Controlling Play Speed

[tokumaru]

But PAL's vblank is over three times as long. So if you have the RAM to spare for a bigger transfer buffer, and you have some CPU time to spare, you could design the engine so that the PAL version's camera can move faster.

Yeah, that's an option, but RAM isn't a very abundant resource on the NES. Also, even though the PAL VBlank is longer, the rendered frame is shorter (in CPU cycles of course, it is the same as the NTSC one visually), so the fact that you'll have to fill more buffers during that time is more likely to cause slowdown.

[Tom]

Tom, you might be able to deal with these problems by using a flag system similar to the one used for PPU stuff

I'm not sure I understood what you meant. Did you mean something like this?

Code: Select all

start_sound_effect:
    ; ProtectionFlag should be 0 here
    inc ProtectionFlag
    
    ; change sound engine memory
    
    ; check if nmi interrupted us
    lda ProtectionFlag
    bne skip

    ; nmi happened, and skipped update, so do it now
    jsr update_sound_engine

skip:
    lda #0
    sta ProtectionFlag
    rts

nmi:
    lda ProtectionFlag
    beq nmi_update_music

    ; in middle of critical code, delay update until after it's done
    lda #0
    sta ProtectionFlag
    rti

nmi_update_music:
    jsr update_sound_engine
    rti

That seems pretty workable. Of course, five minutes after I posted my other message I thought of a decent enough way to queue up commands for the sound engine to run during NMI, but it would require some more ram for the buffer that your method doesn't need.

As for the sound effects, remember that the NMI routine has ways to know if a frame was missed or not, so as long as your sound engine knows the difference between music and sound effects it can delay the sound effects in case of lag frames.

Interesting. My sound engine doesn't distinguish music and sound effects, so I hadn't thought of that. Still, I think the problem is theoretical; I can't think of any existing game where the sound effects need to be synchronized with the animation. It still bugs me a little.

[tepples]

I think the problem is theoretical; I can't think of any existing game where the sound effects need to be synchronized with the animation.

Parappa. Beatmania. Frequency. Amplitude. Guitar Hero. DJ Hero. D+Pad Hero.

[Tom]

I think the problem is theoretical; I can't think of any existing game where the sound effects need to be synchronized with the animation.

Parappa. Beatmania. Frequency. Amplitude. Guitar Hero. DJ Hero. D+Pad Hero.

True, these types of games require synchronization. But I was thinking more generally. For instance, consider a FPS, which has a machine gun. If the animation for firing the gun includes showing shell casings, you'll want to make sure the sound of the shell casing happens in sync with the animation. But on the NES, both animations and sound effects are lot simpler, so I can't think of existing NES games where this would matter (D+Pad Hero excluded).

[tepples]

For instance, consider a FPS, which has a machine gun. If the animation for firing the gun includes showing shell casings, you'll want to make sure the sound of the shell casing happens in sync with the animation.

Then the shell casing should be a separate sound effect that starts when the animation starts.

[tokumaru]

Did you mean something like this?

Yup, exactly that! =)

I can't think of any existing game where the sound effects need to be synchronized with the animation. It still bugs me a little.

Well, to be fair, stretching them by skipping updates will probably just make them sound wrong, so it's not really a good solution.

In every game I can think of, it's important that sound effects begin at the correct time, but if by any chance the video lags that doesn't really result in any weirdness.

As for the games tepples listed, I wouldn't expect those kinds of games to drop frames, since they aren't very CPU-intensive. I mean, how complicated is it to move a few graphics around and match input to internal tables?

[Tom]

Then the shell casing should be a separate sound effect that starts when the animation starts.

That'll work sometimes, but other times it won't be convenient. If you had the sound of the gunfire and the shell casing as a single recording, for instance.