Xenon 2 Megablast

[marss]

Hi and Happy New Year,
If I had a wish for the year 2014, it would be Xenon 2 Megablast on ST/STE with the sounds and the musical scores of the Amiga.

[Petari]

Well, possible only on STE. Doing music conversion is not so hard, but sound effects need pretty much effort.
I'm good with audio in Xenon 2. Especially like noisy and loud intro Pump the Bass    Usually, Amiga versions have cleaner sound, what is too sterile for me 

[marss]

Nice. I would be very happy if you could have time to dedicate to this.

[qq1975b]

Maybe modifying FX sounds and that it can play the music at the same time would be enough? the chipmusic is good in this ST version, isn't it?

[èné]

A patch with no loss of music when SFX are played would be great indeed.

[Petari]

I looked little how it does sound - music uses all 3 channels, and therefore must be shut off when playing sound effects.
So, without sacrificing quality and need for serious rewritings of code and music, effect data it is not possible.
Maybe only on STE - by doing music via DMA, while keeping effects via PSG.  In that case is worth to go on some better music - stealing Amiga score ...  But I'm not experienced with all this.  Will see what can do, but not exactly soon .

[qq1975b]

I meant on STe but there are 3 chipmusic channels plus 2 DMA channels so....is it better to have DMA music and chip FX sound or reverse? Original ST music and DMA fx sound?

[Petari]

Of course better is to have music via DMA, and effects via PSG. That gives some extra options:
I made game mod where plays music from mass storage in intro, and during game play too - then plays another audio track.  This has some benefits: no additional RAM needed, so works on STEs with 1MB only too.
Audio tracks can be very long - up to size of partition on disk, SD card. What means over 2 hours .
And user can use own audio files instead supplied ones - so any music or whatever.  Idea came when I saw how much remixes of Megablast music exist (and can DL) . I used 2 ones, what liked most, but tastes are different, as we know.  Format must be:  25033 Hz sample rate, stereo, 8-bit signed, RAW (no header). Easy to convert into such with freeware Audacity. Len between 100KB and 510 MB.
Test version with basic ACSI disc access, so max 1GB - if your SD card or disk is bigger, still may use on first 2 partitions.    http://atari.8bitchip.info/XENON2A.ZIP       24 MB .

Youtube record:  http://youtu.be/odCv-2Om2vY

IDE version soon - so Falcons, STEs with IDE adapter too ...

[qq1975b]

Wow! sounds great! downloading

Only one thing to mention...is it possible to disable the music or make it play lower (volume) when you enter to the alien's items store?

[Anemos]

Oh yes! sound good!
good working petari!

[Petari]

".is it possible to disable the music or make it play lower (volume) when you enter to the alien's items store?"
Surely possible - but not sure which music, because then original one plays for short too. I left it as is for now. Really need some rest now, it were 4 hard days 

Just to mention that big problem with this - when combine DMA and PSG audio is unbalanced volume level of 2 - PSG is much louder .  There should be option to mix down PSG by 12db, but it just works not. So. you must dig in code to find how lower volume of PSG . And worst is that it is not always possible - when volume is controlled by envelope, for instance.  On Falcon it is much better - there no need to silence down PSG sound effects. 


I did IDE and ICD versions too, so may run on Falcons, from Flash cards over 1GB, any partition. TT with UltraSatan for instance too. Minimum is STE with some mass storage.

Downloads here:
http://atari.8bitchip.info/SCRSH/xen2s.html

[Petari]

Quote qq1975b :
"Only one thing to mention...is it possible to disable the music or make it play lower (volume) when you enter to the alien's items store?"

Best solution is to fix mixer in STE:
  http://forum.8bitchip.info/hardware-16/fixing-ste-microwire-%27mixer%27-error/
That will give best sound quality, and game's sound remains same - no need to dig in code to silence it, what harms quality too.

YouTube video with fixed mixer, much better      http://youtu.be/Ei_LF-oBl2A

[1024MAK]

Lovely 

Mark

[ataricrypt]

That hardware mod is way beyond my capabilities as I'd destroy my Mega STe, I'm sure!
But I always thought the YM chip sounds where (annoyingly) louder by default than the STe DMA samples?

Anyhow, I have been playing this today on my computer so I wanted to say thanks for making this.
(and Cannon Fodder ofc)

Hoping you give more games the STe treatment ... fascinating job Peter!

Steve

[marss0]

I wish Ppera would give some more games the same treatment.