[Archmage]

Does anyone else have this problem? The game I'm specifically referring to is Castlevania: SOTN, but it's the only game I've tried with XA audio anyway. It just seems like no matter what SPU or GPU plugin I use, no matter how I set 'em up, and no matter whether or not I'm running from a CD or an ISO, I STILL can't get rid of the crackling in XA audio.

Not that it's really that bad, but it's still noticeable.

Here's a few things I've tried:

- Default SPU plugin: this one simply gives me the worse results. Not only does it skip/stutter and crackle, but there's a LOT of noise.

- Null2's SPU plugin and the Seal plugin: Slightly better results, but still intolerable

- Kazzuya's SPU plugin, lori's SPU plugin, and Pete's Directsound SPU plugin: These tend to give MUCH better (tolerable) results, but still far from perfect.

- Pete's MIDAS SPU plugin: this is actually the best luck I've had, with the XA smoothing option turned on. However, there's still the occasional crack and pop which I'd like to be rid of if possible

I'm assuming XA audio is somewhat related to fps, since it has to synch...? I'm just guessing here. But even with that in consideration, I've tried running at 640x480 16-bit and it still happens. When I run without "fps limit" turned on, I get well over 100 fps nearly all the time, so I find it hard to believe that that's my problem.

Are the SPU plugins or the emulator itself just imperfect? Knowing the nature of emulation, it probably is, but if there's a possible fix I'd like to find it! Does ANYONE get perfect XA audio emulation? SOTN plays perfectly for me on PSMPlay, so I know it's possible.

Btw, I'm on an AMD TBird 1.3 ghz, 256MB RAM, Aureal V2 sound card, GeForce 256 video card. If this is a problem then please kill me now.

Thanks for reading my mini-novel. Please respond!

 

[Ben]

This could be a timing Issue! Sounds like you might be using NTSC Timing with a PAL game!

Also it seems like Pete's CDR Plugin (maybe all plugins except internal) Forces NTSC regardless of the setting! If you're not using the Internal CDR Plugin then try it!

 

[takwu]

for best sound in PSX emulation, buy Connectix's Virtual Game Station. It looks ok for 2d games (is Castlevania: SOTN 2d or 3d?) but may be a bit too ugly for 3d.

also bleem! is not bad for sound.

if you must use one of the free emus and want minimal cracking noise, one thing you could try is lowering sound settings such as the sampling rate. if available, change from stereo to mono. changing from 44khz to 22 is also tolerable in terms of sound quality. 16bit to 8bit may be a little too noticable...

other than that i have no more recommendation
hope that helped anyways

 

[Raziel]

Are you running at full speed?
It could be your problem or,your cd can be scratched.

 

[Guest]

Archmage, you have mentioned all the SPU plugins except for Iori's SPU vers. 1.43. That is the one I am using and Castlevania SOTN sound perfect for me. No crackles, hisses, or pops. No stuttering or cut off speech either. Just nice smooth sound. Give Iori's SPU a try and see if it works as well for you. My system: Athlon T-Bird 1.2ghz, GEForce 2 GTS, Sound Blaster Live Value, Win 98 SE, !28 megs of PC133 Cosair ram, and 266mhz FSB.
sincerely,
sx/amiga

 

[Raziel]

Woops,didn't see the specs,you MUST be running fullspeed.
Anyway,try to play from an ISO it shoul reduce the cracks.

 

[KojiroTakenashi]

I got SEVERE problems. It's not so much the SPU, as it will turn out, but the graphics settings themselves. It'll take you ALOT of patience and tweaking, but eventually you should get it to work fine. Also try limiting FPS to 60 or so. I prefer 60 for MDECs sake, because on my system they tend to run a bit faster than they should be...

 

[Archmage]

I apologize for the late reply. I was out of town for the weekend and didn't get to read all the replies until today. Thanks for responding, btw.

Ben: I usually leave it on autodetect, but I've tried both PAL and NTSC and PAL gives worse results. NTSC works the best (since it's an NTSC game), but the crackling remains.

takwu: I've tried VGS and I am unimpressed with anything other than the accuracy of the emulation. There are no enhancing features whatsoever. Why not just use a real PSX in that case? Also, for me, anything below 44 khz 16-bit stereo is unacceptable. Besides the fact that SOTN's XA audio itself is 32 khz, I just can't stand to use anything below CD quality audio. It is, after all, a CD based system. Plus, I see no reason why it would have trouble running at the full frequency range/both channels.

Raziel: I'm actually running the game from an ISO, ripped with CDRWin with no errors. I generally keep my CD's scratch-free. I've got 10-year old games and audio CD's that play perfectly and rip with 100% accuracy on programs like EAC, so I know my stuff is trustworthy. Plus, the XA audio plays fine in PSMPlay.

sxamiga: I actually did mention Iori's plugin (called it lori's plugin by accident). Gives fair results for me, but Pete's MIDAS is still better (not perfect).

KojiroTakenashi: I have autodetect fps, frame skipping, and fps limit all checked, plus I've tried combinations of the three. Not to mention setting fps to 60 manually, which still doesn't seem to help.

Thanks for all the suggestions, but I'm still without a solution here

I'm gonna try using a software GPU and see if that gives me better results. Again, like I said, the crackling IS tolerable, but it's still apparent.

Great emulator, btw. There is no substitute for ePSXe, IMO.