clownmdemu
clownmdemu copied to clipboard
Clownacy
Audio issues - one giant list
I booted up a bunch of games and looked into anything that sounded off. (I also knew beforehand of a few games that tend to give emulators trouble in the sound department.) A lot of these have to do with known unemulated YM2612 features (SSG-EG, extended CH3 mode, LFO, CSM). I know you said sound emulation wasn't a priority at the moment, but I figured it was better to document all this in advance, rather than just sit on it. Hopefully this doesn't keep you up at night.
(By the way, I want to commend you for writing your own sound emulation. A lot of projects just use the Nuked cores - which is fine, but it's neat to see someone do it the hard way. The PSG noise emulation already seems to be a better match for Sega's SN7 clone than BlastEm, which sounds more like a main-brand one.)
I also found quite a few non-audio bugs while testing random games' audio... expect more bug reports to be made soon. Sorry about that.
SSG-EG
- [ ] Beavis and Butthead - the music track "Yogurt" and the sound effects "CHANSAW" and "ZAP" use it.
- [ ] Xeno Crisis - I'm told this game uses it but I don't know what for. This is a recent aftermarket game so my guess is "a lot".
- [ ] Tanglewood - another recent game that uses it a lot. Note that the game will actually disable SSG if it thinks it's running on a clone console.
Extended CH3
- [x] Streets of Rage 1 and 2 - a bunch of sound effects use it.
- [ ] Devilish - Track 05 (Waterfalls) uses it on the lead instrument to play three notes across two channels.
- [ ] Gauntlet IV - "Sortie" and "Retribution" use it according to this
- [ ] Demolition Man - supposedly uses it a lot for percussion (according to this) but the game doesn't boot so I can't check.
CSM As far as I know, only tech demos have used this.
- Aly James' CSM Test ROM
- GENATARi made a Vocaloid using CSM called Niro Ichini. (The .fur files are meant for Furnace Tracker.)
Misc Most of these will probably fix themselves as the FM emulation gets built out, but I thought I'd include them just in case they turn out to be unique bugs:
- [x] Scooby-Doo Mystery - Hi-hat in intro sounds obnoxious. I checked on real hardware, and it's almost inaudible.
- [x] Comix Zone, track 5 - Same deal.
- [x] Rocket Knight Adventures - FM patch used throughout OST sounds like a hihat instead of a bass drum.
- [x] Mega Turrican - Tracks 03/05/09/11/21 all have what sounds like the same wrong instrument. I know this game uses SSG-EG somewhere, but I don't know if this is that or something else.
- [x] Boogerman - The toms in Stage 1 (about :30 in).
- [x] Ecco 1 and 2 - #25. Also, both games sound slightly wrong on boot (Ecco 1 has an overly brash instrument for the first notes of the intro, and Ecco 2 has some scratching noises).
- [ ] Mick & Mack - SFX used in the intro cutscene, as well as the one that plays when you start the level.
- [ ] Greendog - Sound effect used in the intro when he kicks his legs around.
- [x] Contra Hard Corps - FM kick drum used in most tracks sounds like a wet "glug".
- [x] Wiz n' Liz, Alien 3 - Basically every instrument is weird. Some sounds have the wrong timbre, while some sound like they're getting cut off too early. Some sound fine for one note and wrong for the next.
- [ ] Earthworm Jim - First level's music has a weird instrument about 20 seconds in. The explosion sound (plays when you die or use a gun powerup) sounds like a hiss rather than a rumble.
Most of these are less "audio bugs" and moreso "bugs that affect the audio":
- [ ] #18; affects both Earthworm Jim games, Cool Spot, Mick & Mack, Greendog, and others. Doesn't affect Comix Zone for some reason, even though it uses the same sound driver.
- [ ] Beavis and Butthead - Samples don't play.
- [x] After Burner II - Plays samples by writing to the PSG channels, which doesn't work. Mutes the percussion and most sound effects.
- [ ] Zoop - Whole game is silent.
- [ ] Jim Power - The Piko Interactive logo has a glitchy sample playing over it; it's silent on real hardware.
- [x] Fantastic Dizzy - Audio glitches can occur when opening and closing the ingame menu.
===
If you're ever looking to check a music track against real hardware without pulling out the real thing, DUSTINODELLOFFICIAL and Random VGMs on YT are good sources.
There's no need to apologise: it's great to have a list of bugs to look into! A problem when writing an emulator is when there are no broken games to fix, because it feels like making improvements to the emulator does nothing. Thanks for the tip about using recordings: I wasn't looking forward to juggling my emulator with an actual Mega Drive.
After Burner II has been fixed in 237922d416192366eb9d823dba8caa6a343ead49.
* GENATARi made a Vocaloid using CSM called [Niro Ichini](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1FFguIp6WWyjiN9jBXImnU8jzXgvvGN6Ug). (The .fur files are meant for [Furnace Tracker](https://github.com/tildearrow/furnace).)
The download link seems to be broken. Did end up finding a video relating to it though, and it's interesting seeing CSM in action
I got the link from the comment on this video, which seems to still be working for me. Maybe copying the link from YT broke it somehow?
Checked off a few things that seem to have been fixed by the 0.7 release.