Changing the Rockbox SPC player by Tanookirby at 6:59 PM EDT on May 24, 2007
I've been using Rockbox on my Ipod for quite some time, and what I like about it that it can play NSF and SPC files. However, the player on which the SPC player is based has several problems with it's sound (i.e. the SMB underground theme in Super Mario All-Stars is missing the echoes). Can the player be redesigned to be based on SNESAmp? That player plays SPC files much more accurately.
Actually, it's quite possible that the echo you mentions simply isn't in effect on the iPod. You see, it takes a lot CPU to play SPC files. As such, to make sure it worked, HCS cut some features off, to save CPU speed. Depending on the player you have, these features may, or may not, be active. It's possible that to get the SPCs to play full speed on the iPod, the echo/reverb/whatever was disabled. Whereas on another player with more CPU power, these features are up and running. I'm pretty sure this is the case for some players, but I'm not sure which players have which features disabled, or enabled. If I'm not mistaken, the Gigabeat as all the SPC features in full effect... Also, I've heard from a few different people that the GME library (which HCS ported to Rockbox, with Blargg's help) is on-par, or better than, SNESAmp. Whether or not that's the case, I can't say. However, it seems pretty darn close to me. Perhaps it's the features issue I mentioned already. Hopefully HCS can answer soon, to let you know for sure. Mouser X over and out.
I used GME, which is OpenSPC based, but I did have to cut some features out to get it running full speed on iPods. Apart from the complete lack of echo processing that you noticed there is also linear rather than gaussian interpolation. Maybe things can be improved, I don't know, but some things had to be sacrificed for speed with the current implementation.
They work, but not fast enough for all games to play back at full speed. But no, I haven't tried it again recently. As the vast bulk of the processing done is the SPC player itself, I wouldn't expect any improvement with other stuff changing, and I don't think anyone has been working on the SPC player recently.