1790 replies to this topic

[toxie]

i think i have a good solution now.. the crackling noise only can be heard at high volume levels (~24 and above), so maybe this is even an issue on real hardware??

 

could somebody who has a real Elvis, LOTR, RBION, Sopranos or Nascar/Grand Prix/Dale Jr. at home maybe confirm this (especially Nascar and its variants show the problem when hitting the car and pop bumpers)?

 

but in general, if you compare the old pre-recorded samples shipped with most of the tables to the current emulation, then the emulation is sooooo much clearer nowadays.. 

[sliderpoint]

Has there been any new information discovered about the GI strings on Sega/Stern Whitestar systems?  All I can find is this post by JF saying it wasn't figured out at the time.

 

Thanks

-Mike

[toxie]

Nope.  :/

 

So far i'm still only capable of improving/redoing existing code, but such stuff as researching completely missing features still mostly goes over my head.

[Drybonz]

Toxie, was there any recent change that may have caused the pinmame options (F1) window to start showing up behind the playfield instead of on the backglass screen?  I'm just trying to determine if this is being caused by something on my system.  When it starts behind the PF Windows is very stubborn about letting you alt-tab to the options.

 

*edit*  Also, is there a hotkey for turning the DMD display off and on without bringing up the options dialog?

Edited by Drybonz, 12 August 2016 - 05:33 PM.

[toxie]

No and no.

But what i know is that there is some glitch with the options window from time to time, although even nothing at all was changed with the window code.

[Drybonz]

Ok, thanks... just started happening for me recently.  It used to always open on the backglass monitor so I could easily get to it.  Maybe I will find something that changed on my system.

[arngrim]

i played nascar yesterday, with vpu vpm based on 3909 revision, sound is crackling a lot, ans volume not at max in the rom, don't know if you improved something there since that revision?

[toxie]

so what is the volume?

there were some additional changes after that that improved sound quality (but will not cure crackling), so you should try a later rev.

will upload a new rev here anyhow, just want to finish some more changes with other sound cores first.

also: did you enable ROM sound in the script? cause some tables still ship the sound fx/music and play that instead of ROM emulation.

[arngrim]

it is the rom sound, with volume 28

[toxie]

i fear that this is too high (see comment 381), it should be around 24 or 25 to not cause this.

i'm still waiting for somebody to confirm if this happens (or not) on real hardware.

[arngrim]

ok then volume is too low compared to the other systems
but ok, i know all systems shouldn't really have all same sound level

[toxie]

i know. but at the moment there is really no more reason why there should be these strange crackles, AND especially only when the volume is high, and NEVER when its low.

so i'm running out of ideas and must blame it on the actual hard/software until somebody proves that this does not happen on a real machine.  :/

[toxie]

So, a friendly Grand Prix owner did some testing on his machine, and apparently he also hears issues on his machine at volume 24 and above.

But then again he said that this is also EXTREMELY loud, so it could well be that the rest of the audio system or speakers misbehave at these levels.

 

So this is at least an indication that this is real clipping or even overflow that happens on the software/hardware side, but not a 100% proof yet.

[toxie]

Apparently even volume 7 is already rather loud on real machines, so i guess that Stern designers simply did not test all machines at such high volumes. So for now we have to live with this problem on some Whitestar II games.

[toxie]

Small update: Still working on redoing/extending some of the sound code, but this is a can of worms, and requires A LOT of testing, as improving some part unveils a problem in interaction with another part usually or even some emulation issue for specific sound chips. Hopefully i can release a new beta build soon though.

[ClarkKent]

Any progress for the control files for PinSound so that option 1 could be used correctly?

[toxie]

Nope.. Not yet.. It was a moving target at least in the past as there were always changes happening, so i didn't bother too much, but i could look into it again if it feels like this is now kinda like finalized..

 

EDIT: any packages specifically i should look at that do not work correctly at the moment?

Edited by toxie, 31 August 2016 - 12:25 PM.

[ClarkKent]

Hmmmm. I didn't look (hear) lately but IJ was not correct as far as I know... 

[toxie]

If you have any more specific hints on what is missing/wrong, that would be ace, so i could look into that part specifically..

[toxie]

so.. after 2 months of insanity/dealing with nasty details all over the place (like the hydra: cut off one head, and two new spawn), here is a rather large update with a ton of sound improvements mainly, SO PLEASE ALL TEST THIS CAREFULLY, thanks!

 

 

changes:

- Major revamp of the sound resampling code, e.g. all problems with weird noise/crackling on some PCs/soundboards should be finally gone and it should not matter anymore if one uses 44100, 48000, 96000 or whatever as output rate (this uses libsamplerate/SRC now, along with my own SSE optimizations)

 

- Improve sound pitch for old Sterns (Catacomb, Flight 2000, Freefall, Lightning, Orbitor 1, and Split Second)
- Further improved AT91 sound core for the Whitestar II DMDs (Elvis, LOTR, RBION, Sopranos, Nascar/Grand Prix/Dale Jr.)
- Improved FM sound emulation cores (like AY8910, YMF262 and YM2151: so a lot of Gottlieb generations, old Ballys, pre-DCS games, etc)
- Slightly improved TMS5200 core (Bally Centaur, etc), especially the wrong pitch if Zaccaria games were run after the first time from within VP
- Use reverb for all sound cores (not just TMS5200) used in Bally Centaur
- Improved M114 sound core (Mr. Game)
- Improved HC55516 CVSD sound core (Gorgar up to Twilight Zone, etc) and add some lowpass filtering (active only on older machines) to remove some of the audible noise
- Slightly lowpass filter DCS sound core (Indiana Jones and up) to remove some of the audible noise
- Improved GTS80BS/GTS3 DAC & OKI6376/ADPCM sound cores (Gottlieb DMDs, etc)
- Improved GTS80SS DAC sound core (Haunted House, Black Hole, Mars God of War, etc)

 

- Improved DMD brightness level mapping for AlvinG
- Improved AT91 core emulation features

 

- Add support for Stargate rev.5

 

Note:

- One should still avoid high volume levels for Whitestar II machines (~24 and above, for example on Nascar) and Williams/Bally DMD machines as this can lead to noise/crackles. This is most likely even an issue on real hardware and so could not be fixed in emulation!

 

 

Also thanks to the other/external source contributors Lucky1 (DMD brightness level fixes) and DJRobX (AT91 core and some sound fixes)!

 

 

All 5 builds in the first post were update due to this, so please test as much as possible.

 

 

If in doubt about some sound emulation core/improvement, PLEASE COMPARE WITH THE OFFICIAL VPM 2.7 build (http://www.vpforums....&showfile=11571) first, then report the problem here if its a new issue!

Edited by toxie, 16 October 2016 - 01:56 PM.