man that brings back some memories *sniff*

really? I know it had a separate processor which handled audio & vector video but I was under the impression it just handled playback rather than synthesis..Joey wrote:But the n64 DID have an internal synth.
I'm pretty sure the N64 and SNES had a system where the composer/sound designer would put in their own PCM waves (or maybe just copy General MIDI ones, as it seems to be in many N64 games) and their song data (MIDI files?) and then the system would play it back live, so it would save a lot of memory instead of playing back full audio files of songs. So I don't think there was any "synthesis" going on, I think it was more like a .MOD file / tracker kind of setup with samples and sequences. The Genesis of course had some kind of Yamaha FM chip (and a very limited lofi sample playback too).cartesia wrote:really? I know it had a separate processor which handled audio & vector video but I was under the impression it just handled playback rather than synthesis..Joey wrote:But the n64 DID have an internal synth.
N64 wiki:
"The RSP also frequently performs audio functions (although the CPU can be tasked with this as well). It can play back most types of audio (dependent on software codecs) including uncompressed PCM, MP3, MIDI, and tracker music. The RSP is capable of a maximum of 100 channels of PCM at a time, but this is with 100% system utilization for audio. It has a maximum sampling rate of 48 kHz with 16-bit audio; however, storage limitations caused by the cartridge format limited audio size (and thus quality).[27]"
*edit* Found some mentions on a forum of N64 using wavetable synthesis... but I'm not sure if that just means you can load a wavetable onto a cartridge and just read from it like any other PCM sample, or if it actually does internal synthesis.
The sound processing unit in the PS1 is only capable of sample playback... music for playstation games is generally stored in a PSF file which is basically samples + pattern information (some games use single recorded music tracks streamed from disc.. eg all the 'extreme sports' type games that feature actual rock/punk/etc)mao wrote:The PS1 has an internal synth engine for sure. A lot of game music is played by the synth itself with some samples loaded here and there. So It's not so strange if the boot jingle is done all with internal sounds.