12 replies to this topic

[80sBear]

Hey, gang..the sound quality of any voice actors in Addams Family and Twilight Zone are pretty bad.  I'm on a 8-core i7, VPX, Windows 7 with Realtek Audio drivers.  Can't even make out what some of what's being said (ie: at the beginning of TZ, I hear something being said that's I guess supposed to be Rod Sterling but it's hard to even make out what the words are.  Ditto Addams family).

 

I've played with the sound sample rate in Game Settings and have read the different threads on values to try, but don't hear any significant difference.

 

Will the new PinMame beta fix some / all of this?  If so, are there any tutorials on how to set that up or at least test it so I don't totally gork my existing VPX install?

 

Also would be interested in any good tutorials/WIKI on Surround Sound setup.  Am building a cab so if there's a way to do it "right" vs L/R speakers I have today that'd be good to know also.

 

Thanks for any / all help..I have great audio on some tables (eg: TOTAN, AFM), so this is driving me crazy - to the point I don't even want to play those particular tables.

 

 

[Carny_Priest]

That’s as good as it gets. It’s a function of pre-DCS tables’ use of highly compressed voice samples. It’s the capability of the tech on these 25 year old tables. It’s pretty much the same quality on the real tables.

Google PinSound for high quality alternative soundtracks. I recommend the Chris Granner DCS soundtrack that didn’t make it into the production table because the tech was not ready at that point in time.




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[80sBear]

Yikes!  OK..as someone who professionally developed video games for the Commodore VIC-20 in the early 80s, I (somewhat) get it.  But wow is that painful.  Basically makes the tables all but unplayable.  Also makes me appreciate the work Zen, TPA and others are doing to totally re-do and re-release tables.  SO much easier to get going than VPX..

 

I remember our first project back in the early 80s playing around with digitized speech.  I swear it sounded better than some of these pre-DCS games, but "it is what it is" I suppose!

 

Thanks for letting me know I'm not just going crazy or doing something wrong..

[80sBear]

BTW, I did install the PinSound tracks for TAF some time ago, and they were decent - but I think the voice effects are in the ROM (?) so it made no difference on that part..

FWIW this all brings back some fond memories of burning our code onto 4K EPROMs.  Ah, those were the days.  Now, I can't load an iPhone App for under 100 MB (weather.com - looking at you!) and the PC apps - gigs.  When did people forget how to write code?!

Edited by 80sBear, 19 November 2018 - 10:36 PM.

[Carny_Priest]

Moore’s Law greatly outpaces the need for efficient coding, I guess. Works for me. I’ve gotten a whole lot more productive over my career. I guarantee that it isn’t because I’ve gotten a whole lot faster at coding.

There are some TAF remixes that have pulled voice from the movies Blu-rays but I don’t think it is possible to substitute all of the original call outs.

The company site has the best available original tracks. They have some partnership arrangement with current holders of Bally’s IP. Tracks are quite probably from the DAT masters. Best you can get unless analog masters from the original recording sessions turn up one fine day. Can’t dig up Raul Julia for a re-do.

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Edited by Carny_Priest, 19 November 2018 - 11:11 PM.

[xenonph]

"as someone who professionally developed video games for the Commodore VIC-20 in the early 80s, I (somewhat) get it.  But wow is that painful.  Basically makes the tables all but unplayable.  Also makes me appreciate the work Zen, TPA and others are doing to totally re-do and re-release tables.  SO much easier to get going than VPX.."

 

If it is the same sounds that the original tables used also, you are saying a real Addams Family pinball table would be unplayable to you?

Addams Family I think holds record for most units sold.

 

Here is quote from IPDB...

This game broke all previous sales records for flipper games. Designer Pat Lawlor wanted to commemorate the actual record-breaking game from the production line and arranged to have it made in a gold cabinet. This change caused a number of games made subsequent in this original run to also have gold cabinets. At least their lower cabinets were gold, even if their backboxes were still made in blue. Included in this listing are pictures of one such example of this "Later Production" version having the mixed gold and blue. The legs, metal trim, and lockdown bar are not gold.

Then, in 1994, The Addams Family was put back in production with a special run of 'Gold Edition' machines to further commemorate this machine becoming the best selling flipper game of all time. These machines had many more Gold accents, such as the metal ramps, gold legs and bolts, gold lettering, the vault plastic, the bumper caps and Thing's box. Each "Gold" machine includes a certificate signed by the members of the design team and a gold plate on the lower right front of the machine containing the machine number.

 

The VP Devs could not make it any easier for people to get the tables running on there setups.

There is an All-In-One installer that installs everything you need, except the actual tables and roms.

 

Also,

Although Zen and TPA are great companies, you will notice a big difference in the quality, compared to the free tables made by people who actually love this hobby.

One is pushing tables out for money, and the other out of love of the hobby.

Carry on.

[80sBear]

Yep - I believe you're correct.  Most units sold, of any table, ever to the best of my knowledge..

 

That said, maybe the audio I'm hearing is not what the actual table sounds like.  Maybe my config is just gorked.  Need to find an actual table to compare to.  I do know I've spent probably 25+ hours trying to figure out TZ and TAF sound and have been stumped to this point.

[Carny_Priest]

Not entirely doubting OP's experience. Playback could be worse than normal with emulation. Don't know the hardware configuration. Could gain some improvement doing the usual things:

 

Making sure all unnecessary apps and services are disabled. They just take resources from what you want to do, play guddam pinball!

If running B2S Server, running in exe mode

Downsampling/decreasing details in VP.

Disabling AA, AO, etc. in VP

Enabling/disabling exclusive full screen in VP 

Trying CPU affinity programs

Keep playing with VPM samplerate 

Using PinSound Studio with original tracks from https://www.pinsound...-addams-family/

Using PinSound Studio with remixes from http://pinsound-comm...-addams-family/

If all else fails reboot.

If that fails and you are on Win x86 OS then update.

If that fails spend more $$ on hardware.

No other way to play TAF or TZ than with VP (preferably VPX). It is no longer available for sale via TPA and it is not yet available from Zen if either are ever offered again. I suppose there is FP, but any recreations would not use the original game code and you would have to spend a lot more than 25 hours dealing with physics. 

[toxie]

As for the tech behind the voices (and other samples) of that generation: https://en.wikipedia...elta_modulation

[Jonosborne]

TAF has been remastered by me(for the most part) but has a few issues due to pinsound. It has not been released in altsound yet due to scrambling issues on a few mismatched audio clips. It sounds a million times better and while I hope to release it publicly someday it is contingent upon a complete unscrambled fileset for altsound.

Edited by Jonosborne, 22 November 2018 - 04:17 PM.

[Carny_Priest]

Are you talking about how the filenames based on actual memory addresses were renamed to encrypted numbers? If so, I think that was a consequence of licensing the tracks from the IP owners for Bally/Williams. That's not going to come back, you know. 

[Turn2]

Try comparing what you are hearing to some videos on youtube of folks playing both the real and the VPX tables.  I've noticed that sometime on a few tables when I first start them or  when I open and close them a lot because I'm messing with table settings the sound gets pretty trashed for  a few seconds, The Addams Family is one of the tables I've noticed this on as well as Jurassic Park and a couple of others. I've got a pretty decent rig too, i7 8700 and GTX1070.

 

Watching videos  can help you rule out any problems if you hear the same quality as you do on your set up. If it sounds better than yours then there may be a problem.

Edited by Turn2, 27 November 2018 - 05:59 AM.

[toxie]

And: If you find a machine where you have the impression that it sounds substantially better on Youtube (or real life), please report it here, or even better PM me about it, so that i can look into it.

(Note: some exotic machines like the Zaccaria ones or old Sterns have multiple sound emulation issues, so for those we know already that PinMAME is not perfect )