[shalma]

PEOPS DSound 1.10b

The PCSX-Reloaded team is updating Pete's DSound plugin for Linux / Mac OS (dfsound):
PCSX-Reloaded
http://forums.ngemu.com/pcsx-discussion/116599-developers-wanted-pcsx-revival.html


(NOTE: Project ownership is open - no longer maintained by anyone)

Archives:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/peopsspu110.u/files/


Currently at:
***BEST build ***



2011
SVN 7
SVN 6
SVN 5
SVN 4
SVN 3
SVN 2
SVN 1
1.10a
1.10

release 21
release 20
release 19
release 18
release 17 (RC1) (RC2) (*)
release 16

2010
release 15
release 14
release 13
release 12
release 11
release 10
release 9
release 8
release 7
release 6
release 5
release 4
release 3
release 2


I'm porting some changes over to Pete's 1.09 win32 plugin (now called 1.09a)

ADSR Sustain Level
= Fixes FF7 cursor
= Fixes DQ4 music
= Fixes lots of other sounds, music

Mix fmod into output
= Fixes Xenogears save icon (high pitch)

VAG fixes - $7 loops
= Fixes missing Xenogears sounds
= Jungle Book gets music, gameplay now

VAG fixes - silence flag
= Allow IRQ generation until release

Voice on/off detection - immediately within same apu cycle
= Fixes loop hangs, buzzes

Emu crash protection
= Handle save states better

Async timing improvement
= Looping the FF7 cursor menu works better (more like Eternal now)
= Jungle Book gameplay pauses much less

Latency = 20ms
= Less pops, crackles for async changes

CDDA ISO support
= Emus like PCSX-Reloaded
= Maybe Mooby's CDR plugin



KNOWN problems:
- Noise waveforms (don't use white noise)
- Brain Dead 13 = broken
- Probably some pitch, fmod, reverb accuracy

I'm not officially planning on maintaining this plugin further - I may make some core fixes later.

If you have genuine bug reports (notably using Gaussian), then please report them here or in the PCSX-r devs thread above.

No guarantees it'll be looked at but it's worth a try.

 

[the_randomizer]

The PCSX-Reloaded team is updating Pete's DSound plugin for Linux / Mac OS (dfsound):
PCSX-Reloaded
http://forums.ngemu.com/pcsx-discussion/116599-developers-wanted-pcsx-revival.html

I'm porting some changes over to Pete's 1.09 win32 plugin (now called 1.09a)


No guarantees it'll be looked at but it's worth a try.

Whoa oO Never thought anyone would work on this plugin, but hey, it's good to see some activity

Edit 9:55PM - Just ran Star Ocean 2, Grandia, Final Fantasy VII, etc, and they all sound amazing!

 

[shalma]

Thank you for the feedback.

I was shocked by Xenogears + Gaussian/Cubic - a few minor changes and the sound quality improved immensely in the problem areas.

I'm sure someone will mention FF4 or MTV Music Generator.

BTW, does anyone know of a game that uses the noise channel?

 

[the_randomizer]

Thank you for the feedback.

I was shocked by Xenogears + Gaussian/Cubic - a few minor changes and the sound quality improved immensely in the problem areas.

I'm sure someone will mention FF4 or MTV Music Generator.

BTW, does anyone know of a game that uses the noise channel?

What's wrong with Final Fantasy IV? Granted, some of the Final Fantasy sounds need some improvement, but that was an issue in the original plugin; what you guys did to PCSX is amazing.

 

[shalma]

I've always been told that the SPU plugins never got some sounds for FF4 or MTV right. So I figured someone would bring it up again.

Guess I'm interested in seeing a generic list though, with comparisons to Eternal helpful.


EDIT:
Scratch that. ADSR Sustain $f = maximum. So levels 1-15. Not div 16.

 

[the_randomizer]

Lists, such as Final Fantasy VII running on Eternal VS Dsound? Maybe I could upload some files to test them with.....?

Edit 9:55 AM - Here are some MP3s I recorded with Audacity. Not sure if this is what you were talking about earlier, so here they are (FFVII, Grandia and Star Ocean 2, respectively; using the modified Dsound and Eternal SPU as comparisons)

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b4a4dee/n/Final_Fantasy_VII_Dsound_Eternal.mp3

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b4a4df4/n/Grandia_Dsound_Eternal.mp3

http://www.filefactory.com/file/b4a4dfb/n/Star_Ocean2_Dsound_Eternal.mp3

 

[shalma]

Thanks - that was pretty interesting to compare. It comes close enough to satisfy my tastes.

The harmonics could use more work - Pete uses the positive pitches in ~1 ms intervals. I think Eternal also does the half-frequency pitch (wave cancel effect) and has faster update frames.

I don't have the skill that the PCSX2 SPU2-X team has. If it mostly satisfies the audiophiles, then I'm pleased too.



Minor update to release 2: fix high compatibility mode (emu crash).

There's not much core improvement work left to do on this plugin.

Thanks again for the support.

 

[the_randomizer]

Thanks - that was pretty interesting to compare. It comes close enough to satisfy my tastes.

The harmonics could use more work - Pete uses the positive pitches in ~1 ms intervals. I think Eternal also does the half-frequency pitch (wave cancel effect) and has faster update frames.

I don't have the skill that the PCSX2 SPU2-X team has. If it mostly satisfies the audiophiles, then I'm pleased too.



Minor update to release 2: fix high compatibility mode (emu crash).

There's not much core improvement work left to do on this plugin.

Thanks again for the support.

No problem

 

[shalma]

Just mentioning that a Linux user says that FF7 PAL sounds perfect only in "high compat mode"
PCSX-Reloaded - pcsxr - View Issue #4199: Sound effects inaccurate in Final Fantasy VII (E) [SCES-00867], [SCES-10867] and [SCES-20867]

It looks to me that Linux "high compat mode" = win32 async mode.

 

[the_randomizer]

Quick question, with this plugin, is there a reason why Breath of Fire 3 battles lock up when either you or the enemy escapes? The battles seem to randomly lock up when either condition occurs. Not that it happens all the time (it's random); maybe it's the fact I rely too much on savestates.....? Or maybe I'm using the wrong plugin settings?

Edit 8:48 AM Oddly enough, you can get around it so long as you save right as the battle begins and keep loading until the problem goes away. Can someone confirm this issue?

 

[shalma]

General recommend - Async + Full Reverb + no SPU IRQ.

Haven't had any lockups with bof3 - used a clean memcard load. There looks to be some save state weirdness - my ff7 cursor sounds funny (plays 1/2 channels) on random loads.

I've got 50% of Brain Dead 13 working (bootable into game) but sound cuts out with noise. So I could look at save states again for release 3 (much later).

 

[the_randomizer]

General recommend - Async + Full Reverb + no SPU IRQ.

Haven't had any lockups with bof3 - used a clean memcard load. There looks to be some save state weirdness - my ff7 cursor sounds funny (plays 1/2 channels) on random loads.

I've got 50% of Brain Dead 13 working (bootable into game) but sound cuts out with noise. So I could look at save states again for release 3 (much later).

Oh don't worry about it too much games like Breath of Fire 3, Star Ocean, etc sound amazing!

 

[shalma]

Having other devs around helps enough times.

It's an important save state bug that needs to be squashed, right now.

Quality-wise I've reached the limit almost with PEOPS DSound. And also decided that it's not worthwhile enough to write a new spu engine.

I suppose someone could still add Catmull-Rom or some other interpolation if they choose. And maybe check out feeding multiple fmods (ex. ch 3->4->5->6) to get some phat or nasty sound.

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Release 3

+ Improved win32 save state support
= More games will work now (ex. Jungle Book)

+ 0.5 ms SPU updates (45 -> 23 apu cycles)
= Lets Square games use sharper volume updates

> Experimental VAG silence running
= Allows Brain Dead 13 to boot (poor sound)

> Experimental VAG looping idea
= Unknown effect

> Latency = 25ms
= Should behave better on more cards


WARNING:
Use new save states for this build

This might fix or break some things so be on alert.


EDIT1/2:
Down again. Going to take time to look properly at this.


EDIT3:
Now it works the way I want it to. Saves are working again and experimental accuracy is improved - no more weird Xeno sounds.

Lesson: when lots of events happen in the same 'apu update cycle', order of events is -very- important. In my case, not doing everything in StartSound but before when VoiceOn activates (ex. FF7 / Xenogears external loop address).

Still too experimental to add to Linux / Mac. So only win32 users will get to enjoy. Not much more though.

As a bonus, I've lowered the 1ms -> 0.5ms update times. It should come off slightly sharply cleaner if you have high-quality speakers / headphones. Approaching Eternal-type update periods (note that Eternal uses ADSR float math (?), which is curiously interesting to me).

Brain Dead 13 can stay 'broken' (bad sound) for awhile - that's a hard one to figure out. So Eternal gets +1 for that game. And make sure to use fresh save states.

 

[shalma]

Release 4

+ SPU start addresses are aligned to 16-bytes
= Fixes Brain Dead 13

> Remove experimental VAG silence ideas
= Keep in sync with Linux, Mac dfsound
= Not needed for now

Save states don't need updating for r4.

 

[the_randomizer]

It's good to see people like you breathing life into playstation plugins!


Edit 6:35 PM - Hi! I'm not trying to sound ungrateful (and if I am, sorry ) but I noticed something kind of odd in the most recent revision, I'll post this file to compare http://www.filefactory.com/file/b4b4cdd/n/PEOPS_109_rev1_Vs_109_rev4.mp3 The first half is the second revision and the last half is the most recent revision. There seems to be extra reverb (or extra beats, I don't know exactly what to call it). Maybe it has to to with the latency? It should be noticeable.

 

[shalma]

Bug reports are good. Especially since I'm not the type to pick up on such sharp details.

You do a good job of isolating and stitching the samples together. I slowed it down and I've got 2 guesses:
1 - use 1ms update time
2 - $2 VAG shuts down channel volume (aka Pete solution)

So I've got 2 test builds for your ears to try out.
Download test.7z from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

If either works, then I'd like to know.
They should just be save state plug 'n play.

My impression is that #2 will be okay - the instrument seems to release too long (like a slow-dying sound).


EDIT:
If both fail, then I have to shutdown the channel immediately. Which doesn't seem quite right but that is r1.

Either way, I'll fix this one since I had it working before. :thumb:
Just have to try a bunch of stuff out until something sticks.

Could you also mention the game? (it sounds familiar). It'd be worth tagging a note into the spu plugin notebook.


EDIT2:
Had it checked out. Appears #2 is the way to go. There's still a chance that it'll fail on sharp sounds but it looks right for now.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

 

[shalma]

Release 5

+ VAG $2 silence stops sound almost immediately
= Fixes funny sound release problems

No new save states needed.

 

[the_randomizer]

The music is from Breath of Fire 3. I'll give those plugins a whirl.

Edit 8:27 PM - So far, so good; the problem seems to be gone. Will do some more testing.

Results (so far)

Breath of Fire 3: Sounds like the real version (compared music from both ripped PSF and in-game recording); could not tell the difference

Chrono Cross: Sounded like the real version.

Final Fantasy VII-IX The music itself sounds perfect, though some sound effects are off. Not sure if it's worth fixing them, as I don't know the complexity of resolving trivial things like that.

Star Ocean 2: Sounded like the real version

 

[shalma]

Thanks, that helps a lot! Sound is harder to fix than some cdrom bug.
Knowing that our quality is practically spot-on good now is a real treat.

Hopkat pointed out some minor things to me, which have some importance.

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Release 6

+ VAG $2 fixes: don't start release, let channel play quietly (IRQs)
= Might improve really picky sounding games

I've read that Eternal has some problems with FF8-FF9 too (use update before register hack). Sometimes Square uses a very high pitch also, which could be an exponential problem to hack away.

I don't know the complexity either but it must be high. If a fix happens by random chance, then I won't complain.

 

[the_randomizer]

More tested games

Final Fantasy IX - Sound effects are getting better (still a few weird ones here and there, but I don't think it's that big of a deal)

Final Fantasy VII and VIII - The music sounds spot on, but like FFIX, the sound effects are kinda funky. If it can resolved, great. If not, it's no biggie. Try not to be too hard on yourself

Castlevania Symphony of the Night - Sounds like the real thing to me (maybe I should compare it to the real one....?)

Breath of Fire IV - Sounds like the real thing

Crash Bandicoot 2 - Same as above, sounds like the real deal!

Grandia - Sounds good to me

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater - Also sounds like the original

As always, keep up the good work!