EBE Chapter 42: Adding sound effects by any means necessary
Chapter 42: Adding sound effects by any means necessary
"Shooting!"
"Sonic!"
Schwarzenegger's shouts came through the speakers, but were somewhat distorted due to the poor recording conditions.
Lin Lixin frowned and pondered.
We were so busy recording those classic character sound effects that we almost forgot about the most important issue.
I can't put it away!
Currently, most arcade machines use audio chips manufactured by Texas Instruments or Yamaha.
The core logic behind their sound production is to use various synthetic waves superimposed together to simulate different sound effects.
This is why arcade games usually only have those "beep beep pop" electronic sounds.
However, the human voice is a very complex non-linear waveform, and these two chips cannot be used to simulate it.
Sam sketched and drew on the paper, finally arriving at a rough calculation.
"If we want to add audio playback capabilities, the material cost will increase by nearly $50."
This is already the price of a CPU.
"The biggest problem is storage."
Sam's eyes swept over the estimated list of materials.
"Each audio segment requires a significant amount of storage space, which would make the game's file size unacceptably large."
To put it bluntly, the extra storage media is where the real money is spent.
Sam scratched his head and picked up the prototype circuit board from the table.
There's only one Yamaha YM2151 on it. The two of them just tested it, and the simulated effect wasn't ideal.
"So is it really necessary to spend so much money on a shout? In my opinion, we can just make a louder 'bang' sound, the effect will be the same, and it will only cost $5!"
"No, Sam," Lin Lixin rejected his idea outright. "This is the soul of the character; it's absolutely indispensable."
Sam sighed helplessly.
Having known him for so long, he was already well aware of Lin Lixin's obsession with his creative work, and trying to persuade him was simply impossible.
But if this continues, it will slow down the development progress, which is not a good thing.
"So, do you have any solutions?"
Lin Lixin silently turned off the panel in front of him and glanced out the window.
It's still early; we should have enough time.
"Not yet, but it should be available this afternoon."
"?"
……
USC, Electrical Engineering Library.
Since his career took off, Lin Lixin has rarely returned to the school.
But the library is still a "repository of scriptures" worth visiting.
Looking at my own panel attributes, [Music Composition] has always been the lowest.
There's nothing we can do about it; after all, current audio technology doesn't offer him many opportunities to showcase his abilities.
However, it has now found a use for it.
[Your reading of "Computer Sound Technology" has been insightful; experience gained +1]
[Your reading of "Computer Sound Technology" has been insightful; experience gained +1]
……
[Your reading of "FM Frequency Tuning" has given you +1 experience point.]
……
【Ding! 】
Your understanding of digital audio has reached a high level.
[Acquired Skill]:
[Digital Audio Expert]: [Music Composition (Synthesis) +10, Efficiency in Learning Music Composition ++]
*Smack!*
Lin Lixin slammed the book shut, having found a perfect solution.
When he returned to the GAMENOVA store, Gerald and Sam were gathered around the baseboard, talking to each other.
"Hmm, I see. Mr. Gerald is amazing."
"Oh, it's nothing, just experience I've accumulated over the years."
Sam heard the noise at the door, looked up and saw Lin Lixin, and his face lit up with joy.
"Lin, Mr. Gerald has suggested a very good idea, take a look."
"Yes, I've already heard Sam explain the specific requirements. We can follow the approach used in graphics processing and divide the audio processing requirements into two chips."
Gerald pointed to what he had drawn on the sketch.
"One YM2151 will be used to synthesize regular sound effects and background music, and the other, we can use an MSM5205, to decode pre-recorded audio..."
Lin Lixin raised an eyebrow and leaned forward to examine it carefully.
Sam and Gerald's approach to solving the problem was interesting; they extended the existing architecture from a hardware perspective.
Although it looks like there's an extra chip, it saves a lot of storage space.
"That's good, but I've also found a solution."
Lin Lixin smiled. His approach to solving the problem differed from the two men; he focused on algorithms.
"I call this technology 'Vorbis codec,' an algorithm for compressing audio."
"Huh?" Both of them were taken aback, especially Sam, who knew that Lin Lixin had only been gone for an afternoon.
"Wait a moment, this requires writing a special program."
Half an hour later.
"Shooting!"
Schwarzenegger's deep voice came from the speakers, not much different from before.
Sam stared wide-eyed, incredulously replaying the recording over and over again.
"There's almost no reduction in voice quality, this...this is outrageous?"
"However, this algorithm will consume a little bit of processor performance, but I believe that this expense is much more affordable than storage."
Lin Lixin compared the file sizes of the compressed audio files and found that the difference was like night and day.
This technology wasn't something he conjured up out of thin air; it was the technology adopted by the later OGG format.
If they want even greater compression, they can simply reduce the audio sampling rate by several more levels.
In fact, even if the sampling were reduced by half again, this kind of voice effect would still be able to crush almost all the arcade machines on the market today.
"Besides that, we don't need to sample all the audio."
Lin Lixin looked at Gerald's proposed dual-chip solution.
"We will use Gerald's approach as well, but we will only sample the most important special moves and victory lines for each character."
In this way, the storage footprint can be compressed to a very low level, so that it can be accommodated even when ported to home console cartridges.
Speaking of ultimate techniques, Lin Lixin looked at Gerald and asked:
"Mr. Gerald, now that you're here, it seems there's been progress on what I wanted?"
"certainly."
Sam looked at the two riddle-makers' statements with suspicion, wondering what kind of riddle they were playing now.
Until Gerald took the thing out of the box he had brought.
"I built this prototype based on your described requirements to see if it's the same thing as the 'joystick' you mentioned."
"A joystick?"
Sam curiously examined the green-skinned technology before him, which was clearly handcrafted, and looked somewhat puzzled.
"Why don't we just use Atari's four-way or eight-way mechanical joysticks?"
Having played so many games, it's impossible for him not to recognize what a joystick is.
This technology was already being used in some flight simulation equipment back in the 70s.
As for its use in games, it's nothing new in the industry.
Lin Lixin tried replacing the original control panel with this new joystick, grabbed the ball head and swung it around twice quickly, then nodded in satisfaction.
"Of course, it's because this thing can be used to make circles!"
The trajectory of the eight-way joystick is square.
This thing is designed for executing combos.