(AUDIO] Inaccurate YM2612 (sound processor) emulation

[the_randomizer1889]

It has come to my attention that both the hub and simple launcher emulators exhibit inaccurate and off Yahama YM2612 emulation. I did some comparitive testing between these emulators and the real hardware, and the differences are noticable. Some games have either the wrong pitch, the voice samples are inaccurate or that thet don't sound right at all. Not trying to show ingratitude at all, I just figured I wanted to be as detailed as I could be and provided more examples. I still have ones for Alien Soldier if need be.


Music samples:
-----------------------
Vectorman (real HW) http://filetrip.net/view?2Tkh2nbqHs
Vectorman (hub/simple launcher) http://filetrip.net/view?jUW59LkHTn

Note: The official emulation has a much higher pitch in the first few seconds of the intro. This is not exhibited on Genesis hardware.

Sonic 3 and Knuckles (real HW) http://filetrip.net/view?mEVpZoHhdY
Sonic 3 and Knuckles (hub/simple launcher) http://filetrip.net/view?CWQntuNfEL


Sound effects:
---------------------
Streets of Rage 3 female enemy scream (real HW) http://filetrip.net/view?R3tDZtf90Z
Landstalker enemy scream (rea HW) http://filetrip.net/view?OqKYyDczTJ

Is there any chance your team could look into improving the overall audio Yahama YM2612 emulation accuracy for the hub/simple emulator? Thank you for your time.

[𒀬工房]

Yes, I noticed that sometimes, the sound emulation is inaccurate also. Would be great to get that fixed!

[Red]

Streets of Rage 3 is full of these inaccuracies. The voice samples in particular sound horrible.

[DoubleHeresy]

If you've bouhgt kid chameleon, you'll notice that in the intro music, there is an extremely large gap in volume between a small section of the song and the rest of it. put me off the entire game. (edited - sorry, that wasn't the game, that was my headphones. They are now in the trash.)

[the_randomizer1889]

I don't know what else I can do to point them out aside from sound isolation and possibly even using Foobar2000's ABX testing algorithm and posting the results in here. Maybe I should do that, I don't know. Yeah, Streets of Rage 3 has nasty inaccuracies that need to be fixed.

[Pacca]

I'd love for this to be fixed. I find it odd the unofficial emulators seem to do better then Segas official ones at details as important and vital as this.

[the_randomizer1889]

Originally posted by Pacguy64:

I'd love for this to be fixed. I find it odd the unofficial emulators seem to do better then Segas official ones at details as important and vital as this.

I find it ironic that unofficial third-party ones do it better than official ones. Ther YM2612 is very well documented, and yet, they haven't done a thing about it. Surely, they have to read this sooner or later. Come on, Sega...

[c5]

Sonic's spin noise seems a great deal harsher than it does on my Model 2. Wuold love for this to be fixed.

[the_randomizer1889]

Originally posted by c5:

Sonic's spin noise seems a great deal harsher than it does on my Model 2. Wuold love for this to be fixed.

The model 2 has the best sound out of all of them right? Yeah, it sounds pretty awful on the hub and only marginally better on the simple launcher, and that too is way off. Alien Soldier is royally jacked up, even with the 60 Hz mod, it crackles and makes my ears bleed >.<

Here are examples of the game run on simple launcher, real hardware, hub launcher

Alien Soldier - Hub: http://filetrip.net/dl?RnmL1PjBWM
Alien Soldier - Simple launcher: http://filetrip.net/dl?o7YJKhkFZn
Alien Soldier - Real hardware: http://filetrip.net/dl?EtNXxmzq2n

The fact my Core i5 3570, 8 GB RAM, 2 GB nVidia GTX 660, Windows 7 machine can't run that game properly is sad.

[anarqts]

Originally posted by the_randomizer1889:

I find it ironic that unofficial third-party ones do it better than official ones. Ther YM2612 is very well documented, and yet, they haven't done a thing about it. Surely, they have to read this sooner or later. Come on, Sega...

I've heard Z80 is not as much, and it could be easily a problem on its end. Do mind that all the emulators fail at YM2612 emulation to some degree, like a friend of mine did a test on Fusion, and was able to generate a tune that took 12 seconds(!) longer on Fusion than real Mega Drive! Yet Fusion 3.64 has probably the best YM and SN emulation of the emulators in general.

[the_randomizer1889]

Originally posted by Natsumi:

Originally posted by the_randomizer1889:

I find it ironic that unofficial third-party ones do it better than official ones. Ther YM2612 is very well documented, and yet, they haven't done a thing about it. Surely, they have to read this sooner or later. Come on, Sega...

I've heard Z80 is not as much, and it could be easily a problem on its end. Do mind that all the emulators fail at YM2612 emulation to some degree, like a friend of mine did a test on Fusion, and was able to generate a tune that took 12 seconds(!) longer on Fusion than real Mega Drive! Yet Fusion 3.64 has probably the best YM and SN emulation of the emulators in general.

And yet Sega isn't doing anything to fix that, some games sound way off comparatively speaking. Why can't they look into fixing the timing?

[anarqts]

Because they want to make the game work for as much people as possible before focusing on issues with the emulation itself. Sadly that is the right move to make on their point of view, and I agree with it.

[the_randomizer1889]

Originally posted by Natsumi:

Because they want to make the game work for as much people as possible before focusing on issues with the emulation itself. Sadly that is the right move to make on their point of view, and I agree with it.

Actually they did reply on one of the threads earlier about this, oddly enough. Fixing the games is top priority but the nitty gritty stuff is on their to-do list. I'll need to find that post.


Edit: Bottom post on http://steamcommunity.com/app/34270/discussions/0/357284767248760643/#p1

Game fixing comes first, all othe fixes will came after

[Lynx]

I noticed the difference in Sonic 3 and Knuckles, but thought that maybe I was just going crazy! I really hope that one day this gets fixed. It hurts the gameplay imho, since a lot of the draw for me is nostalga. It's like listening to an old favourite toy where the batteries are running low.

[ShadowAngel]

Originally posted by the_randomizer1889:

The model 2 has the best sound out of all of them right?

No, in general the Model 2 of course is weaker, it's a budget re-release of the console. There are a few that have good audio chips (the "full mainboard" version) while other sound quite horrendous. Same is true with the Model 1, only the one with "High Definition Graphics" and all the ports in the back have a good (actually really good in comparison to the rest) sound chip.

There's a lot of discussion about that on Sega-16, like this one:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?7796-GUIDE-Telling-apart-good-Genesis-1s-and-Genesis-2s-from-bad-ones

Basically even the Genesis consoles themself all sound different.
And unless the linked samples were recorded on a Version 1 Model 1 they aren't accurate themself and shouldn't be used to say "the emulator sounds wrong".

[the_randomizer1889]

Originally posted by ShadowAngel:

Originally posted by the_randomizer1889:

The model 2 has the best sound out of all of them right?

No, in general the Model 2 of course is weaker, it's a budget re-release of the console. There are a few that have good audio chips (the "full mainboard" version) while other sound quite horrendous. Same is true with the Model 1, only the one with "High Definition Graphics" and all the ports in the back have a good (actually really good in comparison to the rest) sound chip.

There's a lot of discussion about that on Sega-16, like this one:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?7796-GUIDE-Telling-apart-good-Genesis-1s-and-Genesis-2s-from-bad-ones

Basically even the Genesis consoles themself all sound different.
And unless the linked samples were recorded on a Version 1 Model 1 they aren't accurate themself and shouldn't be used to say "the emulator sounds wrong".

Well, okay I didn't think people would post in here and would try to defend Sega's shoddy emulators, glad they're not doing that in here. The Model 1 sounds better to me, and this emulator, which is based off of Jenesis (lol), just sounds play awful. But the fact of the matter is, this Hub emulator sounds way off, did you even listen to the Alien Soldier music in the Hub? It's crackling and distorted, that's not how a real console sounds at all, unofficial emulators sound better than this crap.