CD32 WHDLoad-slaves and mp3?

[thanius]

I just had a thought. The CD32 slaves don't actually include the audio tracks, right? There should be a way to play the audio tracks through mp3, even on non-accelerated systems.
One could build and install a hardware mp3 player (there are a couple of DIY kits out there) which decodes and plays the audio without the use of the computers memory or CPU through the serial port of the Amiga.
When the game tries to load a CD track, it sends off a file to the player (which is hardwired to the audio of the Amiga) and plays the music. If the transfer speed is too slow, perhaps there's a way to stream the files?
Just a thought.

[MethodGit]

This has been an on-and-off thought to me for many years now.

I've always worried that attempting to mix both background MP3 streaming and CD³² emulation would need an awful lot of horsepower somehow.

[Zetr0]

Hello Thanius

As far as I understand WHDLoad takes over the entire system - to do this it essentially saves the current state (i.e. workbench) and then starts a new state for the game. The game has no knowledge of the state before (i.e. workbench) nor can it interact with that state.

Originally Posted by thanius

I just had a thought. The CD32 slaves don't actually include the audio tracks, right? There should be a way to play the audio tracks through mp3, even on non-accelerated systems.

On a fundamental level one would have to write a player as well as heavily modify the game to use said player - I am afraid this is not possible - even the 020@14Mhz cannot achieve this - as well as play a game.

The ability to play CD audio tracks, on a CDTV or CD32 is because its an off-load - the Amiga sends a command (not a file) and the CD player performs that command.

This could and is essentially emulated under any Amiga with a CDROM drive, however you would need to mix the audio from the CD device and the Native Amiga..

you see somewhere in the game/application it would command the CDROM with something like

"STOP" "PLAY 8" }= stop playing, play track 8

There is no error checking, there is no processing - just issuing commands, the Game/Application expects its own ROM structure - if it doesn't have it - then the command is simply ignored.

Originally Posted by thanius

One could build and install a hardware mp3 player (there are a couple of DIY kits out there) which decodes and plays the audio without the use of the computers memory or CPU through the serial port of the Amiga.
When the game tries to load a CD track, it sends off a file to the player (which is hardwired to the audio of the Amiga) and plays the music. If the transfer speed is too slow, perhaps there's a way to stream the files?
Just a thought.

To do what you suggest here you would need a bit of hadware much like (or in fact) a MP3@64 - this is a clock-port device that is an offload engine for MP3's - it acts in a similar way as you describe - however it doesn't send the whole file, it instead sends a file stream - i.e. feeds its the bits as progresses thought the file it plays the bits that it has been sent.

but even the above method is not possible without re-writing the games themselves to use it - and that is just not possible in some cases.

I hope that ramble helps.