Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

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ReverendSA
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Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by ReverendSA »

I have not looked much into music hacking, except for this FF6 document I was reading a while ago but what I want is probably different.

Could Mario Bros 3 in Mario All Stars for example have Mario Bros 3 NES music, or is this impossible?

I've got an NSF for Mario bros 3 and an SPC for Mario All Stars. Not sure what else to do.
tepples
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by tepples »

I thought the music was already the same (but with different instruments) between the NES and Super NES versions of Super Mario Bros. 3. What are you trying to do? Make the Super NES version use square waves to sound just like an NES? Reintroduce the slight desynchronization in the airship theme that was fixed in the Super NES version? Your actual goal informs the choice of replacement technique of least effort.
ReverendSA
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by ReverendSA »

Make the Super NES version use square waves to sound just like an NES?
This.
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tokumaru
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by tokumaru »

Isn't there at least one NSF player for the SNES? Surely you could use the same techniques it uses to simulate the NES sound channels.
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Bregalad
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by Bregalad »

The SNES is alas poorly suited to play baack square waves, because they'll either sound very lowpass-filtered, or you won't be able to reach high notes (or both). So in order to sound decent you'll need a collection of square waves at different lengths and play the longer ones when lower notes are played and the shorter ones when higher notes are played. Also the square waves might be pre-highpass filtered to sound more NES like.

In anycase I don't see much interest in doing that, the music is the only major difference between the NES and SNES versions, so if you were to hack the SNES version to have a music more similar to the NES version, why not just play the NES version instead ?
calima
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by calima »

+ better graphics + no flicker + no wrong colors at edges
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Sumez
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by Sumez »

"better" graphics :P
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Bregalad
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by Bregalad »

calima wrote:+ better graphics + no flicker + no wrong colors at edges
Any emulator can easily remove sprite flickering, and Nestopia can easily mask the rightmost 8 pixels in order to hide the wrong colours - as for "better" graphics, I don't see why you'd desire them if you don't desire "better" sound.
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Some other options:

-AVS solves most cancelling/flickering in 16 sps mode
-add a new layer of paint onto the chr-rom (sure, it's not original then)
-Move it out of NROM, make new custom graphics
-Fiddle with the scrolling engine and mirroring (pretty cumbersome to do just to be able to play a more personalized and polished copy)
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nesrocks
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by nesrocks »

I really dislike the shading they added to sprites on the SNES version, and to me it feels kind of darker somehow. More detailed backgrounds is a good addition, but I don't like the colors there either. Actually, looking at both versions in detail, it totally loses the "staged play" feel of the original version with things in the horizon with parallax scrolling and fog...
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by FrankenGraphics »

And there's the overuse of colours and gradients again making everything feel oddly rounded (besides active choices to round corners) i bemoaned in the snesdev thread. It's like everythings' made out of hard candy.

(on the other hand, as a kid i always thought the blocks used in the staircase to the flagpole looked like chocolate blocks).
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tokumaru
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by tokumaru »

FrankenGraphics wrote:as a kid i always thought the blocks used in the staircase to the flagpole looked like chocolate blocks
Maybe even more than the actual chocolate blocks in Castle of Illusion's (SMS) candy level, but they're similar.
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za909
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by za909 »

This is a good example of how low-pass it would get: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyS5ymEURJw
ReverendSA
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by ReverendSA »

Just had an idea...

What if it's an MSU-1 hack?

The only cappy thing is, you'd need an SD2SNES or a specific emulator.

BUT thoeretically this is possible to deploy with NES clarity using MSU-1.
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Re: Can you port NES music to SNES remakes of NES games?

Post by psycopathicteen »

I tried writing some spc700 code to see how long it takes to make a square wave in software, and I got this:

Code: Select all

ldw {phase_0}			//5
adw {frequency_0}		//5 10
stw {phase_0}			//5 15
cpy {duty_0}			//3 18
bcs +				//2 20
adc {output}={volume_0}		//6 26
+;
Already 26 cycles, and the spc700 only has 32 cycles between samples. :roll:

Maybe doing two samples at once would be a little bit better.
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