MagicEngine

[tlm70]

I've been playing Macross: Eternal Love Song for quite a few years now using Magic Engine but after version 1.0.0 PR 10 the sounds for the firing of weapons and making selections in the menus are now quite distorted (and slightly annoying) when compared to the previous versions. I tried adjusting all of the various sound settings but those sounds persist. The sounds are extremely high pitched compared to the previous sounds.
Hope this helps for a fix in later versions.

BTW, I LOVE the graphics options!!!
HiRes, BiLinear Filtering and 16bit are GREAT with Macross:ELS!!!
Can you tell it's my favorite PCE and Macross game?

[dmichel]

I played through the first mission I didn't notice anything wrong with the sound, does this happen later in the game?

If you have video sync on this might be the problem, ADPCM and PCM sounds can be a bit distored when vsync is on.
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David Michel

[tlm70]

This occurs for me in all missions. Vsynch is off. I checked the ini file to make sure. I'm running with 16bit graphics, 16bit color, hi res and bi-linear filtering. With these settings the graphics are even sharper and less pixelated than version 1.0.0. But the sounds are still way too high pitched for this game. I have 1.0.0, 1.1.0 and 1.1.2 running but this problem only occurs in 1.1.0 and 1.1.2. Were there any audio changes made to MagicEngine between 1.0.0 pr10 and 1.1.0 ?

[dmichel]

No, I didn't change anything between v1.0 and v1.1, I compared the source code of both the sound emulation and the sound driver, it's identical, and here both v1.0 and v1.1 sound the same.

Did you change the 'frame_delay' option in the pce.ini file? It should be blank or set to 16712.

You could also try to add this option in the [audio] section in the .ini :

multi_threading=n

but logicaly this shouldn't make any difference.
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David Michel

[tlm70]

Ok, I finally found out what happened. When I set up the 1.1.0 and 1.1.2 folders I didn't put in any of the syscard files from my 1.0.0 pr10 folder. Now that I have the syscard files in place the sound is back to normal.
I also noticed that some of the graphics are not as smooth (less pixelated) now that the syscard files are back. There's a different look to some of the letters, numbers, and/or symbols. For instance, the number '0' looks much smoother without the syscard files when the description is displayed for mission '01'. Is that supposed to happen?
I kinda like those smoother graphics but the sound is still somewhat annoying without the syscard files.

[Kaminari]

Without the real System Cards, ME needs to fall back on its internal bios called the Magic System. It's historically not as good as a real bios and is known for having various sound problems (PSG and CD). David has planned to improve it in the future, but for the time being I suggest you stick with the System Cards.
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Kaminarimon HES Music Archive | Tokugawa Corporation | YouTube Channel

[tlm70]

OkeeDokee!!! Thanx for the explanation. Now I can get back to Macross gaming... as soon as change a few more of the music tracks to get a bit more of that nostalgic anime gaming experience.

[dmichel]

I spent all the week-end working on the music player, it's a lot better now!

Watch for an update later today!
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David Michel