Would it be possible to stream music through the Famicom’s expansion audio?

Discuss NSF files, FamiTracker, MML tools, or anything else related to NES music.

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The_Weird_Fox
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Joined: Fri May 28, 2021 2:53 am

Would it be possible to stream music through the Famicom’s expansion audio?

Post by The_Weird_Fox »

So I’m new here, and I’m still a noob with no experience or knowledge about programming for the NES, but I have an idea.
So you know how the famicom has a pin dedicated for expansion audio, would it be possible to have an arm processor stream mp3 or wav music and audio through the famicom’s audio pin? Again I’m a noob, but I was thinking that hypothetically, the famicom would send a command to the arm processor to play a song right now. Theoretically, this actually gives the famicom more time to process the gameplay itself while the arm processor handles all the audio
Another thing I was thinking, this arm processor can also serve as a mapper, and it can easily switch memory banks for better graphics and longer gameplay.
I’m just thinking about the possibilities of this about how the famicom can have streamed audio and full voice acting without relying on the 2a03 (as wonderful as the 2a03 is). I love the 2a03, and it can still be used in these hypothetical games, but I think we can all agree that full voice acting, and streamed music is definitely tempting.

What do you guys think? Is this something that we should do, or am I a dingus who’s just shouting the impossible?
calima
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Re: Would it be possible to stream music through the Famicom’s expansion audio?

Post by calima »

Yes, that already exists. The russian roulette cart from kickstarter with lots of voice does that.
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Quietust
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Re: Would it be possible to stream music through the Famicom’s expansion audio?

Post by Quietust »

The_Weird_Fox wrote: Fri May 28, 2021 9:53 am So you know how the famicom has a pin dedicated for expansion audio, would it be possible to have an arm processor stream mp3 or wav music and audio through the famicom’s audio pin?
Again I’m a noob, but I was thinking that hypothetically, the famicom would send a command to the arm processor to play a song right now. Theoretically, this actually gives the famicom more time to process the gameplay itself while the arm processor handles all the audio
The Japanese version of "Bases Loaded" did something almost exactly the same as this - when the game wrote certain values to a specific memory region, a special chip on the cartridge would play one of several ADPCM-compressed sound samples.
The_Weird_Fox wrote: Fri May 28, 2021 9:53 am Another thing I was thinking, this arm processor can also serve as a mapper, and it can easily switch memory banks for better graphics and longer gameplay.
This, however, is unlikely to work - as it turns out, microcontrollers are too slow to act as mappers.
Quietust, QMT Productions
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lidnariq
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Re: Would it be possible to stream music through the Famicom’s expansion audio?

Post by lidnariq »

You're basically exactly describing the GTMP3
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