Arcade games is in what audio range?

[AE35]

Hey!

I know it differs, but are arcade games usually in the 20hz-20khz or
 thereabout?

Let's take Galaga as an example, or Robotron. They both have nice-sounding........sound. Especially Robotron would benefit from a good amp and
a good range for the BAAAAAEEEEEUUUIIIIII sounds

What do you think/know?

[Timoe]

probably 4.  Maybe 3.5.

[Hoopz]

220, 221 whatever it takes

[_) (V) (-)]

This amp goes to 11.

[ChadTower]

most saturdays
when kids go out and play
I would be up in my room
to let the stereo play

[GoPodular.com]

I know it differs, but are arcade games usually in the 20hz-20khz or
 thereabout?

If you fall into the "normal human" category, your range of hearing *is* 20Hz - 20kHz.  Anything outside that range is impossible to hear.

A "dog whistle" is above 20kHz.

[ChadTower]

I had a gf once that I swear screamed above 20khz.

[Stingray]

I had a gf once that I swear screamed above 20khz.

You could tell because all the windows shattered and the dog died.

-S

[ChadTower]

There were times her mouth was still working but there was no more sound... like gaps in an mp3.  That has to be why.  Those were the moments to savor.

[AE35]

I know it differs, but are arcade games usually in the 20hz-20khz or
 thereabout?

If you fall into the "normal human" category, your range of hearing *is* 20Hz - 20kHz.  Anything outside that range is impossible to hear.

A "dog whistle" is above 20kHz.

Yes of course. So do games follow that, or are they maybe 100hz to 16KHz.

[MonMotha]

Most of your older games utilizing sampled sounds (not so old as to be simple beeps and buzzes and not using things like CDs for audio) are sampled at 8kHz, maybe 16-22.01 if you're lucky.  Mr. Nyquist says that you have to sample at 2x the highest frequency component of your input band-limited signal.  So 8kHz samples get you a maximum of 4kHz out, 16 gives 8, 22 gives 11, etc.  There's usually also a high pass filter around 100-250Hz to get rid of 60Hz hum from power lines.  In other words, figure 100Hz to perhaps 8kHz.

The theme song on TMNT is sampled at 20kHz, and it's often considered something of an oddity - there's an entire ROM on that board dedicated to holding the theme song that players considered so dear.  The samples used for SFX and to create the music on Daytona are mostly sampled at 8kHz, some down at 4kHz.  This seems a bit more normal.

Note that modern arcade games use much more sophisticated sound systems often capable of CD quality audio (heck, some of them are nothing more than red book CD audio).  CD audio is sampled at 44.1kHz.

[RayB]

Keep in mind that arcade audio board circuitry was custom designed to make up for the low bit-rate of sound samples. That's why they sound so great on the original machines, but sound cruddy on our PCs.

But we're talking digital sampled sounds now, while the original thread creator is talking about synthesized sound effects...

[JustMichael]

Also keep in mind that old arcade cabinets used awefully cheap speakers (poor sounding)...