Street Fighter II Custom OST WIP!:)

[KMFDManic]

Hello, @grant2258 and @arcadez2003 and @gpstar81 ! You ready for the biggest, baddest, best addition to MAME 2003 Plus/Xtreme, to date:) How about Custom OST Support for Street Fighter II, the venerable Arcade Classic...that I know we all played hundreds of hours on, be it Arcade or Home Ports! Big Blue Frontend worked this in, and was nice enough to try to get things fixed up so we can have a better chance of this working out well on the Mini Classics! Example Test Video of it in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=134slPc0Sug

I would like to do a few variants, so people can swap out the OSTs, as I would like to have THIS song for Ken's Stage!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9tvzw3E5tw&t=25s

gpstar81 also suggested I use a music remix of Mighty Wings, as an alternative that people might enjoy more. I will do it both ways!

I will test these changes on the Mini Classics, whereas, you guys, if interested, can help verify they work on PC! Once you confirm you are interested, I will give temporary link to the fixed up source files, so you can grab them. Then, once everything is said and done and cleaned up, will commit them to the normal source commits!

Kyland:)

[ghost]

Ill do that for you matey not a problem just have to do some shopping and ill put the dat up for you.

[arcadez2003]

Thanks bigman, watch yoursel oot there wi aw that wind ;)

[ghost]

That should be you mate synced the weather is shite mate fairly windy and even more wet no doubt will wake up to some snow the morra

[arcadez2003]

Thanks for this cheers

[ghost]

nae bother at all big yean

[KMFDManic]

@grant2258 Thanks for stepping in on the .dat file

@arcadez2003 I was prepping for another Release, since I am incorporating 3DO and a few other things into the mix. Have you tried Smash TV on Plus and/or Xtreme? Not entirely sure. But, I will do a retest. I think it may be bugged on both. Xtreme, in my test, had a freeze glitch soon after starting. Controls worked fine. Plus, ran ok, but controls were goofy. I will test further on both. Otherwise, everything great! Thanks again for the Elevator Action Returns fix:)

[KMFDManic]

@gpstar81 Posted latest Release, and SF II works near flawlessly in conjunction with Xtreme Virtual Ram and other things added. In my test demonstration, the game had a little lag. It is now running nice and smooth. The math as far as what generally had issues unloading into memory on MD-SNES-NES, is roughly 80 MB (Arcade Wise). This includes Core size and total size of game loaded. So, on MAME 2010, for instance, attempting to run Metal Slug 5 would pretty much always crash, due to hitting over 80 MB for cumulative size. This is no longer a problem with the 512 MB Swap File that installs on USB Flash/Hard Drive.

Hopefully, you get a chance to try some stuff on the Minis. Not sure if you ever got up to the newer hakchi version, as of yet, or are still on the older one.

@grant2258 @gpstar81 Now that this Release is out, and amazing feedback has been coming in...I have an idea for what I would like to try to incorporate next. MANY games on MAME 2003 have bonked controls. Typically, we'd go into MAME Menu, remap, etc. This idea came up when I was talking to grant2258 about trying to get Hard Drivin' mapped! But, what I would like to do, if possible, is just start remapping games, such as Ikari Warriors, Xybots, etc, where it would cleanly use L1 and R1 for rotary controls, etc. And, either via coding via Core have them as presets. Or, just have .cfgs override them, whichever works.

And, taking this idea one step further...games that require nvram initialization to work first time, maybe do the nvrams, so they already exist, such as with NARC, Robotron, where without nvram, you can't start the game.

Lastly, my other post about trying to get Gaiapolis to initialize. I was able to get it finally working! BUT, it primarily works with the 512 MB Swap File I mentioned above, since memory is super intensive on loading that specific game! It is possible, if I test further, that once the nvram is generated, the Swap File is no longer needed, though. I did a couple tests, and found it mainly had issues while trying to generate nvram. Even Red Earth takes a super long time to generate nvram on PC, later MAMEs!

So, hopefully, the default preset controls for many of these stubborn games can be directly implemented into both MAME 2003 Plus/Xtreme. And, using at least an SNES Controller as basis, as I don't want to remap L2 or R2, and maintain those for other stuff.

[ghost]

The defaults are esy to set. Your at an advantage because you have a snes controller you can map to that directly. Mame2003 and plus also need to support arcade panels ect. The control bit is very easy to do as far as setting defaults go. A word to the wise though mame2003 cfg files will not be compatible with xtreme as the structures have changes you will probably get odd inputs if you mix 2003 and xtreme. It would be a wise move to let extreme use its own directory for cfg files.

[KMFDManic]

@grant2258 Since this topic is getting too long, gonna make a new one for the .cfg stuff. I am gonna start with stuff such as Xybots! I'd like to help you guys have these done for Plus, too! They are pretty much unplayable without remapping.

[ghost]

Well that sounds like a plan. This will be more a tutorial on how to deal with it and how defaults arent always appropriate. It will become clear to you what the limitations are and the reasons why things are this way.

The good news is this can be worked around in some cases drivers dont even use the defaults by the end of the discussion you will know more about inputs than you ever wanted too know and how to fix these the way you want it fixed.

[Wilstorm]

@KMFDManic - Hey, I was wondering if you had the source WAVs or FLACs for some of the custom OSTs? When looking at them they are pretty low quality rips. Since all the hard work of incorporating samples into the core is done I was thinking of trying to minimize the size but maintain a bit better quality.

I spent some time looking at different sites with arcade sounds but I have no idea where the original source audio came from in these OSTs. If they are from a CD, OST, or whatnot. I could also open a new topic but didn't want to do that if you don't think it's worth checking into.

I did try the full stereo 16-bit moonwalk OST samples on a Pi 3 and it worked flawlessly. The load was fine, game speed & exiting. They are degraded samples also but they are still 325MB in size and worked great on the Pi 3 so I would be interested in bumping the quality if possible. I have no idea what limitation the Pi has but we can reduce them to 8-bit or 22KHz and keep some of the dynamic range that was lost I think.

[Wilstorm]

BTW, thumbs up on the Mandalorian! ;)

[gpstar81]

@KMFDManic - Hey, I was wondering if you had the source WAVs or FLACs for some of the custom OSTs? When looking at them they are pretty low quality rips. Since all the hard work of incorporating samples into the core is done I was thinking of trying to minimize the size but maintain a bit better quality.

I spent some time looking at different sites with arcade sounds but I have no idea where the original source audio came from in these OSTs. If they are from a CD, OST, or whatnot. I could also open a new topic but didn't want to do that if you don't think it's worth checking into.

I did try the full stereo 16-bit moonwalk OST samples on a Pi 3 and it worked flawlessly. The load was fine, game speed & exiting. They are degraded samples also but they are still 325MB in size and worked great on the Pi 3 so I would be interested in bumping the quality if possible. I have no idea what limitation the Pi has but we can reduce them to 8-bit or 22KHz and keep some of the dynamic range that was lost I think.

@Wilstorm send me over your email and I will link you over to the source files that were used on the OST's.

[KMFDManic]

@gpstar81 I was actually going to send you an email today to see how things were for you in the current crazy world situation! As of right now, I have been picking up extra hours due to coworkers having Covid. I am also working my other job, which unfortunately had to close a location, also due to Covid making things more difficult for them to run more than one location. So, they pretty much consolidated to one single location to make things more optimal. I helped them entirely move, which took nearly 30 days, with how much was needed to be moved, done, etc!

As far as Custom OSTs, I have been meaning to put the HIGHER quality ones up on my Google Drive, since the Virtual Ram Swap File method really helps load anything 80 MB or higher on MD/SNES/NES. There was an issue with NBA Jam, where you couldn't play a full game with OST. The game would just crash at a certain point. But, it was due to the limitations of MD/SNES/NES. Not sure which Mini/s you still have laying around. But, I plan on putting another Release out 1-1-21, and it will have the necessary install hmods so people will have an easier time running the much larger OSTs. If you wanna email me a link to the Larger Files, so I can audit to make sure I have correct ones, I will toss those up on Google Drive, then communicate with @Wilstorm as far as most optimal "smaller" ones, so people have choice of small or large.

I have been analyzing some of the Custom OST coding, and really am in awe of how nicely things execute, in regards to both you and bigbluefrontend. I still have ideas for future projects, just nothing as elaborate as Marvel Vs Capcom, obviously. Main ones that come to mind, which I think would really be nice...

1. Vs Castlevania with the Custom Mesen Emulator OST, which I have all the audio files for, already. Mesen is far too slow for all of our platforms, and mainly good for PC usage. But, man, those Custom NES OSTs are really damned awesome for that emulator! 18:15 in to see Castlevania with the Custom NES OST!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT9ZoJqLLqQ

Where I currently am at, is trying to get N64 running better, and succeeded on that front:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pt4NrMi5Y4

But, yeah, for now, I would love to try to audit and get the larger Custom OSTs onto Google Drive, so people can utilize them with this very Next Release. HD Custom OSTs:)

[gpstar81]

@KMFDManic

Check your email, I sent you over the link.

[Wilstorm]

@gpstar81 - I would really appreciate it. I just wanted to see what I could do with shrinking the samples but maintaining the best quality possibly. Keeping with the same format of splitting out the left/right channels and reducing them down but keeping them up around the 20kHz mark if possible.

I can't seem to find your email on your profile page. I even followed you on Github here but I just don't see a link or email anywhere on your main page (https://github.com/gpstar81). If I nothing else I can post an email and remove it or at least use it to get you my main email.

I was introduced to your work and OST's a long time ago through @KMFDManic over on the mame2003-plus page. A good guy and his video's are fantastic! I get inspired through his videos! 👍 The OST's really freshen up these classics and are a really nice touch.

@KMFDManic - I did watch you take down some AT-ATs the other day. Also the HD packs in the other video are great. They look sharp. My wife loves Mario Kart 64 and the N64 HD texture pack for it looks amazing and it runs perfect on the Pi 4. The Pi 3 struggles a bit. Her only interest in retro gaming is all things Nintendo but I'll take what I can get out of her as usually she just takes a pass on everything else.

[gpstar81]

@Wilstorm

I updated my profile settings, you will find it on my profile now. Send me a email and i'll get back to you.

[Wilstorm]

@gpstar81 - Ok, got it and sent! :)

[KMFDManic]

@gpstar81 Thanks:) With @Wilstorm audiophile knowledge, should be able to get some solid ones converted for those with less space. These games are still very much a permanent fixture! I still have other stuff I plan on updating for 2003 Xtreme. Not sure if you noticed the nice addition for L1/R1 for Rotary games, such as Ikari Warriors. And, L1/R1 for racing games, accelerate, braking. Custom OSTs are definitely the top bill, though, and always will be!

Also, @Wilstorm With the N64 I am updating, the Kaze hacks, which are some of the best hacks around, for Mario 64, will be quite playable.

[Wilstorm]

@KMFDManic - Now you're taking my wife's language. She loves Mario, even on the older platforms like Super Mario World on SNES, Mario Bros. on NES, etc. She's actually better then me.

The idea of using the L1/R1 for rotary games like Ikari Warriors, Heavy Barrel, Guerilla War, Time Soldiers I think are the big ones. That seems like it would work very well, that is really clever!

[KMFDManic]

@Wilstorm I am doing an audit of all of the Custom OST source files, thanks to @gpstar81 I will throw them up on my Google Drive, and we can go over a few variables, as far as Audiophile and those who have less space. There are commits for us on the Mini Classics, so we CAN run the larger OSTs on USB, too. And, due to limited 256 MB Ram, unloads tend to crash on Arcade Games and files, at anything above 80 MB or so. Using Virtual Ram Memory, via Swap File fixes this, and these files actually load without crashing! It was definitely a little annoying and perplexing to be able to only play half a game of NBA Jam Custom OST, and debug realize it was running out of memory!

N64 Wise, I am happy with what I was able to exploit, as I now also have Vigilante 8 working decently, per my latest video.

@Grant2258 has mentioned Karnov is a tough game, so I am gonna do a funny silly video about Karnov and my attempts to beat it!

Lastly, another acquaintance, I had test Xtreme on Retropie 4, I will try to fix up the makefile so it can be compiled for you on Pi4, so you can test these additions out, too!

All of you, stay safe!!!

[Wilstorm]

@KMFDManic - That sounds great, just let me know when your ready. You know the size target better than I do. That’s pretty funny about nbajam!

If any of the lower quality soundtrack files are available for purchase for a decent price I would snatch them up to improve the audio quality. Some are are pretty low around 128kbps MP3. I’m winding down the week early here to spend some time with family.

Let me know when you post Karnov. I love that game, a true classic. Stay safe too! Have a great holiday and Merry Christmas to you good sir!! :)

[Wilstorm]

Just to clarify if there’s a soundtrack for purchase that would improve some of the OST’s just let me know and I would purchase it, to kind of make a contribution since you guys guys did all the work to put those beauties together!

[KMFDManic]

@Wilstorm I'll throw them up on my google drive today, and let you know once posted, so you can mess with them. We can go from there. I'll also do a fun Karnov video.

[KMFDManic]

@Wilstorm They are almost uploaded, and roughly 9 GB in size. So, be prepared for a big download. I will let you know once they are up. Then, you can let me know once you have the link. Here is a Karnov video, in the meantime!:)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWn7DLnO7Ck

[Wilstorm]

@KMFDManic - Ok, all set here, a big thanks to you and @gpstar81, I really appreciate it!

Your Karnov video is spot on! I loved the opening comments (walking 20 miles/masks) and I agree It's a tough game for sure. Though it's been a long time since I've loaded it up and had a serious play session I've made it pretty far playing regular. The Karnov sign in Bad Dudes was classic!

The last game I really was deep into was Rastan. It is a lot of fun for me. That can be another tough game for sure though but I've always had a soft spot for it! :)

I hope you had a great Christmas and the New Year can't come to quickly enough if it'll better than the last! :)