Topic: FB Neo Bugs Reports

[barbudreadmon]

So :
- using my headset, i hear the same "clics" in both fbneo standalone and libretro, those "clics" seem more or less hearable depending on audio settings (low-pass, samplerate, interpolation), but i couldn't find settings where they weren't hearable at all.
- from what i'm hearing in your video, the situation seems a lot worse in your fightcade setup

Edit : also, i'm hearing the same "clics" whatever system i'm using (windows & linux x86 hdaudio, linux arm), and other fbneo drivers don't seem to have those "clics", so i'm almost sure it's unrelated to my soundcard(s).

[dink]

Oh, well that's not good.  Any ideas when this started happening?

best regards,
- dink

[RN]

Thanks barbudreadmon and dink for looking into this.

dink, from your URL with the latest FBN build, I installed and setup the same test.
Unfortunately the exact same result is produced, really low end quality sampling/playback.

The systems that I test with are quite reasonable and varied as attached below.


Check the attached savestate for SF2CE that will take you straight to the part of where it's easy to hear the anomalies.

If you need the ROM, let me know.

[Agozer]

I just noticed that for CPS-3 games, the file info window that lists the required files for a given set (+ Type and CRC), only lists the required SIMM files instead of all the required files.

Also, the Load Game list in general seems to be rife with capitalization errors, especially on secondary titles like "Marvel vs Capcom - clash of the super heroes".

[dink]

I did a bit of investigating, this is what I found out about the clicks in SF2CE track 07H:
the clicks are present in mame (.223) as well.
the clicks are rhythmic, and are coming from the YM2151 (fm-synth), most likely one of the sounds has a very short attack or decay which is causing this digital-click sound.
Not much we can do for this one.

Regarding what RN calls low sampling rate of the digital pcm sounds:
the MSM6295's sampling rate is super low, 7.5khz!  we're used to 44.1khz (cd-quality), so don't expect much here.  There is a difference between our MSM6295 and MAME's though:
FBNeo's MSM6295 has either a linear or cubic interpolater (depending on setting in ui), both of these reduce digital aliasing during playback but has the side effect of attenuating the top end a bit, so there's a bit less treble in ours. 

I wrote a new high quality digital filter(think EQ) for the echo effect in k054539, perhaps I can apply it here to brighten up our 6295 a bit.  I'll post back with some samples tonight.

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

Please give the latest git version a try, what's changed:
MSM6295 has 2 modes now:
 no interpolation (Audio -> 2 point sample interp. setting) - sounds like the pcb recordings of sf2/sf2ce
 linear interpolation (Audio -> 4point sample interp., reduces digital aliasing a bit at the expense of top end(treble))
 cubic interpolater - removed until further notice (Jan couldn't fix it, nor can I..)

Later, I'll add MSM5295 Interp on/off setting to the UI, the weird settings above is just for testing

recording: sf2ce attract mode w/msm6295 interpolater off. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFALkzYD_6E

note:
interpolation is usually a good thing that greatly improves audio quality - it just doesn't work out well for the msm6295 due to the low hz of the recordings. 

best regards,
- dink

[Agozer]

Just found out that in Shadow Force (World, Version 3), the Demo Sounds DIP switch is inverted; it defaults to Off, and attract mode sounds play, and when set to On, the game is silent.

Also, can't seem to get FBNeo to recognize Shadow Warriors (World, set 1), insisting that graphics ROMs are missing. Same set works fine in MAME.

EDIT: In Spinal Breakers (World), the Coin Slot DIP has a typo ("Individuala").

[dink]

Thanks Agozer, I will look into these issues very soon!

best regards,
- dink

[Stifu]

Talking about sound issues, I just tried Schmeiser Robo. Some voices seem to be missing, like, you can't hear the announcer in FBN.
Here's a recording of the original PCB, for comparison: https://youtu.be/boc8Za8yE8s
When a round starts, you can hear "Ready... Fight!" (at 0:40, for example). You can't hear that in FBN (Edit: well, sometimes you can, but not always... Not sure what's going on. Maybe it only fails to work for the very first round?).

[RN]

Please give the latest git version a try, what's changed:
MSM6295 has 2 modes now:
 no interpolation (Audio -> 2 point sample interp. setting) - sounds like the pcb recordings of sf2/sf2ce
 linear interpolation (Audio -> 4point sample interp., reduces digital aliasing a bit at the expense of top end(treble))
 cubic interpolater - removed until further notice (Jan couldn't fix it, nor can I..)

Later, I'll add MSM5295 Interp on/off setting to the UI, the weird settings above is just for testing

recording: sf2ce attract mode w/msm6295 interpolater off. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFALkzYD_6E

note:
interpolation is usually a good thing that greatly improves audio quality - it just doesn't work out well for the msm6295 due to the low hz of the recordings. 

best regards,
- dink

Thanks dink.
I went to https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo-WIP-Storage-Facility/releases/tag/appveyor-build, downloaded and installed the build.
However I don't see any of your new options.


After checking your video for the sounds:

• The treble is much higher but it's overall clearer and brighter, which is great.
• I still notice some cracks/pops, but, if it is based from MSM6295's sampling rate of 7.5khz then no wonder.
• I require the same soundtrack as per my earlier comparison videos.

Good stuff, but is there any way of increasing the Khz of the MSM6295's sampling rate?

[shine]

What are the symptoms ? I don't detect any problem with retroarch's runahead.
Also, we were talking about it in https://neo-source.com/index.php?topic=3717.0 : where are the modified FBNeo sources ?
I also want to ask : where are your users supposed to contact you ? It feels like all your users are coming to us while we have no idea what changes you did to our codebase, and i had a very bad experience with a very rude one of them on discord just last month...

Sorry about the delay
We do forward and try to contain them in the official FC Discord and receive lots of feedback/troubleshooting/bugs, we also try to teach them not to reach FBNeo devs, but user base is very very big and eventually someone reaches you, I'm sorry about the troubles (especially since last revision this summer, it attracted lots of new players)

I think the problem he has happens also in regular FBNeo, as when you have a game opened the audio plugin options are greyed out, so to choose a new one you need to open the emu in standalone (we do receive many of those reports too, usually switching audio device fixes sound for them)

Source are here (https://github.com/JordiRos/fightcade-fbneo) and visibly linked on the new web page (https://www.fightcade.com/about), although they are not latest latest, but it's mostly that as a base (current version is unstable and not final). I have an overdue post with our changes and questioning if worth merging, but as far as I see FBNeo is more focused on libretro/retroarch, and the SDL port? I think my changes won't be actually useful in trunk, mostly win32 fixes in render/audio/menus, and a whole bunch of online code - but it's too long to discuss here anyway, and haven't had time yet

Back to the CPS1/SF2HF issue, based on prev experience it's usually some variable not properly being saved during burnscan, which make it lose game determinism - so online SF2HF games desyncs, sooner or later. Those issues are hard to identify without rollbacks, but determinism would also break with runahead or TAS speedruns. It's a difficult bug, as reproduction rate is low (and mostly online). Similar reports have been received in other games, but I only remember about TGM2 now. But I don't know much about the emulation code, don't know what to look for in those situations... any hint? I assume those issues will also happen in retroarch (online with rollbacks), except they are detected from FC users as the user base is very large and they play lots of different games (hence more reports).

Thanks for your time

[dink]

Source are here (https://github.com/JordiRos/fightcade-fbneo) and visibly linked on the new web page (https://www.fightcade.com/about), although they are not latest latest, but it's mostly that as a base (current version is unstable and not final). I have an overdue post with our changes and questioning if worth merging, but as far as I see FBNeo is more focused on libretro/retroarch, and the SDL port? I think my changes won't be actually useful in trunk, mostly win32 fixes in render/audio/menus, and a whole bunch of online code - but it's too long to discuss here anyway, and haven't had time yet

shine,
Please merge your latest code to github, it would be nice to see (and its also a license requirement, but I don't like to complain about that).  With the exception of barbudreadmon, we (me, iq_132, JacKc, Gab75 et al) all use the win32 ui!   I think Kev uses it sometimes too.  In fact, I have been waiting to see your github updated before I even look into that cps1 state issue...

best regards,
- dink

[dink]

RN,
The new options are available through the old options, check the ()'s in my message

I don't hear any pops/clicks at all in the video I made.  with song (07) in the test menu, there still are clicks - these are due to some sort of *possible* bug in the ym2151, because they're also in mame .223 which probably has a newer version of the same 2151.

re: MSM6295: the recorded audio in the game's rom that the MSM6295 plays is 7.5khz.  For reference: a landline telephone is 8khz. there's no possible way to increase the sampling rate.  of course, you can convert it from 7.5khz to 44100, but it's still going to sound like...sh... a 7.5khz-sampled recording.

best regards,
- dink

I went to https://github.com/finalburnneo/FBNeo-WIP-Storage-Facility/releases/tag/appveyor-build, downloaded and installed the build.
However I don't see any of your new options.


After checking your video for the sounds:

• The treble is much higher but it's overall clearer and brighter, which is great.
• I still notice some cracks/pops, but, if it is based from MSM6295's sampling rate of 7.5khz then no wonder.
• I require the same soundtrack as per my earlier comparison videos.

Good stuff, but is there any way of increasing the Khz of the MSM6295's sampling rate?

[barbudreadmon]

@shine As long as you distribute binaries based on them, we want you to share latest sources, and possibly notify us of any change you do to the emulation code (maybe open a topic dedicated to that on our forum or something), that would help avoiding situations like last month's.

[RN]

@dink

I understand now about the settings and switched between them to test, ref:

 

no interpolation (Audio -> 2 point sample interp. setting) - sounds like the pcb recordings of sf2/sf2ce
 linear interpolation (Audio -> 4point sample interp., reduces digital aliasing a bit at the expense of top end(treble))

The "Audio -> 2 point sample interp" is far superiour, reduced clicks/pops, higher treble and brighter.

Note: this doesn't just affect one game rom "sf2ce", it affects all of the cps1 sf2 parent/child (sf2x) variants such as:

sf2hf
sf2b
sf2ceua
sf2koryu

etc.
No doubt affecting all of the cps1 games in general?


I was taking a look at the MSM6295 chip details (.pdf)

http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/images/2/22/MSM6295_-_Manual.pdf

It states:

Code: [Select]

Clock frequncy : 1MHz to 5Mhz

Sampling frequency:
6.5 kHz and 8 kHz (@1.056 Mhz clock)
25.6 kHz and 32 kHz (@4.224 MHz clock)

It looks like up to 32 kHz of sampling can be used? (via clock speed of 4.224 Mhz)


-----------------------------------------
The following information may or may not be relevant:

In a very old mame version it states on game rom info for sf2ce :

Code: [Select]

1xYM2151 3.579580 Mhz
1xMSM6295 7.756 kHz

In groovy mame:

Code: [Select]

Yamaha YM2151 OPM 3.579545Mhz
OKI MSM6295 ADPCM 1.00000000MHz
for both see attached .png images.

It looks from this novice viewpoint that the MSM6295 is being underclock in groovy mame (which could further lead to more cracking popping issues?)

Perhaps this is all academic and of no use, but I'm curious to find the issues/bugs and wonder if any of this info can help.

dink, the change you made already has helped a lot in satisfying my ears and will help others too that have raised this issue of low sound quality.

---- once you hear it..... you can't unhear it ever again..... ----