Commit Graph

2 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Tim Allen ecc7e899e0 Update to v103r01 release.
byuu says:

Changelog:

  - nall/dsp: improve one pole coefficient calculations [Fatbag]
  - higan/audio: reworked filters to support selection of either one
    pole (first-order) or biquad (second-order) filters
      - note: the design is not stable yet; so forks should not put too
        much effort into synchronizing with this change yet
  - fc: added first-order filters as per NESdev wiki (90hz lowpass +
    440hz lowpass + 14khz highpass)
  - fc: created separate NTSC-J and NTSC-U regions
      - NESdev wiki says the Japanese Famicom uses a separate audio
        filtering strategy, but details are fuzzy
      - there's also cartridge audio output being disabled on NES units;
        and differences with controllers
      - this stuff will be supported in the future, just adding the
        support for it now
  - gba: corrected serious bugs in PSG wave channel emulation [Cydrak]
      - note that if there are still bugs here, it's my fault
  - md/psg,ym2612: added first-order low-pass 2840hz filter to match
    VA3-VA6 Mega Drives
  - md/psg: lowered volume relative to the YM2612
      - using 0x1400; multiple people agreed it was the closest to the
        hardware recordings against a VA6
  - ms,md/psg: don't serialize the volume levels array
  - md/vdp: Hblank bit acts the same during Vblank as outside of it (it
    isn't always set during Vblank)
  - md/vdp: return isPAL in bit 0 of control port reads
  - tomoko: change command-line option separator from : to |
      - [Editor's note: This change was present in the public v103,
        but it's in this changelog because it was made after the v103 WIP]
  - higan/all: change the 20hz high-pass filters from second-order
    three-pass to first-order one-pass
      - these filters are meant to remove DC bias, but I honestly can't
        hear a difference with or without them
      - so there's really no sense wasting CPU power with an extremely
        powerful filter here

Things I did not do:

  - change icarus install rule
  - work on 8-bit Mega Drive SRAM
  - work on Famicom or Mega Drive region detection heuristics in icarus

My long-term dream plan is to devise a special user-configurable
filtering system where you can set relative volumes and create your own
list of filters (any number of them in any order at any frequency), that
way people can make the systems sound however they want.

Right now, the sanest place to put this information is inside the
$system.sys/manifest.bml files. But that's not very user friendly, and
upgrading to new versions will lose these changes if you don't copy them
over manually. Of course, cluttering the GUI with a fancy filter editor
is probably supreme overkill for 99% of users, so maybe that's fine.
2017-06-26 11:41:58 +10:00
Tim Allen 04072b278b Update to v102r16 release.
byuu says:

Changelog:

  - Emulator::Stream now allows adding low-pass and high-pass filters
    dynamically
      - also accepts a pass# count; each pass is a second-order biquad
        butterworth IIR filter
  - Emulator::Stream no longer automatically filters out >20KHz
    frequencies for all streams
  - FC: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter
  - GB: removed simple 'magic constant' high-pass filter of unknown
    cutoff frequency (missed this one in the last WIP)
  - GB,SGB,GBC: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter
  - MS,GG,MD/PSG: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter
  - MD: added save state support (but it's completely broken for now;
    sorry)
  - MD/YM2612: fixed Voice#3 per-operator pitch support (fixes sound
    effects in Streets of Rage, etc)
  - PCE: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter
  - WS,WSC: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter

So, the point of the low-pass filters is to remove frequencies above
human hearing. If we don't do this, then resampling will introduce
aliasing that results in sounds that are audible to the human ear. Which
basically an annoying buzzing sound. You'll definitely hear the
improvement from these in games like Mega Man 2 on the NES. Of course,
these already existed before, so this WIP won't sound better than
previous WIPs.

The high-pass filters are a little more complicated. Their main role is
to remove DC bias and help to center the audio stream. I don't
understand how they do this at all, but ... that's what everyone who
knows what they're talking about says, thus ... so be it.

I have set all of the high-pass filters to 20Hz, which is below the
limit of human hearing. Now this is where it gets really interesting ...
technically, some of these systems actually cut off a lot of range. For
instance, the GBA should technically use an 800Hz high-pass filter when
output is done through the system's speakers. But of course, if you plug
in headphones, you can hear the lower frequencies.

Now 800Hz ... you definitely can hear. At that level, nearly all of the
bass is stripped out and the audio is very tinny. Just like the real
system. But for now, I don't want to emulate the audio being crushed
that badly.

I'm sticking with 20Hz everywhere since it won't negatively affect audio
quality. In fact, you should not be able to hear any difference between
this WIP and the previous WIP. But theoretically, DC bias should mostly
be removed as a result of these new filters. It may be that we need to
raise the values on some cores in the future, but I don't want to do
that until we know for certain that we have to.

What I can say is that compared to even older WIPs than r15 ... the
removal of the simple one-pole low-pass and high-pass filters with the
newer three-pass, second-order filters should result in much better
attenuation (less distortion of audible frequencies.) Probably not
enough to be noticeable in a blind test, though.
2017-03-09 07:20:40 +11:00