MSU-1 audio on N64 possible?

[tjstogy]

Was wondering if this was even possible? There are a ton of N64 games with CD quality soundtracks that had to get compressed to nothing, but have been released after the fact in their original lossless quality... it would be cool to get that CD quality back into the games.

[BONKERS]

Someone with knowledge of the system would have to write such a thing.
Byuu wrote the MSU-1 as basically an expansion chip. I don't know of any N64 games that use custom chips.

[Darksakul]

It was more that the N64 cartridges had limited memory storage.
The Audio had to be compressed to be able to fit the limited storage size mask roms provide at the time.

Hence why PS1 games had superior audio, it's not that the game hardware was better but the media the games was written on.
CDs had enough room for the game plus often Red book audio, while the n64 version had to deal with compression.

The MSU-1 chip is unnecessary for the N64, as the N64 can already play audio and video files, it just limited to smaller file sizes due to the nature of carts themselves.

Example Pokemon Puzzle League was capable of playing rather decent video cut scenes (keep in mind the n64 still outputs 240p on most games, hence the low resolution).
https://youtu.be/oB8ETNeAvh4

[bobrocks95]

You would need something like the MSU-1 because it expands the maximum memory address space to 4GB. The largest N64 cart was 64MB. You can't just shove a 4GB flashcart in the console and have it know how to address such a large pool of memory, I'm sure the MSU-1 does some complex bank switching to allow the system to access it all. The audio hardware is fine, but you still need the memory expansion.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, the MSU-1 probably just injects the audio data into the sound processor. So it's playing the music itself and thus addressing its own memory. So you need some way to expand the N64's max addressable memory size, or some in-between chip that is playing the audio itself and streaming it to the console.

[Guspaz]

Are you sure the MSU-1 on the SD2SNES doesn't just use the SNES analog audio input pins? It has both left and right audio inputs on the cartridge slot. Seems simpler than touching the sound processor.

[Darksakul]

You would need something like the MSU-1 because it expands the maximum memory address space to 4GB. The largest N64 cart was 64MB. You can't just shove a 4GB flashcart in the console and have it know how to address such a large pool of memory, I'm sure the MSU-1 does some complex bank switching to allow the system to access it all. The audio hardware is fine, but you still need the memory expansion.

EDIT: Thinking about it more, the MSU-1 probably just injects the audio data into the sound processor. So it's playing the music itself and thus addressing its own memory. So you need some way to expand the N64's max addressable memory size, or some in-between chip that is playing the audio itself and streaming it to the console.

The MSU-1 does not inject sound data to the sound processor. It runs sound processing on its own and sends it to the systems output. Hence why optical audio mods for the SNES does not pickup the MSU-1 expansion sound does not work with the digital optical audio out.

The largest N64 cart is 64MB is not a limit of memory addressing but the limits to the size of the rom chips available at the time.
The addressing for the N64 is more than capable of bigger than 64MB.

[Extrems]

Up to 256 MB can be addressed, but there's analog audio too (used by Wide Boy 64).

[bobrocks95]

Streaming data to the sound processor, injecting it into the output audio stream... I'd say I was close enough

[Darksakul]

Up to 256 MB can be addressed, but there's analog audio too (used by Wide Boy 64).

Thanks, I knew it was higher than 64MB, but I didn't know the exact figures.

[Guspaz]

Up to 256 MB can be addressed, but there's analog audio too (used by Wide Boy 64).

The Wide Boy audio is notoriously terrible, though, so is that actually the Wide Boy's fault, or is it an issue with the N64 audio pins?