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Author Topic: NES Sound Hardware  (Read 8385 times)

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Offline Hot_Dog

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NES Sound Hardware
« on: September 23, 2010, 06:12:35 pm »
I know that the Nintendo Entertainment System uses seperate hardware/chips for sound, but I noticed that music plays at a constant tempo even when a game slows down from too many sprites on the screen.  Is this because of the sound hardware, or does an NES game use interrupts to play sound?
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Offline qazz42

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2010, 06:18:30 pm »
probably the first
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Offline calc84maniac

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2010, 06:48:49 pm »
Well, the hardware will play the notes continuously at whatever frequency they are set to. But if the music doesn't slow down at all with the rest of the game, it is probably updated using an interrupt (V-Blank, most likely)
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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2010, 06:50:18 pm »
Quote from: calc84maniac on September 23, 2010, 06:48:49 pm
Well, the hardware will play the notes continuously at whatever frequency they are set to. But if the music doesn't slow down at all with the rest of the game, it is probably updated using an interrupt (V-Blank, most likely)

Gotcha.  I'm thinking in particular of Kirby's Adventure.  The game sometimes slows down with a lot of enemies/animations, but the music keeps at a constant tempo
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2010, 06:57:08 pm »
Hmm actually, in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the music did slow down a bit on the overworld map when scrolling sometimes (especially when enemies were on the screen for random battles)
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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2010, 06:58:17 pm »
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 23, 2010, 06:57:08 pm
Hmm actually, in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the music did slow down a bit on the overworld map when scrolling sometimes (especially when enemies were on the screen for random battles)

Good, that answers my question then.  Because that mean's there only ONE way that the NES music for Kirby's Adventure could be played at a constant rate.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2010, 07:06:24 pm »
Do you mean that when too many sprites are displayed, more processing power is spent on music to avoid slowing it down, but with the downside of slowing the game framerate down even more?
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Offline gangsterveggies

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #7 on: November 09, 2010, 03:20:54 pm »
Yeah... that wouldn't make sense... Although it has a point... if the sound is constant and the frame rate drops...

Totally unrelated, when do you think TI is gonna have sound?
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Offline Hot_Dog

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #8 on: November 09, 2010, 03:22:09 pm »
Quote from: gangsterveggies on November 09, 2010, 03:20:54 pm
Yeah... that wouldn't make sense... Although it has a point... if the sound is constant and the frame rate drops...

Totally unrelated, when do you think TI is gonna have sound?

Probably never
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Offline gangsterveggies

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #9 on: November 09, 2010, 03:26:50 pm »
Oh... I've seen some wacky projects... it would be cool... wouldn't it?
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2010, 04:03:34 pm »
Well the problem with the Nspire is that it has no I/O port or headphone jack. We need a TI-84 keypad for it and it doesn't come with the Nspire anymore. In other words, people need to find an USB adapter to plug speakers or something. On the TI-84+ there is sound, but it can slow down games a lot and higher quality sound, like real music, fills the entire calculator memory with only one minute of song.
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Offline gangsterveggies

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2010, 04:05:16 pm »
Hot wiring? Just kidding. I just wanted to freak out my maths teacher by playing a really loud noise on her calc... but that's ok...
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: NES Sound Hardware
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2010, 07:54:09 pm »
Well the calc hardware by itself got no speaker so that wouldn't work too well, since the teacher would notice the USB speakers.
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