http://youtu.be/jOyfZex7B3EAllows loading games from USB via the expansion card port, plans on making boards available for sale. Will open up doors to homebrew communities and preservation of the console's functionality for years beyond the CD drive croaking
Strikers1945guy wrote:"Do we....eat chicken balls?!"
It has an FM part, which -- apparently -- can use up to 32 operators for a single channel. I've never heard of anything else like that.MintyTheCat wrote:As I recall it uses some kind of wavetable sound chip and would be pretty nice to play with. - YM721 I think from memory
FM is always the same principle - just more Ops or less. I wonder how the Algorithms are - I tend to only use 17/18 on the DX7 personally for that 'metallic sound'zinger wrote:It has an FM part, which -- apparently -- can use up to 32 operators for a single channel. I've never heard of anything else like that.MintyTheCat wrote:As I recall it uses some kind of wavetable sound chip and would be pretty nice to play with. - YM721 I think from memory
Pretty high quality audio and many channels and several orders more complex sound wise than the Megadrive's YM2612...a custom sound processor with an integrated Yamaha FH1[135] DSP running at 22.6 MHz[136] capable of up to 32 sound channels with both FM synthesis and 16-bit PCM sampling at a maximum rate of 44.1 kHz,...
Those are in short supply though. More competition here seems good to me.Xyga wrote:Don't the Rhea and Phoebe mods do that already ?
What do you mean by that? Up to 32 operators in one single algorithm is something else entirely from the usual 4, 6 or 8; you must realize that this would open up for many interesting possibilities? Some sources claim it's also capable of using custom samples for modulating another operator, which is of course also something unusual (I know the SY99 could do it). There are many other aspects to consider in addition to these, like the number of envelopes or LFOs, and so on, so even if FM "is always the same principle", the specs do of course matter.MintyTheCat wrote:FM is always the same principle - just more Ops or less. I wonder how the Algorithms are - I tend to only use 17/18 on the DX7 personally for that 'metallic sound'zinger wrote:It has an FM part, which -- apparently -- can use up to 32 operators for a single channel. I've never heard of anything else like that.MintyTheCat wrote:As I recall it uses some kind of wavetable sound chip and would be pretty nice to play with. - YM721 I think from memory
This makes the rhea and phoebe seem like butcher jobs in comparison imo. I don't like the idea of taking the whole disc reading part out of a console to replace it, but having the same functionality, and maybe more, with something which just plugs in the expansion port is amazing.ZellSF wrote:Those are in short supply though. More competition here seems good to me.Xyga wrote:Don't the Rhea and Phoebe mods do that already ?
After finding a Sega Saturn on a trip to Japan, [jhl] decided he would like to write some code for this machine. Unlike earlier consoles, where Flash cartridges are readily available, or later consoles, where writing directly to the on-board storage is easy, bringing up a development environment for the Saturn isn’t easy. The best method is installing a mod chip and working off of burned CDs. Instead of writing a game or two for the Saturn, [jhl] got distracted for a few years and developed an optical drive emulator.
cracking-the-sega-saturn-thumbAccording to [jhl], the design of the Sega Saturn is tremendously complicated. There’s an entire chip dedicated to controlling the CD drive, and after some serious reverse engineering work, [jhl] had it pretty much figured out. The question then was how to load data onto the Saturn. For that. [jhl] turned to the internal expansion port on the Saturn. This internal expansion port was designed to accept an MPEG decoder card for playing video CDs on the Saturn, but the connector presents the entire bus. By attaching a Game Boy Flash cartridge, [jhl] was able to dump the ROM on the CD controller.
With a little bit of work, a fast ARM microcontroller, and a CPLD for all the logic glue, [jhl] was built an adapter to push CD data to the Saturn through this internal expansion port. Not only is this a boon for homebrew Saturn development, but this build also completely replaces the CD drive in the Saturn – a common failure point in this 20-year-old machine.
The formal release for this ultimate Saturn crack isn’t out yet, but it’s coming shortly,
Actually, the “crack” part of jhl’s work *has* been released – in the form of PseudoSaturn, which gets flashed onto an Action Replay cart and allows you to play backups. There’s efforts underway to move this to the internal slot, but it’ll be the same concept in that it will “only” unlock the drive.
The ODE doesn’t count as a crack, imho, since it doesn’t circumvent the copy protection in the CD block, but replaces it altogether. In my book that makes it even more impressive.
if my memory serves me right, the “copy protection” is actual a very simple encoded data that stored outsides of the normal region that a normal CDROM would read. It shouldn’t be too hard to fake that data when the controller request to read the special blocks.
Listening to Jesper Kyd's work on Scorcher, which was all done with the Saturn's sound hardware, I would wager it probably was.Vludi wrote:Was FM ever used in the Saturn though? i remember reading it was pretty tricky to use the soundchip for that
Yeah some games used the Saturn's SCSP synth like Panzer Dragoon 2, Legend of Oasis, but that's not FM.Austin wrote:Listening to Jesper Kyd's work on Scorcher, which was all done with the Saturn's sound hardware, I would wager it probably was.Vludi wrote:Was FM ever used in the Saturn though? i remember reading it was pretty tricky to use the soundchip for that
I mean that FM generates highly complex waveforms and with only a couple of Ops you can generate very complex waveforms - add in many levels of generation and you end up with very complex waveforms. An Algo with 32 Ops is pretty broad. Interesting yes, but I was referring to the way that FM Synthesis works and the type of sounds it can create (I also wrote a dissertation on FM Synthesis too if you fancy reading itzinger wrote:What do you mean by that? Up to 32 operators in one single algorithm is something else entirely from the usual 4, 6 or 8; you must realize that this would open up for many interesting possibilities? Some sources claim it's also capable of using custom samples for modulating another operator, which is of course also something unusual (I know the SY99 could do it). There are many other aspects to consider in addition to these, like the number of envelopes or LFOs, and so on, so even if FM "is always the same principle", the specs do of course matter.MintyTheCat wrote:FM is always the same principle - just more Ops or less. I wonder how the Algorithms are - I tend to only use 17/18 on the DX7 personally for that 'metallic sound'zinger wrote:
It has an FM part, which -- apparently -- can use up to 32 operators for a single channel. I've never heard of anything else like that.
)
Reading the SCSP manual, I think you might be onto something.ED-057 wrote: At the very least, the SCSP could have been used to emulate any of the old FM chips, to reproduce sound in arcade/genesis ports.
on a side note, the translation in it is nigh unreadable and working out the sentence structure is giving me a headacheSaturn SCSP User's Manual, page 62 wrote: As a rule, always input the same generation sample when inputting slots with different numbers.
Past FM sound generators have used this method, so when replacing an FM sound generator tone library, use this method.
Yeah, that sounds like the type of crap you find yourself reading in engineering. Datasheets are usually worse but eventually you work out how to extract the bits of info you are looking for. That sentence you quoted above makes 'sense' but I agree it is obtuse. The worst datasheets/manuals usually are the ones translated poorly from asian languages I tend to find. At least with the Saturn there were actually half decent manuals and datasheets though; on the Megadrive we got nth generation, photocopied, poorly translated Japanese to 'English' - the code and the diagrams are easier to read than the textnull1024 wrote:Reading the SCSP manual, I think you might be onto something.ED-057 wrote: At the very least, the SCSP could have been used to emulate any of the old FM chips, to reproduce sound in arcade/genesis ports.on a side note, the translation in it is nigh unreadable and working out the sentence structure is giving me a headacheSaturn SCSP User's Manual, page 62 wrote: As a rule, always input the same generation sample when inputting slots with different numbers.
Past FM sound generators have used this method, so when replacing an FM sound generator tone library, use this method.
it's densely packed with technical terms in a way as if Yoda was reciting how the chip worked
