[RELEASE] Shenmue Audio Restoration Project - Disc 1

[Dewey]

So, I'm not going to wax poetic about what happened to the audio in this game in this thread (that's what the dojo is for), but for a quick recap. D3T lies, they didn't make sure the game sounded good, they actually did everything in their power to make it sound bad. This prompted me to get started on converting audio from the dreamcast, 1:1, and jamming it into the PC port. And now, it's time to release Disc 1. There is more to come, such as CSVs detailing exactly what files go where, as well as scripts that will allow you to build this entire mod yourself, as well as provide evidence of how D3T screwed this up, provided you have a GDI dump of the Dreamcast version, and a copy of the PC version. Discs 2 and 3 should have a much shorter turnaround time, and should be ready in the near future. Also, I did not convert the BGM01.afs archive, since, for some reason, it refuses to load the second part of the BGM during the intro, I have no idea what's up with that, the rest of the archive works fine in-game; so I'll leave that for now and come back to it.

Anyway, enjoy everyone, if you have any issues, I can't guarantee I'll be able to fix them (I've also barely done any testing myself), but just leave a comment on the Shenmue Dojo thread (linked below), the Reddit thread (also linked below), or find me on Discord (Find the server via Shenmue Dojo) and we'll see what I can do.

Dojo Thread: https://www.shenmuedojo.com/forum/index.php?threads/release-shenmue-audio-restoration-project-v0-33.593/#post-14062

Reddit Thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Shenmue/comments/9fc8b5/release_shenmue_audio_restoration_project_disc_1/?st=jlzroc2c&sh=fbe4e425

Instructions:
1) Install the Forklift Mod Loader
2) Move the Scene folder from Disc 1 Restored.zip into your Mods folder
3) Play the game without your ears wanting to murder you

https://mega.nz/#!GqAEkQCK!cs6OvMebv_3NvkyP2gAH5Jn8FIxuG3dLQBmCLYErMho


I'd also just like to give some thanks to some of the people who made this possible

Raymonf - for doing so much work on capturing/reversing hashes. I could not have even begun this project without Wulinshu and your unpacking tools.

SHENTRAD Team - I cannot overstate just how instrumental your translation pack has been to the rereleases of these games.

DaviDokuro - Lead programmer on this project (yes, a programmer is necessary)

BlueMue - for being my guinea pig, as well as a repository of knowledge on the original releases of these two games and I'd also like to thank everyone else who has been on this server and has thrown suggestions at me or helped me out where it's needed. I can't believe we've gotten this far this fast.

sl1982/Covarr/Sithlord48 - Your support is, was, and always has been, much appreciated.

[Dewey]

The Shenmue Audio Restoration Project Toolset has been released, you can find it here

https://github.com/DaviDokuro/SARP-Toolset

[WinterzShadow]

Well this is certainly good news, am really looking forward to trying this out. Thank you Dewey, finally Malcolm and Reese no longer hassle you...

[antraxx_argadi]

Thanks so much for releasing this

[Darkfalz]

I wanted to give D3T the benefit of the doubt (still do) but looks like we're going to end up with another broken, incomplete console port with various "fixes" required by third party mods. Dark Souls, Nier Automata etc. for example.

It's almost like the devs have utter contempt for both the people who bought the game and the community that identify and fix problems by refusing to implement the fixes, which should be much easier with access to the source code, as though doing so would be an admission they got something wrong.

[Dewey]

Originally posted by Vamphaery:

I disagree with some people's characterization of events and the devs. But I refuse to argue about it. Very grateful for the work everyone did on these. Truly awesome.

Not to start an argument or anything (I don't really want to argue either), but I don't want anyone to get the impression that I dislike this port, or anything of the sort. Getting this game running on modern PCs is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing, there's no two ways about it. The code was HIGHLY specialized for the Dreamcast, and was likely a big ol' plate of spaghetti by the time D3T got to whatever it is they had.

As far as the audio goes though... They did lie about how hard they worked on getting it sounding good. They transcoded all the audio into a bad format for this use case (XWMA) for no reason whatsoever. Not only did they needlessly transcode all the audio, they also used the lowest bitrate that codec can handle, which is 20kbps (for the post part, some things are at 48kbps, and the Shenhua cutscene after the title screen is at 32kbps). For VO, that's just an unacceptable bitrate. It's also a bit more confounding when you factor in that they had the uncompressed WAVs that I'm using; if they didn't, I wouldn't be able to do this the way I'm doing it.



tl;dr I love that this port exists, but they made some bad calls and I'm not going to just be quiet about it; disagree with me all you want, but I'm the guy that can show you EXACTLY what they did to the audio, and with this mod, I think I've illustrated why it was a bad idea.

[Darkfalz]

Decompressing (from AHX) and recompressing audio (into XWMA) - no wonder it sounds even worse. It's looking more and more like Redream is still going to be the preferred way to re-play these classics.

[Dewey]

It’s not AHX in Shenmue 1, Shenmue II uses AHX, and that one’s gonna be a totally different can of worms.

[mattlandry]

I found shenmue 2's audio got borked way harder in this release so hopefully someone can fix that at some point. I appreciate the work on Shenmue 1 though! The Shenmue community is amazing.

[antraxx_argadi]

Yeah S2 especially needs to be fixed.

[Conker]

Can someone post a youtube video comparing the diferences in audio using this fix please.

[Darkfalz]

I'm referring to devs who end up leaving games that sold well unfinished and buggy, like Nier and Dark Souls. D3T are still actively working on Shenmue for now but they could just as easily abandon it at any time considering it "playable", with missing mipmaps, incorrect music, poorer audio than the DC releases, hyper-speed skybox etc.

[R3N]

Originally posted by Darkfalz:

I wanted to give D3T the benefit of the doubt (still do) but looks like we're going to end up with another broken, incomplete console port with various "fixes" required by third party mods. Dark Souls, Nier Automata etc. for example.

It's almost like the devs have utter contempt for both the people who bought the game and the community that identify and fix problems by refusing to implement the fixes, which should be much easier with access to the source code, as though doing so would be an admission they got something wrong.

There is no source code for shenmue 1 sadly.
They had to reverse engineer the game.
https://www.pcgamer.com/how-sega-brought-shenmue-back-to-life-on-pc/
Here explain it all and why sounds is average.

[R3N]

Originally posted by DarkKnight:

Originally posted by kenxeus:

There is no source code for shenmue 1 sadly.
They had to reverse engineer the game.
https://www.pcgamer.com/how-sega-brought-shenmue-back-to-life-on-pc/
Here explain it all and why sounds is average.

but this reverse engineer has nothing to do with audio

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-sega-brought-shenmue-back-to-life-on-pc/

Were there any quirks of the Dreamcast hardware that made getting the first game working on PC especially difficult?
======================================================================
The Dreamcast hardware had some features which would prove difficult to emulate, particularly the audio and graphics systems.

The audio on the Dreamcast is mainly driven by a completely different chip to the main CPU. This chip is loaded with different programs defined by the original developer, specifying things such as loop points, reverb, volumes, envelopes, etc. We didn’t have the source data for this, which meant a lot of reverse engineering to get it sounding okay.

[FluffyTail]

Is this mod ever going to be finished for Disk 2?

[Dewey]

Originally posted by FluffyTail:

Is this mod ever going to be finished for Disk 2?

It has been for over a year now. Shenmue 1 has been fixed for both English and Japanese. Shenmue II has been fixed for English, and Japanese will be done at some indeterminate point in the future