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Donkey Kong on MAME - sound quality not accurate

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apocalypto:
Hi guys, I wanted to get some opinions on MAME and Donkey Kong.

In current versions of MAME the sounds are distinctly muffled. It does not sound like an authentic DK arcade machine. The older versions of MAME that used the add-on wav file samples did sound more authentic, but that's very old MAME technology and not a good solution to downgrade to those.

MAME devs swear it is accurate audio emulation to the arcade machine. I find this hard to believe. Every recording I have heard of a real cabinet has had a loud, crisp sound, not muffled at all.

Please listen to these 2 recordings for an example:

This is a recording of DK Arcade Game:
http://www.mikesarcade.com/store/prod/ddk/sounds/dkwalkjump.wav

This is a recording of DK on MAME .141 I just captured direct from my pc.
http://fuelhousedemo.com/dkong-mame.wav

Are any of you running MAME (without samples) and it is sounding like the original arcade game? Or is yours muffled also? What version of MAME are you running?

Thanks!

ahofle:
If you think that's bad, try firing up Mario Bros.

DeLuSioNal29:
The 1st link is broken.  Here's the correct link:  http://www.mikesarcade.com/store/prod/ddk/sounds/dkwalkjump.wav

SavannahLion:
I'm just speculating here.

Does the game sport an amplifier and it's simply not emulated here? I checked the manual, but I'm too tired to read the schematics right now. It looks like there is one.

I know MAMEDev sometimes ignore some hardware configurations on the premise of accurate emulation. I recall one article that described a change in a ROM that accurately rendered the video out on a game to include blue when, in fact, the only known existing cab of that particular game has had the blue feed disabled at the monitor (rather than at the PCB). An accurate emulation would take this fact into account and disable the blue channel accordingly. MAME did disable the blue channel in earlier versions but this was "corrected" in later revisions.

Could that be happening here? An external amplifer that's simply not accounted for?

I dunno, it's a thought.

apocalypto:

--- Quote from: SavannahLion on March 29, 2011, 02:05:00 am ---I'm just speculating here.

Does the game sport an amplifier and it's simply not emulated here? I checked the manual, but I'm too tired to read the schematics right now. It looks like there is one.

I know MAMEDev sometimes ignore some hardware configurations on the premise of accurate emulation. I recall one article that described a change in a ROM that accurately rendered the video out on a game to include blue when, in fact, the only known existing cab of that particular game has had the blue feed disabled at the monitor (rather than at the PCB). An accurate emulation would take this fact into account and disable the blue channel accordingly. MAME did disable the blue channel in earlier versions but this was "corrected" in later revisions.

Could that be happening here? An external amplifer that's simply not accounted for?

I dunno, it's a thought.

--- End quote ---

That's an interesting thought. I wonder if there's a way to software amp that rom somehow. I'm not very experienced with MAME, could it be as simple as a patch file/DIFF file that for that rom??

Any MAME devs use this forum?

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