Viopsf Plugin Reverb Comparison by Kirishima at 10:19 PM EDT on August 14, 2018
I'm just creating this thread so as to not derail nisto's any further.
I converted a couple psf's to wav using both the Mednafen plugin and peop's with reverb 2 set so people can get an idea how the 2 sound against one another. They are trimmed and label so as to keep the files short and easily identifiable. Also included are snippets of the same tracks from ost's(I understand OST's are NOT good for real hardware comparisons, but you try finding audio capture of these games, or getting the proper hardware to do so), and in the case of the track from The Crow a youtube snippet that might be from real hardware.
TBH, it's kinda hard to find reliable real hardware recordings of these games. I think I found a better one from The Crow, but I haven't asked the user what platform it was captured from. In the case of Brave Fencer Musashi, this is the best I could find for it:
Of course that video was captured from a ps2, model unknown, and with the voices in the way, it's hard to do a proper comparison.
As I said before, while I believe mednafen to be the more accurate emulator, it just doesn't sound it yet, to me anyway, when compared to many hardware videos I've come across. I didn't use those, however, because reverb is a bit harder to hear in them against all the other sfx. I'm certain others have their own opinions.
Also, one more thing, this is a simple comparison, not an expansive comparison with various sfx being set to various reverb settings and checking differences.
I never meant to insinuate (if I have somehow) that Mednafen sounds better in any way. Honestly, I just stuck with the first SPU plugin that would actually play the MGS PSFs back when nothing else would. Sadly (and I do mean that), I cannot stick to viopsf in its current state though, since I also use Waveform Seekbar (which I'm quite dependent on nowadays), which in part causes foobar2000 to choke since viopsf is not a multi-instance component, so the waveform rendering cannot be done simultaneously. Hence the creation of the thread about HE compatibility, being that foo_psf evidently is multi-instance.
Good reference though, cheers. It certainly isn't easy to find hardware recordings.. what's up with that? I feel like that was about the only thing you could find back in the day, but maybe I'm misremembering. I do also hate to hear Out of Phase sounding so bad in Mednafen! It's definitely a fave of mine.
I also forgot to mention that Purei also has similar reverb emulation to peops reverb 2, but it was kinda odd when I last tested it out. Either it cuts off to soon or maybe something is off with adsr. Not sure about any updated versions though.
Also, I did this comparison more because it's just something that's been on my to-do list for some time now since I already had recordings (and I'm also completely immature now that I think about it). There used to be an issue with peops plugin a couple revisions ago where some sounds were popping here and there if there was any sort of interpolation enabled. The original idea was bring attention to it and see if it could possibly be incorporated into another player like aopsf as an alt reverb setting, but that stuff's been fixed now.
Any tool/setting suggestions to record from a 1002 ? I gave a try using Audacity: https://mega.nz/#!3IgVgKKb!2eDWQMrfSvl8QzZHwLHanlpuN6IirwpTNXxgYB70n8I
Is that good enough this way for you to check sequenced musics ?
I guess capture the same tracks that I used as examples a try? It doesn't matter to me what you use to capture as long as it is clean and the volume is not too low. Does not need to be full track rips. Except for The Crow, I used psf's that are available on Joshw's archive. Quick links if needed:
As for The Crow, I made an alternate rip using MarkGrass's driver so the one currently available there is not going to be the same since it was made with Davironica's driver. Here is a zip with a couple tracks from that rip (Kali and Main Menu theme):
An afterthought, I'm not sure how one would be able to capture the Brave Fencer Musashi track since that game uses minipsf's... I have no idea how to change it so it's a regular one with any dependencies on extra files since it uses a different format.
Also, If anyone's wonder why I never submitted the updated rip, it's because The Crow ripped with a generic driver does not sound entirely the same as The Crow with it's original driver...
> An afterthought, I'm not sure how one would be able to capture the Brave Fencer Musashi track since that game uses minipsf's... I have no idea how to change it so it's a regular one with any dependencies on extra files since it uses a different format.
You probably just need to change the EXE headers (use PSFLab) and combine the minipsf/psflib data. I can help if it gets too complicated.
@Squaresoft74: Could you record CAVERN from MGS? Preferably from power-on to the second loop at least. I tried burning a disc myself (not very economical I know, lol, but it was the only way for me since I don't have other tools/hardware), but it seems like the only empty CD I had around was in bad shape. :(
Ok here's "113 Out of Phase" played on real hardware. https://mega.nz/#!7YxEhARD!zCDt1r_tep08MXSaaAYE65u6z4thozuX8VDgdYvR2WU
For Musashiden, i "think" there is some "broken" driver issue. Here's "228 Fight at Underground Facility" I converted it to regular .psf file. https://mega.nz/#!SU5CyCSL!cygL6wrKdV8XHB4hf4GfFga5Wm6xlDl8bVkB-xwCDPc
While PSF players will play it fine, Mednafen/Bizhawk and Real hardware won't so i can't record that one.
If anyone wants to try to fix it, the executable is in the zip file.
(I have the same issue with rips using Matrixz's wa2driver.)
As for rips using MarkGrass's driver, there is an issue aswell. If you enable any reverb mode, they won't play with Mednafen/Bizhawk and Real hardware but will play fine with PSF players.
If you need more records, can i go with FLAC since it's lossless ?
""You probably just need to change the EXE headers (use PSFLab) and combine the minipsf/psflib data. I can help if it gets too complicated.""
I changed the driver's "Text section Size" to 0x00170000.
For data import: 0x800C8000 -> Vab Body 0x80150000 -> Sequence 0x80160000 -> Vab Header
Might not be the most common request but if you could help with a tool that would automatically convert .minipsf files to regular .psf ones it would be appreciated. Mainly for faster/easier testing on real hardware.
I guess 1 out of 3 is good enough, but since MarkGrass's driver won't work I guess I'll have to compare the old davironica driver version if that works. Quick link:
I hope you don't mind Python. I originally wanted to do this in C, but Zlib is a *BIIIIITCH* to compile. I simply couldn't wrap my head around it.
Also, a brief disclaimer: I've only tested this on a few miniPSFs from the Brave Fencer Musashi and Silent Hill sets. Back up your files before use!
by Squaresoft74 at 10:47 PM EDT on August 17, 2018
@Nisto Thank you very much for unminipsf ! :) I gave it a quick test and so far it seems to work fine. I'll let you know if i encounter any problem during later testing.
@Kirishima I tried a few things for The Crow:
I used Someone42's driver from the Legend of Legaia rip and patched it so reverb settings will match The Crows's ones: https://www.noelshack.com/2018-33-6-1534558493-driver.png
There are issues : -It won't loop tracks. -It won't play tracks with VAB bigger that PIER's one.
Anyway still good enough to check KALI and SOUNDS on the real thing i guess.
Here they are : https://mega.nz/#!ecBXFCCA!aGbwc9ublGjeBqYyLlbg99bNxO9gp-1KlEdZb5iIEVQ https://mega.nz/#!zARRhArD!Nx-Hw3yll5MOvk7zeoyOLmRtmubt7bT9cgtP1_w6lu8
I wrote a PSF processor, libpsflib. It handles ZLIB for you, unless you need format-specific decompression of the reserved section or something.
MINIPSF merging does depend on the format of the music, though.
For PSF1, all you need to do is preserve the entry point and stack address from the first file that comes into the callback, then merge them all into a single PSX EXE. Then you can use Neill's EXE2PSF tool to compress it to a single PSF again.
And incidentally, Python 2 and 3 should coexist, you just need to deal with different paths. Perhaps you could even rename your Python 3 to python3.exe?
> I wrote a PSF processor, libpsflib. It handles ZLIB for you, unless you need format-specific decompression of the reserved section or something.
Is that a library or a standalone program? Where can I find it?
> MINIPSF merging does depend on the format of the music, though.
Just so I'm understanding you correctly; you do mean the PSF version -- not the seq/soundbank formats -- right? Otherwise, how is converting minipsf to PSF dependant on the internal data formats?
Yes, it depends on the PSF version, since each one specifies how to load content into the player core in a different fashion.
PSF1 specifies PSX EXE files with different load offsets and sizes, and the entry point and stack on the first file read is used. (That would be the PSF, or the deepest nested _LIB tag from the first file.)
PSF2 specifies filesystems in its reserved chunk, with the _LIB and _LIB# tags controlling load order of the file list. I wrote a replacement PSF2 parser for this as well.
Most of the other xSF formats also specify their own means of loading content at specific memory locations.
Here's the record: http://rgho.st/private/8QrCWpRD7/0c365a6f9f27b751f00415793aa92be1
I tweaked another driver which will now loop/play all tracks so if you want the PSF set get it here: http://rgho.st/private/8Q8bBtNsH/7c4ce5d5e0ad0f0642d438d02b2cf731
You should probably submit that as a replacement to my old psf rip. It may not be the original driver, but reverb is likely more accurate than the davironica one.
As for the recording, it seems to match although the distortion at the start is making it a bit difficult.
edited 5:52 PM EDT August 19, 2018
by Squaresoft74 at 10:23 PM EDT on August 19, 2018
The driver is patched to match the game's following parameters: Reverb Type, Reverb Depth/Volume, Master Volume.
When you boot the game, Sequence Volume is set to 3F but can be maximized to 7F via the sound options.
The driver is set to 7F for Sequence Volume.
It comes from Matrixz's Pandemonium 2 rip that, according to the readme, is based on Neill Corlett's Tales of Destiny driver.
Feel free to tag/time and release as a replacement if you want.
Edit You may want to keep an eye on this WIP PS1 emulator that has PSF support: https://github.com/JaCzekanski/Avocado
In reality, there isn't really any need for PSF support specifically. They're basically just compressed EXE files, so if an emulator supports loading bare EXE files, you can just convert the PSF to EXE using e.g. psf2exe. And should it not support that, you can build a completely valid PS1 disc with e.g. mkpsxiso. Sure it's not as convenient, but it can be done.