| Posted By
Fireant
on 2003-04-15
|  Great music on the +4
After playing Tetris on the +4 I was amazed by how good the music was. It seems more like a C64 than a +4. Is there any other games or programs that push the +4's sound chips to the limits?
What is the best music score? (game or program)
what is the best game on +4? I think Kickstart 
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Posted By
bubis
on 2003-04-15
| which one?
Hi! Which one do you mean? I want to hear too!
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2003-04-15
| Re: Music
The music in Tetris uses a so called Digi-Converter. Those definitely sound better that the two channel square-sound of the Plus/4.
The Digi-Converter basically "plays" a C64 converted SID tune. Those tunes try to control the SID (the C64's music chip) by writing to $D400 in the memory - that area is just simple ordinary RAM on the Plus/4, so really nothing happens. The Digi-Converter however constantly reads those values, and constantly outputs digital audio. Three channels mixed, with the waveforms + ADSR + all that. So in a way it EMULATES the SID. The advantage: the sound is cool The disadvantage: it takes WAY too much processing power. That is, you can't have too many complicated effects (or a graphics intensive game) running along with a Digi-Converter.
The Freq-Converters are similar. They let the C64 music run, but with the values they read from $D400 they output regular TED sound. Advantage: pretty fast. (Still slower than dedicated TED music, but you can do pretty much any demo or effect with this converter.) Disadvantage: The sound can be a bit plain. For people who grew up listenning to the TED sound, it's cool, because you are used to it, but I've heard ordinary people describing the TED's music as "annoying beeping".
If you want cool music, check out TLC's "Stormlord" conversion from the CD3. In my opinion, that piece is the very best music on Plus/4 you can listen to. 4 channels! Other cool stuff: Last ninja 3 demo by Ceekay (very cool music), the whole Bluekeeps demo from Wit (cool digis), TLC's First Demo (there is a part in it in which he uses RASTERS with a Digi-Converter, that particular converter has gotta be one of the best ones.) Shameless plug: you can also check out my own Drum-Mix III.
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Posted By
Fireant
on 2003-04-15
| So much great stuff on +4
I have to say that I've only just started looking through all the +4 Demos. I'm very impressed with the sound and music samples. If u somehow put the demos on tape would they run on a proper+4? Great stuff.
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2003-04-15
| Re: Demos on tape
All the one-file demos can be recorded back to tape. They will work on a regular Plus/4 (PAL) or an expanded C16. In fact, back in the day, a lot of the demo swapping was done on tapes in Hungary, as many people could not afford the floppy drives.
The disk-demos (or "Megademos") require a floppy disk.
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