Improving the sound engine

deepblue22 · Post by **deepblue22** » Sun Dec 25, 2011 8:46 am

What about improving the ZSNES sound engine. Is there a way to get more details out of the sound? I mean the sound is already good, but maybe you could make the sound better for the ultimate Donkey Kong feeling.

Post by **Agozer** » Sun Dec 25, 2011 11:30 am

Sound emulation in ZSNES is by no means good. ZSNES 2.0 will have a new and improved sound engine when it's released.

king_harkanian · Post by **king_harkanian** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 5:36 pm

Use either Snes9x 1.53 or Bsnes in the mean time, both have excellent sound emulation.

deepblue22 · Post by **deepblue22** » Mon Jan 02, 2012 7:12 am

Agozer wrote:ZSNES 2.0 will have a new and improved sound engine when it's released.

Yeeeeehaaa! I will wait for v2.0 then. I expect mind-blowing sound.

Thx for the good sound engine anyway. ZSNES rules. With, or without the S, but it's ZSNES.

deepblue22 · Post by **deepblue22** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 4:36 pm

Let's see.., what do we have here...

This is my sound config (5.1 sound system). Sounds pretty good, but could it sound better?

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 5:13 pm

I believe all that does is flips one of the sound channels, which for some reason increases the apparent "width" of the sound.

If you're looking for it to sound less crap, your option is to use another emulator. If you want it to sound better than the SNES, then play a newer console.

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:02 pm

Actually, it's a cheesy attempt to increase stereo separation, before I knew the process of left+right to mid+side conversion, in a poor attempt to duplicate the SRS effect built into many of the old sound cards.

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Mar 26, 2012 7:06 pm

deepblue22 wrote:This is my sound config (5.1 sound system). Sounds pretty good, but could it sound better?

Using the primary buffer is a fix when not using it leads to weird sound issues. It's not advised to use it if you don't need it.
Simulate surround sound is a subjective thing, up to you whether you like it or not.

Gaussian interpolation will make it sound more like the original (as much as it can with the current core, at least). Which is... good ? You tell me.

For the lowpass filter, it depends on your speakers. The snes "relied" on TVs having a lowpass filter (maybe to reduce nasty broadcast treble artefacts ?)
If your speakers barf trebles, you could try the simple or dynamic lowpass filters and see if you prefer the result. Tastes and opinions, the usual.

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 12:40 am

The dynamic lowpass filter is ass and I am sorry for ever writing it.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 2:02 am

Oh, god, the graphics filters!

Anyways, it's worth noting that "simulate surround sound" will destroy the effect in any of the few games that use ACTUAL surround sound. Assuming your sound card's drivers can interpret Dolby Surround effects. If you're outputting to a dedicated surround amplifier, you DEFINITELY want to disable SSS and use the amp's built-in features for that instead. That way you get a nice fake-surround effect AND real surround on the few games that support it.

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:35 am

Yeah, the SSS effect is for simulating surround with stereo speakers.

deepblue22 · Post by **deepblue22** » Wed Mar 28, 2012 4:21 pm

grinvader wrote:Gaussian interpolation will make it sound more like the original (as much as it can with the current core, at least). Which is... good ? You tell me.

OK. Test game: Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! (has no native surround sound (only stereo)):

Interpolation: None > sounds kinda distorted
Interpolatioin: Gaussian > sound is muffled
Now I had to decide between Cubic Spline and 8-Point. Cubic Spline sounds better. Much clearer.

I stick with Cubic Spline.

Simulate Surround Sound: On > Sounds better to me.

kode54 wrote:The dynamic lowpass filter is ass and I am sorry for ever writing it.

We all make mistakes.

I made a mistake. I chose gaussian interpolation. Now I have Cubic Spline. Thanks to man who wrote Cubic Spline!

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Thu Mar 29, 2012 7:42 pm

Gaussian interpolation is what the actual hardware uses.

blackmyst · Post by **blackmyst** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:46 am

See I knew I remembered reading about surround sound support on the box of the Jurassic Park game. How does this actually work with the SNES? I mean... how do you hook it up so you can actually hear it?

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 12:49 am

You need an amplifier or receiver box which has an analog decoder for Dolby ProLogic, at the very least. That method encodes surround signals with phase inversion, which the SNES is capable of producing.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 8:48 am

Most standalone Dolby Digital amps should be able to decode Dolby Surround and Dolby ProLogic as well, if I'm not mistaken.
If it's not actually mandatory for Dolby Digital certification(and I think it actually IS mandatory), it's easy enough to add that they do it anyways.

So basically: You plug your SNES into your surround-sound system, and then you play Jurassic Park with it in ProLogic/ProLogic 2 mode(ProLogic 2 is back-compatible with ProLogic, which is back-compatible with Dolby Surround).

blackmyst · Post by **blackmyst** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:05 pm

Well I don't have a surround system per se, but I do have one of these: http://hardware.teamxbox.com/reviews/ge ... System/p1/

Which do a fine job of outputting surround sound, but I wouldn't know how to change modes or anything on the mixamp. Maybe it can autodetect? I'll have to try it later maybe.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Mar 31, 2012 8:28 am

blackmyst wrote:Well I don't have a surround system per se, but I do have one of these: http://hardware.teamxbox.com/reviews/ge ... System/p1/

Which do a fine job of outputting surround sound, but I wouldn't know how to change modes or anything on the mixamp. Maybe it can autodetect? I'll have to try it later maybe.

Says it can do ProLogic II decoding, so it can do it.

deepblue22 · Post by **deepblue22** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 7:33 pm

kode54 wrote:Gaussian interpolation is what the actual hardware uses.

This may be, but Cubic Spline sounds better, clearer.

I would set Cubic Spline to default.
For ZSNES 2.0 I would expect Cublic Spline 2.0 at best.

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 9:31 pm

deepblue22 wrote:
kode54 wrote:Gaussian interpolation is what the actual hardware uses.
This may be, but Cubic Spline sounds better, clearer. I would set Cubic Spline to default.
For ZSNES 2.0 I would expect Cublic Spline 2.0 at best.

2.0 will probably employ a hardware accurate mixer, so different resampling options are straight out. So is the sample rate setting, since a hardware accurate mixer always runs at about 32KHz.

Romeo · Post by **Romeo** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:09 pm

ZSNES has the best sound emulation I have ever seen. Snes9x blows. Never tried Bsnes.

paulguy · Post by **paulguy** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:32 pm

Romeo wrote:ZSNES has the best sound emulation I have ever seen. Snes9x blows. Never tried Bsnes.

You're a day too late.

Romeo · Post by **Romeo** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 11:35 pm

snkcube · Post by **snkcube** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 12:38 am

You should look at your calendar what day yesterday was.

Romeo · Post by **Romeo** » Tue Apr 03, 2012 1:10 am

ZSNES board