Pac-Man Collection with POKEY sound

[Schmutzpuppe]

Nice! It could be a little louder though

 

Try this one. I upped the volume a little. I also applied the same technique to the Pac-Man energizer.

 

Perry

 

I just tried it the first time.

It sounds great, good work

[PacManPlus]

Sounds very cool - Perry, you know the drill Awaiting a PM with the updates

[tep392]

Sounds very cool - Perry, you know the drill Awaiting a PM with the updates

 

Will do.

[+darryl1970]

Nice! It could be a little louder though

 

Try this one. I upped the volume a little. I also applied the same technique to the Pac-Man energizer.

 

Perry

 

Pac-Man Energizer sounds awesome. The Ms.Pac Energizer sounds better. I listened to it and then went back to the arcade. I like the distorted sound that was added to the stock 8-bit energizer. That made a difference. I think the Arcade Ms Pac Energizer might be a lower pitch. I can't put my finger on it. But nice changes either way.

[Lord Helmet]

Played some more of this last night. Wow, what a difference!

 

You should tackle Donkey Kong next

[DarthCloud]

You should tackle Donkey Kong next

 

+1

[tep392]

You should tackle Donkey Kong next

 

+1

 

Didn't Opcode suggest he might work on a DK port for the XM?

[Bakasama]

I think he did. He was going to work Millipede but the powers that be decided that DK should be done. Still, there are other 7800 title that could've used better sound like Dig Dug or Xevious.

[Lord Helmet]

You should tackle Donkey Kong next

 

+1

 

Didn't Opcode suggest he might work on a DK port for the XM?

 

Based on what went down in the CV forum a week or two ago I dunno if Opcode will be working on any homebrew anytime soon.

[Underball]

You should tackle Donkey Kong next

 

+1

 

Didn't Opcode suggest he might work on a DK port for the XM?

 

Based on what went down in the CV forum a week or two ago I dunno if Opcode will be working on any homebrew anytime soon.

 

What Happened?

[tep392]

You should tackle Donkey Kong next

 

+1

 

Didn't Opcode suggest he might work on a DK port for the XM?

 

Based on what went down in the CV forum a week or two ago I dunno if Opcode will be working on any homebrew anytime soon.

 

I've been looking into what it would take to rip the sound code out of the 8-bit version and put it in the 7800 version. Should not take too much effort and would fit in current 48k rom. I won't tackle adding the 4th screen though. Would be too difficult without the source code.

[HammR25]

Based on what went down in the CV forum a week or two ago I dunno if Opcode will be working on any homebrew anytime soon.

 

What Happened?

You've been pm'd

[Madaracs]

This may belong in the 7800 Hacks forum, but I thought it deserved a little more visibility, so I'm posting it here. I've always been impressed with Bob's work on Pac-man Collection, with it's excellent game play, but I've haven't been quite satisfied with the sound. I think Bob got everything he could out of the TIA chip, but I kept thinking it could sound better if it used POKEY. So I decided it would be a fun little project to change the sound to work with the POKEY chip.

 

This is the result. I'm still tinkering with it a little but I'm pretty satisfied with it. I copied the Ms. Pac-man sounds note for note from the 8-bit computer version. The Pac-man sounds are also based on the 8-bit version but I made improvements were I could. Most of the change was to the Introduction and intermission tunes. The music still doesn't have that sound of the arcade machines, which used wavetable sound synthesis, but I think it's pretty good. I might work on it a little more in the future, but for now, I'll use my little free time to just play it.

 

Bob has actually been helping me out by providing feedback and play testing. Thanks Bob! I've tested this with the ProSystem Emulator as well as in hardware with a modified Ballblazer cart. Unfortunately, my Ballblazer cart is acting flaky so I've only been able to do limited hardware testing. Hopefully any you with CC2's or other POKEY carts can test it out for me and let me know if you find any bugs. I also welcome any feedback that would help me improve the authenticity of the sounds.

 

Regards,

Perry

 

Is there a chance this could get released to a cartridge after the 7800 expansion module gets released? Or possibly a chance that it might get released in a cartridge form with a POKEY chip? Or should I just buy the one at the AA Store? Because this would be really cool as a real cart.

[Lendorien]

Is this game going to be XM only then? Or do you include an operation to check for the XM and default to the TIA if it's not present?

[tep392]

I've done an update which add's the TIA sounds back in. It will detect the XM and use POKEY if available, else go back to TIA sound. I won't be able to test until I get an XM but I expect it to work fine. TIA sound works on my standard console. I'm actually working on an update that will use the Yamaha chip, but won't be able to debug it until the modules ship.

 

Perry

[HammR25]

I've done an update which add's the TIA sounds back in. It will detect the XM and use POKEY if available, else go back to TIA sound. I won't be able to test until I get an XM but I expect it to work fine. TIA sound works on my standard console. I'm actually working on an update that will use the Yamaha chip, but won't be able to debug it until the modules ship.

 

Perry

I'm pretty sure I can test it for you since I have a CC2. Should be able to just disable the Pokey on the CC2 and see if it goes back to TIA sound unless you mean work specifically with the XM.

[Lendorien]

I've done an update which add's the TIA sounds back in. It will detect the XM and use POKEY if available, else go back to TIA sound. I won't be able to test until I get an XM but I expect it to work fine. TIA sound works on my standard console. I'm actually working on an update that will use the Yamaha chip, but won't be able to debug it until the modules ship.

 

Perry

 

Hm. Well, I'll update the listing in the 7800 list then. Thanks for answering so quickly!

[tep392]

I've done an update which add's the TIA sounds back in. It will detect the XM and use POKEY if available, else go back to TIA sound. I won't be able to test until I get an XM but I expect it to work fine. TIA sound works on my standard console. I'm actually working on an update that will use the Yamaha chip, but won't be able to debug it until the modules ship.

 

Perry

I'm pretty sure I can test it for you since I have a CC2. Should be able to just disable the Pokey on the CC2 and see if it goes back to TIA sound unless you mean work specifically with the XM.

 

Thanks for the offer, but I've already verified it will revert back to TIA when the POKEY is absent. It's setup to detect the POKEY mapped like the XM or XBOARD, so I need to check on one of those to see if the POKEY sounds still work correctly. If anyones interested in what I'm trying to do with the Yamaha chip, download the X68000 emulator, http://www.jcec.co.uk/X68emu.htm

 

Then download the Namco Game Music Library which was written to use the Yamaha sound chip. Some very neat stuff in that program which I expect to borrow from heavily.

 

http://www.jcec.co.uk/X68list.htm

 

Perry

[tep392]

Here's a cool sample of what the Yamaha chip can do. This is from an emulator for the x68000 computer, so I don't know how close it is to the sound of real hardware.

 

Perry

pacmanarrangement.mp3

Edited December 22, 2010 by tep392

[Corby]

Here's a cool sample of what the Yamaha chip can do. This is from an emulator for the x68000 computer, so I don't know how close it is to the sound of real hardware.

 

Perry

 

"WOW"

[Lendorien]

I've done an update which add's the TIA sounds back in. It will detect the XM and use POKEY if available, else go back to TIA sound. I won't be able to test until I get an XM but I expect it to work fine. TIA sound works on my standard console. I'm actually working on an update that will use the Yamaha chip, but won't be able to debug it until the modules ship.

 

Perry

 

Glad to know it'll be a dual boot game then.

 

Using the Yamaha opens a lot of doors for sound. I've heard some of what the Yamaha can do. It's a pretty powerful chip compared to what was offered earlier on. I'll admit that it almost rivals the sound available in some of the 4th gen consoles.

 

Course, I guess it depends of how true you want to be to the arcade version of the game.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Lendorien

[Justin42]

Here's a cool sample of what the Yamaha chip can do. This is from an emulator for the x68000 computer, so I don't know how close it is to the sound of real hardware.

 

Perry

 

That's REALLY impressive.

 

I'm wondering if my head would survive the shock of plugging in a 7800XM game and having that level of music coming out..!

[TrekMD]

That sample sounds amazing!

[AtariNerd]

To give an appreciation of the difference between an envelope generator like the SID (or with a pokey with special programming) and a true synthesizer chip like the YM2151, here are two versions of the end-title theme to Portal, 'Still Alive' coded by the same person and played back on an 8080- based computer.

 

First the SID:

 

 

and then the YM:

 

 

It has to be noted that with more recent programming techniques, the SID can emulate up to 4 sample channels, along with a couple of synth channels, all being able to be filtered independently/together and could probably pull off something that sounds similar at a much higher resource, memory taxation.

 

I do like the "fatter" sound of the old POKEY quite a bit, even if in it's stock configuration it isn't as capable and is "Out of tune" With the XM, though..we don't have to compromise. You can have a YM background track and POKEY sound effects.

[PacManPlus]

Update: Found the 'Monster eyes go through the walls while in the tunnel' bug mentioned a while back (I found it while looking for something else)

 

*EDIT* - This one:

One bug I did come across, though, and I apologize in advance if it's already been mentioned, is that a couple of times after eating a ghost in both Ms. Pac and at least one of the random mazes on Pac-man, if the ghost's returning eyes pass through a tunnel, it gets caught in that path and perpetually continues in that path straight across the screen, right through the maze walls and back through the other side. It will continue to do this and never return to the ghost house until you finish the level and start the next rack.