Chrono Trigger MSU-1 (with FMV's)

[Chronosplit]

I'm a bit confused. Sorry for asking this but the links in question are kinda hard to understand. What I would like to ask is are the FMV's available yet for download? and does it include the an option to use the already in game music? All I want is the FMV's for the game the music isn't a problem for me and I kinda prefer the original music anyways but that's just a matter of opinion there. If it's not available yet I understand and really look forward to this project and wish you luck with it.

The patch itself only provides compatibility for MSU-1.  Under this hack, the game will check for files outside of itself which are also included in the OP.  If the music is not there, the original music will play and the game will go on without them as normal (provided there are no bugs with the patch, so far so good I believe there).

[Decko87]

Hello again! I finished the game last night and I wrote down all of the bugs I encountered with this patch installed. Overall it I was very, very satisfied with my first play through, I'm planning on starting a new game + this afternoon.

1. Magus' Castle, When I was chasing down Ozzy, during the battle portion where you're going from fight to fight, both the Original Score and the Updated Synthetic Orchestra were playing simultaneously over top of each other.

2. The Sun Palace in 2300 A.D., same issue, both the original score and new music started playing.

3. Robo replanting the forest, upon entering the church in 1000 A.D.(current) to retrieve Robo after his 400 years of servitude, both scores played simultaneously again.

4. This one actually disappointed me a bit, the end of the game when we were about run off and search for my mom and our Cat in the Epoch, the end credits looped on the fireworks with a black background for about 10 minutes, and eventually crashed. I couldn't see the credits or us flying around and changing time periods(the typical view of the ending). All I got was the fireworks on a black screen with the music playing, I let it run to see what would happen, and eventually the emulator crashed after about 10 minutes.


Overall, changing the music and having the intro video was really cool, the music made the game a whole new experience for me. I'm sure like most of you I've beaten this game 100 times, and this was a really cool way to experience it differently.

I'd like to do the closed beta with the rest of the cut scenes if that's at all possible, and I'll gladly continue to report my experiences one way or another. I'm going to start a new game+ today and I'll note if anything is different bug wise.

Thanks for making this patch it's really unique and cool, I'm glad there's still so much love for this classic.

[Iblis]

I apologize for asking a n00b question. Would love to try out this patch so that I can play through Chrono Trigger with the MSU-1 audio, but no matter what I do I can't seem to get the patched ROM to work. I've followed the instructions carefully, successfully converted the FLAC files to PCM, and applied the patch with FLIPS, but to no avail. Still getting the old audio.

I've tried qwertymodo's MSU-1 enabled build of SNES9x as well as Higan (using the prefix chrono_msu with Snes9x and track with Higan), but no dice.

Is it because I don't have the correct version of the ROM? I've got several different copies (and have tried, unsuccessfully, patching all of them), but none of them matches the checksum info in the OP. I've searched all over for a copy of the ROM that matches the OP checksum info, but no luck there either. Is this just a non-starter unless I can find the right version of the ROM? Or am I overlooking something simple? Would appreciate any input, because I've hit a brick wall at this point. Thanks!

[GyaragaX]

I'm finally getting around to playing this and testing this out. I've been anticipating your work on this since I first took notice of the project in 2016, and it was the reason I got an SD2SNES to begin with. When I first started following the project, the intro FMV wasn't posted without being in the closed beta, and I remember having some difficulty trying to figure out how to convert the Blake Robinson symphony, which I've had since then, but yesterday, I converted it and patched it up. Everything is working as it should.

I'll play through, and note any bugs that stand out. I'll hit you up when I get through to the the Proto Dome.
April 26, 2018, 05:39:37 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
I've been playing through and testing things out. I have a save here outside the Proto Dome. So far, I haven't run into any glaring bugs, but I may have to go back through and watch for any of the specific cases, like some of the instances skins4thewin listed and see if they are repeatable.

I had been playing with the Blake Robinson symphony, but swapped out for Dracula9AntiChapel's once I got to 2300AD. I think I prefer Dracula's tracks for actually playing with the game, more like the original, just enhanced quality.

I'd love to be able to to test out the rest of the work in progress FMVs, if I could. I'll continue to note anything I come across that's out of sorts, and report back. Really looking forward to the eventual completion of the project, and happy to do what I can to contribute.

Once all is said and done, if this could be combined with Chronosplit's bugfix, I think this'll be the definitive version of the game.

[SandmanLobo]

I just found out that iTunes no longer DRMs their music and that you can legally download music you buy there as .WAV files using this method: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204310.

I know most MSU1 mods use WAV files to create their PCMs, so I want to know if all I have to do to convert Blake Robinson's version of the Chrono Trigger music downloaded from iTunes to PCMs is change the .flac extensions in the conversion script json to .wav, or is it not that simple?

[GyaragaX]

@SandmanLobo msupcm++ supports WAV files. As long as the tracks are named properly, if the tracks are identical, same waveforms in the same time and place, other than the method of encoding, that should work. If there's any variance, like amount of silence leading the tracks, that would throw it off. Try it, and see.

You can use qwerty's pcm audio plugin to play back your tracks and see if they loop and fade properly, and such.

[qwertymodo]

Sorry for the long hiatus, everyone.  I'm happy to report that this project is still alive and well.  I had reached a point where I knew that the remaining bugs were due to a fundamental lack of understanding of the original sound engine, leading to an endless game of whack-a-mole with the muting-related bugs.  Unfortunately, that meant two things: 1) The code probably needed a complete rewrite, and 2) Before I wrote a single line of new code, the first thing I needed to do was disassemble ALL of the original sound engine code, on both the SNES and SPC sides, and get a much better understanding of its inner workings.  The project basically stalled out because I knew that was going to be a HUGE undertaking, and I didn't want to even attempt it until I had the time and motivation to do it right.  Well... that time has come   I have disassembled close to 80% of the SNES side of the engine, and MathOnNapkins graciously provided me with his disassembly of the SPC side, and between the two, I have managed to figure out many of the places where I went wrong with my assumptions.  I've also begun the rewrite, which has already produced fantastic results in only a few short days.  The bad news is that this means starting the testing phase completely from scratch as well, but between the better understanding of the engine, as well as my experience with the last two rewrites, I'm fairly confident that there should be far fewer bugs this time around, and any new bugs introduced should be fairly straightforward to figure out.  This rewrite should also completely eradicate even the possibility of certain kinds of bugs found in the previous iterations, such as the infinite loop softlocks (e.g. the character select screen, the ending with the fireworks, etc).  Once the new code is complete, then comes the next huge task, which is going through all of the FMV's scene-by-scene to fine tune the dithering settings, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

[GyaragaX]

Good to hear, Qwerty. Let us know if and when you could use some help testing. Glad you're still keeping this alive. I know you've got plenty of other stuff on your plate.

Say, whatever happened to the missing FMVs in the re-release? Anybody ever find them, or come up with a workable solution?

[ThegreatBen]

Nice work but is all the new code in the same place as the old so I can use it with my hack?

[qwertymodo]

Well... yes, but it's mostly irrelevant.  The code has always been located in places which conflict with your hack, so I had to move them before I sent it to you.  I'll just have to do that again with the updated code as well.  No big deal, moving the code is easy (which was intentional for exactly that reason).

[ThegreatBen]

Cool thanks

[qwertymodo]

Since adding the FMV's required editing the game script in Temporal Flux, that alone means that this patch will never work with any other hacks in a simple "apply one patch after the other" manner, so I've kept that fact in mind in my code design.  Once I have a final release, I'll also release it as asm code, so anybody else in the future can move things wherever they want.

[edale]

So I came across an awesome real-instrument track remaster from Chrono Trigger on Youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXt2y2jHnxg

And I HAD to try it in-game. It's as amazing as you'd think, so I decided to share.

Here's the PCM: https://mega.nz/#!mBZRiAIS!0KPO1aX3klzonvQ9lz7Uj-fLnE0uBCEC8ClqUo7KI9k

[jedipimp]

Is there anyway to download all the FMV's yet?

[qwertymodo]

Good news everyone!  I have completed the full rewrite of the audio code.  There is still a lot of work to be done on the FMV's, especially now that the Steam version has released beautiful 1080p30 versions of all of the FMV's (except 2 of them, which are missing entirely).  As a result, I will not only be working on dithering/filtering the converted videos, I will also be trying to figure out just how far I can push the hardware in terms of resolution and framerate.  For now, I need to begin a brand new round of beta testing on the new audio code.

If anybody wants to try it out, the new patch can be found [here]


Sorry, my file server is down at the moment, so the FMV's are currently unavailable.  I'll try to get it back online next week.  If you already have the audio and video files, those will still work with the new patch, just patch a new ROM and you'll be good to go.

[GyaragaX]

Great. I only have the first FMV, but I'll get started on playing through with the new patch.

For the 2 missing FMVs from the Steam release what do you plan on using for the source? Anything different with the way you'll handle the conversion on those?

[qwertymodo]

I just uploaded a minor update to the patch.  I've playtested this updated version up through defeating Magus, including 2 or 3 different NG+ endings along the way, and so far the only bug I've found turned out to be present in the original game.  This really might be the one

I still want to try and tackle the excessive SFX echo, but that still requires some more research since there are some kind of subtle interactions between the currently playing song, the current SFX bank, and the echo level, and I need to figure out how to separate them to avoid unintended side effects.

[ThegreatBen]

Really coming along

[qwertymodo]

Fixed my file server, the beta files should be available again.

[mrmpdale]

querty I like to test this with the flvs if it is okay with you. This is my favorite version of chrono trigger so far but I like to test it with flv. Thanks.