Mod Archive Forums

Music Production => NitroTracker => Tracking => NitroTracker Feature Requests => Topic started by: Skaven on May 08, 2009, 21:33:21

Title: Programmer API (tracker music for DS games)
Post by: Skaven on May 08, 2009, 21:33:21
I was recently asked to convert tracker music (.it) from a PC game for Nintendo DS - but after a long debate they opted for just disk-writing them all to Ogg - which in turn could only barely be fit into the cart memory after cutting a few tunes and by dropping the bitrate/quality.

I started wondering, could NitroTracker be used as an engine to play music in games? Since it already supports XM format, I could have converted the song from IT to XM in ModPlug Tracker, downsampled the samples to a reasonable size, made some tweaks to compensate for the NNAs and handed that file for them.

However, the song frequently uses more than 16 channels - not to mention, it also has to play the game's sound effects on top of those. How much of a CPU load would 32 channels (via software mixing) be? Also, since it started as an IT file, it also uses realtime lowpass filters in many of its instruments. Not to mention, a realtime Echo/Delay DSP effect in some instruments.

So... I'm merely speculating here, but I thought I just as might ask.  :)
Title: Re: Programmer API (tracker music for DS games)
Post by: MatrixMaster3 on May 08, 2009, 22:09:57
you could use this or just message the creator specifically asking about what to do.

here (http://modarchive.org/forums/index.php?topic=1871.0)
Just message the OP and ask him for a link to a download for libXM7 and/or an explanation of how to use it.
Title: Re: Programmer API (tracker music for DS games)
Post by: Skaven on May 10, 2009, 07:25:26
Thanks for the tip! I wasn't aware that NitroTracker actually uses LibXM7. I thought it had its own proprietary sound engine. :)

It's probably too late for the current project (they've already gone pretty far with the Ogg solution), but perhaps for the future projects.
Title: Re: Programmer API (tracker music for DS games)
Post by: MatrixMaster3 on May 11, 2009, 02:53:35
Oh, no, it doesn't use that. Oxtob made his own (or so I know). I'm just saying you could use LibXM7 in later projects.
Title: Re: Programmer API (tracker music for DS games)
Post by: sverx on May 12, 2009, 11:41:11
However, the song frequently uses more than 16 channels - not to mention, it also has to play the game's sound effects on top of those. How much of a CPU load would 32 channels (via software mixing) be? Also, since it started as an IT file, it also uses realtime lowpass filters in many of its instruments. Not to mention, a realtime Echo/Delay DSP effect in some instruments.

devkitPro comes with MaxMod, which has support for IT and hardware/software/mixed mixing modes, so you really could use IT modules directly. Or, if you prefer, in your next project choose XM and libxm7 that already has complete XM effects support (0xtom's libntxm support isn't complete, AFAIK)

 :)