50.xex jaden_60.xex

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1 hour ago, playsoft said:

I generated 2 versions of the build with the start tune - the 60 version uses the NTSC data, the 50 version uses the PAL data but skips the playback routine 1 frame in every 6 to correct the speed for NTSC.

 

The advantage of the 50 version is that the data is smaller but I think you can hear a slight difference between the two.

Yes there seems to be a click... just curious, have you tried resending the last data to pokey instead of skipping playback altogether ? (I'm guessing it will sound worse but you never know)

 

I suppose lzs16 is out of question.... @dmsc once mentioned that if you have a lot of compressed tunes it might be possible to compress them together using a fixed dictionary if the instruments are similar.

 

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52 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Yes there seems to be a click... just curious, have you tried resending the last data to pokey instead of skipping playback altogether ? (I'm guessing it will sound worse but you never know)

 

I suppose lzs16 is out of question.... @dmsc once mentioned that if you have a lot of compressed tunes it might be possible to compress them together using a fixed dictionary if the instruments are similar.

 

I've not tried resending the last data, will give it a go.

 

What was going to be my final experiment was to take the 60Hz SAP, remove half the samples for 30Hz playback and spread the decoding effort over 2 frames (half the channels on the odd frames, the rest on the even). The start tune LZSS went from 751 bytes to 461. I'm probably not the best to compare how they sound as my hearing hasn't improved with age...

 

Edit: both of these now repeat the last data when the registers aren't updated.

 

jaden_5200_30.bin jaden_5200_50.bin

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1 hour ago, playsoft said:

I've not tried resending the last data, will give it a go.

 

What was going to be my final experiment was to take the 60Hz SAP, remove half the samples for 30Hz playback and spread the decoding effort over 2 frames (half the channels on the odd frames, the rest on the even). The start tune LZSS went from 751 bytes to 461. I'm probably not the best to compare how they sound as my hearing hasn't improved with age...

 

Edit: both of these now repeat the last data when the registers aren't updated.

 

jaden_5200_30.bin 32 kB · 0 downloads jaden_5200_50.bin 32 kB · 0 downloads

So the main glitch I'm hearing is 2-3sec in. After listening to the 60 version, it seems that the glitch is also there but not as loud (although it can be sometimes). Maybe that's something that can be fixed in the tune ?

 

It seems that the same executable (no matter which) can sound slightly differently every time you start it.  So the glitch will be louder from time to time.

I have very little knowledge of Pokey but maybe it's due to the chip itself ? I recently tried messing with SFX in RMT. I had a very short tune which just played the same SFX over and over again and it would sound different from time to time.

 

I can't say resending the same data makes a difference ?

 

I'm not sure 30 sounds very different from 60... so this could be pretty good news! Have you tried with the other tunes ?

Not sure if you modified the LZSS compressor to skip half the data but you could just call the RMT player twice per frame(so at 120hz) because Altirra only records the SAP data once per frame anyway

 

(I'm using headphones and I don't have super ears either...)

 

 

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2 hours ago, rensoup said:

So the main glitch I'm hearing is 2-3sec in. After listening to the 60 version, it seems that the glitch is also there but not as loud (although it can be sometimes). Maybe that's something that can be fixed in the tune ?

 

It seems that the same executable (no matter which) can sound slightly differently every time you start it.  So the glitch will be louder from time to time.

I have very little knowledge of Pokey but maybe it's due to the chip itself ? I recently tried messing with SFX in RMT. I had a very short tune which just played the same SFX over and over again and it would sound different from time to time.

 

I can't say resending the same data makes a difference ?

 

I'm not sure 30 sounds very different from 60... so this could be pretty good news! Have you tried with the other tunes ?

Not sure if you modified the LZSS compressor to skip half the data but you could just call the RMT player twice per frame(so at 120hz) because Altirra only records the SAP data once per frame anyway

 

(I'm using headphones and I don't have super ears either...)

 

 

I've not tried the other ones at 30Hz yet. I took the 60Hz SAP files and created new 30Hz ones from them by leaving out every other set of register values. They all sound much of a muchness to me and I didn't notice any difference resending the data again.

 

I don't think I hear that glitch but it might be more noticeable with headphones - I don't have any but I will connect my A8 up to my hifi tomorrow and see if I can hear anything.

 

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Tractor beam sound fx ...

 

Notes:  This is on third channel, #Cx, at 1.79 mhz.  I think it might be better done on a 16-bit channel 1, so we can have it on the same channel as those low frequency sweeps ... but it gives you an idea how close to the arcade this sounds!  :)

 

 

 

galaga-soundfx.asm galaga-soundfx.s galaga-soundfx.xex

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11 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said:

OK, this is all for tonight ...

 

To step thru fx, hit start.

 

Tractor beam 1, Tractor beam 2, Tractor beam 3, Insert coin fx

 

The last one isn't quite to the arcade specs yet tho ...

galaga-soundfx.asm 12.43 kB · 3 downloads galaga-soundfx.s 11.18 kB · 1 download galaga-soundfx.xex 1002 B · 5 downloads

They are really good. Obviously it might be quite a while before they are used, but I've pulled them into the player alongside the start tune. I'll keep it organised with anything you post.

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46 minutes ago, playsoft said:

They are really good. Obviously it might be quite a while before they are used, but I've pulled them into the player alongside the start tune. I'll keep it organised with anything you post.

 

Since you have the luxury of having 2 musicians, you could release 2 roms, each with its own set of tunes ?

 

(...if you resume work on it ?)

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I for one would love seeing Galaga on 5200 or 8-bit.  If 2600 can do it, why not us?

 

Thoughts on sound ... WSG by Namco has 3 sound channels.  I'd do this:

 

1 16 bit channel:  Alien death sounds.

 

8-bit channel ... ship firing, ship destroyed

8-bit channel ... aliens swooping, tractor beam sounds

 

$Cx in 16 bit will exactly nail some of those alien death sounds.  ?

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2 hours ago, rensoup said:

 

Since you have the luxury of having 2 musicians, you could release 2 roms, each with its own set of tunes ?

 

(...if you resume work on it ?)

Yes I've set the build up to generate two versions. I am working on something else at the minute, so will see if I get back to it after that.

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2 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said:

I for one would love seeing Galaga on 5200 or 8-bit.  If 2600 can do it, why not us?

 

Thoughts on sound ... WSG by Namco has 3 sound channels.  I'd do this:

 

1 16 bit channel:  Alien death sounds.

 

8-bit channel ... ship firing, ship destroyed

8-bit channel ... aliens swooping, tractor beam sounds

 

$Cx in 16 bit will exactly nail some of those alien death sounds.  ?

Look forward to hearing them!

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