FX-Unit Yuki: The Henshin Engine for TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine

[nodtveidt]

A few things about using PSG music...

-More CPU time required
-More work required to get sound effects working; music channels have to be cut temporarily to allow sound effects to play
-More space in RAM required that could be better-used for other things

These are all important details when using HuC, of which Henshin Engine's code is about 90% (about 10% assembly). On top of that, the overwhelming majority of CD-based games back in the heyday of the PCE used Redbook audio. Also, "nowadays" is irrelevant; we are still using the same technology as they used "back then"... it's not like the PCE has been upgraded.

Also, the KS broke $28k with authority.

[NightWolve]

To me, Redbook audio is what captures the true feel of a Turbo/PC Engine CDROM game, as you were getting only chiptune music from every other game console you owned growing up in that era like NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, etc. all the portables, etc.

The legendary soundtracks that are remembered and beloved such as Ys I-IV and Gate of Thunder would not have the historical status that they do had they been programmed and limited to PSG... The lure of the CD was precisely due to allowing any kind of music to play, no limits.

[Necromancer]

With more than half the games on CD (most of which using at least some redbook tracks if not all), it's stupid to say redbook is 'fake'.  Good music is good music, regardless of whether it's chip generated or not.

[BigusSchmuck]

With more than half the games on CD (most of which using at least some redbook tracks if not all), it's stupid to say redbook is 'fake'.  Good music is good music, regardless of whether it's chip generated or not.

Amen. I'm curious on how the parallax was achieved through HUC? Or was that the 10% assembly part?

[Dr.Wily]

-More CPU time required

irrelevant, many game especially shooters use PSG with a lot of scrolling and sprite + BGM music with sometime PCM sounds.

-More work required to get sound effects working; music channels have to be cut temporarily to allow sound effects to play

More work to develop sound engine OK. Channels cut it's not a problem with 6 channels + IFU's PCM. Don't forget that the limitations is a part of the chiptune feeling. If you make a retro game on real hardware push the trip to the bitter end.
 

-More space in RAM required that could be better-used for other things

Hey, I feel here not be honest with yourself. Which System Card Henshin Engine uses ? The System card 3.0 I suppose. There is 2 Megabits of RAM in there + internal RAM, this is not enough to put few kilobyte of sound code ?

These are all important details when using HuC, of which Henshin Engine's code is about 90% (about 10% assembly). On top of that, the overwhelming majority of CD-based games back in the heyday of the PCE used Redbook audio.

The overwhelming majority of CD-based games used redbook only because it's new and surprising at this time compare to chip music + easier to develop than coding music on metal.

Also, "nowadays" is irrelevant; we are still using the same technology as they used "back then"... it's not like the PCE has been upgraded.

You don't understand, it's not tech speaking but historical context speaking. At this time, the majority of music was hardware produced with electronic feeling with beep and blop. When a sound designer chose to put BGM using redbook he uses "real" instruments to make the diference versus "primitive" chiptune. This is a step forward for the gamers side "the music is more realistic" and they understand advantage of audio CD VS chip music.

But nowadays there is no advantage for using CD VS chip music and the fake progress of redbook in video game became irrelevant.

And today, you put chiptune on redbook whereas at the time, nobody would have thought to put chip music on redbook. Because chip music is produced by a chip and "real" music is recorded on redbook. There is a nonsense here no ?

To me, Redbook audio is what captures the true feel of a Turbo/PC Engine CDROM game, as you were getting only chiptune music from every other game console you owned growing up in that era like NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, etc. all the portables, etc.

Redbook has no feeling. Is just a medium. And if you want the true feeling of PC-ENgine CD you must record some 90' synth, not chiptune.

With more than half the games on CD (most of which using at least some redbook tracks if not all), it's stupid to say redbook is 'fake'.  Good music is good music, regardless of whether it's chip generated or not.

Yes your right, good music is good music regardless of whether it produce. But I prefer a singer in live compared to a guy who sings in playback. Redbook is playback and does not use all PC-Engine hardware.

[Bonknuts]

Hey, I feel here not be honest with yourself. Which System Card Henshin Engine uses ? The System card 3.0 I suppose. There is 2 Megabits of RAM in there + internal RAM, this is not enough to put few kilobyte of sound code ?

 Unless you've coded a game in HuC for the  system card 3.0, homebrew no less, then you have no platform to speak on this issue. Old Rover is no stranger to coding on the PCE. Can things always be compressed further - usually, sure - but Old Rover's priority is making a game first and foremost. I'm sure there are a lot of things he's already considered. A chiptune engine (software) and song (data) are not inherently free - they do require system resources as well as talent and familiarity with the hardware.

 You simply have a bias for chiptune sounds of the core system. That's fine, but that doesn't mean you get to ignore the vast library that used Redbook audio (with some of the most memorable tunes regardless of not being huc6280). Or invalidate Redbook audio with some revisionist perspective or such; it's part of the system and a valid choice for homebrew. End of debate.

[Arjak]

Better start planning that documentary, guys! We've passed the second stretch goal!

[NightWolve]

To me, Redbook audio is what captures the true feel of a Turbo/PC Engine CDROM game, as you were getting only chiptune music from every other game console you owned growing up in that era like NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, etc. all the portables, etc.

Redbook has no feeling. Is just a medium. And if you want the true feeling of PC-ENgine CD you must record some 90' synth, not chiptune.

Redbook allows for any "feeling" you want. It "just" allows for the best possible music, and that's all I care about and what MOST care about...

I'm not interested in lost causes like purposefully grinding down great music to the blips and beeps of chiptune standards for the sake of capturing the "retroness" of carts or HuCards, etc. It's a CD game and will take full advantage of CD standards, including Redbook audio tracks.

Whatever floats your boat though. The composer and developer are likely not interested in ruining their music, so there's your simple answer. You think Ryo Yonemitsu would've appreciated great Ys tracks like "The Boy Who Had Wings" getting grinded down to PSG style ? I doubt it...

It's funny though you wanna passionately argue over this in a senseless argumentative fashion, but at least it's a better distraction than Joe Redifer's hissy fit.

Redbook is playback and does not use all PC-Engine hardware.

Oh noooo, what a crime! Heh. The trade-off is the user will get the best possible music the human ear can process, but less challenge for the hardware...  So the "problem" is what exactly ?? ...


https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sarumaru/henshin-engine-the-game-pc-engine-tg-16-pc-steam

420 backers
$28,270
49 hours to go

Thanks everyone!



Despite the fact that we have saboteurs registered here in our own PCE forum family that have an ax to grind with PCEFX as a whole, or members on this development team, along with the issues externally, the project has done amazingly well from when it looked like it wouldn't even cross the first goal and end in embarrassment!!

[Sadler]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sarumaru/henshin-engine-the-game-pc-engine-tg-16-pc-steam

420 backers
$28,270
49 hours to go

Thanks everyone!

Make that 421 backers.

[Black Tiger]

Dr Wily, when people reference things like "HuC", the point they're making is that homebrew PC Engine development is very challenging and the dev kits licensed developers used bitd are unavailable. Elaborate chiptunes are particularly difficult to do still, but there are also very few people available who can make them with the existing tools.

Unlike HuCard games, Henshin Engine actually does make use of all of the hardware, as it features WSG, adpcm and redbook sound.

Henshin Engine is also on track to provide the most bang for  the buck as far as aesthetics proportionate to development time. The game is also using 16 x 16 pixel tiles instead of 8 x 8, in order to achieve this balance.

If you and some friends are capable of churning out a PC Engine game within a year on the same level of overall production value as the top quality CD games from bitd, we'd all be happy to play it.

[deubeul]

Personally, redbook audio is one of the main reason I felt in love with the PcE BITD, that's what made it so unique back  then, and that's why I always prefered CDs above HuCards. And that's probably why I couldn't play MD or SNS, I didn't find any excitement playing them.

I'll always remember my first experience with my first CD  game:

Spriggan, stage 1 >> Hyper fast scrolling + the fantastic CD audio track = BOOM!!! instant Obey for life.

[Gredler]

Dr Wily, when people reference things like "HuC", the point they're making is that homebrew PC Engine development is very challenging and the dev kits licensed developers used bitd are unavailable. Elaborate chiptunes are particularly difficult to do still, but there are also very few people available who can make them with the existing tools.

Unlike HuCard games, Henshin Engine actually does make use of all of the hardware, as it features WSG, adpcm and redbook sound.

Henshin Engine is also on track to provide the most bang for  the buck as far as aesthetics proportionate to development time. The game is also using 16 x 16 pixel tiles instead of 8 x 8, in order to achieve this balance.

If you and some friends are capable of churning out a PC Engine game within a year on the same level of overall production value as the top quality CD games from bitd, we'd all be happy to play it.

This is exactly right BT, Mr Wooly needs to read any of the Catastrophy threads (and new line of huc thread) and you'll see plenty of struggles trying to get a talented musician to work within the confines of the platform. If you or someone you know is able to and wants to make good chiptunes on the platform please let me know, because a it stands there are no musicians "stepping up to the mic" for making PCE homebrew tunes.

[Bonknuts]

I'd like to point out that while there is a lot of talent in the chiptune music scene, across a lot of system, the tools they use are NOT meant for dev purposes - only make music on the system itself. PCE has very little tools, the most popular one at the moment in the "scene" is DefleMask. That is NOT a valid option for homebrew because the "cooked" output, disregarding some bugs, is waaaayyy too large for hucard or CD rom projects (won't fit in CD ram). On Famicom, Famitracker is popular, but even that has ~serious~ limitations for homebrew - to the point were devs just don't use it. I could go on and on - but the point is that these new development tools aren't geared towards practical music solutions for homebrew or just game development in general.

 Squirrel exists, but it's not a WYHISWYG or whatever type of tool. There's no sample support, which I feel it part of the PCE chiptune sound (with either directly via each channel or the ADPCM channel). So it's limited as well. It's a realistic and practical option, but there needs to be more mature toolset surrounding it to be effective (IMO, which is why most people shy away from it). Most people develop the music on another platform, and down convert it to generic mml. Even with a mature toolset surrounding it, I'd still argue that the system card PSG player is only average. But outside of writing everything from scratch - this is your best bet for chiptune development on PCE. And honestly, outside of Arkhan's awesome examples who seems to intuitively know his way around sound/instrument generation in PCE MML, I haven't seen anything worth getting excited over for PCE mml stuff (apologies to the chiptuners out there have produced stuff).

 So saying something like PCE homebrew should have chiptunes, is kind of a tall order.

[nodtveidt]

I love using Squirrel, but I found that it causes some issues with straight-up HuC. Whenever I would use it for music playback in a program that makes use of multiple scroll() regions, it would introduce a lot of flicker issues. I am not sure if this is a CPU load issue or just a "gimme all teh timer!" thing but because of it, I don't use it for any kind of action game unless I am only planning to use a single scroll(). For RPGs that don't go too crazy with the graphical effects, it's great... in fact, Mysterious Song II uses Squirrel for its PSG effects playback. You simply couldn't ask for a more robust sound system in this case. Henshin Engine, on the other hand, would have numerous issues if I used it, so instead, I use a heavily modified version of Bt Garner's snd.c, which is a lot less demanding, though obviously a lot less feature-packed than Squirrel. I cannot recommend Squirrel enough to anyone making a hucard game, as there is literally nothing better and it does a great job in most circumstances.

[Bonknuts]

If you use Vblank IRQ timing instead of TIMER IRQ timing for the sys card PSG player, then it shouldn't interfere with scrolling. Maybe that was part of the problem? (PSG player using TIMER instead of V_INT) Unless HuC is doing something else (something weird), and/or PSG player is extremely slow.

 I can definitely see using the syscard PSG player for just sound FX type of setup, as long as it didn't use the TIMER interrupt routine. Kind of strange that the PSG TIMER interrupt doesn't set a flag and immediately re-enable interrupts to keep VDC interrupts from being delayed. I would have thought that would be standard design for a multi-interrupt driven system. I mean, this is what a lot of hucard games do when using both interrupts (Air Zonk for example; music on the TIMER int, samples on TIMER int, line scrolling on VDC H-int). Does Squirrel not allow the setting the PSG player of which timing mechanism to use? I.e. V-int vs TIMER-int?