DKC Atlas Forum

[emuandco]

Hello,

This is what can be done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v788KslHvbU Example here is Conn's great Zelda MSU Patch.
NEW VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_naP3jpELz0 of this toy here.

Downloads:
BSNES 0.70:
http://bsnes.googlecode.com/files/bsnes_v070.zip Switched to 0.70 due to popular demand ^^

XML for BSNES:
http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/dkc.xml

Fixed IPS by Mattrizzle:
http://dreimer.eu/msu/dkc2_msu_Mattrizzle.ips

DKC2 RemixPack v3: (WIP, open for bug reports ^^)
http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/MSU_Soundtrack_v3.7z

DKC2 RealPack with loops (Final)
http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/RealPack.7z
-- Based on the Original SPCs with Cubic instead of Gaussian Interpolation + 44.1 kHz Mixing --

DKC2 Winning/Losing/Clear and more stuff v2
- Loops added in Run, Rambi, Run! and Bad Bird Rag.
- Endings of Diddy, Dixie and Clear reduced in length by removing digital silence. -> Reduced these PCMs about 50 MB in size!
http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/MSU_Soundtrack_More.7z
-- Based on the Original SPCs with Cubic instead of Gaussian Interpolation + 44.1 kHz Mixing --

Howto:
- You need one folder including the sound pack of your wish RemixPack OR RealPack + "DKC2 Winning/Losing and more"-Pack, ergo all dkc.*.pcm file inside.
- Copy the XML from the downloads above in there, too. This is needed for bsnes ONLY to have MSU activated.
- Add a file of 0 byte size called dkc.msu in there, too. REGARDLESS if you use bsnes or sd2snes! This one is needed for detecting MSU support on sd2snes. XML is not needed here.
- Patch a Donkey Kong Country 2 ROM rev 0 USA (http://datomatic.no-intro.org/index.php ... =49&n=0608) by using that tool http://zerosoft.zophar.net/ipswin.php. Name it dkc.sfc.
After you are 100% sure that all files are in one folder, open it with bsnes or run it on sd2snes @ real hw.

More links:
A disassembly of the patch:
http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/dkc2_msu_code.txt
A list of the MSU track IDs, with an explanation why they are slightly strange:
http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/dkc2_msu_track_ids.txt
Where the remixes came from
http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/order.txt
Loop Points for the PCM wave files in RealPack
http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/loops.txt

[Mattrizzle]

Welcome to the forums!

I've spent most of Saturday looking at the patch, and can answer most of your questions.

Most of the bugs you listed in your post are related to each other. The problem stems from this code, specifically the fourth line:

Code: Select all

$FAFF40
A5 1C      LDA $1C            //Load music value
F0 05      BEQ $FAFF49        //If zero, skip to RTS
8D 04 20   STA $2004          //Store music value in MSU1 audio track register
64 1C      STZ $1C            //Set music value to zero

$FAFF49
60         RTS                //return from subroutine

The music value is being zeroed out. This does prevent the original SPC music tracks from being loaded or played, but it causes other side effects:

1. The game depends on this value for loading the correct set of level-specific sound effects. The only "level-specific" sound for track 00 is that strange monkey sound you heard instead of the splash, so you get that and lots of silence in place of several sounds.
   
2. Music value 00 has only one semi-index, 00 for the blank music. Attempting to play any other indexes within this set will cause the SPC700 to stall, because they don't exist. In all five bonus area music sets (yes, there are five), the main bonus area music is semi-index 03, which is why the game hangs every time it is played. The same is true for the end-of level/death/special event tracks.

So yes, the songs do have semi-indexes, but there isn't a RAM address for them, at least not a WRAM address. The value is sent to SPC RAM, which isn't directly accessible by the primary CPU. Despite this, there is a way to tell if one is about to be played: look for a case in which the accumulator contains the hexadecimal value FB in its lower 8 bits and some non-zero value (the semi-index) in its upper 8 bits when calling the subroutine $B581FB. A similar command is sent when starting the music track, except the lower 8 bits contain FA in this case, and the upper 8 bits contain the sound mode value ($1E): 00=Stereo, 01=Mono.

A full track list can be found here.

I have a few more questions to ask, but those will come when I have more time.

(I've already fixed most of the bugs in the patch, but I would like to document more things before I share it.)

[emuandco]

Hey, thanks for your information and help. :-D
So LuigiBlood was right with the second index... This will be fun to teach to MSU... main problem here is the naming of the sounds. if the ROM is called dkc2.sfc and the MSU detection 0 byte file is called dkc2.msu then the PCM files are named dkc2-XX.pcm which normally works nicely for games like Zelda. Theres only one SPC bein played for each index. This XX value is the one bein sent by 8D 04 20 STA $2004, meaning that the other sub tracks are a bit difficult to be realized, because that index wont change at all in these cases... The force track 0 line is there to mute the spc without interfering in it's original routine too much. Here it is the wrong way to get SPC active (which has to be done to get MSU sound at all @ real HW) but silent... So I guess we have to send the right index, but get it silent except the SFX sounds. Yaay, that game is a bigger caliber than Zelda ^^

[emuandco]

Uuuuh, any news? Can't wait to see/hear your fix

[Mattrizzle]

I'm finished now!

Here is a summary of what has changed in this version of the patch:

• No more crashing when playing secondary tracks. Also, each secondary track now has its own MSU track ID (see the MSU track list link below)
• Music tracks now begin when they should (in the previous version, they were starting too early). The same change also fixes the problem where the Map/Funky's Flights music would restart when switching maps.
• Lowered the MSU volume to 1/4 the maximum in the code. At full volume, I could the sound effects were difficult to hear. Reverted this change, per request.
• Looping is now set on a per-track basis. In the previous version, all tracks were set to loop.
• Several things have changed behind the scenes to increase efficiency. For example, the game no longer goes through the MSU identifier check loop every time a sound effect or music track is about to play. Instead, it does this when the game boots, and sets a flag in a previously unused area of RAM (see the disassembly link below).

So without further ado:
http://mattrizzle.pac.am/hacks/dkc2_msu_Mattrizzle.ips

Also:
A disassembly of the patch:
http://mattrizzle.pac.am/docs/dkc2_msu_code.txt

A list of the MSU track IDs, with an explanation why they are slightly strange:
http://mattrizzle.pac.am/docs/dkc2_msu_track_ids.txt

[emuandco]

Nice one, really nice . Works nicely, thanks very very very much. Buuut.... some quirks ^^
MSU fallback for stuff like the lose life and ending fanfares is not working and results in a static sound artefact for the time playing, same goes for the Bonus stage if the track is not there. I will make em anyway, and if it's just to have the 44.1 kHz and Cubic interpolation in there, too.

And the sound volume. So you set it to 25% of the maximum? Well, the tracks are a bit silent that way in my opinion. I already tried to make the wav volume quite correct by normalizing. Of course theres still stuff to do now that testing is really possible, but in my opinion we should decrease the volume in the Wave files and not in the ROM.

But it works GREAT that far :-D

EDIT: The Bonus Token Tango is a problem indeed. For example in Krocodile Klaim it works, in all level before it does not, even if I added it at the correct location.

[Phyreburnz]

I really hope this isn't too dumb of a question... but what do I need to do to play your hack? I don't think I've ever seen an .ips file before, so I'm not sure what to do with it...

Sorry for the dumb question...

[Simion32]

You can use DKCRE to patch it onto the proper ROM file (Tools > Apply Patch ... BE SURE TO BACK UP FIRST!!), or Lunar IPS if you'd like.

You need bsnes/higan to run the MSU-1 chip though, therefore ZSNES and SNES9x are both out of the question.

[Phyreburnz]

I got it patched (I think correctly) but it won't work. I've never been able to get any patched roms to run.


Bsnes won't recognize it at all and higen will open it, but do nothing with it. It's just a black screen.

[Mattrizzle]

Regarding the issue of Token Tango not playing: Happens I accidentally altered a byte in the code, which caused the game to look for MSU track values in the incorrect place for SPC track sets 32 and up. I've corrected this, and set the MSU volume back to maximum. You can download the patch from the same link as before.

Alternatively, edit the bytes at the following addresses in the ROM you patched already:
358502: Change from 3F to FF to set the MSU volume to its maximum
358520: Change from 20 to 07 to fix the Token Tango bug

[emuandco]

Thanks once more. Yes, seems to work fine. At a first small test. (Need to work tomorrow ^^) Last thing I stumbled upon up to now is the MSU to SPC fallback not working. If I misread that line in your documentation mentioning it existing, it's no problem either, fallback only would be needed to leave stuff as it is, like the winning Diddy/Dixie chimes etc. I don't want to steal even more of your time ^^

[emuandco]

I got it patched (I think correctly) but it won't work. I've never been able to get any patched roms to run.


Bsnes won't recognize it at all and higen will open it, but do nothing with it. It's just a black screen.

You have the .sfc,.msu,.xml and all PCM files in one folder? All named dkc.* and the PCMs dkc-*.PCM? Should work then. Well, I test on real HW mostly, though...

[Phyreburnz]

*EDITED*

Okay, I finally have everything in order and have it all working properly, thanks to Kingizor.

[Mattrizzle]

@emuandco: There is a type of fallback, but it doesn't work the way you think. If the S-MSU1 identity check fails (the game detects that the hardware doesn't support MSU), all of the normal SPC tracks will play, just like in unmodified DKC2.

Making specific tracks fall back to SPC would require very complex code, but I can see why you'd want it that way. After all, with all of the win and loss tunes, more than 70 additional MSU tracks will need to be made...

[emuandco]

That one works, yes ^^ Well, as I said, I will make them in some filter optimized way anyway, but maybe someone wants to skip these to save about 200 MB on his SD Card (About 120 MB when I add the loops the next days), or HDD. The changes are hearable, but minimal on normal speakers. If you want a reference of a working MSU fallback, check the Patch for Zelda http://www.zeldix.net/t453-enable-msu-streaming-music . Conn's toy does that, but with a way less evil ROM in that case. ^^ Thanks once more for making it real

[Conn]

Hi there, congratulations for making this hack work

I have two spc fall-backs; the first is when msu isn't enabled (file .msu or .XML is missing, Emulator that doesn't Support msu...) - this simply is $2002:53 but you can also make an easy spc fall-back in msu mode in case the track isn't found ($2000, bit3):

However, this error bit is only featured on bsnes 0.89 (or higher) and sd2snes. Hopefully, byuu will fullfil my request to patch bsnes.70 (the easiest Emulator to Play msu-1) to add this Feature. But most will Play on sd2snes anyways so it would be a good Thing to built this easy fall-back into your hack

Here's a simple example code for the error-bit spc-fallback, I hope you can built it in somehow.

Code: Select all

46 ; We need to status check here. If the track is no good, then we need to branch to PlayNonMSUTrack
47 LDA $2000 ;Load A into MSU_Status
48 AND #$08 ;AND the error bit
49 BNE PullAAndPlay ;If the error bit is set, the audio track is missing
50 PLA ;Pull A off the stack
51 RTL ;Return to where we were in code

PullAAndPlay:
54 PLA ;Pull A off the stack
55 BRA PlayNonMSUTrack ;Play the non-MSU track
56

57 PlayNonMSUTrack:
58 STA $2140 ;Load the bgm command normally into $2140
59 STA $0133 ;Also set it here
60 PHA ;Push A onto the stack
61 LDA #$00 ;
62 STA $2007 ;Make the MSU-1 stop playing audio
63 PLA ;Pull A off the stack
64 RTL ;Return


[emuandco]

OK, I will get the sounds in shape the next days. I will post any news in that matter here.

[Debu]

Hi,
I have a SD2SNES. And I also own the game in a CART.
I'd be happy to test this for you.
I think you need to also update the top post. Its a little confusing knowing what to download.
Maybe just the latest revision.

Ping me if you need a test subject

Debu

[Qyzbud]

Honestly, the first post of this topic could really use an overhaul; promoting Mattrizzle's latest links was a good start, but providing a clear step-by-step guide to getting it working, and generally tidying things up would be a good idea, too.

This is a great project, and it deserves a well-presented topic.

[emuandco]

You are absolutely right. Better that way?

[Qyzbud]

A big improvement! I think everyone will appreciate that.

[Conn]

You may also Change the bsnes0.75 download link to 0.70:
http://bsnes.googlecode.com/files/bsnes_v070.zip

v.70 is much more user-friendly as it Plays smc/sfc regardless whether there's a Header or not. And it already Plays pcm files. I only hope that byuu creates a patch to have the error bit set in this Version, then I am completely happy.

[emuandco]

Changed that. I am still no friend of Copier headers, but... byuu's try to force ppl into using proper ROMs failed badly... Anyways. If anyone dares to apply this patch at a headered ROM.... well.... just don't try it ^^

[emuandco]

I feel a bit bad about my double posts, but... I made the sounds for the Winning/Losing and all the others which were still missing. See 1st post. Basically it's just a first small making to get it all complete, polishing by some playthrough gaming is still needed. Feel free to post ANYTHING you find.

Here some stuff I already found:
- Bonus start melody is not the right one, but Token Tango, too. I already fixed that over here, but will post that with the update I will try to make that weekend.
- Mining Remix melody is a bit too loud in my opinion...
- LOOPS EVERYWHERE!

Hm, when I finish the 2nd boss, I get as winning melody of Dixie the Token Tango. Investigating.

Played through up to world 4 Hornet Hole today. Not much more found yet.

[TheRetromancer]

I'm having no success with this on the SD2SNES. Can anyone else with the SD2SNES confirm this?

[emuandco]

In what way no success?

[TheRetromancer]

The game is patched, and it plays, but all I hear is the original .spc audio, not the new audio. I'm using the realpack music, but...nothing.

[Kingizor]

I believe the realpack music is the roughly the same as the original music to begin with, which makes it possible that it is in fact working as intended without you realizing.

You might want to try the remix pack instead.

[TheRetromancer]

Pfft! Idiot me, I downloaded the wrong one. I meant to have the remix pack. Will DL and report back. *shakes head* I can't believe I did that.

[emuandco]

Almost thought that ^^ Its basically the same, just with nicer interpolation and 44.1 kHz. It should sound different on a big sound system only.

[TheRetromancer]

Victory. However, some tracks seem not to play, like the bonus music or Diddy's end of level music. I'll have to do more extensive testing, but these produce a buzzing noise like the file isn't found, so it seems that the .spc fallback isn't working. Might not be implemented.

[emuandco]

SPC fallback is not there, add these from 1st post: http://www.dreimer.eu/msu/MSU_Soundtrack_More.7z

EDIT: New Video added. Check the Boss part. Some sound problems here, seems like it loads some sound effects where they dont belong to.

by the way, if someone has remix suggestions, feel free to add em. I know that some tracks, like:
Simian Soirée (Klomp's Romp)
https://soundcloud.com/wissenschaftsdrache/ship-deck Maybe?
Swamp Gases (Bayou Boogie)
https://soundcloud.com/dtlist/donkey-kong-country-2-bayou Maybe?
Club Klubba (Klubba's Reveille)
Old School (School House Harmony)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpC_DjVIxwQ Maybe?
Party's Over Here (Cranky's Conga)

are ... special ^^ The whole DKC2 OC Remix Album is special, but some tracks might even stay ^^

Another suggestion for Crocodile Cacophony https://soundcloud.com/syntipukki/donkey-kong-country-2 Normally I skip all Dubstep and Metal remixes, but here.. it fits sort of nicely.

[TheRetromancer]

Holy crap. That Crocodile Cacophony is...BEAUTIFUL.

[emuandco]

Compared to the one I use from DanDaManProductions who follows very strict the originals, it's a bit off of the Original, but, why not? ^^ Thats what this was done for ^^

EDIT: http://dreimer.eu/msu/dkc-31.7z
The second Crocodile Cacophony remix. Sounds nicely ingame and fits really good in my opinion ^^

Aand happily the Ending remix is log enough and fits in the credits length, too ^^

EDIT:
Remix alternative for Bajou Boogie https://soundcloud.com/dtlist/donkey-ko ... ry-2-bayou
Remix alternative for Klomp's Romp https://soundcloud.com/wissenschaftsdrache/ship-deck

[emuandco]

Update for the Win/Clear and more stuff pack is available as soon as the upload is done ^^. Reduced these about 50 MB in size.

UPDATE v2:
Loops added in Run, Rambi, Run! and Bad Bird Rag.
Endings of Diddy, Dixie and Clear reduced in length by removing digital silence.

[Mattrizzle]

Revised the patch again. The correct MSU tracks should now play after beating Kleever. The link is still the same as before.

EDIT: Accidentally reset the volume to 1/4 maximum. Fixed now.

Regarding your last update to the MSU tracks: All variants of Dixie's victory music continuously loop in the unaltered game, so I set it up so those MSU tracks loop. There shouldn't be any silence at the "end" of the tracks, because they don't have an ending. Unless you want me to alter the loop flag table in the patch...

[emuandco]

Well, I scrapped them to about 10 secs by removing the silence in there at the beginning and the end. Nevertheless... the ROM never plays the Audio till there anyways. It stops in mid playing in the original and the modded one, just as I expected it ^^. by the way, loops for the remixes progress sort of well... but dont expect gigantic size reductions. Theres no real loop possible with some of the remixes, becuase they are different till the end of the track, but some did shrink nicely already ^^

[emuandco]

So, about time... I sat on my lazy ass today and made the loops + modified songs like Cranky to have no non fitting voice anymore. The loops mostly are fine, but two or three songs could need a lil overhaul. Feel free to test em and post your opinion (or maybe a fixed version, else I wont make it until next weekend.)

[Conn]

Would it be a Problem to port this hack to work with DKC and DKC3 as well?

In unrelated Advertising News, I hacked Super Mario World MSU:

Topic:
http://www.smwcentral.net/?p=viewthread ... 2#p1195702

Final hack:
http://bszelda.zeldalegends.net/stuff/Con/smw_msu1.zip

Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZkbchA67Fc

[Mattrizzle]

DKC3 should be an easy port. With DKC, certain lines of code will need to be cut out, as there aren't sub-tracks.

[emuandco]

Nom nom nom ^^ Moar MSU Games :-D
I just got reminded, that I still need to sort all these downloads in here to ONE for all... Will be done soon ^^

[JackMonty]

Wow this is so cool - I'm looking to get this setup on bsnes but wanted to check if this was completed in terms of the music tracks (I guess V2 is the final version?), the last post mentioned sorting out the downloads on this page - should I wait for that before getting started?

Thanks!

[emuandco]

I dont think theres much left to fix. But as I added above. I am open for ANY bugreports in sound matters ^^

[Conn]

Would be awesome if we could see a DK 1 and 3 port. My most favorite Music is the life in the mines Music Hope you'll ever feel for porting your hack ^^

[gizaha]

Hello there. I want to add msu content to snes killer instinct and i will need some help. I will need a bit of help in debugger and in assembly part to edit the rom. Thank you.

[Drakonas]

For those looking for the dkc2_msu_Mattrizzle.ips file: http://web.archive.org/web/20151206085816/http://mattrizzle.pac.am/hacks/dkc2_msu_Mattrizzle.ips

Does anyone have a manifest.bml that would work for Higan with this?

EDIT: I hacked together all needed Manifests for people to use:

Donkey Kong Country 2 Remix Pack Manifest.BML: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4ThVOQsld0Z2tJUExITTBhM1E/view?usp=sharing
Donkey Kong Country 2 Remix Pack + Extras Manifest.BML: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4ThVOQsld0dUxneWRDRU1NbGM/view?usp=sharing
Donkey Kong Country 2 Real Pack Manifest.BML: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4ThVOQsld0WVI4dTlZOGZEQVk/view?usp=sharing
Donkey Kong Country 2 Real Pack + Extras Manifest.BML: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4ThVOQsld0ZnlrZWl2ZG1LbEk/view?usp=sharing

EDIT 2: I updated the links above to make the BML's reference the dkc-1.pcm/etc instead of my custom named files, and also made Higan 096+ compatible BML's:

Donkey Kong Country 2 Remix Pack + Extras Manifest.BML for Higan 096+: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4ThVOQsld0eTNKZlhPN0FkWkE/view?usp=sharing
Donkey Kong Country 2 Real Pack + Extras Manifest.BML for Higan 096+: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4ThVOQsld0Tm9xaDJXMGRhMDQ/view?usp=sharing

[emuandco]

Hey guys, long time not been here. I have a small wish to you Mattrizzle... when you have some spare time some time in the future... could you make a patch for DKC3 and maybe DKC1 too?

http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic ... 4#msg43654

I'd like to make this one reality... ^^

[xadox]

Do I have to move/copy the MSU_Soundtrack_More.7z over the RealPack.7z?
Or the other way around? Since there are files that will be overwritten.

The RemixPack v2 seems to be too loud. So the normal game sounds are to quite (on Higan 101).

[emuandco]

RealPack is the original music, but rendered with 44100 Hz and a better interpolation. Remix Pack is as loud as you need it on a SD2SNES.

If you want it more silent, do as Mattrizzle said:

Alternatively, edit the bytes at the following addresses in the ROM you patched already:
358502: Change from 3F to FF to set the MSU volume to its maximum (aka vice versa in your case)

Whichever you wanna use, copy MSU_Soundtrack_More in the same folder to have no silence where music should be. Overwrite the one or two files it wants to.

[emuandco]

v3 is uploading now. This one is for Higan/BSNES and SD2SNES >= Rev.G aka not too loud anymore and due to the new tools and complete remake no more clipping at all anymore. Have fun. Real Pack is not updated and I think I won't do so, too. It's way too similar to the original and thus is not worth the effort in my opinion. If you wanna use it, check the post one above this.

EDIT: Fixed dead links to track id list and disassembly of the patch.