8 replies to this topic

[CobraGuy]

During some of the sound-intense events, such as explosions where I assume multiple sound files are overlapping, I often hear a gravelly cracking sound that mixes or even overshadows the original sound. It is like speaker static when drop a microphone. But my speakers are not the problem--the sound comes through my headphones also.

The worst that I have found so far is Medieval Madness when I destroy the castle. It continues through the entire, lengthy sequence.

I have never had this issue with any other game or music, so I am not sure where to even begin looking for an answer.

[Carny_Priest]

What version of VPM are you using?

[Ben Logan]

Maybe you have the ROM volume set too high on that particular table. Try pressing number 8 on your keyboard to adjust volume while you're playing MM (or press end or home key to get into the volume settings - can't remember off the top of my head). Lower the volume to 26 or so. That may take care of the crackling.

Edited by Ben Logan, 14 October 2016 - 05:41 AM.

[toxie]

Indeed. Multiple reasons:

a) Most likely even the original pinball machines feature this issue. But its difficult to test on an untethered machine, as at very high volumes all the other audio hardware/filters/speakers also show issues. So only grabbing the sound directly at the pin out of the DCS chip could tell.

b) The currently released VPM versions have some issues playing back sound at certain sample output rates, in combination with certain PC audio boards.

 

So the best workaround is to lower the volume of the machine itself (like Ben said).

 

Also see: http://www.vpforums....showtopic=21297

Edited by toxie, 14 October 2016 - 07:00 AM.

[CobraGuy]

Maybe you have the ROM volume set too high on that particular table.

 

Oooh, OK. Since I associate "volume" as just the final output through my speakers, I had not considered that the ROM volume could, by itself, cause these issues.

 

I do, in fact, have all of my ROM volumes maxed out.

 

I did this because the regular table effects, such as the flippers, were overwhelming the ROM sounds. While originally playing with adjustments, I lowered the "Audio Options" in VP to around half volume, but it did not appear to make a difference in the flipper sounds, so I assumed those sliders served a different purpose and were unrelated leaving maxing the ROM volumes my only option. It is only by turning the Audio Options WAY down just now (to about 9%) that I notice an effect and can now lower the ROM volumes to compensate. Testing this, the crackling has gone away from Medieval Madness.

 

This setup is making me feel like an idiot!

 

Thank you for the help yet again.

Edited by CobraGuy, 14 October 2016 - 04:37 PM.

[Drybonz]

Yeah, a couple people had mentioned that, on their real tables, the volume level over 27 or so would also produce that sound clipping, but that volumes that high on the real table were crazy loud... so it was probably never intended to be raised up anywhere near that high.

[StevOz]

It is also a fault within the pinmame emulation I recall this from years gone by...Many manufacturers had different sample rates at which those samples were recorded and played at, also different era tech also varied. So the default 48000 is not a one size fits all solution and better results can be had though pinmame does not adjust sample rates to match roms, so it's always going to be an on going issue until the pinmame code adjusts sample rate to that of the manufacturers specifications.

[toxie]

There is actually very good news on that topic: PinMAME already always resampled audio internally to whatever output sample rate was selected by the user. But this resampling was rather crude, thus all kinds of nonsense could happen in the end (e.g. crackles/subtle noise on some configurations).

 

The soon to be released new beta will fix the majority of issues with this finally though! Still have to test more and then i'll release a new beta.

But i can already spoiler that a lot of machines sound much much better now, and that one has much more freedom now on the output sample rate (e.g. 44100, 48000 and 96000 for example will all work awesome, no matter which machine).

[Drybonz]

Great news, Toxie... thanks.