How is cart music played back?

Murray

Murray

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I was playing around with the jukebox in my UniBIOS the other day and got to thinking about how the music is played back. I'd always just assumed it was a pseudo MIDI+Wavetable type thing but I guess some games might just stream PCM (or whatever format) out of the ROMs.

Any ideas?
 
ki_atsushi

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If I recall correctly, the music is FM Synthesis, much like the Sega Genesis, only way more advanced. Not sure exactly how FM works in consoles. Of course the Neo also has digital channels, for SFX and voices.
 
E

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FM synthesis, wavetable sampling, and raw PCM data.
Examples would be in same order, NES games, SNES, NEO games (had wavetables), and raw PCM audio playback (Pulstar, Blazing Star, all Noise Factory-developed BGM)
 
cyriades

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Interesting....Neo Geo's sound hardware is definitely not bad at all. SNES sounds quite good as well, but I wonder which is better overall?
 
LoneSage

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cyriades said:
SNES sounds quite good as well, but I wonder which is better overall?
Click to expand...

Neo's, definitely.
For a prime example, just listen to Metal Slug 4.
 
Superfamifreak

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LoneSage said:
Neo's, definitely.
For a prime example, just listen to Metal Slug 4.
Click to expand...

Have you ever heard the music to Seken Densetsu 2 or 3 and Final Fantasy VI?
 
Weevus

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Superfamifreak said:
Have you ever heard the music to Seken Densetsu 2 or 3 and Final Fantasy VI?
Click to expand...


Earthbound's not bad either.
 
LoneSage

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Superfamifreak said:
Have you ever heard the music to Seken Densetsu 2 or 3 and Final Fantasy VI?
Click to expand...


The latter is one of the reasons why I think the SNES > Neo.
Despite those wonderful soundtracks...the Neo's definitely got a better sound system going on. Not saying the soundtracks for Neo games are necessarily better, just the quality of it.
 
cyriades

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Yeah, FF6 and SD2 are definitely good stuff. Actraiser and Castlevania IV are worth mentioning as well. Neo clearly edges out SNES, I think, in the sound effects department (PCM etc.).
 
cyriades

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Which reminds me, I'm not entirely sure why SNK never used the pcm channels for music. Those usually were used for voices iirc
 
it290

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The SNES' sound system is technically more advanced, it has a custom DSP that allows for a lot of cool effects (echo, reverb etc). Neo games just sound better a lot of the time because of the huge meg counts of the cartridges -- they can fit more and better quality PCM samples in for music and voice data. But a 32 meg Neo game could never match a 32 meg SNES game for sound quality.
 
cyriades

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Ok, so it was simply easier for the Neo Geo's sound quality to be maxed out. Plus it had the extra sound channels that could be used. Definitely up to the programmers / amount of memory used. What I'm wondering is, whether (or how accurately) SNES could have faithfully reproduced Neo games if programmers had been able to use ram chips in carts, the way later Neo games do.
 
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