Proposed new model of sound output

[Verdauga Greeneyes]

Baw ? What about the very hearable 20-1500 range ?

In fact, we're most sensitive to sounds around 1kHz. But I think byuu just made a typo and meant 15Hz

[creaothceann]

For me it stops at ca. 85 Hz (just tested with Cool Edit).

[Verdauga Greeneyes]

For me it stops at ca. 85 Hz (just tested with Cool Edit).

85 Hz is still pretty high.. that's above the level where a subwoofer should kick in, even; are you sure your speakers are up to the task?

[blargg]

Always use headphones for listening tests (unless the speakers themselves are the subject of the test). Even cheap headphones give decent frequency response, and there is only one speaker per ear thus no crossovers to mess things up.

[mudlord]

Ok. So why are you into emulation if it's not to play games and it's not to find out how hardware works?

I am in it for the fun of coding. I love writing pieces of code. Especially if its graphics related. So its not for the lulz, kudos, warez, and the fun of games. I do it purely for the programming side.

1) Why care what MAMEdev or any of it's members thinks? Seriously. You may as well develop an ulcer from byuu's theory of licenses.
2) MAMEdevs on random message boards are not speaking for MAMEdev. Not Aaron Giles, not me, and definitely not MG. Official team opinions are on mamedev.org, period, and I'm pretty sure there's no statement on this topic there at all.
3) 4 different MAMEdevs have released and maintain inaccurate fast emulators. As byuu has noted, all the really nasty commentary comes from people with a sweet Gateway their mom just bought them and they get really angry when bsnes or MAME doesn't run fast enough on it. So the closest you'll see to an official statement on this is that we encourage people to write faster-than-MAME emulators, never mind how. It keeps all those poor sweet Gateways busy.

1) Because MAMEdev seem to garner a great deal of respect in the scene. So I do see them as holding important opinions.
2) Yeah, suppose so, since they all have thier own views. Especially MG, who recently made some comments I found personally extremely offensive and false. I am not in it for the lulz, and warez. I am in it for the code. Nothing else.
3) Yeah, I recall Haze was working on a emulator, not sure how its coming along. Though I suppose whatever gets the lamers away from you guys is a good thing I suppose.

I apologise to you personally for sounding like a real arsehole and idiot. I honestly find you guys personally cool(I chatted to Haze on the MAMEWorld forums, and he seems like a awesome guy, same with Robert Belmont), so please don't take my views personally. I have nothing against you guys personally, its just well, our views are a bit clashing (certainly mine and MG's clash). But meh, I like what you guys do, and I have nothing against cycle accuracy at all.

[creaothceann]

VG, b:
Testing with headphones sets the limit to ca. 32 Hz - sounds a bit like a distant chopper. Even lower frequencies can only be heard by increasing the volume, but I don't know if I'm actually hearing the sound, or some interference created by it.

[Verdauga Greeneyes]

VG, b:
Testing with headphones sets the limit to ca. 32 Hz - sounds a bit like a distant chopper. Even lower frequencies can only be heard by increasing the volume, but I don't know if I'm actually hearing the sound, or some interference created by it.

32Hz is already a lot better - quite a few speaker systems don't correctly reproduce sound below 40Hz, as far as I know. I don't know how headphones fare in general, but their base does tend to lack a bit of punch.

[Nightcrawler]

VG, b:
Testing with headphones sets the limit to ca. 32 Hz - sounds a bit like a distant chopper. Even lower frequencies can only be heard by increasing the volume, but I don't know if I'm actually hearing the sound, or some interference created by it.

32Hz is already a lot better - quite a few speaker systems don't correctly reproduce sound below 40Hz, as far as I know. I don't know how headphones fare in general, but their base does tend to lack a bit of punch.

Even if they do, it's typically at reduced amplitude as the frequency response is surely approaching the drop off point (unless it's a sub woofer). Anything without a big enough woofer will really struggle with good reproduction of those low frequencies anyway.

It's much less accurate a test trying to assess your low end hearing limit vs. the high end. Also when you get something that produces good low end sound, you can probably feel the signal (vibration) when you can't actually hear it, so you will think you still hear it.

[kick]

On topic content: all SB Live and Audigy cards have a native rate of 48000 Hz, so if you feed them anything else they run it through an 8-point spline resampler[1]. I run everything possible at 48 kHz for that reason (X-Fi cards don't work well on Linux yet and I don't know what's going on there).

For Audigy 2s at least, it can actually output up to 192 kHz, but anything below 48 is resampled to 48 as far as I know.

Things get even more interesting with the Audigy2 and Audigy4 series:
- If you feed it anything below 48kHz,it resamples the sound *twice* using a crappy resampling algorithm.
- If you feed it 48kHz it will still resample that 48kHz sound to 48kHz (!) That's just as bad.
- On the other hand,if you feed it some audio at 96kHz (I won't recommend 192kHz,it's beyond overkill),resampling is bypassed completely and the audio is redirected to the special 'high quality' chip that handles high bitrates and frequencies.
- If you feed it something else between 48kHz and 192kHz (i.e. 88200Hz),it gets resampled to 96kHz but only once this time,using a higher-quality algorithm and passed to the high-quality output chip.

X-Fi resamples *everything* regardless of the input sample rate,using a very high-quality resampling algorithm comparable to SSRC at ultra quality.It needs a LOT of computing power to do this though,hence the need of the powerful X-Fi DSP chip on board.The only problem with the Creative X-Fi cards is despite such powerful hardware,their drivers are the worst POS ever produced.ATi's OpenGL drivers fare a lot better compared to this BS

*Currently the best card from Creative is still the A2ZS

So,a selectable rate with only 4 values: 32040, 44100, 48000 and 96000 would be the best choice IMO.

OT: By the way,something else has been released recently that may help bsnes:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... &px=NjUxNg
I wonder if PGO is finally possible now.

[AamirM]

Hi,

This card seems very nice though seems a bit professional. Most sound cards claim 192KHz but only achieve this using resampling. This one does no sample rate conversion. Cool!

stay safe,

AamirM

[I.S.T.]

My only concern here is that there's not much point. The IRQs are so badly broken (okay it only breaks two known games, still) that you're better off simply using SNESGT. Coincidentally, fixing that is what caused the greatest speed hit of all, twice as much as losing PGO.

Of course, I'd hate that. I would greatly miss your feedback and contributions.

Well, if I could hussle up some cash for a decent Core 2 Duo (like the 8xxx series) or Quad and a new motherboard, then I wouldn't be in this mess.

I can run bsnes without filters at 60 FPS on a Pentium Dual-Core 2160(Which is basically a core 2 duo with the FSB set to 800 MHZ and with only 1 meg of cache). If you've got a lower end Core 2, perhaps OCing would help?

[mudlord]

Sorry, can't overclock with my current POS mobo.

My new one will be arriving soon, so that should rectify that conundrum.

[I.S.T.]

Sorry, can't overclock with my current POS mobo.

My new one will be arriving soon, so that should rectify that conundrum.

Ah.

an OC to 2.4 ghz(Via setting the FSB to 266 mhz quad pumped) will run bsnes with the NTSC filter on at 60 fps no problem.

[mudlord]

Solved the issue: Vsync.

VSync was slowing it. Turning it off helped greatly. Although, for some odd reason (maybe something SNES hardware related), KI and UMK3 run much better for me than SMW does, which I do play a fair bit, since shader tests turn out to be more noticable....Though the games run with zero sound issues (popping, buffer underrun issues, etc...).

Eh whatever. It isn't relevant to this discussion.