CD audio games enhancement project

[BippyM]

I'll do some testing mate...

[turrican3]

Hi jotd,
did you noticed that fire and brimestone has a music but freeze the game when it plays it.
Launch the game and press f8, the game freeze and the music begins but what is interesting is when you press f8 again the music is fading slowly out and during this time , you can play the game, having the sfx + music fading out (the full music). this is strange, if you have the time to look at it ??
There is perhaps a way to activate the music and playing in the same time.
The music seems to be in memory,the game freeze when press f8, but not totally, the weapon on the bottom left still display is animation.
It's a little bit like a pause music. Strange to have a pause music when the game doesn't have music !!!
Activating this music during the game (it's already in memory), the sfx and music doesn't use the same voices, perhaps it could be easier than doing a full cdda version ??? Just asking about your thought ??
ps: i looked about the manual of the game but didn't find it.

[thairacerjp]

Hi jotd, I wanted to replay this superb strategic game, my first contact with the Amiga and it was a shock ! , Megalomania, but I didn't remember that there were only sfx or music, we cannot have twice, I saw that the last WHDLoadGCI version take advantage of the extra memory but still no music, I would be so great to transform the superb music of Richard Joseph (rip) cause it create a unique atmosphere to this game.

[jotd]

err true but a CD32 version would make little sense as you need to save your games in Megalomania right?

[thairacerjp]

@jotd , no you have a code after finishing a island level.

[jotd]

that could be interesting then. But a lot of work anyway.

[Rebel-CD32]

I was watching a Twitch stream with Cammy today, the guy was playing Banshee. The viewers were complaining about its lack of music, and I wondered if a CD32 version that has the music from the demo looping in the background would be better.

[ Show youtube player ]

[jotd]

banshee is already an AGA game, using kickemu. Adding the music couldn't be done with CD32load at least because CD32load wouldn't have enough memory to run the game. Maybe with another hack, maybe with cd32launch. Once again, special case. Never done this before.

[earok]

You know, I honestly thought that Banshee already had ingame music, because the CD32 edition has a couple of redbook audio tracks on the CD. But no, there's only two tracks, one of the plays during the menu (and the other I'm not entirely sure when), but they don't play during the game itself.

I think a possible solution would be to hack the CD32 executable to trigger the already-existent CD music routines when a gameplay sequence starts, but of course you'd also need to hack the game to stop the music once you've quit from the gameplay sequence or gone to the next level (so that the game can resume loading data). On top of that, you'd either need to have a song at least as long as the levels, or some way to repeat the song once it's reached the end.

[jotd]

talk about cheap CD32 conversions! yeah, what you said. cd32launch would be perfect for that tedious job

[turrican3]

add the music of dungeon master snes to the amiga could be cool.
he jotd are you working on a new enhanced music game ???
edited: and why not a cannon fodder cd32 version with enhanced ambiance sound of the jungle, with all the noises from the animals of the jungle...
A little like they did with chaos engine, they add cdda noises.

[Rochabian]

@jotd

A quick question :

WHDLOAD for CD32 Games skips the CD audio part
I was wondering if there is a way to do some things as the SNES does with MSU
Put the audio tracks in wav file then read the track within the game
Perhaps it will heat too much memory, i don't know if it's possible to stream the wave file directly and not loading it to memory.
Another way could be to load an iso with only audio tracks then read audio from it with whdload or other tool, but it will use some memory too, or load it to fast ram.
To resume, is it possible to play a CD32 game with full audio & data from HDD, with a TF330 or any other fastram extension ?

[jotd]

it has been explained many times: not possible

[Rochabian]

I suspected that I was asking for the impossible. In any case, everything you do for CD32 owners (WHDLOAD patches, conversions with CD tracks and specific CD32 software) deserves respect

[jotd]

yeah, thanks. I love old stuff anyway I have no merit

I was a bit curt in my previous post because I was on my phone, but now I can post a link with a lot of info about why it's not possible

https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=41510

now if you have a TF330 then you have a CD32 and you can boot one of the original games with CD music or use my conversions.

problem with original games with CD music is that sometimes the control just suck (ex: Bubba'N'Stix) and patching games without whdload is trickier (but can be done, ex: Watchtower with cd32launch)

Oh boy! all this work ahead...

[Rochabian]

Could the combo CD32Load + CD audio can finally add audio tracks to T-Zero on CD32+TF330 ?

[jotd]

I don't see any impossibility there, as long as the CD32 drive is in the mix.

What are the requirements of T-Zero? fast memory? OS 3.1? Are there audio tracks available that we could add ?

[Rochabian]

T-Zer0 already has audio tracks because it's an Amiga CD game. It works with a 020 but it requires a 030 because there is some bugs with a 020 (Earok already tried to fix that for 020 here :
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?...t=TF328&page=2

Needs 8Mb fast but wants to use CD.device for audio tracks so audio doesn't work on CD32

Perhaps you can call the right device with CD32Load ?

[jotd]

replying in the T-zero thread

[turrican3]

I have a proposal :
cannon fodder cd32 + more sfx in cdda...
jungle stages : birds, etc
snowy : blizzard, etc..
etc,etc.. Like they did with chaos engine cd32, they add sfx through all the game.
settlers could be a great game to :Music in cdda + the great sfx already present.I think settlers shouldn't be too long to do,if the people select music, the game still normal,
if they choose sfx -> Full sfx + cdda. It's just a proposal, i know that jotd is already working on many things.
Lotus 2 still the game who mostly realy need cdda, why not a lotus 2 with outrun music ?? I already did it with lotus 3 and the result is really good.