JazGaming Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 I'm very new to the inner workings of old hardware, but I at least understand that the 16-bit era used sound channels. The SNES had 8 sampling sound channels for example. Of course nowadays we think of sound much differently in hardware but where is the Jaguar on this? I don't think it uses sound channels but I'm not sure. And if not how DOES it work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrTypo Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 Indeed, the Jaguar does not have sound channels. It just has 2 DACs (left and right). There is no DMA either. You must program the DSP to fetch the samples, mix them and send them to the DACs. You can also do software synthesis with the DSP. Basically, everything is done in software. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JazGaming Posted May 24, 2021 Author Share Posted May 24, 2021 7 hours ago, DrTypo said: Indeed, the Jaguar does not have sound channels. It just has 2 DACs (left and right). There is no DMA either. You must program the DSP to fetch the samples, mix them and send them to the DACs. You can also do software synthesis with the DSP. Basically, everything is done in software. Wow I've been reading about how all these things work together, it's very fascinating. Learning to code is only the surface of how computers work so I appreciate you giving me these basic things to go down this rabbit hole of knowledge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
agradeneu Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 (edited) 14 hours ago, JazGaming said: I'm very new to the inner workings of old hardware, but I at least understand that the 16-bit era used sound channels. The SNES had 8 sampling sound channels for example. Of course nowadays we think of sound much differently in hardware but where is the Jaguar on this? I don't think it uses sound channels but I'm not sure. And if not how DOES it work? I heard you can have 12 up to sound channels on the Jag ?! Edited May 24, 2021 by agradeneu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+cubanismo Posted May 24, 2021 Share Posted May 24, 2021 20 hours ago, DrTypo said: There is no DMA either. Sort of. The DSP can master the memory bus and can be set to interrupt based on the sampling rate, so in a way, you can think of it as a bad-ass, ultra-programmable DMA controller ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zerosquare Posted May 25, 2021 Share Posted May 25, 2021 That's the optimistic view. The pessimistic view is "what a bunch of cheapstakes - even the Atari STE had audio DMA". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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