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Arcade Voices patches
Post Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 7:42 pm
Last edited by Maxim on Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:35 am; edited 3 times in total
I've made a a patch to Space Harrier to replace the voices with high-quality playback of the original arcade ROM data. This includes:

* Welcome to the Fantasy Zone (added at the start)
* Get Ready
* Aargh!

Download the patch at http://www.smspower.org/Hacks/SpaceHarrier-SMS-ArcadeVoices-Mod

This is using pcmenc at its maximum quality setting, with the original data from the arcade ROM as its input. The original data is only 8kHz, so don't expect too much! The quality is also impacted by the animations the game does.

Source is available at https://github.com/maxim-zhao/sms-hq-samples for the curious.

I'm curious to hear how well it performs on a real system...

Any suggestions on what game to do next? (One with an arcade original I can get the data from.)
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Post Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 10:05 pm
Hello Maxim, thanks for sharing.

I tried it patching 60hz version and I don't hear " Welcome to the Fantasy Zone (added at the start) " and don't notice any improve to samples "Get Ready" and "Aargh!"

Is it possible you upload incorrect patch???? Tried in Emulicious, Meka and Fusion emulators
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Post Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2018 10:52 pm
Yeah, my experience is the same as Abel.
I patched the rom marked as Space Harrier (JP and USA).
no difference in the samples i heard "get ready" and "argh", and no "welcome to the fantasy zone" either.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 3:19 am
Maxim wrote
Any suggestions on what game to do next? (One with an arcade original I can get the data from.)


I don't know if it's possible since the SMS version doesn't use voices, but how about Shinobi's "Welcome to Bonus Stage!" and the grunt that Musashi does when he takes a hit but doesn't die?
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:27 am
Whoops, I guess I had the before and after files mixed up :( I've remade it and it's a more healthy 44KB patch now (it adds 43.5KB of sample data).

It's hard to add voices without freezing the game and restarting the music. That's why I'm looking to replace existing voices...
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 5:46 am
How about Altered Beast?
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 6:49 am
It's a good candidate - I'll have a look. Wise fwom youw gwave!
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 7:06 am
Good idea, perfectly executed, thank you Maxim.
 
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 9:47 am
Now it works perfect ! Get Ready !

Candidates:

- Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars
- Altered Beast
- Shadow Dancer
- Space Harrier 3D

Thankyou ;)
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 10:03 am
I spent my morning commute trying to get the voice samples out of the arcade Altered Beast ROMs, but the format seems really strange. Sadly there's not much information online about it. Is there an "arcade perfect" version on some other system which might have the same, or better, data?
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 10:54 am
Try Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars!
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 11:27 am
Works perfectly now.
Amazing.

I'll try it on my real system tonight.


Another candidate would be Outrun.
There's the "Get ready" and "checkpoint" samples.
And if the arcade roms aren't good, the genesis version is pretty close.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 11:58 am
As discussed elsewhere recently, it may sound less good on newer model systems as the upper volume levels are not accurately reproduced. Meka emulates this limitation - I built a modified version with "model 1" levels because I found it made a big difference.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 1:07 pm
Altered Beast PC Engine CD version????

Candidates:

- Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars
- Altered Beast
- Gauntlet
- Impossible Mission ( MS voices in this game are very poor )
- Out Run ( I do not remember voices )
- Shadow Dancer
- Shinobi ( )
- Space Harrier 3D

Thankyou ;)
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 1:15 pm
I did make a mod to Impossible Mission to insert the C64 audio, but retained the playback engine. The original audio for many of these titles is actually pretty bad... but I'm hoping sometimes there's a CD quality original which was used for the later ports, instead of the low quality original. Space Harrier uses 8kHz 8-bit samples (except the scream which is 4kHz), Altered Beast seems to use 8kHz 4-bit samples - because of space constraints, as far as I can tell.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 2:48 pm
Hey, thanks for this!

I've always wondered if it would be possible to add a PSG rendition of the Hang On theme to SMS Hang On. But from what I've read it's not trivial at all.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 2:52 pm
I think it would be pretty easy actually, but you may need to remove the SFX.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2018 10:03 pm
So Altered Beast uses an ADPCM chip; I found some excessive 48kHz stereo emulator rips at https://www.sounds-resource.com/arcade/altbeastarcade/sound/1239/ which seem usable but I'd be happier to have a raw dump. The samples seem to be about 8kHz underneath. In theory the sample rate could be variable, though.
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Post Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2018 10:42 pm
Right, so the original Altered Beast has 16 samples and the Master System one only has four. Adding new samples is hard work - it was probably half the time I spent on Space Harrier, and that was to add one Can someone help me with where the samples are played, and how that compares to the SMS version? Which roars go with which creatures? Which samples should be dropped because they would pause the game too much? Who says "Never give up"? I guess adding "Rise from your grave" and "welcome to your doom" will be pretty important...
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Post Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2018 3:16 pm
Maxim wrote
Who says "Never give up"?


This occurs following a game over, when the player inserts another coin and presses start.
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Post Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2018 1:10 am
If you can download the wav pack I linked above and tell me where each sample is used (in as much detail as possible) that would really help me out. I've spent some time to process the samples and insert them into the ROM, next is the hard part of hacking them into the game safely. I'd foolishly assumed that in most cases I would not have extra samples to add...
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Post Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 2:43 am
Aaaaaaaaaaaa – unused? (Maybe it was meant to be Nef in human form when dying at the end of the game? But as it is he just silently falls)
Aaaaaargh – player dies
Growl 1 – unused?
Growl 2 – player transforms into bear, stage 3
Growl 3 – player transforms into tiger, stage 4
Growl 4 – player transforms into dragon, stage 2
Ha – unused?
Hahahahaha – Nef takes the power orbs from the beast after the boss is defeated
Huh,uh – unused? (Maybe it was meant to be Nef in human form when dying at the end of the game? But as it is he just silently falls)
Never Give Up – when the player inserts a coin to continue, happens when pressing start
Power Up – human grabs first two power up orbs
Rise from your grave – beginning of first level (this whole “wise fwom youw gwabe” shit is really exaggerated)
Uh – player takes damage but doesn't die
Welcome to your doom – Nef in human form prior to transforming to boss monster form
Wolf – player transforms into wolf, stage 1 and stage 5
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Post Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 4:57 am
Thanks! I guess the Master System version uses the same sample for each transformation, but I can add some logic based on the level. If I can drop the used ones it will make things rather easier - and I can probably get under 4Mb, saving some load time on Everdrive.
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Post Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 8:59 pm
I found this youtube video, maybe it can help you with more example games:



;)
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Post Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 3:23 am
I've already gone way further than that: http://www.smspower.org/forums/15940-GameSamplesExtractionMegaThread

I think my list is exhaustive, at least for Master System games.
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Post Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 9:39 pm
Last edited by Maxim on Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:36 am; edited 1 time in total
And it's done:

http://www.smspower.org/Hacks/AlteredBeast-SMS-ArcadeVoices-Mod

Please test and let me know if there are any issues - I had to hack in three samples which was quite tough, I had zero bytes left over in the low 32KB in the end. The places I hook to add samples may be triggered from elsewhere - if so, please tell me. I wasn't able to play through the whole game myself...
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Post Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 8:30 pm
Perfect Maxim.

It just worked fine in "Altered Beast (UEB) (Playpal Version).sms"

I think worst gameplay is pushing "1"+"2" for jumping or "UP"+"1"+"2" for high jumping, maybe can hack and adding megadrive pad and remap "1"+"2" to "C"

What's your next game audio hack?

Thankyou
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Post Posted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:09 pm
Not sure what's next, I've been a little diverted trying to make some videos of these two - it seems to help promote some interest - but really what I need is good data, a clear idea where the samples go, and a game that isn't too dreadful to play. Altered Beast was hard work by this measure. I might do Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars next as it's only a couple of samples.
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Post Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 5:55 am
About Altered Beast, voices seems too low compare to SFX & music.
 
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Post Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:00 am
Popoulous shold also be quite easy, as it's like 2 or 3 samples.
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Post Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:33 am
Revo wrote
About Altered Beast, voices seems too low compare to SFX & music.

They are already amplified, but I might try compressing them (dynamic range) to boost the loudness. The balance seems better in FM mode, but that may be Meka's mixing levels.

It's always a challenge because I can't easily make the music quieter to compensate - which is something Populous does.

Populous on Master System only has one sample, does the original have any?

Is there a decent source for the Impossible Mission voices? The C64 voices are kind of weird. Impossible Mission 2025 doesn't seem much better.
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Post Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:45 pm
Does it only work in Meka? I tried running the patched rom in Fusion and it didn't work.
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Post Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 1:09 am
I tried Emulicious and Genesis Plus GX (Retroarch core) and worked fine, I found an issue in final stage the roar seems to be the dragon's roar not the wolf's, great work Maxim!!! never thought this could be possible ...
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Post Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 7:04 am
It looks like I messed up the animal sounds... I'll post a new version later today with boosted audio and that issue fixed.
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Post Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:54 am
PrOfUnD Darkness wrote
Does it only work in Meka? I tried running the patched rom in Fusion and it didn't work.


The patch works fine in Fusion 3.64 and vdmgr 0.1.9
Altered Beast.png (16.79 KB)
Altered Beast.png

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Post Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 6:24 pm
New versions of both patches:

http://www.smspower.org/Hacks/SpaceHarrier-SMS-ArcadeVoices-Mod

Corrects the checksum and product code and adds an SDSC tag for credit purposes.

http://www.smspower.org/Hacks/AlteredBeast-SMS-ArcadeVoices-Mod

Corrects the animal noises, boosts the voice volumes (with some quality loss due to clipping) and corrects some cut-off audio.
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Post Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 7:22 pm
The boss music in Space Harrier keeps playing after the first boss. Using Fusion emulator.
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Post Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:34 am
Last edited by Maxim on Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:08 am; edited 1 time in total
Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars is now done. It also uses ADPCM data at a weird sampling rate (similar to Altered Beast); I approximated it with 8kHz samples taken from a MAME rendering of the sound test.

http://www.smspower.org/Hacks/AlexKiddTheLostStars-SMS-ArcadeVoices-Mod

I chose not to use the "Customer is King" voice (plays when you insert a coin) as there's no equivalent trigger, or the extra samples in the sound test (which seem not to be used in the game) - so it's just the "Find the Miracle Ball" and "Aargh" samples. Replacing existing samples is much easier than adding new ones!

On a technical note, the game has virtually no unused space in the first 32KB so I made use of slot 1 paging. This should work fine on an Everdrive but is not compatible with all Sega mapper chips. I was also unable to insert an SDSC tag as a result.
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Post Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 8:50 am
Posted v1.2 for Space Harrier and Altered Beast, fixing the boss music bug on the former.
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Post Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 5:35 pm
I was playing these games set overclock on and I noticed the voices are speed up, while the advantages of overclocking are better graphics animation and a bit improved control response, I wonder is it possible to adapt these patches to an cpu overclock of 125% and 150%?? Thanks.
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Post Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 5:41 pm
That would be possible but super niche :) you’d need to rebuild the data with the expected clock rate and then write new playback engines to match it.
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Post Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 7:36 pm
So, It is possible to have it ready for overclocked and not overclocked on the same patch?. It's good news to me thank you.
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Post Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2020 7:47 pm
No, it has to be a different patch for each. I'm not planning on making this.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2021 4:49 pm
Hello Maxim, Have you ever considered replacing boss FXs with Arcade Bosses music of Altered Beast?, this makes the boss fights dramatic and exciting instead of dull FXs. The Megadrive had those FXs off for most of the bosses and It seems the Bosses music is the background music of Stage 2.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2021 8:13 pm
That's a very different proposition to sample replacement, unfortunately.
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Post Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2021 10:40 pm
Oh I see, it would be great if the developers just address to Stage 2 music instead of those dull FXs thanks to that fighting bosses sounds like playing games of those computers from that time (this is not a compliment sadly).
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Post Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 11:18 am
Maxim wrote
Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars is now done. It also uses ADPCM data at a weird sampling rate (similar to Altered Beast); I approximated it with 8kHz samples taken from a MAME rendering of the sound test.


Out of curiosity I wanted to see how that ADPCM worked.

What I found instead was 1-bit / 16 kHz replay code... that didn't even get the timing correct in the inner loop.

For your enjoyment:

_LABEL_E9D7_:   
      ld hl, _DATA_F21A_  ; <-- this is the data source
      ld bc, $0C41        ; <-- this is the data len
      ld a, $09              ; <-- inner loop 'additional' delay
      ld (_RAM_D00D_), a
+:   
      call _LABEL_C9C9_
      ld a, $81
      out (Port_PSG), a
      xor a
      out (Port_AudioControl), a   ; <-- turn off FM
      ld a, (_RAM_D00D_)
      ld e, a
---:   
      push bc
      ld b, $08              ; <-- for each of the 8 bits
      ld a, (hl)
--:   
      push bc
      ld b, e
-:   
      djnz -                   ; <-- some additional delay in the inner loop (B is set to 9)
      pop bc
      rlca                      ; <-- pick one bit
      ld d, a
      ld a, $90              ; <-- output attenuation 0 on the first PSG channel
      jr c, +                   ; <-- this line and the next 2 were supposed to take the same number of cycles regardless of the value being pushed. FAIL.
      or $0F                 ; <-- output attenuation F on the first PSG channel
      jp +                     ; <-- 10 cycles additional delay when this branch was already the slow one (!!!)
   
+:   
      out (Port_PSG), a    ; <-- output either 0 or F --- this is 1-bit audio!
      ld a, d
      djnz --
      inc hl
      pop bc
      dec bc
      ld a, c
      or b
      jp nz, ---
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Post Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 1:37 pm
That’s the SMS game which indeed uses the Sega PDM sample player. The arcade game seems to use an ADPCM chip for its samples.
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Post Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 3:08 pm
Maxim wrote
That’s the SMS game which indeed uses the Sega PDM sample player.


what's PDM? I thought this was just 1-bit PCM

oh, wait - wikipedia:
Quote
The output of a 1-bit DAC is the same as the PDM encoding of the signal.


but this seems to me to be something different
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Post Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 7:16 pm
PCM means you specify the amplitude of the sound wave across time. PDM (and the related PWM) means you emit 100% “pulses” such that the average value is the amplitude of the sound wave. Calling it 1 bit PCM is sort of confusing but also the same thing when the base frequency is audible. Commercial PDM devices might work in the MHz range in order to get decent quality; but of course the 1-bit screeches from Sega were not decent quality.
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