Question about CD games

[Paolo]

Hi, all.

I'd like to ask this question to you techie guys, expecially to those working on CD stuff.

In the recent times I read a lot of discussions about putting music in the jag games, but all of them were about MODs and similar (even discussing CD based projects)

Isn't simpler to use the CDaudio capability like in WTR or OS:UL?

Wouldn't the processors be free for other things (assuming you can read one level at a time so CD is free for music)?

 

Thanks.

 

Paolo

[Starcat]

Hi !

 

MOD is probably prefered, because there are many free mods on the net, that people can put into their projects even if they can't do music themselves. CD Audio is harder to that degree that you of course need to create decent music for that.

 

However in my case, I would love to use CD Audio for music, however so far I can't because there is no suitable player.

 

Another reason for MOD might be that the sinister player supports it.

 

Regards, Lars.

[justclaws]

Hello,

 

I'd like to ask this question to you techie guys, expecially to those working on CD stuff.

A good place to ask a question like this for maximum exposure is the Yahoo Jaguar Home-Brew group. :-)

 

In the recent times I read a lot of discussions about putting music in the jag games, but all of them were about MODs and similar (even discussing CD based projects)

As Lars says, there are a number of MOD players available open-source for the Jaguar.

 

Isn't simpler to use the CDaudio capability like in WTR or OS:UL? Wouldn't the processors be free for other things (assuming you can read one level at a time so CD is free for music)?

It is not simpler, because to play CD audio, the DSP must be running a CD player piece of code, one was supplied by Atari, that's OK.

 

However, to mix the CD audio with sound effects, requires some new code, and to-date nobody has written that. (I'm working on it for Lars in theory, time is short.) So without this, you can have CD audio, or sound effects, or MOD music, but not them all at the same time.

 

Basically, to play CD audio, the DSP is just as busy as when it is playing normal sound effects. More in fact, in some ways. If you're playing audio at 44 Khz, then sound effects are mixed at (perhaps) 16 Khz, then of course the code has to continually mix these sound effects, with multiple channels. It's less complicated than a MOD player, really, but it's new ground. Discovered Atari libraries did not provide a solution for this.

 

Cheers,

JustClaws.

[Paolo]

Hello,

...

It is not simpler, because to play CD audio, the DSP must be running a CD player piece of code, one was supplied by Atari, that's OK.

 

However, to mix the CD audio with sound effects, requires some new code, and to-date nobody has written that. (I'm working on it for Lars in theory, time is short.) So without this, you can have CD audio, or sound effects, or MOD music, but not them all at the same time.

 

Go figure!

I thought that audio CD playing was just a matter of automatic hardware piping data to D-A converter...

 

And I can't believe that with all those CD games (all of them with music and effects) there isn't any documented code from Atari

 

I think that your mixer code would be EXTREMELY helpful in the development scenario. Please find the time. (to Lars: come on, stress this guy and make him write this piece of code )

 

And thanks for your replies.

 

PS about the Yahoo group: I am not incline to those kind of subscriptions, but I understand that it is easier to have yahoo manage it for you. I think I'll have a look...