VGM Player for the Game Boy / Master System with Everdrive

[toxa]

Hi!

I want to share my project: https://github.com/untoxa/vgm_player It is a VGM player for the Game Boy and Sega Master System/Game Gear which plays non-compressed VGM rips directly from the SD card of the Everdrive Cart. Game Boy version support EzFlashJr and Everdrive X series carts, Master System and Game Gear versions supports older version of the Everdrive carts (tested on the Chinese clones). Also Sega Master System/Game Gear port of the player support both PSG and FM chips.

Release may be downloaded here: https://github.com/untoxa/VGM_player/releases/tag/v1.4

[toxa]

a few videos:
1. Game Boy (EzFlash Jr): https://x.com/i/status/1803366610222145920
2. Game Gear PSG (Everdrive GG clone): https://x.com/i/status/1795183991978348671
3. Game Gear FM (Everdrive GG clone + Game Gear FM mod): https://x.com/i/status/1850639486524256276

[donluca]

Nice! Thanks for sharing!

Have you tried running some accuracy tests, especially regarding timing?

MDFourier ( https://junkerhq.net/MDFourier/ ) supports Master System/Game Gear and it's the perfect tool for this.

[toxa]

no. it plays decently (for my ears), but it is tricky to read the slow interface in parallel to the vgm playback, so there are known pitfalls, like 0x7n commands are not implemented. that is tradeoff for the "unlimited" length. at least it supports 50/60Hz compensation, so 50Hz rips not too fast on GG and 60Hz rips are not slow on the european SMS.

[donluca]

0x7n commands are not implemented. that is tradeoff for the "unlimited" length.

Ouch... that might cause havoc with some VGMs which rely on them.
Is that a choice by design?

[toxa]

Is that a choice by design?

as i said above, it is a reasonable tradeoff for the SD card access on those very limited systems. anyway, unlikely VGM rips from games require those commands, because music is usually interrupt-driven in games. anyway, VGM files i have, all sound decent, even those, made with some modern trackers. you can try yourself though.

[donluca]

[...] because music is usually interrupt-driven in games. anyway, VGM files i have, all sound decent, even those, made with some modern trackers. you can try yourself though.

I think that depends on the sound engine, unfortunately I'm not really knowledgeable in SMS/GG sound drivers so I don't know if that's true for 100% of the SMS/GG games.
I've set some gears in motion and we should be able to do proper testing at some point soon (hopefully) to evaluate correct timing.

But thanks again for making this tool, I'll definitely try and make use of it!

[toxa]

for the SMS/GG you can try it in the Emulicious emulator, you need to select "run games via everdrive" option, and then open the ZIP file with the ROM and the other VGM files in the emulator, so Emulicious will emulate the file system for the Everdrive cart.

but, of course, it is all tested on the real hardware as well, as you can see in those videos i posted on twitter.

[donluca]

Thanks!

Meanwhile I did some research and it turned out that every SMS/GG emulator had some kind of issues logging VGMs properly and some games would not log correctly.

So I asked the developer of blast'em which is a known cycle accurate emulator and now it supports VGM logging for SMS and GG (in addition to Mega Drive which it already did in the past): https://www.retrodev.com/repos/blastem/rev/1843adbe9899

I've tried it out and it works fine, so next step will be testing it on real hardware (I need to get a SMS, only have a Mega Drive).

[toxa]

Hm... I don't quite follow. My VGM player is about playing the VGM files on the real hardware, not logging. And i am speaking about the exact emulator, because it does emulate the everdrive cart, so my player can run on it, in the other emulators it will not work, because there are no other known emulators, which emulate the SD based cart. While emulicious is the cycle accurate and featured with extended debugging tools and among the best for emulating the SMS/GG/GB/CGB/MSX systems and sound hardware, it has no VGM logging feature, and can't be directly used for that.

[donluca]

Sorry, I've explained myself poorly.

That post had nothing to do with emulating your hardware VGM Player.

Since I've read about your player, I got interested in SMS VGMs and I discovered that all SMS emulators which have VGM logging capabilities all have some kind of issues: some log at 60Hz instead of ~59.92Hz, others have issues with some games and so on.

Some days ago blast'em, a known cycle accurate emulator, has added VGM logging and I've tested it and it's perfect (albeit limited to only PSG) so now that I have a known good VGM logger I was looking forward testing your hardware VGM player on real hardware.

Hopefully this clears it up!

[superdeadite]

Hi!

I want to share my project: https://github.com/untoxa/vgm_player It is a VGM player for the Game Boy and Sega Master System/Game Gear which plays non-compressed VGM rips directly from the SD card of the Everdrive Cart. Game Boy version support EzFlashJr and Everdrive X series carts, Master System and Game Gear versions supports older version of the Everdrive carts (tested on the Chinese clones). Also Sega Master System/Game Gear port of the player support both PSG and FM chips.

Release may be downloaded here: https://github.com/untoxa/VGM_player/releases/tag/v1.4

Hi, thanks a lot for this. But, it doesn't seem to work for me. I am using EverdriveGB X3 (os ver. 1.06). Both Versions 1.4 and 1.3 just crash with a black screen. Version 1.2 will load and let me browse directories, but all vgm files I have tried give me a "Wrong VGM Command" error. I have tried on original "brick" GB, GB Light, and SuperGameBoy 2. Always same results. I have also confirmed that vgz files were uncompressed to vgm files properly. Would love to get this working as I must have spent thousands of hours as a kid in the car with these tunes. Thanks again.

[toxa]

Hi, thanks a lot for this. But, it doesn't seem to work for me. I am using EverdriveGB X3 (os ver. 1.06). Both Versions 1.4 and 1.3 just crash with a black screen. Version 1.2 will load and let me browse directories, but all vgm files I have tried give me a "Wrong VGM Command" error.

I don't have Everdrive X3 myself, only the old EDGB which is not working (and should not!) with this software. As for me, i use EzFlashJr with the Game Boy, it works flawlessly. Also it was tested on the Everdrive X5, but by the other people, not me, so it is known to work on Everdrive X5 at least.

As for the "Wrong VGM command" error, you can try attach your file here, and i will test that for you. Looks like the VGM file is still compressed, or there is indeed the command, which is not supported. If it was not Game Boy, you get the other error. Do you have similar problems with every file?

Try one of these, in the attachment.

[superdeadite]

Hi, thanks a lot for this. But, it doesn't seem to work for me. I am using EverdriveGB X3 (os ver. 1.06). Both Versions 1.4 and 1.3 just crash with a black screen. Version 1.2 will load and let me browse directories, but all vgm files I have tried give me a "Wrong VGM Command" error.

I don't have Everdrive X3 myself, only the old EDGB which is not working (and should not!) with this software. As for me, i use EzFlashJr with the Game Boy, it works flawlessly. Also it was tested on the Everdrive X5, but by the other people, not me, so it is known to work on Everdrive X5 at least.

As for the "Wrong VGM command" error, you can try attach your file here, and i will test that for you. Looks like the VGM file is still compressed, or there is indeed the command, which is not supported. If it was not Game Boy, you get the other error. Do you have similar problems with every file?

Try one of these, in the attachment.

Thanks, both of those files work on my X3 in version 1.2 (1.3 always crashes on boot). All vgms I have gotten from this site all seem to give me the "Wrong VGM Command" error though. As an example, here's Mario Land Stage 1 that I decompressed myself.

[toxa]

Please try this new version: https://github.com/untoxa/VGM_player/releases/latest