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Stefan Lindberg
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vgm vs kss
Post Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2001 12:27 pm
Isn't the kss a better music format for sms and gg music?
The only good thing with vgm music format is that everybody can do it with use of an emulator while playing the game.
The kss format do need that you know how to hack the games, and it also has support for ym2413 wich vgm don't have (at the moment).
 
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Post Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2001 5:04 pm
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> Isn't the kss a better music format for sms and gg music?

It's a more "precise" format, in that it will output exactly the same as the game does, and probably in a more concise format. It can also allow you to play "hidden" tracks, and to get music without SFX. The down sides are:

- Only very advanced Z80 coders can make the files
- It depends on the game having a clearly separated sound engine and sound engine data block
- The player has to emulate the CPU as well as the PSG (and FM chip), and other stuff too

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> The only good thing with vgm music format is that everybody can do it with use of an emulator while playing the game.

Yes, and really that is its best attribute - anyone can make the files, a novice can make good ones (important factor!), and so it should get a lot of files made. On my brief looks at KSS sites I saw very few actual KSS files.

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> The kss format do need that you know how to hack the games, and it also has support for ym2413 wich vgm don't have (at the moment).

Well, VGM supports it (and other chips too), it's just that players don't. I'm working on it... if I could program in C it would probably be easier, my EMU2413 conversion currently just crashes horribly.

VGM also has the capability to store music for more than one system - Coleco, GG, SG, SC, SMS all use the PSG; Mega Drive is supported (it uses PSG and YM2612) in the format, as are other systems (YM2151), and the format can easily be extended for most other chips.

Maxim
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Stefan Lindberg
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Post Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2001 6:36 pm


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> VGM also has the capability to store music for more than one system - Coleco, GG, SG, SC, SMS all use the PSG; Mega Drive is supported (it uses PSG and YM2612) in the format, as are other systems (YM2151), and the format can easily be extended for most other chips.


That reminds me of another question i have about master system, is the sms soundchip really compatible with ym2149(atariST).
What i remember from the Stsound docs was sms mentioned having a YM compatible soundchip, YM is the logged format Stsound uses.

so sms (sn..something) and atariST (ym2149) and amstrad (ay-3-8910) is the same soundchip or compatible with each other?
What are their differences?
 
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Sound chips (getting a bit technical for this forum)
Post Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2001 8:38 pm
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> That reminds me of another question i have about master system, is the sms soundchip really compatible with ym2149(atariST).
> What i remember from the Stsound docs was sms mentioned having a YM compatible soundchip, YM is the logged format Stsound uses.

YM is the prefix given to loads of Yamaha FM chips (YMxxxx), so it's not such a good extension for its format. One chip may or may not be able to do the same as another. For example, the FM standard for PC soound cards (OPL3 aka YM3812) is a superset of the YM2413 functions, so an emulator can translate YM2413 commands and play them through the YM3812 chipset; but you can't do that at all for the Mega Drive's YM2612.

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> so sms (sn..something) and atariST (ym2149) and amstrad (ay-3-8910) is the same soundchip or compatible with each other?

> What are their differences?

All 3 produce 3 channels of square waves and one noise channel. The YM2149 has extra stuff (programmable volume envelope, D/A (sample) mode) and acts as an an I/O controller, but it is programmed very differently to the SN76489. The AY-3-891x is very similar to the YM2149 and the site I'm looking at says the SMS's PSG is a derivative of it.

So... they're pretty similar, but not the same chip. The SN76489 is definitely the simplest of the three, but none of them are "compatible" with each other.

Maxim
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Stefan Lindberg
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Yet another soundchip question
Post Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2001 4:22 pm
Why is only ym2149, sn76489 and ay-3-891x called PSG?
Aren't all soundchips "Programmable Sound Generators".
 
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Re: Yet another soundchip question
Post Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2001 10:00 pm
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> Why is only ym2149, sn76489 and ay-3-891x called PSG?
> Aren't all soundchips "Programmable Sound Generators".

Yup. Well, some of them are less "sound generators" as "sound players", like the SNES chip which depends on samples to define the waveform (I think), and I think the SID is like that too. You could argue that even a DAC, which converts binary waveform data to an analogue wave, is being programmed with data and generating sound.

I think it's just a term which has stuck to these chips because of their similarity and simplicity of operation (they're about as basic as you can get).

Maxim
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