Sound in an IP.bin file

Post by **I.M. Weasel** » Sat Jan 25, 2003 9:39 pm

hola,

okay,as known you can insert a .mr binary image into the ip.bin booter file.

What about inserting an audio file in there instead?

the only problem would be how the code gets displayed on the "SEGA" boot screen,but is there a way to take the first part of the picture space (about 3-4k of 12k) and insert some graphic code to display the color white so the text of the audio file is not displayed?

toastman · Post by **toastman** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 7:46 am

From what little I know about the IP.BIN (and it is little) what you are suggesting is impossible with either of the current IP.BINs. There is code there to display a graphic but not do anything else, in order to play a sound file, you would need to rewrite the IP.BIN and add in some sound player functions.
I don't think the IP.BIN is big enough.

Post by **I.M. Weasel** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 11:09 am

gotcha,I would have to write in a mini-audio player?

toastman · Post by **toastman** » Sun Jan 26, 2003 3:53 pm

Pretty much, yeah.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Mon Jan 27, 2003 9:40 am

It'd be possible, but you'd have to find some space in the IP.BIN file to put it. As far as I know, the only free space would be used up by the image, with maybe a little to spare. But that's not a lot of space for sound samples, even compressed ones, just a few kilobytes. And I don't know if it'd be possible to stop the sound data from being displayed - it depends on the image format it's stored in.

You could probably get the DC to play a sound with a few hundered bytes of assembley, but you might only get a second or so of very low quality sound. And you'd have to be really good for that to work.

Sanchez · Post by **Sanchez** » Mon Jan 27, 2003 10:45 am

ok, this is off topic, but it must be said...

He can do it because:

HE.... IS.... WEASEL!

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Mon Jan 27, 2003 5:01 pm

maybe like little beep or like a little ring.

Sounds very interesting. I wish i had the programming talent to work on something like this.

Post by **I.M. Weasel** » Mon Jan 27, 2003 11:17 pm

hmm,only assembly code. doesnt the DC have a built in software audio player?

This is off topic?

no matters
because

I..M..Weasel!!!

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 4:34 am

The DC has built-in, fairly complex sound hardware. Basically, you'd have to do something like this (in asm, not English):

Shut down AICA/ARM
Copy a dummy program to Sound RAM
Copy sample data to Sound RAM
Initialise the AICA/ARM
Set up the sound registers
Start the sound playing
Keep getting status, until the sound has finished
Reset the sound hardware
Set up the SH-4 and stack, like the IP.BIN is supposed to do
Jump to the main program

JMD · Post by **JMD** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 4:49 am

what about playing sounds from the internal general Midi bank ?

I think DC have a built in wavetable and using it will take less bytes. no ?

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 5:05 am

There's an internal GM bank? I wasn't aware of one.

If it did have an internal bank, and you used it, then you'd just have to include the playback code, which would be much simpler. But you'd just get a note, maybe a very simple, two-second bit of music. Maybe like the sound that comes up with the SEGA logo on the older Master Systems.

I'll have to see if I can find any info on the DC's sound hardware. If it does have an internal GM sound bank, it could be very useful.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 5:17 am

Without the image bit, there's 18KB of free space in the IP.BIN file, which is for bootstraps 1 and 2. Basically, they are executed by the DC's BIOS, in order, and they are supposed to set up the SH-4 and reset the stack, then jump to 1st_read.bin (which has been preloaded by the BIOS). That'd probably leave you with, at most, 15KB or so for a sound sample.

Assuming that you want to use 4-bit ADPCM for encoding, and in mono, you'd get about 2.7 seconds of audio at 11025Hz, 1.4 seconds at 22050Hz, and 0.7 seconds at 44100Hz.

I don't know where the image is stored, but it's probably in the huge blank area in the Sega licence information section, and you could theoretically use that area for extra samples, if you didn't mind the graphics synthesiser.

Wow... There's more space in that file than I thought. Basically, you have 18KB of space to fill, and ASM code tends to be very small, so most of that can probably be filled with data. You could probably fit a game in there.

Post by **I.M. Weasel** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 9:25 pm

BlackAura wrote:There's an internal GM bank? I wasn't aware of one.

If it did have an internal bank, and you used it, then you'd just have to include the playback code, which would be much simpler. But you'd just get a note, maybe a very simple, two-second bit of music. Maybe like the sound that comes up with the SEGA logo on the older Master Systems.

I'll have to see if I can find any info on the DC's sound hardware. If it does have an internal GM sound bank, it could be very useful.

yeah i was thinking a tiny sound byte,just like the sega logo.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 9:54 pm

I've got a program to play a small piece of music - it's 7KB, and most of that's the ARM program code. Provided you don't mind shuffling things around, you can play a very, very short sound sample. If you can rewrite the whiole IP.BIN, you could probably get a good two seconds of audio in there, at the expense of the logo thingy.

Actually, I could possibly fit a CDFS driver in there, and load extra stuff off the disc, including a small sound file. That'd make it even easier.

Post by **I.M. Weasel** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 12:27 am

well then captain,give it a shot . im all ears

burnerO · Post by **burnerO** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 8:53 am

Here are some Sega wavs that fit your requirements, 4bit mono 11hz-44hz, that range from 3-12kb.

http://consolevision.com/members/burner ... ega!11.wav
http://consolevision.com/members/burner ... ega!22.wav
http://consolevision.com/members/burner ... ega!44.wav
http://consolevision.com/members/burner ... sega11.wav

"I don't know where the image is stored"
It's at offset 14368.

Additionally, you might check out the file http://boob.co.uk/files/ipfull.tgz
It's Lienus's work with the Ip.bin.

Now make the Ip.bin scream Sega! :P

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 9:12 am

It might be to compact it into a small enough space that it'll fit into an IP.BIN file, along with a WAV file. I've looked at Lienus's IP.BIN, and I can see what goes where. There's two spaces - where the image file is stores (inside Bootstrap 1, a huge blank area's left for it), and after Bootstrap 2, which is a lot smaller but never used for anything.

I just need a way of delaying the IP.BIN, so it doesn't jump to the main program before the sound's finished playing.

Still researching it, and I need to find a way of loading an IP.BIN to test, but without having to burn a fresh selfboot CD each time.

reaper2k2 · Post by **reaper2k2** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 7:56 pm

what about one of those DC emulators i remember one booted the ip bins once

Post by **I.M. Weasel** » Fri Feb 07, 2003 12:45 am

BlackAura wrote:It might be to compact it into a small enough space that it'll fit into an IP.BIN file, along with a WAV file. I've looked at Lienus's IP.BIN, and I can see what goes where. There's two spaces - where the image file is stores (inside Bootstrap 1, a huge blank area's left for it), and after Bootstrap 2, which is a lot smaller but never used for anything.

I just need a way of delaying the IP.BIN, so it doesn't jump to the main program before the sound's finished playing.

Still researching it, and I need to find a way of loading an IP.BIN to test, but without having to burn a fresh selfboot CD each time.

isn't there a smiply stall command, in applescript "delay' is used [delay (5)].
or maybe you could loop for the length of the sound byte for x seconds

while (x != length of soundbyte)
{
++ in seconds
}

but you probably would need added code to calculate seconds,i dunno.

and is there something like a modified version of dc_load that will attempt to load the ip.bin ? If the 1st_read.bin file is a binary file as well, could you just choose to load the ip.bin file instead?

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Fri Feb 07, 2003 7:01 am

There is in KOS, but I can't use KOS in an IP.BIN file, because KOS is much, much too large. And the IP.BIN file is loaded at a different place in memory. I could probably write a 1ST_READ.BIN that loaded a new IP.BIN into memory, and ran that, then test that on the DC.

Reaper - They do, but not reliably. The only ones I have don't do sound either.