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There appears to be a subtle issue relating to the compiler optimization flags in the current Xcode. I'm inclined to ignore it for the minute, since I'll be installing Leopard next week which will give me a new compiler update and no doubt a whole new set of bugs.

RB, are you sure about what you say re USF? I've not investigated the format in a good while but I seem to recall that a large majority of music can be emulated in a useful fashion with a small amount of HLE. The only thing that put me off it was the state of the code for the existing player. Personally I'd like to get it implemented if nothing else to stop people asking for it

It's possible to use HLE to get a lot of rips running, but that won't be fully compatible. And the existing player source (derived from Project 64) is atrocious. No concept of non-MSVC compilers, no concept of non-little-endian, and no concept of non-Win32 (and yeah, hcs knows all that). I'd really rather just try and write a new engine for it from the MAME cores and corlett.c.

Of course, if you'd like to port the existing player, go ahead

Some more SSF adjustments: I backed off the DSP level one notch and boosted the overall mix level of the SCSP, which improves the sound quality a bit (you can still tell a lot of songs are relying on low-res 8-bit samples, but at least the kick drum actually moves some air now :-)

http://rbelmont.mameworld.info/dsplv2.zip

Even if I had the time for such a thing (I don't) my emulation skills don't extend much past eight bit I'm afraid. If only the N64 used a Z80 or two

kingshriek: Ok thanks, but where are the sound files on ftp.modland.com ? There are a lot of folders to sift through...

R. Belmont: I figured as much about the streaming PSF2 files, though from what you say it seems USF is a lot harder to emulate.. Interesting though.. How is it that N64 hardware is more difficult to emulate than PS2 hardware ?.. I know there are N64 console emulators for Mac OS X (i.e. SixtyForce) as well as Windows that work reasonably well, while no decent PS2 ones seem to exist at all for either platform.

PSF2 (1 37 MHz CPU) ?.. I thought the PS2 had 2 CPUs, that being one of the major obstacles of emulating the console on PCs (which until recently were typically single CPU machines)...

Back to game music though.. I know the people behind Project 64 created a plugin for (eck..) Winamp that plays USF files, but I suppose the situation there is a bit different, seeing as how that is a team of people creating a plugin for an existing app vs. Audio Overload which is a standalone app created by a few people.. Also, it would seem that you guys are not too fond of how they create software..

Still though, it would be nice to have a USF player on the Mac.. I would work on it myself, but unfortunately my programming skills are still rather rudimentary at this point.. I am currently pursuing DeVry University's Game & Simulation Programming Degree, so hopefully that will change down the line..

Btw, what are some good sources to start learning what you guys are doing ?..

The number of CPUs on the emulated system has nothing to do with how hard it is to emulate or how many CPUs you need in your computer to emulate it. MAME routinely runs systems with 3 or more processors just fine.

Re: N64, nobody's emulated it correctly yet. That's how hard it is. Game emulators are exactly that - they run the games, they aren't emulating the hardware (this is known as "HLE", high-level emulation). By comparison, PCSX2 runs many PS2 games with proper graphics and sound and even online works now.

The PS2 does have 2 CPUs. One of them is the PS1's CPU - when you play PS1 games, it becomes the main CPU and runs the game. When you play PS2 games, it's run at a faster clock and it handles all I/O, including the disc, controllers, network, USB, memory cards, and sound. In particular, it can play a sequenced song by itself with no intervention from the main CPU, so only that CPU needs to be emulated, and of course on that side it looks a lot like an extended PS1, which is well understood.

The Winamp plugin was made by hcs actually, but it's derived from Project 64's source. hcs is a smart guy and a good programmer, but Project 64 is a large mess. The reason USFs are hard to play is that there's no separate sound CPU so you have to emulate the entire N64 minus video output to get a single note to play.

Interesting.. Perhaps I had been misinformed about the difficultly of emulating multiple processors..

Yeah, N64 emulators still have a ways to go.. Sixtyforce, for instance, still has a lot of glitches in some games.. Yes, I've heard of HLE, which would seem to be akin to high-level vs low-level programming, the latter of which is more accurate but more time-consuming... PCSX2 works well now ?.. I'll have to look into that, it worked crappily last time I remembered.. Are they ever going to release a Mac version, btw ?.. (I know they did for PCSX some time ago, though it is PowerPC and crashes every time I load a disk on my Intel Mac)..

Ok, well that makes sense then.. PS2 is basically like 2 consoles in one, with only one CPU needing to be emulated for PS2 functions..

Yes, I have heard that N64 ROMS are basically one big chunk of code, in which the sound files must be extracted from the rest, as opposed to other formats where the sound is more self-contained.. definitely sounds like a pain in the butt.. Btw, who is the guy behind hcs ?.. The "Halley" in Halley's Comet Software perhaps, lol ?..


Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

PCSX2 works well on a lot of games now, but it's not necessarily fast. Also, a lot of their biggest improvements seem to have come after the last public release so I have to trust their news updates

KBeazley: pub/modules
Sorted by format and then by composer.

Knurek: Ah, well thank you for that information. Looks like quite a collection, I'll have to look through it more thoroughly when I have the time.

Btw, are there any players listed for Mac ?.. There is only one file under pub/players/Mac , but it is a Windows .exe file (i.e. playerp4.exe) !..