Hey! I've been throwing a ton of time into this musicdisk and I think I'm finally ready to call it done. See what you think. It should run fast on a 486 DX2 66-- press '2' if it's crawling on your system. It's all done with RADTracker2, and I've also included the RAD files since its emulator sounds more accurate than DOSBox's.
Thanks for the heads up.
Sometimes I can't believe how good OPL can sound. Great tunes! Too bad most games treated it as a generic fallback for MIDI...
The *.rad files are not compatible with the DOS version of RAD though (v1.1a from 1995.) They changed the file format.
wrote:Sometimes I can't believe how good OPL can sound. Great tunes! Too bad most games treated it as a generic fallback for MIDI...
The *.rad files are not compatible with the DOS version of RAD though (v1.1a from 1995.) They changed the file format.
Thanks! Yeah, they're OPL3 so they need RAD 2.0 : https://www.3eality.com/productions/reality-adlib-tracker
That DOS release though IIRC doesn't like the YMF262 but works on the Creative clone.
Re: MIDI: I'm toying with my next project being a MIDI mastering tool for OPL3 😁 You'd load General MIDI into it, pick patches and effects like echo, and it'd compile it down into a format where all of the voice management is pre-computed like in a tracker and can syncing to a lower detail clock (like a refresh rate). I'm not sure if anyone but me would get use out of it though, and it'd be an undertaking.
Hmm, think the guitar is loud enough in Burn Zone? I turned it down because it was really blasting before, but now I'm thinking I overdid it...
Burn Zone sounds find to me 😀
I'm running this in pcem, btw, patched to use Nuked OPL 1.8, which I think is considered "bit perfect" (meaning no difference to a real YMF262) as it seems to implement the actual hardware logic through reverse engineering using YMF262 die photos. It certainly does sound 100% the same in my listening tests, at least.
Edit: I noticed the ALLOYRUN reference in XCESSIV 😁
wrote:Burn Zone sounds find to me 😀
I'm running this in pcem, btw, patched to use Nuked OPL 1.8, which I think is considered "bit perfect" (meaning no difference to a real YMF262) as it seems to implement the actual hardware logic through reverse engineering using YMF262 die photos. It certainly does sound 100% the same in my listening tests, at least.
Edit: I noticed the ALLOYRUN reference in XCESSIV 😁
Oh! I didn't even know about Nuked. That's good news! I was going to see if I could patch OPaL into DOSBox, but it seems there's no need.
wrote:Re: MIDI: I'm toying with my next project being a MIDI mastering tool for OPL3 😁 You'd load General MIDI into it, pick patches and effects like echo, and it'd compile it down into a format where all of the voice management is pre-computed like in a tracker and can syncing to a lower detail clock (like a refresh rate). I'm not sure if anyone but me would get use out of it though, and it'd be an undertaking.
I think it would be a good idea. I had had a slightly different idea (but in the same vein) a few months back while tinkering around with the YMF825. The idea is still to be a General MIDI player, but use custom patches that emulate or simulate effects on the OPL3 instruments (kind of like instrument macros, RAD2's riffs, or the like). Probably won't ever have the time to implement it though. 🙁
By the way, will a future version of the music disk support OPL3LPT?
Some mighty fine 4-op instrument work in here. And +1 for listening to Judas Priest when doing musicdisks. 😁
My only OPL3-bearing card is in an IBM XT, so no chance for me to run this on real hardware - any plans to get this onto Soundcloud? although I guess RAD could work for listening at the office..
Might the LOTUS III soundtrack have also been an influence? Some of those tunes could fit in there -- or maybe it's just the background animation that made me think of it, heh.
wrote:Some mighty fine 4-op instrument work in here. And +1 for listening to Judas Priest when doing musicdisks. 😁
My only OPL3-bearing card is in an IBM XT, so no chance for me to run this on real hardware - any plans to get this onto Soundcloud? although I guess RAD could work for listening at the office..Might the LOTUS III soundtrack have also been an influence? Some of those tunes could fit in there -- or maybe it's just the background animation that made me think of it, heh.
Thanks! I'm going to record it off of real hardware with a fairly nice audio interface and put it onto Bandcamp. Lotus III-- yeah that background effect does look a bit like the sci fi zones, doesn't it? It uses a lot of the same 3d technique as a psuedo-3d road.
Lotus: Lotus II I think is my favorite of that series. Shame they never did a DOS version of that Lotus Trilogy. I can't say Lotus III is a direct influence, but I did grow up listening to all those MODs in that style-- that mash of 80s electronic styles from synthpop to industrial to house and italo-disco. These days I listen mostly to the really scene-y stuff, but back then I played a bunch of those less-technical tunes that used Soundtracker sounds (like DNS.MOD, still one of my faves). Ironically, I listened to all of that on the PC as I didn't have a modem for the Amiga (or even a modplayer)!
wrote:Awesome. Will try it out one of these days on my 386.Let's see if it's up to the task. Will record it for reference.
I'd love to know how it runs. I was only really able to test with slower machines in DOSBox, which I don't think takes things like memory bandwidth bottlenecks into consideration. Be sure to hit '2' for framedrop mode. I can't help but think the code could be much tighter-- it has *some* handwritten assembly, it's using 32-bit blits, but it's also just mode13h double-buffered which I know is flushing some performance down the drain. 'course one thing I love about having the buffer in system memory is I can do sprites with bitops. I bet it's going to be really pokey on non-VLB though. TBH, this is the first time I've done a good amount of asm code for DOS-- when I was younger I only did BASIC and Pascal.
wrote:I think it would be a good idea. I had had a slightly different idea (but in the same vein) a few months back while tinkering around with the YMF825. The idea is still to be a General MIDI player, but use custom patches that emulate or simulate effects on the OPL3 instruments (kind of like instrument macros, RAD2's riffs, or the like). Probably won't ever have the time to implement it though.
I'd do it if I thought people would use it! It might even just be worth it to hear classic DOS game music with nicer FM patches. It could ship with a ton of converted DOS game and arcade game MIDI.
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=8447
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=8448
Love those two! my primary test for fm in PCI soundcards.
Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines
wrote:http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=8447
http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=8448Love those two! my primary test for fm in PCI soundcards.
Those are two of my favorites! I really love the variety in those musicdisks. Forest Shadows I remember blowing my mind because I didn’t think at that point that OPL2 could sound like that. That was a moment that made me want to put more time into OPL composition rather than the sample-based tracking i was doing.
wrote:By the way, will a future version of the music disk support OPL3LPT?
Hmmm this looks pretty cool! I didn't know about the OPL3 one. I wonder how hard raw LPT programming is for DOS, and how clean the amp is-- this might really be the best way to record the disk given how noisy old soundcards can be. My hand is hovering on the buy button 😀 Have you tried their patching tool or the TSR yet? The musicdisk does chain the timer interrupt for the music engine, so there's a chance the TSR would do OK.
Ok, I quickly recorded the disk on my 386 with the Jazz16 board, using a real YMF262:
As time of writing video is still uploading, pending a few minutes. Note that I skipped in between a bit, since I can only upload 15 minutes on my secondary channel, and it seems that the disk runs somewhat longer. Once I can verify my channel, I will reupload the full recording.
Disk runs fine in mode 2, mode 1 is indeed a bit slow. However mode 2 has some video snow, as can be expected from the palette manipulations.
wrote:wrote:By the way, will a future version of the music disk support OPL3LPT?
Hmmm this looks pretty cool! I didn't know about the OPL3 one. I wonder how hard raw LPT programming is for DOS, and how clean the amp is-- this might really be the best way to record the disk given how noisy old soundcards can be. My hand is hovering on the buy button 😀 Have you tried their patching tool or the TSR yet? The musicdisk does chain the timer interrupt for the music engine, so there's a chance the TSR would do OK.
THe LPT programming is pretty much straight forward (I can PM you the LPT source that SBVGM uses if you'd like). The amp sounds fairly clean to me, but I guess that would be subjective to my ears. 😀 I haven't tried patching or the TSR yet, though I believe that the TSR should work out of the box.
wrote:THe LPT programming is pretty much straight forward (I can PM you the LPT source that SBVGM uses if you'd like). The amp sounds fairly clean to me, but I guess that would be subjective to my ears. 😀 I haven't tried patching or the TSR yet, though I believe that the TSR should work out of the box.
Yeah, I found some example code and it looks pretty simple! I've ordered one and will see if I can't add support in. SBVGM looks super cool BTW-- now I can listen to the Heavy Barrel music how it's supposed to be 😁 does it do OPL2+PCM tracks like 2 Crude Dudes? BTW I got a start on that OPL3 MIDI project this weekend!
wrote:Ok, I quickly recorded the disk on my 386 with the Jazz16 board, using a real YMF262:
Cool! Yeah, that runs pretty slow alright. ISA VGA card? Maybe if I do another graphics-heavy project I'll go for page-flipping instead of double buffering.
wrote:Yeah, I found some example code and it looks pretty simple! I've ordered one and will see if I can't add support in.
Wonderful! I reckon there might be a lot of folks who have the OPL3LPT who'd be able to enjoy your music disk as well. 😀
wrote:SBVGM looks super cool BTW-- now I can listen to the Heavy Barrel music how it's supposed to be 😁 does it do OPL2+PCM tracks like 2 Crude Dudes?
Thanks! It currently doesn't have any PCM support. 🙁 There are those few arcade games that support OPL2+PCM like Rollergames that I would have loved to hear. I just ended up not having time to implement it since a lot of the arcade PCM hardware is quite different from what's on the PC and it would take some effort to add support. If I did have a sufficient time to attempt to add support it would have to be in the 386 version of SBVGM because of memory and CPU requirements (some arcade set ups allow up to 4MB memory for sample data).
wrote:BTW I got a start on that OPL3 MIDI project this weekend!
Oh cool! I'm definitely curious to see and hear how it turns out! 😀
wrote:wrote:BTW I got a start on that OPL3 MIDI project this weekend!
Oh cool! I'm definitely curious to see and hear how it turns out! 😀
It'll be a bit! But so far I wrote a C MIDI parser that can tick along and read notes, and it's pretty clean and extensible. It's been prototyped on my laptop without sound, so now it's time to move it to the DOS machine and begin adding the fun stuff 😀
wrote:It'll be a bit! But so far I wrote a C MIDI parser that can tick along and read notes, and it's pretty clean and extensible. It's been prototyped on my laptop without sound, so now it's time to move it to the DOS machine and begin adding the fun stuff 😀
Looking forward to it! 😀
