Genesis voice quality

[Joe Redifer]

The Genesis gets frowned upon when the subject of digitized voices comes up. Is the system truly the dogshit of the sea? Is it absolutely ridiculous for the system to even dare attempt spoken words? I don't think so. I think the Genesis can do quite well in the voice department.

Check out this Youtube video I made with examples. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsMRe_QenvU)

Some of you may have heard a similar MP3 I have posted before. This is very similar, but more awesome because I say so.

[108 Stars]

Afaik, the digi-capabilities of the soundchip really are about C64-quality. However, the 68 000 CPU can help out in this department as well.

[Gentlegamer]

Perfek-shet brrrrrr get!

[Iron Lizard]

It was still leeps and bounds better then the Nes. POWER UP may have sounded a bit silly but anyone remember playing bad dudes on NES. It did seem that later on the voice quality got much worse though. It confused me.

[Zebbe]

Awesome video, Joe. Listen to Pulseman's voices, they are probaby the best I think.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't own Pulseman, but my friend does. There are a lot of phrases in that game, but if I recall correctly (which I may not be doing), the voices are fairly scratchy and/or gargly in spots.

[GeckoYamori]

Task Force Harrier Ex even has a fairly long sampled brass jingle played at the end of each level. SNES would never be able to handle samples that long without downgrading them to 2khz or something.

In general I'd say Dynamite Heady sounds best.

[Melf]

That.... was simply awesome! LOL @ the Strider subtitles! :D

The Genesis is a strange animal in this regard. For every clear "welcome to your doom!" there's a garbled mess like in Thunder Force II. The console could definitely do clear voice when the programmer knew what he was doing, but many seemed to treat it with little importance.

[Genesis Knight]

Dynamite Headdy is amazing for sound quality. Virtua Fighter 2 was good as well, IIRC? And what about Comix Zone?

[108 Stars]

I always have to rely on Factor 5´s article; they said developers had to use the 68000 to help getting good digi-sounds.
But I guess many developers just weren´t very creative; they didn´t get the idea to use other parts of the system that are usually not responsible for sound...

BTW finally I have the title of Kaiser, hehe...

[playgen]

The problem is high quality clear sound samples take up a lot of space. Theres wasn't much point using high quality samples if it meant a more larger rom had to be used making the game more expensive, or even worse meaning graphics had to be cut to accomodate them.
Its not like normal game music where only the instructions on how to play the song are stored which takes up little room, for a speech sample the whole waveform has to be stored.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the "sega" speech sample in the first sonic game used up 1/4 of the cartridge space (it might not have been a quater, but it was a large amount of the rom used for something that has essentially no impact on how the game plays)

[tomaitheous]

Task Force Harrier Ex even has a fairly long sampled brass jingle played at the end of each level. SNES would never be able to handle samples that long without downgrading them to 2khz or something.

In general I'd say Dynamite Heady sounds best.

Tales of Phantasia opening song is a good example of what the SNES could do (voice samples over it's SPC music)? The SNES having a dedicated DSP with it's own 64k ram, I imagine takes a load off the CPU ;)



I always have to rely on Factor 5´s article; they said developers had to use the 68000 to help getting good digi-sounds.
But I guess many developers just weren´t very creative; they didn´t get the idea to use other parts of the system that are usually not responsible for sound...

Yeah, the 68k has to stream a byte(1/nth of a sample) to the YM channel 6 for digitized sample playback. To get even 7khz sample takes quite a bit of CPU resource because the interrupt system can steal quite a number of cpu cycles (7khz = 123 interrupts per on a 1/60 frame) and the 68k uses a slow interrupt system (everything pushed onto the stack). Also large transfers to the VDP stall sample updates, requiring you to break them down into multiple smaller transfers. I suspect this was the problem for Street Fighter 2.

Also at 1byte being one sample note, a second of sound data at 7khz is 7k of space, 11khz = 11k, 22khz 22k, etc.

[Aarzak]

That video was awesome incarnate Joe. "Paul Bunyan" ROFL! What'd you use to create it?

Back on topic, could it simply be that the Genesis' FM synth-based sound suite was not adequate enough from the beginning to handle clear, long sound samples, especially when compared to other FM-synth sound suites (like Sega's own steroid-pumped arcade boards)? The SNES massacred the Genesis in the sound aspect IMO because:

1) Dedicated sound suite with it's own RAM.
2) It was digital and sample-based.
3) It had compression, sound filters and all other kinds of neato shit.

I think Sega cut way too many corners while designing the MD hardware. An increased color palette and a stronger sound suite could've made it much more viable in developer's eyes and perhaps extended it's life. "System-16 esque home hardware" my ass.

[playgen]

Its all well and good saying snes had better hardware, but the snes came out after megadrive so that was inevitable. And Sega wouldn't have wanted to risk too much money on R&D or components, master system hadn't been very successful at that time (although it later would be), so it would have been dumb to make a console that was expensive to develop, and expensive for customers to buy when they couldn't be confident that poeple would take to it.

[Zebbe]

An increased color palette and a stronger sound suite could've made it much more viable in developer's eyes and perhaps extended it's life.

I don't think it would have mattered when Hayao Nakayama himself killed off the console...

[Aarzak]

The bastard surely was frustrated that the console bombed in it's native country but flourished elsewhere. He still around?

[Joe Redifer]

The SNES massacred the Genesis in the sound aspect IMO because:

1) Dedicated sound suite with it's own RAM.
2) It was digital and sample-based.
3) It had compression, sound filters and all other kinds of neato shit.
#3 on your list is the problem. It's that "neato shit" that ruins SNES sound. The digitized samples are extremely compressed and as a result they are very muffled. Listen to Street Fighter 2... it sounds like it was recorded underwater. The PC Engine/TurboGrafx's voices from the same game are far better than those from the SNES (both games weighing in at 20 MEGA POWER). Most games attempt to compensate for this low-grade muffle-ness by adding reverb. In fact reverb is far too overused on the SNES. Despite being sample-based, the SNES has a hard time making games sound much different from each other (with very few exceptions). Turn the reverb off in Tales of Phantasia's sound test and you'll see how low grade the samples really are. I can provide examples if anyone would like.

[Zebbe]

I would like.

[GeckoYamori]

I wish there was a way to turn off the dreaded bathroom reverb for all SNES games.

[Joe Redifer]

OK here's the examples. The following were recorded from a real SNES running a real cartridge. No emulation or flash memory were used.

Tales of Phantasia - Opening Tune - REVERB (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/topreverb.mp3) - 2 MB
I did not add the glitch that occurs in this. That's a real SNES screwing up on its own. It doesn't do it every time, but it's more likely with reverb than without.

Tales of Phantasia - Opening Tune - DRY (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/topdry.mp3) - 2 MB
Reverb turned off. This is the only game I know of that actually lets you do that... but only for the sound test!

As you can hear, it sounds better without the reverb, but the samples are so compressed that it sounds like she's singing in a 2 foot by 1 foot super-padded closet with you standing right next to her. No high frequencies at all. Yes, I consider that quite muffled, and this is actually pretty good for the SNES! The reverb is there to try and hide this nasty flaw.

Still better than Tempo for some reason...

[Zebbe]

It sounds good. I don't think you can demand much more from a 8-bit sound processor of the time, or can you? Thanks for uploading.

[Elusive]

Still better than Tempo for some reason...

Two-thirds of the combined 32X-Mega Drive power is used for generating Funk Waves, brightening the mood of anyone within a twelve-meter radius of the console. Users generally report a strange 'mind-moving' sensation, resulting in an irresistible urge towards 'grooving' out of visual contact.

With that in mind, it's no wonder the title audio sounds flat. Damn F-Waves! The grooooovy killer ;(

[Joe Redifer]

I don't think you can demand much more from a 8-bit sound processor of the time, or can you?
Ask the Neo Geo, older than the SFC and capable of MUCH better sound using a very similar 68000 + Z80 setup as the Genesis.

[Zebbe]

Hm yeah. But it also has an YM2612 soundchip. What differs it from the one the MD has? Are there songs on the NG cartridges too?

[Joe Redifer]

The Neo Geo also has PSG channels and dedicated PCM chips... 7 of them (the SNES has 8). Yes, there are a few games with songs on the Neo Geo. Also listen to the first stage in either Metal Slug 4 or 5 (I forget which) but it sounds awesome. My point is that the Neo Geo sounds better than the SNES in pretty much every respect. And I think the Genesis sounds better in a lot of respects (certainly not all).

[Zebbe]

OK. What do you think the Genesis does better in sound than the SNES, and what does the SNES do better? I'm no tech guy, but in genres I think the SNES is good for orchestral music while the Genny does rock and techno very well.

[Genesis Knight]

The new avatar is sweet, Zebbe.

[Aarzak]

Well, the point of the compression is to save as much space as possible considering the SPC700 is working with digital samples, not analog synth sounds right? In the case of the Neo-Geo, it's earliest games were already bigger than any SNES or Genesis cart we'd see in their lifetimes ("Super Street Fighter II" for Genesis, "Tales of Phantasia" and "Star Ocean" for SNES) so with all of that ample cart space (figuratively, not literally lolz) it was possible to include cleaner, longer, high-quality sound samples. Still, the SPC700 sure is a complicated cookie that took (and to an extent still to this day) the emulation community a long while to figure out and work with. The Neo-Geo's sound suite was the best of both worlds: It sampled digital sound better than the SNES because of the ample cart space, had way more sound channels than the SNES/Genesis/TG-16 and did FM synth and PSG much better than the Genesis.

Speaking of emulation, in ZSNES I believe it is possible to strip the sound filters from SNES sound (I think it defaults to "Gaussian Interpolation" when no filters are chosen, don't remember). I think it's also possible in those nifty SPC music players.

Now about the 32X's sound hardware..........could anyone tell me what the hell it is exactly and how it works? How did they nail that coin-op music with the "Afterburner" and "Space Harrier" ports? Now that we're at it, what about the Sega CD's heavily underutilized sound hardware? Remembering the specs it sounded like it gave the Neo-Geo's a run for it's money.

http://www.sega-16.com/Media/Song%20Lyrics/Tempo%20Theme.mp3

FUNKY AS THEY WANT TO BE! *DUN DUN DUN!*

[Joe Redifer]

OK. What do you think the Genesis does better in sound than the SNES
Frequencies above 2,000Hz. Also bass seems to sound smoother on the Genesis.


and what does the SNES do better?
Multiple voices simultaneously, "orchestral" stuff.


and did FM synth and PSG much better than the Genesis.
Actually the FM and PSG portions of the Neo Geo are weaker than the Genesis, but not significantly so.

The 32X basically works by the programmer telling it what they want it to do, kind of like a computer. It wasn't as limiting as something like the Genesis was, but I guess it was a bitch to program for since you also had to worry about the Genesis code.

The Sega CD PCMs were pretty good and they are used in almost every CD game. All FMV games use them without exception. Sonic CD uses it for the "past" music. Lunar 2 uses them for all music.

[xbrinkx]

The Neo Geo used a YM2610 chip (7 PCM, 4 FM, 3 PSG, & 1 noise.) The music from Last Resort is quite good - 'Don't Touch Me Baby' and 'Jack to the Metro' although the game isn't that great.

[megadriveworld]

Ask the Neo Geo, older than the SFC and capable of MUCH better sound using a very similar 68000 + Z80 setup as the Genesis.

Ah yes, that track with vocals in Waku Waku 7 is quite nice...

[Aarzak]

Funny you mentioned it, as while I was typing up my last post I had the first level from "Last Resort" and it's BGM "playing" in my head. Guess it really left an impression on me when I first saw it in "Nickelodeon Arcade".

Back to the 32X's sound suite, here are the specs of it and an excerpt from Wikipedia's article on the 32X:

Audio: Stereo 10-bit PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) mixing with Mega Drive/Genesis sound for a total of 12 audio channels of varying capability, 22 with the addition of a Mega-CD/Sega CD.

One little-known aspect of the 32X was its vastly improved audio subsystem, termed "Q-Sound" by Sega. While this theoretically gave the system audio capabilities that outstripped even the Super NES, the sound chipset proved to be poorly documented and exceptionally difficult to program for. As a result, most games ignored the Q-Sound system and used the Mega Drive's on-board sound chip, thus leaving the 32X's audio capabilities largely untapped. To this day, emulators still have difficulty providing sound emulation for the few titles that did make use of the Q-Sound system.

Correct or incorrect? It was just 2 sound channels, right? Then how the hell did they pull off that (virtually) arcade-perfect music and sound on the Afterburner and Space Harrier ports? Those sounded like they didn't even touch the Genesis sound suite.

[evildragon]

2 sound channels = left channel, right channel.

That make sense for you?

[Aarzak]

But pumping out all of those instruments that originally took a handful of sound channels to do so (and in stereo to boot) in the arcade over two measly channels? It's a mirable! <Tommy Pickles>

[evildragon]

You're not thinking AUDIO channel, not sound channel.

Stereo sound is plain old 2 channel audio. You play a music CD, it's 2 channel audio. You play a DVD, it's 6 channel audio (left, right, center, rear left, rear right, subwoofer).

The 32X has two channel audio (left, right).

However, you have forgotten that they might have used the YM2612 for it.

Afterburner is using the YM2612 for notes, and possibly the 32X for drums. Sound wise, it sounds like crap to me.

Space Harrier ALSO sounds like it's using the YM2612.

I'd like you to learn the possibility of FM synthesis. I mess with a Yamaha DX7 everyday, and that's close to what the YM2612 can do (but better).

FM Synthesis is re-programmable, you don't have "set" sounds and that's it. You can make any sound your heart desires.

EDIT: I told Joe how to capture only the 32X sounds on real hardware, so hopefully he'll get some recordings to hear, because your underestimating the Genesis sound power.

[Aarzak]

Perhaps I am. I just thought that the music from the "After Burner" and "Space Harrier" ports were distinguishable from other 32X games that clearly use mixed Genesis/32X music, like "Tempo" and "Knuckles' Chaotix".

Upon trying out "After Burner", I disagree that it sounds like crap. The full-on stereo music and sfx (did they utilize "QSound" on 32X games?) blast from both directions in this port. With headphones on it was bombastic. Best-sounding 32X game I've heard yet.

[Zebbe]

The new avatar is sweet, Zebbe.

Thanks :cool:.

[Gentlegamer]

I'm disappointed you didn't include Altered Beast's "Rise From Your Grave!" . . . either on the bad or good side. Everyone claims it sounds like "wise fwom your gwave" but it has always sounded clear to me.

[Joe Redifer]

Q-Sound has nothing to do with playback hardware. All it requires is that it be stereo. Any system capable of playing back recorded stereo sounds can do Q-Sound. Stuff like that is applied in the mixing suite. It's nothing more than phase shifting. Both Space Harrier and After Burner sound exactly like the arcades. If there are any differences, it is extremely minor.

evildragon, I have no idea which pins those are. Could you PM me a picture or a diagram or something a little more descriptive?

[evildragon]

Q-Sound has nothing to do with playback hardware. All it requires is that it be stereo. Any system capable of playing back recorded stereo sounds can do Q-Sound. Stuff like that is applied in the mixing suite. It's nothing more than phase shifting. Both Space Harrier and After Burner sound exactly like the arcades. If there are any differences, it is extremely minor.

evildragon, I have no idea which pins those are. Could you PM me a picture or a diagram or something a little more descriptive?
here.. if you notice, they are silk screened on the motherboard ;)

http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/genny32xaudio.jpg

EDIT: You "might" have to throw it through an EQ. When I last tried this, it sounded like a lot of ass.

http://blackevilweredragon.spymac.com/GenB3.mp3

[Henry Spencer]

I always thought Ristar and Dynamite Headdy really stood out in terms of voice quality! Especially Ristar.

[Joe Redifer]

Ristar? That has some of the worst voices in my opinion. They're sound like he's gargling saltwater as he's speaking.

[tomaitheous]

Ristar? That has some of the worst voices in my opinion. They're sound like he's gargling saltwater as he's speaking.

Which you know, is quite a talent!

[ary incorparated]

That video was awesome incarnate Joe. "Paul Bunyan" ROFL! What'd you use to create it?

Back on topic, could it simply be that the Genesis' FM synth-based sound suite was not adequate enough from the beginning to handle clear, long sound samples, especially when compared to other FM-synth sound suites (like Sega's own steroid-pumped arcade boards)? The SNES massacred the Genesis in the sound aspect IMO because:

1) Dedicated sound suite with it's own RAM.
2) It was digital and sample-based.
3) It had compression, sound filters and all other kinds of neato shit.

I think Sega cut way too many corners while designing the MD hardware. An increased color palette and a stronger sound suite could've made it much more viable in developer's eyes and perhaps extended it's life. "System-16 esque home hardware" my ass.


yeah but why did the snes still had to release chip kind of steroide cassetes to keep up with sega?maybe because the scaling rotation wasn,t as good as sega,s sega cd neither the sound or was it because the speed was lacking or maybe because many game,s didnt do the hardcore pumping music sega did like the intro song of vapor trail(nice work joe) sound,s uberclass and like a psx or saturn theme,sor and many more set the score for not overhyped orchestrals but more mainstream house music,and nowhere snes could do that when you hear good instruments theyre always seem to be played underwater.the genesis could acheive enough only it was brought to combustion to soon.yeah offcourse i would have liked a replica off the mighty system 16 also,but we cant turn back time.


Ristar? That has some of the worst voices in my opinion. They're sound like he's gargling saltwater as he's speaking.

it surprises that sonic didnt sound the same al that under water action for example ristar level 3 the beach,it cant get any saltyer in the water then that.


Perhaps I am. I just thought that the music from the "After Burner" and "Space Harrier" ports were distinguishable from other 32X games that clearly use mixed Genesis/32X music, like "Tempo" and "Knuckles' Chaotix".

Upon trying out "After Burner", I disagree that it sounds like crap. The full-on stereo music and sfx (did they utilize "QSound" on 32X games?) blast from both directions in this port. With headphones on it was bombastic. Best-sounding 32X game I've heard yet.

agree ony sore they left the guitar solos out from the sega cd version lol,pretty nice sound i agree they really can acomplish something this way sound ways,with most emulated games you could swith the channels of and listen to the drum parts but with this game it cant be done dunno why.Anyhow the drumming parts alone are really standing out high hat etc all that is in there awesome game.

[Joe Redifer]

ary, have you tried using the http://www.sega-16.com/forum/plasma/buttons/edit.gif button? There is no need to make 3 separate posts in a row. It's just plain annoying. You can quote multiple people in a single post.

[Zebbe]

Frequencies above 2,000Hz. Also bass seems to sound smoother on the Genesis.

Multiple voices simultaneously, "orchestral" stuff.

What difference does the two extra sound channels of the MD? More instruments and SFX apart from voices?

[Joe Redifer]

Depends. Some games use ONLY the 6 FM channels and don't bother with PSG/white noise. Some games use the white noise channel for crowd noises or running water, etc. Some games use the PSG for music. Even Knuckles' Chaotix on the 32X uses FM, PWM and PSG simultaneously. In fact the PSG carries the main portion of the melody. Personally, I like PSG sound, and if you back it up with some nice, smooth bass from the FM channels it's much better. I think the Streets of Rage games (at least parts one and two) use a bit of PSG.

So yes, you can have more instruments and sfx going on without things cutting out. But if a developer only uses the FM portion, things will cut out more than a SNES game ever would. Digitized sounds constantly cut each other off in games (cancel the drums, etc) since there is only 1 PCM channel in the Genesis vs 8 in the SNES. I'm surprised at how well it works regarding samples, but when an FM or PSG channel is cut, it has to wait until the next note of music is there to start playing again, and can sound goofy.

[GeckoYamori]

The PSG channels are excellent for backing harmonies, arpeggios and such. Sad how some games never utilize them.

[tomaitheous]

The PSG channels are excellent for backing harmonies, arpeggios and such. Sad how some games never utilize them.

PSG (single tone generation, not PCM) is ok for some/simple sound effects in my opinion. Being that only the z80 can access the VDP port(yes VDP does the PSG) for the PSG channels, is probably why most games, especially earlier ones, didn't use it. Also, the SMS PSG variant is as basic as you can get - no envelope, sweep, or length. NES definitely had a leg up on the SMS in that department.

As far as arpeggios, if you mean like the popularized Euro style in the mid-to-late 80's for C64 style, Atari 520ST, etc - then you can keep them! Ugh - I could never stand them.

[Robivy64]

As mentioned before, using higher-quality sound samples consumed valueable ROM space. As for the gargled sound, this is only heard when the YM2612 is handling FM and PCM at the same time. If you notice, in games like Thunderforce IV, the FM synth stops briefly when PCM samples are rendered, the resumes immediatly after (Panorama cotton gives you the option to pause the FM synth while playing a PCM sample).

[ary incorparated]

ary, have you tried using the http://www.sega-16.com/forum/plasma/buttons/edit.gif button? There is no need to make 3 separate posts in a row. It's just plain annoying. You can quote multiple people in a single post.

sorry man ill watch it next time,it always works better for also dont why i made it that way.

[Zebbe]

It just took you ten minutes to break that "ill watch it next time", ary :lol:.

[ary incorparated]

Perhaps I am. I just thought that the music from the "After Burner" and "Space Harrier" ports were distinguishable from other 32X games that clearly use mixed Genesis/32X music, like "Tempo" and "Knuckles' Chaotix".

Upon trying out "After Burner", I disagree that it sounds like crap. The full-on stereo music and sfx (did they utilize "QSound" on 32X games?) blast from both directions in this port. With headphones on it was bombastic. Best-sounding 32X game I've heard yet.

it sounds awesome dont know why it has to sound crap i totally agree with you.

[Zebbe]

Yes, you promised not to double post, but you did another post after only ten minutes. And now you have done it again. Listen to Joe, use the edit button or quote twice in the same message. It isn't hard.

[evildragon]

LOL! Burned!

[The Sports Guy]

I think you should cut him some slack. I dont think he comprehends english as much as we do and he doesnt mean anyone any harm.

[ary incorparated]

hmm EDITED i watch it more often for the comfort of reading.

[Tweaker]

What I've learned is that the quality of sound samples depends on a certain ratio - that of space-to-quality. Need to save space so your game will fit on the cart; and, not so big that you need to pay that much more per-cartridge (for the extra space)? Downgrade the DAC samples. Works a charm.

Course, this isn't good for voices. But man, I'll tell you, the kind of quality you can get out of the DAC without the issue of space is pretty amazing. For example, check out the first two advertisement screens on this ROM hack: http://youtube.com/watch?v=MSadEP6nIyw

Specifically the "Glowing Bridge" screen. That sample is just at 22khz - me and Puto have gotten samples up to 44khz playing fabuously by feeding the DAC data via the 68k, and those sound even better! Of course, then you've got sound samples taking up all of the addressable ROM space... so it's not exactly advisable. :P

Still, it's neat to tweak around with the Genny's real limits. It makes you wonder how much more could have been done, if, say, bankswapping was a viable option (and not something that required external hardware).

[evildragon]

One of my friends went as high as 110KHz (and might have gotten higher, if he updated the sound code recently)..

http://www.spritesmind.net/_GenDev/forum/viewtopic.php?t=188

[Joe Redifer]

Both of those examples are freakin' awesome. Keep making and posting stuff like that!

[Mel]

man, you know i remember when hearing a voice in a console game was amazing.

[tomaitheous]

....
Specifically the "Glowing Bridge" screen. That sample is just at 22khz - me and Puto have gotten samples up to 44khz playing fabuously by feeding the DAC data via the 68k, and those sound even better! Of course, then you've got sound samples taking up all of the addressable ROM space... so it's not exactly advisable. :P
....


Sure, the DAC will output as fast as you can write to the port - like almost all DACs (I can write up to 1mhz on the DAC of the PCE). To bad there's no timer interrupt system to feed the DAC. There's supposedly two timers on the YM chip in the Genesis that Sega never bothered to connect. That's the main reason why "voice" samples were lacking on the Genesis. That's too bad since the hardware was already available on the layout.

[evildragon]

Sure, the DAC will output as fast as you can write to the port - like almost all DACs (I can write up to 1mhz on the DAC of the PCE). To bad there's no timer interrupt system to feed the DAC. There's supposedly two timers on the YM chip in the Genesis that Sega never bothered to connect. That's the main reason why "voice" samples were lacking on the Genesis. That's too bad since the hardware was already available on the layout.
If my timer you mean the clock, there's only 1.


+--()--+
GND | 1 24| 0M(CLK)
D0 | 2 23| Vcc
D1 | 3 22| A.Vcc
D2 | 4 21| MOL
D3 | 5 20| MOR
D4 | 6 19| A.GND
D5 | 7 18| A1
D6 | 8 17| A0
D7 | 9 16| /RD
? |10 15| /WR
/IC |11 14| /CS
GND |12 13| /IRQ
+------+

[Joe Redifer]

That's the main reason why "voice" samples were lacking on the Genesis.
They were? Wow, my video must be fake.

[Mel]

They were? Wow, my video must be fake.

So umm that means it isn't Kamehameha that Gohan said in Dragonball Z? And the whole altered beast gwave thing is a myth? Damn!

[tomaitheous]

If my timer you mean the clock, there's only 1.


+--()--+
GND | 1 24| 0M(CLK)
D0 | 2 23| Vcc
D1 | 3 22| A.Vcc
D2 | 4 21| MOL
D3 | 5 20| MOR
D4 | 6 19| A.GND
D5 | 7 18| A1
D6 | 8 17| A0
D7 | 9 16| /RD
? |10 15| /WR
/IC |11 14| /CS
GND |12 13| /IRQ
+------+


From what Charles (Macdonald) told me last night, it has 8bit and 10 bit internal timers. It's not going to have an IRQ for each timer. And by TIMER I mean an internal counter that generates an interrupt for a CPU or external device when zero is reached, not the input clock driving the IC. I take it you haven't programmed using an I/O mapped TIMER.




They were? Wow, my video must be fake.


You know what I mean. I didn't say you can't stream nice sounding samples to the DAC (obviously you can), just that it's pretty limited. The Genesis lacking an TIMER interrupt system or a DAC that can feed itself (DMA) at a given frequency, means it's a poor setup for doing samples while processing other tasks. Treasure used the z80 to handle DAC writes - still not a replacement for a TIMER or a DAC/DMA setup.

[evildragon]

I've programmed using examples, but that's it. I don't care for programming much anymore, I have RLS.

[Aarzak]

Could it be that Sega disabled some features of the YM2612 in order to save costs, like they did when they used that stripped down FM chip for the Master System that had most of it's worthwhile functions disabled? (In response to the two timers supposedly being unconnected)

100th post. Kick ass.

[tomaitheous]

Could it be that Sega disabled some features of the YM2612 in order to save costs, like they did when they used that stripped down FM chip for the Master System that had most of it's worthwhile functions disabled? (In response to the two timers supposedly being unconnected)

100th post. Kick ass.


The TIMERs are there and you can read/write/poll them, they just never connected the IRQ line to the CPU (z80 or 68k) - a single line/wire. Such a simple thing begs the question of why!? If the IRQ was connected, then the counter could pause the CPU from what it's currently doing, allow it to update with a new sample, and then allow the CPU to continue on with what it was doing.

[Gentlegamer]

The voice "AWWWW" from Altered Beast is featured in a remix by myspace member, Altered Beatz (http://www.myspace.com/alteredbeatz2k7).