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: