[Arminator]

Hello,

when playing for example R-Type Delta, the graphics and Sound effects are great. However the Music (which is XA Audio) is jittering (i.e. playing faster and slower, alternating very quick making it sound as if its played on a Walkman with dying batteries)).

So my question is: What component is responsible for good XA Audio play?
Is it that
a) ePSXe has some compatibility issues with XA audio and I have to wait for new versions,
b) XA Audio is dependent on CD speed (since the PSX has a 2x CD (I think) and my CD Rom can't be slowed down (I tried "CD Bremse" or "CD Throttle" and I get the message, that my Pioneer DVD can't be slowed down), so ePSXe tries its best to time the streaming audio from the faster CD to the MPEG or game?
c) my PC is still to slow (I recently upgraded from my old P III 450 to an Athlon XP 1800+) to decode XA correctly...
or d) I'm too stupid to configure ePSXe correctly (however, what can I do wrong if there is only a checkmark next to "Enable XA Audio" and using the ePSXe internal Audio?

By the way: I have to user Petes CD Plugin, since ePSXe won't find my CD Rom.

 

[gerbilcannon]

You can try other sound plug-ins that provide more settings to tweak with. Also make sure you're getting a solid framerate 50 for pal 60 for ntsc, music will be jittery if it drops a ways below those.

 

[Bgnome]

yeah, it would be a good idea to fix the framerate since speedups mess up the sound too. you might want to try tweaking your spu or using another one if that doesnt work out

 

[Badaro]

Originally posted by Arminator
Hello,

when playing for example R-Type Delta, the graphics and Sound effects are great. However the Music (which is XA Audio) is jittering (i.e. playing faster and slower, alternating very quick making it sound as if its played on a Walkman with dying batteries)).

So my question is: What component is responsible for good XA Audio play?
Is it that
a) ePSXe has some compatibility issues with XA audio and I have to wait for new versions,
b) XA Audio is dependent on CD speed (since the PSX has a 2x CD (I think) and my CD Rom can't be slowed down (I tried "CD Bremse" or "CD Throttle" and I get the message, that my Pioneer DVD can't be slowed down), so ePSXe tries its best to time the streaming audio from the faster CD to the MPEG or game?
c) my PC is still to slow (I recently upgraded from my old P III 450 to an Athlon XP 1800+) to decode XA correctly...
or d) I'm too stupid to configure ePSXe correctly (however, what can I do wrong if there is only a checkmark next to "Enable XA Audio" and using the ePSXe internal Audio?

By the way: I have to user Petes CD Plugin, since ePSXe won't find my CD Rom.

Answering...

a) Maybe. It's pretty much impossible to reach perfect emulation, so there might be some issues left with XA audio.
b) Maybe. PC CD-Roms are no too good for PSX emulation, so you might wanna try making an ISO of your CD.
c) Not likely.
d) As gerbilcannon suggested, you might also want to try other SPU plugins, maybe they'll give you better results.

[]s Badaro

 

[Arminator]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll try them out.

 

[Pete Bernert]

yup, the most important thing with XA is to get a stable AND correct FPS...
correct means: if you are playing a game at rock stable 70 FPS (because you like
the small speed increase for some reason), XA sound will be wrong, because it's
not the real psx speed (which is usally 50 pal / 60 ntsc fps).

Small example: you play the game at 70 instead of 50 fps, but the game produces
data for a 50 fps rate, the data will come to fast to the spu plugin, so it can't play
all the xa sound... noise will happen.

If you play the game at (for example) 30 fps instead of 50, the spu will run out
of sound data before the next data comes in... 'cracks' in the sound will happen.

But with your system you should easily get nice XA sounds... mmm...