Three looping questions. by glennmagusharvey at 8:40 PM EDT on May 29, 2017
1. Is it still not yet possible to loop any of the three versions of Gurumin's soundtrack (.de2, .at3 and .at3.pos, .aac)? If it is possible, what program do you use, and if it's foobar2000 or Winamp, what component(s)/plugin(s)?
2. Is it still not yet possible to loop Mega Man Network Transmission's .dsp format tracks?
3. Is it possible to get foobar2000 to loop OGGs, and if so, what component(s) are necessary? (I can use XMPlayer to loop OGGs but I'd like to do this in foobar2000 if possible.)
I've been messing with what I believe to be the most up-to-date version of VGMStream in the most up-to-date version of foobar2000 and none of Gurumin's soundtracks loop properly (and the at3 set comes with at3.pos files which foobar2000 can't play), nor do Mega Man Network Transmission's dsp files loop correctly. (Other games' dsp files DO loop correctly, such as Metroid Prime's. I don't think I have another set of at3 or aac files to try this on, but I can certainly get more.)
I can check them again later just to make sure, but maybe it's just as bxaimc says, the dsp files don't contain loop data. I think I ran across someone mentioning that the situation is similar in Gurumin -- loop data is outside of the tracks themselves -- but I was wondering if that had been confirmed. If so, it'd be reasonable to expect that to be the case over all three versions of Gurumin.
I did not know about renaming ogg files with loop points to .logg and then throwing them into foobar2000 with VGMStream. I know Astebreed's ogg files come with ogg.sli files which DO loop infinitely (at least some of them?) when I play them in foobar2000 (though I'm not sure which component handles this specifically), but I haven't tried this with ogg files that I know natively contain loop data (e.g. files from Falcom games). I will try this later and report back with my findings.
Yeah the renaming to .logg is just a hack to make the standard Ogg Vorbis decoder ignore it so vgmstream can try it. Loop comments are nonstandard, but vgmstream supports quite a few of them.
TL;DR (1) Still can't get AT3 to loop properly, or get AT3.POS to play at all. (2) MMNT DSP issue is likely as bxaimc said; they don't have loop data. (3) .logg for the win (4) [edit] Apparently AT3 files can be looped, so maybe these AT3 files are exceptions.
Detailed report:
Changing the file extension to LOGG is able to loop Falcom's OGGs. I just tried this with Ys Origin, and it works.
(I also managed to cause foobar2000 to by jumping to the end of the track while vgmstream's looping was set to Ignore Looping. lol. Loop Normally and Loop Forever work fine with jumping to the end of the track.)
I am using foobar2000 v1.3.15, and vgmstream r1050-522-g0e43173.
Knowing that LOGG works for looping OGG files, I tried it with the Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky looping OGG soundtrack, from the PC version. Again, it loops just fine.
Then I got the PSP version of that soundtrack. It comes in AT3 format and has a zip of AT3.POS files, again. And the ATS files do not loop properly in foobar2000. AT3.POS files are unrecognized by foobar2000, and whether the AT3 files loop doesn't seem to be affected by whether there is an AT3.POS file present in the same directory.
I redownloaded vgmstream from here http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_input_vgmstream just to be sure. Still behaves the same way. I had the looping setting on "Loop Forever". This properly loops other track filetypes, such as MSF (unless I am mistaken and vgmstream doesn't handle MSF).
But this still failed to loop properly. I tried "Loop Normally" and "Ignore Looping" and neither of those succeeded in looping AT3 files either.
Incidentally this experience caused me to hear the "ends" of some of these tracks, i.e. after-loop bits normally not heard in game (nor even in the soundtrack release, I think).
As for Network Transmission: It seems that DSP might be managed by foo_adpcm, but I have version 1.12 of that, which is to my knowledge the most up-to-date version of that. But I redownloaded the newest version from the foobar2000 components site just to be sure, and the tracks still don't loop properly. But it's probably just as bxaimc said and as I remember reading elsewhere -- they don't actually contain loop data. Meanwhile, tracks from Metroid Prime continue to loop correctly.
Afterwards I realized these are probably played using foo_vgmstream, not foo_adpcm, since setting Loop Normally on vgmstream's options caused Metroid Prime tracks to not loop infinitely too.
Also, thank you so much for this site, this forum, and especially these foobar2000 components!
edited 11:07 PM EDT May 31, 2017
Major Edit: I've just got the soundtrack of Canabalt and noticed that those tracks DO loop properly. Also went and checked Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles, Final Fantasy I, and FFII. They also loop properly. And I'm not sure what the difference is. Maybe some of these tracks (e.g. those from Falcom games, which includes both Trails in the Sky and Gurumin) just don't contain loop data?
Normal AT3 have loop data just fine but Falcom usually (always?) includes it externally, hence those .pos where created but only are used if you convert the AT3 to .wav first.
I think I'll add support for those AT3+POS in the next vgsmtream version.
@hcs - since people may not check the forum, could you put a link in the vgmstream page to the latest builds?
So I found Knurek's post clarifying the renaming to WAV thing and I got it to work.
1. rename *.AT3 files to *.AT3.WAV 2. then play the corresponding *.AT3.POS file using foobar2000.
The .AT3.WAV file will not work, presumably because the WAV extension calls a different plugin to play the file. Would have to rename the .AT3.WAV file back to .AT3 in order to get the non-looped version. Or make a copy of the file. Or for that matter, make a batch renamer or something to switch between the versions. (I think there's a batch utility that switches between one-loop and two-loop versions for Star Fox 64's USF set?) ...sorry I'm just rambling lol
Thanks for all the help! And glad to know that the ability to loop AT3s without having to rename them is on the horizon...looking forward to it!