Protracker playback library with sound effects

[phx]

Originally Posted by ross

Different possibilities:
- copper, but you need to be the first routine in VBI or you call for problem

True. Especially when the whole game engine runs in VBI.

- a CIA IRQ , which, however, would not be invasive because it is linked to the VBI

Which means I would set up TimerB interrupts for writing DMACON/AUDxLC exactly like I do now, but from a level-3 instead of a level-6 interrupt?
Can be done, but if I really do the VBI option I would not want to use a second interrupt vector.

- next VBI, but you would have the same problems as p61

Yes. Should be avoided.

(Currently this discussion has not much to do with Blitz Basic. Sorry for that.)

[ross]

Originally Posted by phx

Which means I would set up TimerB interrupts for writing DMACON/AUDxLC exactly like I do now, but from a level-3 instead of a level-6 interrupt?
Can be done, but if I really do the VBI option I would not want to use a second interrupt vector.

Yes, a set up for a timed IRQ6 inside the IRQ3.
The alternative is a delay by "raster lines count"..

(promised, last derail for the thread sorry)

[neumanix]

Thanks for the help guys. As the noob I am, I didn't realize the wait for line $96, caused it Commented that out and it runs just fine with music.

[saimon69]

Do you know if the routine has problems with F00? Am using it in a couple interactions and Colin say it gurus the game

[jotd]

@phx I found some parasite remaining playing sound when playing some samples (after the sample has been played)

Only a move.w #$F,dmacon stops it.

Doesn't happen with all samples. Only some of them. What could be the reason? Wrong length?

[phx]

Originally Posted by jotd

@phx I found some parasite remaining playing sound when playing some samples (after the sample has been played)
?

I would guess that the first two bytes of that sample are not zero. They are used for idling, when a one-shot sample has played. See also the last two questions of the ptplayer FAQ.

An alternative is to build ptplayer with the symbol NULL_IS_CLEARED=1. Then the player uses two bytes at $0 instead, which is your responsibility to keep them cleared.

[jotd]

damn. I'm pretty sure you already mentionned that. Thanks!

[Zener]

Hi, not sure if it has been explained already, but how do I play a sound in loop? Like the LoopSound command in Blitz but with this lib

[jotd]

You can use:

    lea _custom,a6
    bra _mt_loopfx

(with A0 sample structure loaded)

Beware: this new loop feature is cool (uses CIA super accurate timers for looping, which prevents from sound glitches like if using VBL) but it has bugs.

- not stopping the loop before doing _mt_stopfx with the proper channel exposes to music not playing fully
- same thing if you don't stop a loop (with _mt_stopfx) before starting another one on the same channel.

On the new pacman version I was working on, the intermission music was always missing the bass. That's because of the in-game sound loops.

calling loop stop before _mt_end and before _mt_loopfx workarounds the issue. But that's still a bug.

[phx]

Not sure if that helps Zener, because he was asking for Blitz Basic. Otherwise I would have replied earlier.

Originally Posted by jotd

- not stopping the loop before doing _mt_stopfx with the proper channel exposes to music not playing fully

I don't understand. _mt_stopfx stops the looped sfx, so which loop do you want to stop before?

- same thing if you don't stop a loop (with _mt_stopfx) before starting another one on the same channel.

As far as I remember you should be able to start a new looped sfx on the same channel immediately with _mt_loopfx, without having to stop the previous one with _mt_stopfx first - unless it is playing on a different channel. But maybe I'm wrong. I didn't verify that now.

On the new pacman version I was working on, the intermission music was always missing the bass. That's because of the in-game sound loops.

calling loop stop before _mt_end and before _mt_loopfx workarounds the issue. But that's still a bug.

Yes, indeed, there may be a bug, because _mt_end neither resets the channel's looped-flag nor the sfx-priority in it.

I tried to fix that here: http://sun.hasenbraten.de/~frank/TEST/ptplayer.asm
When there are still problems, please elaborate.

Hmm... when I think about it: maybe there are situations where you want to continue your looped sfx while exchanging the music mod currently being replayed?

[jotd]

not stopping the loop before doing _mt_stopfx with the proper channel exposes to music not playing fully

I meant "mt_end" sorry.

Hmm... when I think about it: maybe there are situations where you want to continue your looped sfx while exchanging the music mod currently being replayed?

well, I don't mind calling stop_fx before mt_end. It's just that not doing it causes a hard-to-understand bug.
Or there should be a mt_music_stop

thanks for the fix I'm going to try it.

[Havie]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I am trying to use this player in my target Renegade game but when I play music I just get weird clicks. It is not trying to play the mod as if I don't load it, I get the same sounds. I copied the ptplayer.obj from the thread and rebuilt the Blitzlib using Blitzman but to no avail. Also, Blitzman only allows libs from 1-127 but this one is 195???

Any help would be useful as BB2's tracker playback is poor and doesn't play nicely with sound effects. Plus it has been noted that the mod is playing back incorrectly...

Have tried a different mod with the same outcomes.

[Havie]

Got it working at last! Two problems:

1)My mod was dodgy for some reason!
2)Using the Loadbank commmand doesn't work

Seeing others use the IncBin command has sorted it!

Hooray!

[earok]

Originally Posted by Havie

Got it working at last! Two problems:

1)My mod was dodgy for some reason!
2)Using the Loadbank commmand doesn't work

Seeing others use the IncBin command has sorted it!

Hooray!

I didn't have any problems using LoadBank with the library myself, but..

Were you using LoadBank BankId,Path$,2 to load into chipram?

[Havie]

Originally Posted by earok

I didn't have any problems using LoadBank with the library myself, but..

Were you using LoadBank BankId,Path$,2 to load into chipram?

Yep - that's what I had and even tried different bank numbers but just ended up with clicks and white noise. At first I thought it might be related to WinUAE but when I copied my game to my 1200, got the same result. After a number of frustrating hours, I realised was that the mod didn't seem to be loading as I got the same noise if I didn't load anything first. This would imply I had the path wrong but I didn't.

The IncBin method is more complicated and adds code but at least it works. For multiple mods, I am currently stopping the previous mod and then loading the new one and copying into chipram. Cleverer people than me could probably copy more than one at once but as each level of Target Renegade has only one tune, it's not a problem and this helps reduce chipram usuage!

[Havie]

Time for a public shaming - went back to my original code and guess what...

I had the path wrong -doh!!!! How much wasted time did I have on this. What a complete idiot.

It's only when I just wrote, that I didn't have the path wrong that I thought to check -arghhhhhh!!!!!!

[E-Penguin]

I was just about to say that I'd tested the updated library I posted and it worked...

Glad you sorted it out!

[Havie]

Thanks - typical silly bug! At least I can get on with the game as the music problem was annoying me.

[earok]

I just wanted to check if there was a version of the library built for Blitz that uses at least version 6.1 of PTPlayer and has NULL_IS_CLEARED set to true.

If not - I'll see if I can build it, but I wanted to check if it had already been done.

[earok]

I've done a build with e-penguin's repo using NULL_IS_CLEARED, seems to work great.

I just wanted to check - should I have it storing the old content of $0.w (and restoring it on quit) just incase, for example, someone has something in workbench before the game is loaded that has changed that value to something other than 0?