Jackal Mesen NEA

Oh, well, here is Jackal for Mesen. You can thank Kurrono for this one. He asked me for help in fine tuning his code. He pretty much found the main hook.

Patch Beta 1: (for CRC 2E52D091)

Code:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/6zk0km5cztn8ksy/jackal_beta1.ips/file

Sample hires.txt file:
(Place hires.txt folder inside HDPacks/Jackal folder)

Code:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/s07sn82a8igknkh/hires.txt/file

Looking into the sample hires.txt file, you will notice how the OGG files are looped. See picture example below.


Right now, I have all the OGG tracks to loop. So, make sure for songs that are single loop, make them loop back to the silent area of the track.

Only one problem to resolve, which is similar to life force somehow. If the initial map intro track-52 is muted, it will kill all music triggers. Eventually, I will figure this problem out. Or someone else will volunteer themselves. I know some people cannot help it.
 

Once someone makes a thorough test on Mesen or Retroarch Mesen core. I will make the non-loop track changes in code. If all goes well, I may convert this into MSU-1 as well.

Code:

Track Map:
30 48 Title Screen [No Loop]
34 52 Map Introduction + Stage 1 Mixed [Loop]
38 56 Stage 1/4 [Loop]
3C 60 Stage 2/5 [Loop]
40 64 Stage 3/6 [Loop]
44 68 Boss [Loop]
48 72 Final Boss [Loop]
4C 76 Stage Clear [No Loop]
50 80 Game Over [No Loop]
54 84 Ending [Not Sure ???]


The game has NSF fallback. So if the track that is listed in the hires.txt file is missing/wrongly named/corrupted/not an ogg file, etc; it will play NSF instead. I did do a complete playthrough and had a pleasant experience. Just need others to test to make sure.

Thanks for your work. I was able to sort out how to get everything working with Mesen, and have the .ogg set created. I'll run through the game as a test tomorrow.

Arasoi wrote:Thanks for your work. I was able to sort out how to get everything working with Mesen, and have the .ogg set created. I'll run through the game as a test tomorrow.

Ah, Cubear and I were talking; it turns out that the map intro and stage-1 is mixed together as track 52. Stage-1 by itself is track-56. Shot myself on the foot with this one. So, the hack as it stands is good. Updated track map up above to reflect this finding.

I see, thanks for explaining. I think I have things about dialed in but I need confirmation on something. 72 is listed as stage 4 in the hires.txt, but Final Boss in your post. Which track is meant to play?

Code:

<ver>105
<options>disableSpriteLimit

<bgm>0,48,BGM\title.ogg,927650
<bgm>0,52,BGM\mapstage1.ogg,2866050
<bgm>0,56,BGM\stage1.ogg,2439600
<bgm>0,60,BGM\stage2.ogg,267064
<bgm>0,64,BGM\stage3.ogg,569562
<bgm>0,68,BGM\boss.ogg,200000
<bgm>0,72,BGM\stage4.ogg,2439600
<bgm>0,76,BGM\clear.ogg,565350
<bgm>0,80,BGM\GameOver.ogg,360350
<bgm>0,84,BGM\ending.ogg,3993400


Code:

Track Map:
30 48 Title Screen [No Loop]
34 52 Map Introduction + Stage 1 Mixed [Loop]
38 56 Stage 1/4 [Loop]
3C 60 Stage 2/5 [Loop]
40 64 Stage 3/6 [Loop]
44 68 Boss [Loop]
48 72 Final Boss [Loop]
4C 76 Stage Clear [No Loop]
50 80 Game Over [No Loop]
54 84 Ending [Not Sure ???]


In addition, as you can see I added 52 in to hires.txt but it is not triggering the track to play in the patched ROM. Is an updated patch needed?

@Arasoi No, the patch you have is correct. Send me what you have via PM. It is working for me.

@Arasoi Also, when you add a song back in hires.txt file; you have reload the ROM for it to activate.

Oh, this was a mistake on my part sorry. It is working now.

I just need to know what track 72 is for (stage 4 or final boss) and I should be good, then I can dial in the sample placement for loops and upload the ogg pack.

Arasoi wrote:Oh, this was a mistake on my part sorry. It is working now.

I just need to know what track 72 is for (stage 4 or final boss) and I should be good, then I can dial in the sample placement for loops and upload the ogg pack.

Track-72 is for final boss as shown on track map up above.

Stage 4 uses the same music as Stage 1.

Okay, I have things mostly sorted out. The only issue now Im having is volume levels, the volume levels for the OGGs seem to need to be extremely high to match the 2A03 sound effects in mesen, so high the peaks are getting chopped off. Is this something that can be adjusted in the patch?

Arasoi wrote:Okay, I have things mostly sorted out. The only issue now Im having is volume levels, the volume levels for the OGGs seem to need to be extremely high to match the 2A03 sound effects in mesen, so high the peaks are getting chopped off. Is this something that can be adjusted in the patch?

Alright, the original Mesen PNN NEA release had issues with low volume (this is the case with RetroArch Mesen 0.9.9 core). Mesen v2 stand alone is a lot better. Which emulator are you using for your volume leveling?

I normally release two patches. One for Mesen 2 and one for other emulators that use the older version of mesen as a core/stand-alone. Let me know and I can send you another patch via PM.

If you are comfortable using a hex editor. You can open the jackal.ips file and change this byte to FF (for max volume level). See image example below.

Save it. Then re-apply the patch. It will be set to maximum volume. Then you can base your audio levels of the change.

Based on my previous experience in fiddling with audio levels, I found Mesen v2 works best with 25. The other emus, a value of 65 is best. You could leave it at FF, but it was hard to level stuff out without clipping. You may have better luck than me. Start with FF and see where it gets you.

Here is my first attempt at an ogg pack.



I am using Mesen v2. Volume level at 25 was the default in the patch and was the main cause of the volume being so low it seems. Set to FF, then 65 and achieved a good result I think. So I balanced the volume in the oggs against 65.

Code:

https://mega.nz/file/0HNVBBab#26NL5NJ2e5gKX92r72VphHh8Y2uaNfBzP30qbqcoRP4

Please let me know if this is acceptable.

Arasoi wrote:Please let me know if this is acceptable.

Personally, I do not have any preferences. I am fine with what ever works for you. All that matters is that your changes helped make the balancing a lot more bearable. Only advice I can give is to let end users know how the audio is balanced against this game in your release notes. This way, one will be notified in case they choose to make their own soundpacks.

One more thing, you should test between Mesen2 and Retroarch Mesen core and see if your audio patch adjustments sound similar. But again, this is your choice to make. You take care and many thanks for this OGG sound pack.

I ran through the game with my pack on Mesen v2 last night and am feeling satisfied with it so I'll leave it as is.

Hopefully a Nested MSU-1 hack won't be too challenging, I recently ran through a Nested converted ROM on MiSTer FPGA and it seemed to run pretty decently. If a hack gets made I can adapt this OGG pack over to pcm pretty easily.

Arasoi wrote:Hopefully a Nested MSU-1 hack won't be too challenging, I recently ran through a Nested converted ROM on MiSTer FPGA and it seemed to run pretty decently. If a hack gets made I can adapt this OGG pack over to pcm pretty easily.

I have a good idea on how the game works after making the Mesen NEA patch. It should not be too difficult to port over. Now, I just need time.

Looking forward to it, thanks for all the work you do.