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Chapter 42 : Resorting to Every Means Necessary to Add Voice Effects
“SHOOTING!”
“SONIC!”
Schwarzenegger’s shouts blasted out from the speakers, though the poor recording conditions had already introduced some distortion.
Lin Lixin frowned thoughtfully.
He’d been so focused on recording all the iconic character voice lines that he’d nearly forgotten the biggest problem of all.
W̄ ëb̆n ȯ v̇ е l̄ Eñ ŭmá.
They couldn’t play them back.
At this stage, most arcade machines used audio chips produced by either Texas Instruments or Yamaha.
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Their core sound-generation logic relied on layering synthesized waveforms together to imitate different effects.
That was why arcade games generally only produced those “beep-boop” electronic sounds.
Human voices, however, were highly complex nonlinear waveforms.
Trying to simulate them using those chips was impossible.
W̊ е́b n о̀ v́ е l̆ Ӗ n̆ùm̃ ӑ
Sam scribbled calculations onto paper before finally reaching a rough estimate.
“If we want actual voice playback support, the material cost increases by nearly fifty dollars.”
That was practically the price of an entire CPU.
“The biggest issue is storage.”
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Sam’s eyes scanned over the estimated parts list.
“Every audio clip takes up a huge amount of storage space. It’ll make the game size completely unreasonable.”
Ẃēb̃ n̆ о̄v е́l̄ Ё n̊ ũ m̆а
Simply put, the extra storage media was where the real money disappeared.
Sam scratched his head and picked up the prototype board from the table.
There was only a single Yamaha YM2151 chip on it.
They had already tested it earlier, and the results were unsatisfactory.
“So is it really necessary to spend this much money just for voice clips? If you ask me, we should just make a stronger ‘BANG’ sound effect instead. Same impact, only costs five dollars!”
“No, Sam.”
Dilarang mengopy novel dari Enuma.id.
Lin Lixin rejected the idea immediately.
“These voices are the soul of the characters. They’re absolutely indispensable.”
Sam let out a helpless sigh.
After knowing Lin Lixin this long, he already understood how obsessive the man became regarding creative decisions.
Trying to persuade him was impossible.
But dragging this out would only delay development further.
Eṅ ù m а
“So do you actually have a solution?”
Lin Lixin silently closed the panel in front of him and glanced out the window.
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It was still early enough.
There should be time.
“Not yet. But by this afternoon, I will.”
“?”
Wе b̈nо̂v̄ е̌ l̃ Eñ ǔm а̂
…
USC Electrical Engineering Library.
Ever since business started booming, Lin Lixin rarely returned to campus anymore.
But the library remained a treasure vault worth visiting.
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Among all his stats, Music Composition had consistently been his lowest.
Which made sense, there weren’t many opportunities to really utilize audio technology yet.
Е̄n û m̊ ă
But now it finally had a purpose.
[You gained insight while reading Computer Sound Technology. EXP +1]
[You gained insight while reading Computer Sound Technology. EXP +1]
…
[You gained insight while reading FM Frequency Modulation. EXP +1]
…
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[Ding!]
[Your understanding of digital audio has reached mastery.]
[Skill Acquired:]
[Digital Audio Master]: [Music Composition (Synthesis) +10, Music Composition learning efficiency ++]
Smack!
Lin Lixin slammed the book shut.
W eb̊ n оv́ ӗ l Ӗ nu mа
He had already found the perfect solution.
When he returned to the GAMENOVA shop, Gerald and Sam were gathered around the board, discussing something intensely.
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“Mhm, so that’s how it works. Mr. Gerald really is incredible.”
“Ah, it’s nothing special. Just experience accumulated over the years.”
Hearing movement at the door, Sam looked up and immediately brightened.
“Lin, Mr. Gerald came up with a great idea. Take a look.”
W е b̀ no v̆ е̊ l̊ Е nũ m̆ а
“Yes. Sam already explained the requirements to me.”
Gerald pointed at the draft sketch he had drawn.
“We can imitate the graphics-processing approach and split the audio processing into two separate chips.”
“One YM2151 for standard sound synthesis and background music. Then another chip, we can use the MSM5205 to decode prerecorded audio…”
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Lin Lixin raised an eyebrow and leaned in to inspect the design carefully.
Their thought process was fascinating.
E n̂ úm̊ а̇
Instead of solving the problem through software, they had expanded the hardware architecture itself.
Although it added another chip, it greatly reduced storage requirements.
“Not bad. But I also found a solution.”
Lin Lixin smiled.
Unlike them, his approach attacked the problem through algorithms.
“I call this technology ‘Vorbis encoding.’ It’s an audio compression algorithm.”
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“Huh?”
Both men froze, especially Sam, who knew Lin Lixin had only gone out for one afternoon.
“Hold on. I need to write a specialized program first.”
Half an hour later.
“SHOOTING!”
Schwarzenegger’s deep voice rang out from the speaker with almost no noticeable degradation.
E n̈ u m а . і̀d̀
Sam’s eyes widened so much they nearly popped out.
He replayed the clip over and over in disbelief.
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“The voice quality barely dropped at all… This is insane.”
“There is a slight CPU overhead from the algorithm,” Lin Lixin admitted, “but compared to storage costs, that overhead is much cheaper.”
He compared the compressed audio usage figures.
The difference was heaven and earth.
Ѐ ǹ ů ṁ ǎ
This technology wasn’t something he invented from thin air.
It was based on the same principles later used in the OGG format.
And if they needed even more compression, they could always reduce the sample rate further.
In fact, even if they cut the sampling quality in half again, the voice clips would still utterly crush almost every arcade machine currently on the market.
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“Besides, we don’t need sampled audio for everything.”
Lin Lixin looked toward Gerald’s dual-chip proposal.
E n̄u m a.ї d́
“We’ll use Gerald’s solution too. Only the most important special moves and victory quotes for each character need sampled voices.”
That way, the storage requirements could be compressed down to an extremely manageable level.
Even future home-console cartridge ports would still be able to fit them.
Speaking of special moves, Lin Lixin turned toward Gerald.
“Mr. Gerald, since you’re here, I assume there’s progress on the thing I asked for?”
“Of course.”
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Sam stared at the two men speaking in riddles, completely lost.
Until Gerald pulled the object out of the box he brought.
“I built this prototype according to the specifications you described. See if it matches what you meant by ‘joystick.’”
“Joystick?”
Sam curiously examined the obvious garage-engineered monstrosity.
“Why not just use Atari-style four-way sticks or standard eight-direction mechanical joysticks?”
W̆ӗbn о vе̌ l̆ Е nuṁà
As a veteran gamer, he obviously knew what a joystick was.
The technology had already been used in flight simulators since the 1970s.
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And using them for games was hardly anything new.
Lin Lixin swapped out the original control panel for the new joystick, gripped the ball top, and spun it around twice rapidly before nodding in satisfaction.
“Because this thing can do motion inputs!”
The movement path of a standard eight-way joystick was square-shaped.
Е nu m̈ a
This one, however, was built specifically for rolling special move commands.
(End of Chapter)
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