Getting surround sound sound from the N64 and GameCube?

[Mantis128]

Ever since I was a kid I've noticed in the options menu for some 64 and Cube games a "surround sound option. Now I never thought much of it until recently when I decided to work to towards getting a surround sound system for modern games. I thought "why not try and get surround sound from my old system s too?"

From what I gan gather the 64 sends a 4 channel signal through the 2 channel RCA jacks into a receiver that can split the signal.

Now what I'm wondering is, can modern HDMI receivers accept a 4 channel pro logic signal though RCA? I want to have surround sound but I'm not going to spend time and money hunting down an ancient receiver just for a couple of games?

[Fudoh]

yes, that's no problem. If you have a Prologic encoded stereo signal, it doesn't matter if you transmit it througn analogue or digital connections. And the latter include HDMI as well.

[Shoryukev]

Fudoh is exactly right, the receiver just receives it as a stereo signal and decodes it. I haven't looked at receivers in a while, but when I bought my Yamaha 7.1 unit 3-4 years ago prologic and prologic-II were still standard features in everything I looked at. Should be plug and play with nothing to worry about.

It's probably also worth noting that modern (console at least, not sure about PC) video-games produce their audio signals at a lower sample rate than most DVDs and Blurays, so if you're just looking to play video games....you won't be able to utilize high bitrate uncompressed formats like DTS-HD. I'd only spend the money on something fancy if you plan on also using the sound system for movies....as the uncompressed formats do sound amazing for Blurays. I haven't really tried using my PS4 with my receiver since it's in a different room, but I used to use my PS3 with my surround sound setup and that was the case so I'm about 90% positive this statement still holds true.

[austin532]

I had created a topic about this here with a bunch of games listed that support it. http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=51493

Unfortunately just because it says it supports Dolby Surround does not mean the entire soundtrack was designed that way. Even if only one track was encoded with it they still had to put the logo on the case or in game due to licensing.

I haven't tried it personally but I doubt the N64 games that support will make a huge difference due to the very limited space on the carts. PS1 games however that only support Stereo sound pretty good when selecting Multi Stereo mode on the Receiver.

The Gamecube sounds good but it is the weakest of the three 6th gen systems when it comes to sound as it only supports PLII and lacks an Optical port.

[bobrocks95]

If the Ocarina of Time Master Quest disc is any indication (it is just emulating the N64), surround sound sounds great in the two Zelda N64 games.

[austin532]

It's hard saying if they made any minor changes. I believe this version supports 480p so who's to say they didn't make any changes to the audio as well.

[Shoryukev]

If the Ocarina of Time Master Quest disc is any indication (it is just emulating the N64), surround sound sounds great in the two Zelda N64 games.

I've played Ocarina on my N64 with my old Yamaha 5.1 receiver several times over the years, and it has some good stereo separation along with a decent imaging on what's going on behind you. As far a pro-logic goes it is implemented pretty well.

It's hard saying if they made any minor changes. I believe this version supports 480p so who's to say they didn't make any changes to the audio as well.

They could have improved on it a little bit if it was done from the source material and not just what was on the cartridges. I have the master quest disc, but I currently don't have a gamecube so I can't confirm or deny any audio changes.

[tjstogy]

I wonder if there's a way to insert some lossless audio into the N64 games as the MSU-1 chip for the SNES does. I hope someone invents one. It's well known that the N64 had to compress the crap out of all of the audio.... you can find some lossless N64 tracks released by the composers. Man what a big difference. Here's a good one: http://www.grantkirkhope.com/goldeneye-007/

[Guspaz]

The N64 already supported essentially full quality PCM audio (44.1 KHz or 48 KHz), but cartridge size limitations led to the use of ADPCM compression when games wanted to output recorded music instead of sample-based. I don't know anything about N64 mappers, but I'd imagine that enlarging the ROM to take up the full 64MB limit of the Everdrive 64 and adding the extra audio tracks could be done with just a ROM hack. For example, Goldeneye was 12MB, while the ED64 supports up to 64MB, leaving extra space for audio if some sort of mapping trick could be performed. Alternatively, the ED64 has a USB 1.0 port, and if that's exposed to the game in any way, it could potentially be used to store the extra data without messing with the mapper?

[tjstogy]

Sounds awesome. I know a lot of the "remastered" n64 games released for xbox live etc have their original uncompressed music (I wonder if Nintendo did the same with their re-releases on Wii/wii u.) I bet the rereleases could be "hacked" for their superior audio and use the tracks for the old games... if it was indeed possible.

The N64 already supported essentially full quality PCM audio (44.1 KHz or 48 KHz), but cartridge size limitations led to the use of ADPCM compression when games wanted to output recorded music instead of sample-based. I don't know anything about N64 mappers, but I'd imagine that enlarging the ROM to take up the full 64MB limit of the Everdrive 64 and adding the extra audio tracks could be done with just a ROM hack. For example, Goldeneye was 12MB, while the ED64 supports up to 64MB, leaving extra space for audio if some sort of mapping trick could be performed. Alternatively, the ED64 has a USB 1.0 port, and if that's exposed to the game in any way, it could potentially be used to store the extra data without messing with the mapper?