Games that use the SCSP FM Synthesizer (Saturn)

[Robivy64]

This nerdy thread may only appeal to a finite number of nerds.




So, i've been playing the Saturn rather regularly for several weeks now. I am a big fan of classic hardware-generated chip tunes, and with the advent of CD-ROMs and redbook audio in game consoles, FM synth tunes quickly became extinct.

I have noticed a few games use the YMF292's FM channels. Here are a few that I have found:

NiGHTS (Boss "results" music only)


Cotton Boomerang (uses the YMF292 FM channels for nearly all music, probably because it's an ST-V port)


Any other games out there use the YMF292's FM synth for some of the music?

[Robivy64]

Derp! This needs to be in BRAST PROCESSING!

[sheath]

I would like to know what games were actually running on chip tunes on the Saturn, or Dreamcast for that matter. Rumors back in the day said that the Panzer Dragoon games were all chip tunes, and I have even seen it reported that the Sonic Adventure games on Dreamcast were chiptunes.

[tomaitheous]

I would like to know what games were actually running on chip tunes on the Saturn, or Dreamcast for that matter. Rumors back in the day said that the Panzer Dragoon games were all chip tunes, and I have even seen it reported that the Sonic Adventure games on Dreamcast were chiptunes.

On that note, I'd like to know which games (and tracks) specifically used FM channels instead of sample-based synth channels in Saturn chip tunes.

[Robivy64]

The examples above have some PCM samples mixed in, with the exception of the NiGHTS Boss Results music, which sounds like 100% FM synth and not PCM samples.

I can only suspect that using pure FM synth allowed for fast switching from the boss music (red book) to the results music with minimal seeking, since the code for the FM tunes is likely very small.

[Chilly Willy]

Derp! This needs to be in BRAST PROCESSING!

Actually, it should be in Insert Coin as merely asking about specific games released for the Saturn. It's not asking HOW to do FM or telling how a game does FM, merely asking what used FM.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Does Capcom Generation 5 use the FM channels? Or is it Redbook Audio like Street Fighter Collection?

[kool kitty89]

You can't really tell what games used it just by listening . . . you'd need more technical information on the game in question to be sure. You could easily have sampled synth sounds being used instead.
OTOH, you may have use of the FM capabilities resulting in sounds nowhere near typical FM.

The SCSP's FM capabilities are highly flexible and potentially very powerful, but also weak and wasteful to use in a conventional Yamaha synth manner (ie using a limited set of simple waveforms -or just sine wave- as the oscillators).

The SCSP has no formal FM channels as such, but can use any number of its 32 PCM channels AS FM operators (oscillators) themselves. So you could have any combination of those 32 oscillators using any waveforms you like (anything that can fit in sample RAM) with virtually any sort of FM algorithm you can imagine. (and that's not including the added effects the DSP can do)

Technically you could use it just to do Yamaha chip/keyboard style FM (and waste the hardware) by just using sine wave samples and groups of oscillators configured as FM channels. If you wanted to do FM similar to the common YM2151, you'd need to use all 32 oscillators slaved into 8 groups of 4 for the 8 4-op channels. To do the YM2612, you'd need to slave 24 oscillators for the 6 FM channels with 8 PCM channels left over for other things. To mimic the OPL2 chip of Adlib/SB cards (and some arcade games), you'd need 18 oscillators dedicated to FM with 14 left for other things. You wouldn't be able to simulate the OPL3 since that uses 36 operators. If you wanted to do 6-op FM like the DX-7, you'd only be able to do 5 channels max (using 30 operators) with 2 left over.

So, as I mentioned, it's really, really wasteful to use the SCSP like that; it clearly wasn't the intention at all. (if it had been, they'd have had a dedicated bank of fixed-function FM synth channels and dedicated PCM channels with no FM synth support like the OPL4 did, or just have separate FM and PCM chips -which, in hindsight, would have probably been a lot more useful, though you could easily argue it would have been best to drop all FM support in general with all emphasis on sample synth instead -the DSP was pretty much a waste too, and ironically didn't support features useful for sample decompression like some other DSPs did; the dreamcast used a dirivative of the SCSP with all the FM logic removed and ADPCM support added, but the DSP was also retained and largely wasted AFIK -plus, you already had the nice ARM7 to do a lot of software effects or decode other compression formats, even MP3 level stuff)

Does Capcom Generation 5 use the FM channels? Or is it Redbook Audio like Street Fighter Collection?

Huh? Why would it have to be either one of those 2, why not sample synth? (what the vast majority of non-CD-DA tracks on the Saturn use, like the PSX)

There's also the option to stream compressed audio (or just lower quality PCM) and decode it on the fly. Several games used ADPCM decoded by the 68k on the fly (Sonic Jam does that). Of course, all FMV did that as well.

[kool kitty89]

Are there any games that have actually been definitively confirmed to use the synth features of the SCSP? And of those, are there details on how it was used? (are there any cases that started to push its real capabilities -ie not for normal FM or sample synth, but the flexible hybrid it allows)

For that matter, are there any games that make significant use of the DSP for audio effects?

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Well I know the ports of Super Street Fighter 2 use CD Audio for the music as if you let a battle go long enough it fades out and restarts as well as there being a 1 second pause between the transition from the normal themes to the low health versions. As I said I'm not sure if the Capcom Generation 5 compilation of the CPS1 games uses Synth or CD audio.

Has anyone checked to see if any of the Neo Geo ports or Sega Genesis ports used the FM capabilities? I know Sonic Jam uses PCM but what about Phantasy Star Collection and Thunder Force Gold Pack 1 and 2?

[kool kitty89]

Well I know the ports of Super Street Fighter 2 use CD Audio for the music as if you let a battle go long enough it fades out and restarts as well as there being a 1 second pause between the transition from the normal themes to the low health versions. As I said I'm not sure if the Capcom Generation 5 compilation of the CPS1 games uses Synth or CD audio.

Has anyone checked to see if any of the Neo Geo ports or Sega Genesis ports used the FM capabilities? I know Sonic Jam uses PCM but what about Phantasy Star Collection and Thunder Force Gold Pack 1 and 2?

Again, the FM in the SCSP isn't very good for that . . . it's horribly wasteful (it takes 4 PCM channels slaved to FM to replicate just 1 Genesis FM channel -vs obviously 1 channel if using samples of the FM instruments).

Sonic Jam doesn't use PCM, it streams ADPCM and decodes with the CPU (to fit more music on the disc), a few PSX games used BRR compressed soundtracks instead of CD-DA as well iirc.
Actually, for relatively CPU-light games, the Saturn should have been able to do MPEG flavor streaming audio in software.


But again, it's nearly impossible to guess whether a game is using sampled FM or realtime FM without added information (not just by listening to it), even if it's fairly obvious that realtime audio rendering is being done.

[kool kitty89]

What, there is absolutely no way that Sonic Adventure 1 or 2's music was realized on real-time synthesized chiptunes. You may be thinking of Sonic Shuffle, which was synthesized real-time (quite badly so) and there is a notable difference in sound.

A few tracks in SA might be realtime stuff, but most is obviously streaming.

[kool kitty89]

None of the music in SA is real-time. If memory serves, all the music and voices in SA 1 + 2 are encoded in ADX, which is compressed PCM. Chiptunes are easy to identify on these systems as both the Saturn and Dreamcast have recognizable (and limited) synthesizer sections and soundfonts. Real-time synthesizing was used much less often than PCM as well unlike on a machine like the Nintendo 64.

What games definitely used realtime synthesized sound on the Saturn? (DC was obviously all PCM/ADPCM for synth stuff . . . or PCM+DSP/ARM effects -and probably a fair amount of MP3 stuff, PSX is obviously all BRR+DSP FX)

As mentioned earlier, it's generally impossible to tell what type of synth is used just by listening to the game, but I'd certainly be interested to know some games that are confirmed for using synth stuff. (and to what extent the synth is used -ie crappy use as OPN/OPM/OPL-like synths, or actual use of the SCSP's intended flexible FM capabilities in addition to DSP effects)

[kool kitty89]

It's possible. They have a unique pace and sound because of the limited sequencer in both machines. The only Dreamcast game I know that uses a real-time synthesized soundtrack is Sonic Shuffle.

I know Nights (both versions) has a synthesized soundtrack, as does Panzer Dragoon Saga. Those are the only ones that stood out to my ears. I haven't played many other Saturn games, and all of them had redbook soundtracks.

No, I meant whether you knew of any games that used the realtime synthesis capabilities of the SCSP (flexible hybrid FM synth plus DSP effects) rather than just PCM based sample synth music.

[kool kitty89]

I'll have to listen to some of the music in those games again. Almost all of Nights however, sounded like a low-end sampler more than FM synthesis. Same applies to Panzer Dragoon Saga. Sonic Shuffle was almost certainly sample-based as well.

To my knowledge, I don't think any Saturn games used the FM synthesizer, but I could have just not played them.

I doubt listening alone will yield anything concrete:
high quality samples (possibly with realtime envelopes or other effects) can be indistinguishable from actual realtime synth. (not to mention that it would be likely to use some samples along with synth in cases that did use synth -and to truly make use of the FM capabilities, you'd be using more complex samples/waveforms as the FM operators . . . the main strength of the SCSP's FM -if you're not going to use that feature, it's pretty wasteful to bother with any FM at all . . . and it would have been far more cost effective to use embed a fixed-function FM synth chip along with plain PCM -more like the OPL4 did)

It seems like actual technical information is needed on a given game's sound driver (or specific comments/details from the developers/programmers) to actually discern when (and how) the SCSP is being used. (not just whether FM is used, but how its used -ie wasted by mimicking simple OPN/M type stuff, or what sort of DSP effects are being used along with samples or FM)