[FF9]2016 release

[Fraggoso]

In which post did I say that he wants to replace the engine?
He want's to replace the sound effects, that was and is my point from start to finish. O_o

[Tirlititi]

This post mislead me then...

Did you rip those straight out of the folders?
The assets are the same (from what I know) it's only that the Engine, when you play the game, upsamples and downsamples the music so it sounds off (in game while playing).

Meru was talking of the sound effects all along (his sample is a not a music), and you answered by talking of music.

[Fraggoso]

Then we've really talked at cross purposes. 

[Meru]

Fraggoso
I think there was some kind of language-barrier issue here. We had similar things before
Also I want to note that while sfx and music may be different to you, they are the same thing. And regardless of what he says in his thread, replacement operation will be the same for both. The only thing is, we can obtain music elsewhere and possibly improve it. We can not obtain sfx elsewhere. Watever he re-makes these sfx by himself, or the whole idea is not viable.

[Fraggoso]

Stupid Language Barrier. Sorry for that, Meru. I feel like Bill Murray in "lost in translation". ^^
I'm just curious why the sfx are splitted and sound off (the death animation for example, which could be replaced by the PSX now thanks to the community).
I thought that this was the thing he wanted to do for the SFX which sounded off (like accept and/or cancel sound). ^^

[Meru]

Stupid Language Barrier. Sorry for that, Meru. I feel like Bill Murray in "lost in translation". ^^
I'm just curious why the sfx are splitted and sound off (the death animation for example, which could be replaced by the PSX now thanks to the community).
I thought that this was the thing he wanted to do for the SFX which sounded off (like accept and/or cancel sound). ^^

I dunno sorry. I haven't studied what they included or excluded. How the looping done (it is done differently but not sure how exactly) and that sort of things. Few months ago my only concern was the actual sound quality. And at this time I have no time to study it further due to these damn backgrounds eating all my time...

Edit: it is also news to me that something sounds differently (i use sdlib fix from the start). I play the game and haven't noticed it... but then last time I played FF9 was on ps1 years ago... I don't remember such details.

[the_randomizer85]

Will these sound effects ever be fixed? A good test to try is sandstorm from the Antlion Boss in Cleyra Village. It sounds like a squeaky vacuum cleaner, for example, I have shown two videos for comparison.

Steam version (1:05 in video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwVkJyiMdYI

PSX version (1:14 in video)
https://youtu.be/C5jScsUWCZ4?t=74

MP3 recordings for simplicity's sake:

Steam - https://www.dropbox.com/s/k3tn6668krubmew/FFIX%20Steam%20-%20Sandstorm.mp3?dl=0
PSX  - https://www.dropbox.com/s/87wd8mnpp7f4klj/FFIX%20PSX%20-%20Sandstorm.mp3?dl=0

Nice work there, Silicon Studios, no really. Not.

[Fraggoso]

Yeah that sounds nothing like the PSX Version (and it makes me laugh *lol*).

[the_randomizer85]

Yeah that sounds nothing like the PSX Version (and it makes me laugh *lol*).

Any luck or insight on this? This is one glaring example, why the deuce didn't SE themselves do the porting, and leave it to some lesser company to do the port? Surely, things like this can be fixed?

[Fraggoso]

I'm not working on the sounds, sorry.

[the_randomizer85]

I'm not working on the sounds, sorry.

Well then who is?  So we just leave this port being in a shoddy state?

[Meru]

Will these sound effects ever be fixed? A good test to try is sandstorm from the Antlion Boss in Cleyra Village. It sounds like a squeaky vacuum cleaner, for example, I have shown two videos for comparison.

They sound like totally different things, not sure where silicon pulled that from
if THAT happens often, it is an issue, sure. But fixing one particular sound shouldn't be really hard.

Edit: SE wasn't even supervising the port, and even if they did, it wasn't the actual director of this particular FF.
On the other side, director won't be "ok" with this kind of port so they probably didn't even bothered to ask him. Cause that would probably double the expenses for this port
I wonder if they "lose" the sources of the assets on-purpose too... as an excuse for them to not be re-used.

[the_randomizer85]

They sound like totally different things, not sure where silicon pulled that from
if THAT happens often, it is an issue, sure. But fixing one particular sound shouldn't be really hard.

Edit: SE wasn't even supervising the port, and even if they did, it wasn't the actual director of this particular FF.
On the other side, director won't be "ok" with this kind of port so they probably didn't even bothered to ask him. Cause that would probably double the expenses for this port
I wonder if they "lose" the sources of the assets on-purpose too... as an excuse for them to not be re-used.

It's the only boss to use sandstorm in the game, and sounds absolutely abysmal, I can only hope fixing sounds like this aren't super hard to do. Silicon Studio dun effed up big time. SE should've done the port instead, just saying.

Top that off with the fact a lot of the spells sound wrong, fire, fira, firaga, etc. Sword Rain later in the last dungeon is also off, IDK what else to do to isolate these.

[Fraggoso]

Well then who is?  So we just leave this port being in a shoddy state?

Well I think you already adressed that to the person who's at least working on replacing the sound effects:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/377840/discussions/0/133258593389989239/?tscn=1488997608#c133259227513474527

[Meru]

It's the only boss to use sandstorm in the game, and sounds absolutely abysmal, I can only hope fixing sounds like this aren't super hard to do. Silicon Studio dun effed up big time. SE should've done the port instead, just saying.

Top that off with the fact a lot of the spells sound wrong, fire, fira, firaga, etc. Sword Rain later in the last dungeon is also off, IDK what else to do to isolate these.

If there are many, there's no need to isolate anything. Just dump everything into the trash bin
But it is still good idea to verify if the actual sound files are an issue or maybe some fancy sound processing happens in-game (which is I'm not gonna do, I have my hands full with backgrounds).
Speaking of which, look at that door here... the "before" image is an untouched PC version. I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled some sounds from the same place they pulled backgrounds from.

[the_randomizer85]

If there are many, there's no need to isolate anything. Just dump everything into the trash bin
But it is still good idea to verify if the actual sound files are an issue or maybe some fancy sound processing happens in-game (which is I'm not gonna do, I have my hands full with backgrounds).
Speaking of which, look at that door here... the "before" image is an untouched PC version. I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled some sounds from the same place they pulled backgrounds from.

*Sigh* I don't know what to do anymore.

[Meru]

*Sigh* I don't know what to do anymore.

If that is what Sharon aims to fix, I suppose just wait...
I think he mostly figured that stuff out. The only problem is he couldn't use audio of a different length. I don't think it is needed to fix things. Replacement files just have to be created to match thee same loops and whatnot and not to be bigger in size (<128kbps without metadata and there we go). Otherwise there probably is some king of value in the "additional" header that has to be modified that shouldn't be hard to find. Or maybe not in a header but in one of the scripts.
Personally I just threw away that additional header since it was not needed to compare sound quality.

[the_randomizer85]

If that is what Sharon aims to fix, I suppose just wait...
I think he mostly figured that stuff out. The only problem is he couldn't use audio of a different length. I don't think it is needed to fix things. Replacement files just have to be created to match thee same loops and whatnot and not to be bigger in size (<128kbps without metadata and there we go). Otherwise there probably is some king of value in the "additional" header that has to be modified that shouldn't be hard to find. Or maybe not in a header but in one of the scripts.

Fair enough, I just hope that the process isn't convoluted to fix once it's done, or that a game update doesn't break anything, again.

[Meru]

Fair enough, I just hope that the process isn't convoluted to fix once it's done, or that a game update doesn't break anything, again.

Making it in a way that will prevent steam updates from breaking stuff is possible. More worrisome is that there are gonna be mods that are incompatible with each other.
If sound mod will ever happen and will not use things like memoria, it will likely be compatible with everything though (except memoria)

[the_randomizer85]

Making it in a way that will prevent steam updates from breaking stuff is possible. More worrisome is that there are gonna be mods that are incompatible with each other.

Lucky for me I don't use FFIX mods, I'd rather take stability/functionality over mods on this game. I hope SS never ports another game again.

[Meru]

Lucky for me I don't use FFIX mods, I'd rather take stability/functionality over mods on this game. I hope SS never ports another game again.

Don't wanna to disappoint, but they are officially working on FF12 I mean it is not for PC, but hey... FFX wasn't supposed to come to PC too...
Edit: and their test version works on PC yea, but there will not be PC version. No way there would be one.
The only good part about it is that we may FINNALY be able to have IZJS with Japanese voices. Making "International" versions Japan-only with English audio only... only Square knows why this is a good idea.

[Meru]

btw, after a quick look it appears that magic effects are not the same as other audio on the psx. So it could be that they all are "broken" in PC version.
But that would lead to a different issue. How to tell that the ones in PC version are not what it actually meant to be? PSX sounds the way it is because that is how that particular hardware renders it. PC files , on the other hand, are pre-rendered. What if they used the "right" way to render them.

[Fraggoso]

You mean that the sound is made by the psx Chip like it plays music?
I'm not entirely sure if that is the case with sound effects.

[Kaldarasha]

You mean that the sound is made by the psx Chip like it plays music?
I'm not entirely sure if that is the case with sound effects.

Considering what Dan has researched from FF7, it is very likely that the PSX does modify the sounds on the fly.

[Meru]

You mean that the sound is made by the psx Chip like it plays music?
I'm not entirely sure if that is the case with sound effects.

Yea I mean that. I can't comment more on it. Since all the "problems" mentioned were regarding magic I tried to look for magic. Whatever what I found is not magic, or it is different from everything else. Most of the audio, except maybe movies and some selected pieces are a collection of samples that are composed on the fly. But Magic doesn't seem to work the same way. If it is pre-composed/pre-rendered, that wouldn't explain the difference between PC and PSX. And the difference in sound is not like something that comes from shitty conversion. It just sounds differently.