I didn't want to hijack Zepper's
thread so I'm making a new one. Zepper mentioned the use of 2 specific titles (Rockman and MM6) for his APU testing. This brought me to an idea...
Are there any sites or threads that contain a list of the best games to use as tests for the Pulse, Triangle, Noise and DMC channels? This would be tremendously useful information for APU debugging! Especially if they had little notes to specify the exact part of the game in which the particular sound channel is used - like mentioned in Zepper's thread (e.g. "when you press start" or "the intro music").
It seems to me that a list like this would exist with all the emulators out there...no? If not, are there any APU experts out there willing to start one? Either in this thread or (even better) on the Wiki.
EDIT:
The following 2 posts seem to have lots of good info regarding specific titles for specific channels as well...but it sure would be awesome if it was all in one place......
http://nesdev.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=5910
http://nesdev.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=3872
Pz!!
A few I can think of:
- SMB1 relies on duty reset on $4003/7 write. When you complete a level and it runs out your time to give you points for it.... if you don't reset the duty it'll sound like a solid, steady tone playing instead of a repeated "rolling" tone
- Battletoads does $4011 streaming for it's DMC sound effects
- Blaster Master's game over song has that frog-like grumble at the end of it which uses the linear counter.
- Duck Tales also has a few songs that will bork if the Linear Counter isn't working right. Particularly, I remember the song that plays in the Amazon giving me all sorts of trouble before the Linear counter got figured out. The part in the second half of the song where the Triangle almost has a solo.
- Kid Icarus sound effect when you collect a heart makes heavy use of the sweep unit (and also decay?)
AWESOME! This is *exactly* the kind of stuff I'm talking about! Thanks Disch!
If people want to keep adding their bits of info to this thread like Disch I am more than willing to compile all the information into a concise list and post it on the Wiki.
Keep'em comin'!
Disch also likes Klax for its "absolute DMC insanity". ;)
Klax: Was the NSF rip ever fixed?
Balloon Fight: Channel 3 in "Balloon Trip" drops LOTS of notes in PocketNES. And not even official emulators are perfect: the sound effect when you hit a spark isn't noisy enough in Animal Crossing on the GameCube.
Are there any games or test ROMs that use the DMC and do _not_ require a special mapper? This would be really useful to me right now while I'm working on the DMC channel for my emulator.
Thanks!!
Some NROM games using dpcm samples:
LJ65 (orchestra hit played behind "home run" sound)
Kung Fu (grunts, laugh)
Duck Hunt ("arf! quack!")
Bomberman (explosion)
This is awesome!! Thanks tepples!!! Exactly what I needed!
UPDATE: I hear barks, and quacks, and explosions - oh my! SWEET!!!
Is it really reasonable to do this by using specific parts of songs from games?
Wouldn't a better approach be to make specific test cases and link a .nsf and a recording from a real system?
Such a library of test cases would truly be a treasure for anyone trying to emulate the apu. It could even contain recordings of erroneous behaviour with a description of what error makes it sound like that.
So my suggestion is that instead of spending your time searching for existing songs to showcase troublesome parts of apu emulation you should make examples together with a recording from a real system.
Quote:
Is it really reasonable to do this by using specific parts of songs from games?
I dunno, I think it's working out pretty excellent myself. I've already used this info for testing my DMC module. Posting NSF and all that sounds a bit more involved. I'm just looking to get the root information, which is what sounds in what games use what channels. Apparently some people just know this stuff (as you can tell from the previous posts).
----------------------
Anyway, I've got another request. This one is probably going to be a bit harder. How about a game that does _not_ use a mapper and uses the DMC Direct Load register $4011 for some audio? I'm thinking this may be a bit tougher to find but maybe not?
Thanks in advance!
Jonathon
Go implement CNROM if you want to test Ghostbusters.
Thanks Dwedit! I have yet to implement any mappers and was trying to hold off until I was mostly finished with the PPU/CPU/APU trifecta, but I looked up CNROM and it appears to be the simplest mapper of them all to implement. SO I may just go ahead and do it. Haha.
Does anyone know any games that use $4011 that don't use a mapper? With dwedit's response it makes me think even more that one might not exist. Haha.
Pz!
Jonathon
Does it have to be a commercial game, or can it be a homebrew demo known to run on a PowerPak?
nope, it doesn't have to be commercial. It can be something homebrew/testROM. Sorry if that wasn't clear before.
pz!
Here's
something that plays tones through all PSGs and $4011, along with recordings from my NES.
Here's
another demo that plays voice.
AWESOME!! THANKS TEPPLES!
- Where's that TMNT demo that plays the theme music of it? (coded by Xodnizel/whatever current nick) ^_^;;