Re: Enable MSU streaming music for Alttp

by **emuandco** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 19:27

Pond of happiness, if you throw twice the 100 rupees. 1st time the fairy melody starts, but shouldn't it restart it after the second one? Was quite sure about that

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 19:28

emuandco wrote:Pond of happiness, if you throw twice the 100 rupees. 1st time the fairy melody starts, but shouldn't it restart it after the second one? Was quite sure about that

Well, the original game restarted it, and I thought about mentioning it...but I kinda like having it be seamless. Strictly speaking, though, you're right.

by **Conn** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 19:31

So shall I fix the 100 ruppee Thing?

*gosh... I actually fixed this loop. Is it Buggy, or did you only mention it?

I fixed from Looping (should only Play one time):
01-title Screen with triforce
0a-mastersword
0f-title Screen (without triforce)
13- pick up chrystal
1d-ganon out of aghanim shadow
21- ending theme 2 (happy hyrule)
22-credits

ok...
TheRetromancer - can you verify the pendant Loop?
EmuandCo - can you verify the digging game bug?

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 19:32

Conn wrote:So shall I fix the 100 ruppee Thing?

*gosh... I actually fixed this loop. Which theme is it? Or did you only mention it?

I fixed from Looping (should only Play one time):
01-title Screen with triforce
0a-mastersword
0f-title Screen (without triforce)
13- pick up chrystal
1d-ganon out of aghanim shadow
21- ending theme 2 (happy hyrule)
22-credits

ok...
TheRetromancer - can you verify the pendant Loop?
EmuandCo - can you verify the digging game bug?

Yes. I can verify the pendant loop.

by **Conn** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 19:34

I'll look into it tomorrow...
so
-pendant Loop (theme 13?)
-digging game if verified
-100 rupees

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 19:35

Hell, you amaze me, Conn. Two days, and this game has gone from not working on the SD2SNES, to being 95% functional?

by **emuandco** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 19:50

Not yet that far. I try to get everything done. I have the Master sword now. Btw, hopping into a telepod and using the mirror lacks the jump theme it normally plays.

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 19:52

emuandco wrote:Not yet that far. I try to get everything done. I have the Master sword now. Btw, hopping into a telepod and using the mirror lacks the jump theme it normally plays.

That's because the 'Teleport' theme is played by the MSU-1 in this patch. I downloaded the Doctor Who 'TARDIS landing' SFX and turned it into a .pcm file. Whatever file you use needs to be named 'alttp_msu-8.pcm'.

by **emuandco** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:09

Hm, obtaining the master sword opens the castle melody. Maybe the same ID, but another sub track? Stuff like that was in DKC2, too.

by **emuandco** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:10

TheRetromancer wrote:That's because the 'Teleport' theme is played by the MSU-1 in this patch. I downloaded the Doctor Who 'TARDIS landing' SFX and turned it into a .pcm file. Whatever file you use needs to be named 'alttp_msu-8.pcm'.

So a fallback for non MSU tracks is not existant yet I guess?

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:11

Conn wrote:
Up to now no real problem, except the music starting flicker of the screen.
The flicking is a sd2snes specific Problem (you don't have it in bsnes). This is due to the Hardware having to be made ready. This is also the reason why I didn't succeed with sd2snes compatibility with you: there's a code bit $2003 - bvs $fb
This checks the sd2snes Hardware to be ready to stream msu. This Loop can take a while causing the flickering. Bsnes is always ready so no flickering.

I actually asked ikari (who designed the SD2SNES) about this. This is his response, and hopefully it will make more sense to you than to me:

ikari wrote:
Sorry but that’s lazy programming on the hack side It doesn’t have anything to do with audio looping, what he is referring to is the SNES CPU loop that waits for the sd2snes to open the audio file and fill the playback buffers. bsnes just STOPS SNES emulation while preparing the audio file which is obviously something the sd2snes cannot do. I don’t know why it is necessary to blank the screen while waiting for the MSU to respond. It might be a better choice to implement a per-frame state based polling if forced blanking is a must during the ISR.

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:15

emuandco wrote:So a fallback for non MSU tracks is not existant yet I guess?

Not exactly sure what you're saying, here. The patch document makes it pretty clear that the patch requests a .pcm file to play for this. I guess that you could convert the SFX into a .PCM file in its place...

Or you could modify the patch so that it specifically excludes this track, I suppose.

by **Conn** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:23

I have a clue what is wrong with the minigame, I check tomorrow with the other bug fixes (Need to get through Hera dungeon first).
If it helps for testing here are some srm savestates:
http://games.technoplaza.net/snes/legendofzelda3/savestates.php

So a fallback for non MSU tracks is not existant yet I guess?.

no - you Need either no msu at all (then native spc is played) or complete msu. Why don't you make a simple wav-pcm out of the teleport?

Hm, obtaining the master sword opens the castle melody. Maybe the same ID, but another sub track? Stuff like that was in DKC2, too.

If you're in contact with Ikaris, Forward this bug to him. bsnes does Play it normal.
You see: master sword theme is track hex0a - dec10
Hyrule Castle is hex10-dec16
The game of course has hex so 0a=master sword; however, the pcm is labeled with dec System.
So maybe Ikari mixed something up here with hex-dec conversation when it Comes to track 0a to Play hex10=dec16 instead of hex0a=hex10?

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:26

So, what you're saying is that MSU-1 activation is essentially boolean? You cannot mix .PCM playback with .SPC?

by **Conn** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:28

No, I actually wanted to say that I was too lazy to implement the native spc Play when no msu is found ^^ eat or die :p

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:29

*laughs ass off*

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 20:39

emuandco wrote:Hm, obtaining the master sword opens the castle melody. Maybe the same ID, but another sub track? Stuff like that was in DKC2, too.

Not able to verify this on SD2SNES with most recent patch version. Correct track played perfectly. I would double check and make sure you have your tracks labeled correctly.

by **Conn** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 22:48

better is to ask ikaris about track 0a. Strange that it works for you but not emuandco.

Anyways. I tried to fix
- Pendants
- digging minigame
- upgrade fairy
- native Music when no pcm found

I can only confirm the upgrade fairy fixed. The digging game works on bsnes, the pendant is a complete dungeon to test (didn't have time yet) and the native Music Play doesn't work on bsnes somehow (I checked 10 times whether it is the correct code, yes it is, but no it doesn't work).

Anyways, please test yourself:
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/msu1_sd2snesfix_v8.ips

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 22:50

Will test immediately and get back to you.

by **TheRetromancer** Mon 20 Oct 2014 - 23:19

Pendant - confirmed working. Plays only once.

Digging Minigame - Finally confirmed working! "Dark World" music plays after minigame ends!

Upgrade Fairy - confirmed working. Restarts .pcm the second time the fairy appears.

Native Music when no .pcm found - Confirmed PARTIALLY working. Tested using the warp sound. Sometimes the .spc SFX will play fine (though it will fade-out about half a second too soon), and other times it will TRY to play, but it stutters, playing only the first half-second or so over and over until the warp transition is complete. Entering an interior location, re-exiting, and trying the warp seems to increase the chance of the warp playing correctly.

UPDATE: It seems that 'natural warps', like the one on Death Mountain, are more likely to play the .spc SFX fine (albeit cutting off too soon), while using the Mirror is more likely to cause stuttering. I've seen the reverse occur, though...

by **Conn** Tue 21 Oct 2014 - 4:57

Awesome, awesome, awesome - I guess we're done here pretty soon ^^

Here's my second try on "if track missing - Play native spc"

Again I updated alttp_msu.ips,also with above fixes:
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/zelda3_msu.zip

by **TheRetromancer** Tue 21 Oct 2014 - 5:57

It's very close, but not quite there. Again, tested with the 'warp' sound. It works PERFECTLY the first time I warp, regardless of whether I use a 'natural' warp or the Mirror, but on all subsequent attempts, it begins to stutter again. Entering an interior and re-exiting causes it to 'reset', and the next warp will be perfect, though, again, all tries afterward will have the stuttering.

I feel that this is REALLY close to perfection!

EDIT: I am uploading a video of the issue now, as I don't feel I've explained it well enough. I will include a link when it is ready.

by **Puzzledude** Tue 21 Oct 2014 - 6:14

I can't believe we are already on page4 of this topic.
Great work Conn and all the testers. This reminds me of the Feather hack for some reason.

If Conker is released with MSU1, capable of running on sd2snes, players are probably going to freak out from joy.

by **Conn** Tue 21 Oct 2014 - 7:33

ok check this code out (but carefully), delete some msu tracks while other remains:

http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/msu1_sd2snesfix_v9.ips

by **TheRetromancer** Tue 21 Oct 2014 - 7:38

That did it! Just tried several different combinations with the warp. I'm going to try pulling out different soundtracks to verify at random, but that looks like a full success.

Now if only that black flicker would go away...