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VGM emulation and slowdown (Thunder Force)

Technical discussion about the VGM format, and all the software you need to handle VGM files.

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  • Raijin Offline
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Post by Raijin »

Actually developers often used a PC-88/PC-98 or X68K to write the soundtrack to Genesis games. He's saying the soundtrack might have been the original recordings.
  • Despatche Offline
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Post by Despatche »

Oh, that. But they behave exactly like the VGM rips, which is the important thing.
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  • dissident93 Offline
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Post by dissident93 »

I thought the problem was that the VGM rips of the games don't have slowdown?

Unless I misread something? "/
  • Despatche Offline
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Post by Despatche »

Simply put, the "problem" I have is that I want to be able to overclock <something> so that VGMs can take off their original constraints or put on new ones. In the case of Thunder Force III and IV, those constraints hurt the songs to me and some kind of slowdown removal would do them justice, as shown with the Hyper Duel version of Venus fire.

I feel that the VGM format should (or even already does) support this simply because it functions as an emulator at some level and has to be doing that emulating well enough to get some internal slowdowns right. Surely there would be a way to screw with how each chip/processor runs? Even MAME supports all that.

(If this was just a tempo problem, I'd just use Pacemaker and be done with it, never mind how weird it runs.)
Last edited by Despatche on 2013-07-30, 7:25:25, edited 1 time in total.
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  • ValleyBell Offline
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Post by ValleyBell »

Let me clarify something: The VGM format itself does NOT emulate any CPU (only the hardware that produces the sounds) and so you can NOT overclock anything to make VGMs play more "fluid".
VGM is a logged format, that means it takes all things the CPUs send to external hardware and writes it down, similarly to recording WAVE files.

The sort of opposite of this are ripped formats (like NSF and PSF) that take some of the game's code (sound engine) and data (songs and instruments). Of course they emulate the sound hardware, but they also emulate one (or more) CPUs that run this ripped code.
In such a format, it would be possible to overclock something.


I you feel that the VGM rips have some slowdown and you want to fix this, you need to find an emulator that logs VGMs and is able to overclock some of the CPUs (like MAME/MESS) and rerip the songs.
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  • dissident93 Offline
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Post by dissident93 »

You can change the playback speed in Winamp, but if you want to permanently keep it as part of the vgm file, you will have to do what Valleybell said and rerip the songs in MAME/MESS.
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Post by Despatche »

Excellent, that is exactly what I was looking for, thanks ValleyBell. I knew I was getting this wrong somewhere. Looks like I'll have to use MESS after all.
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