Donkey Kong: Walking Sound Hack?

[LamerDeluxe]

Make sure you don't have another old donkeykong rbf file in _arcade/cores on your MiSTer. That is what I had (probably an early test version with updated audio).

Hmm... I deleted the rbf file and update_all downloaded the same (old) dkong from 230316 again and installed it. Is it possible, that this is an error because I have the DB9 version from Antonio Villena?

When I manually install the new core, the old one get's still installed when running update_all.

That is really odd, I have no idea what could be causing that.

[jlancaster86]

I'm really happy all these improvements are coming along. Especially for such an iconic game.
Something I've noticed and haven't seen anyone commeting about is the palette colours of the game. For example, the red of the platforms / scaffold in the first level is quite different from the red / pinkish tone from the original board. Has any one noticed this as well?

I did bring it up in another thread a year ago.

It's nice to see the core getting some attention, but I am still concerned about its overall accuracy.

[retrodroid]

The digital sound update is so much better than it was, especially for the digital/sampled music. I take it the samples from MAME were used or new samples captured. Great work.

However, running sound is almost 100% the main (remaining) issue.

With "Samples" it's a very odd non-modulating/repeating sound that changes pitch and is very 'high?' frequency/tone. Like Super Squeaky sneakers.

With "Emulated" it is better, you can hear the modulation but... it's still way too high pitch/tone, that squeaky sneaker is coming through.
I feel that the emulated version needs more 'bass' (like a drum beat is the only way I can describe it), and less high end volume/squeek.

On arcade the walk sounds more like the low end is a singular repeating 'dum dum dum dum dum' and doesn't modulate much at all, with the high end modulating (like it is now) quieter/less squeaky at a lower volume to the drum beat.

I wish I could talk in audiophile terms but I just don't know the lingo.

[edit] - I'll try do new audio captures soon if I can find my old comparison edits and video files.

This tendency to notice the high freq. is common on the 80's arcade cores because your memory is used to hearing them played through a cruddy "mid-range" single paper core arcade speaker, and not the high end gear we all have today.

I have found using the Audio Filters -> Arcade -> 2-4Ghz range filters can fix these right up. I haven't tried the new DK sounds yet but will do so today and report back.

[retrodroid]

Here are two audio recordings off my iphone from my arcade cabinet. No audio filters were configured, full volume:

AudioComparison.zip

(255.57 KiB) Downloaded 91 times

If anything, I'd guess that maybe the emulated sounds are being played back at a higher volume than the sampled ones. They do seem to be a little too "present" vs the other sounds in the game. The sampled sounds are at a level that better matches the rest of the game sounds, in my opinion.

After setting up an audio filter: Arcade 2Khz 2nd.txt, the differences in frequencies becomes more noticeable between sampled and emulated. The emulated sounds are certainly "squeakier" than the sampled ones, too much so I would argue.

EDIT: After viewing this video of an OG DK arcade cabinet, I think the emulated sounds are very close if not identical
https://youtu.be/tJagEKVJ8x4

The Arcade 2Khz - 2nd.txt audio filter is recommended to achieve an authentic arcade cabinet sound.

[schendel]

Thanks for all the analysis and comments.

The emulated walk sound is pretty much what JOpdorp made, so please do not praise the update for that.
What did get into update all is the envelope generator on the syntesize and the synthesized sound effects.

Unfortunately, I was not able to reply the last week because I have been travelling due to a death in the family.
This will probably keep me occupied for another week, but do not worry.

I have a lot of plans, but giving the past slowness, have become cautious to promise anything.

[thorr]

I am sorry for your loss and you have my best wishes for you and the family. I am very thankful that you have returned and have lots of plans for the core. You are obviously very skilled, so I am excited for the future. At the moment, DK is the game I have been playing the most, and I am looking forward to watching the future changes come to fruition. There are a number of fans here obviously so it will be fun to find and squash all the remaining issues to make it as perfect as possible. This core in particular has inspired me to start using my arcade cabinet again and the GroovyMiSTer core that I haven't tried yet has inspired me to continue working on making new control panels for various games, and eventually making the storage for all the control panels inside of the arcade cabinet once I have them all made and can figure out how to best fit them all in.

[retrodroid]

Thanks for all the analysis and comments.

The emulated walk sound is pretty much what JOpdorp made, so please do not praise the update for that.
What did get into update all is the envelope generator on the syntesize and the synthesized sound effects.

Unfortunately, I was not able to reply the last week because I have been travelling due to a death in the family.
This will probably keep me occupied for another week, but do not worry.

I have a lot of plans, but giving the past slowness, have become cautious to promise anything.

Sorry for your loss. Obviously family and life come first.

After reviewing the recent posts on this thread I now remember the proper context. Yes, the sounds are excellent in the current core!

[80sArcadeKid]

I have a MiSTer cab sitting next to my Donkey Kong cab both with similar 8ohm arcade speakers. I hit the start button and joystick right at the same time then one at a time and I can tell you that the melody of the music and the run sound timing is identical to untrained ears like mine. I’ve played on dozens of DK arcade machines and the general sound/level are very consistent.

It is the loudness of the run sound squeak that is out of balance on mister, the ‘squeaky’ part of the sound is louder and pitch higher than the arcade PCB, it is not the speakers. This adjustment to reduce the squeak must be some resistor or something that changes the emphasis of that squeak. Described in previous post.

And yes I have the 2khz filter on the MiSTer core, it helped to produce the results described above, but it’s not the solution.

[HerrBerzerk]

Found this issue on Github. Is this bug actually still in the core? I'm not a skilled enough player to reproduce this:

"Mario actually has varying times on how long it takes to do his second jump, depending on the incline/decline. This allows for something called 'Gardikis jumps' where, on the top girder, you can get 100 points twice for backjumping in a certain spot.

Here's the link to the bug report:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Arcade- ... /issues/19

The video below demonstrates it -very- well."

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/418564989

[rhester72]

I'd be very surprised if it's a core issue - sounds like that would be entirely governed by the game code itself.

[mhartman]

I haven’t tried the latest core, but I can do those jumps easily on my real machine, but struggle to pull them off on MiSTer.

[paulbnl]

I haven’t tried the latest core, but I can do those jumps easily on my real machine, but struggle to pull them off on MiSTer.

Can you do those jumps on Mame as well? I have tried to do it many times with an invincibility cheat both on Mame and MiSTer but couldn't get it once.

Maybe it only works with a specific rom revision?

Edit:
Ok I was able to do it on Mame. It seems to help if you hold right after the first jump.

[mhartman]

I haven’t tried it on mame, but I’ll boot it up and try this weekend.

[akeley]

When I was a kid, in our local arcade somebody figured out you could skip the first level by climbing the first ladder, going right a little and sort of back jumping. Mario then would kind of fall through the edge instead of crashing. Has anybody ever heard of this trick? It was nearly 40 years ago and my recollection of it is pretty hazy but I'm pretty sure it's a real memory. I've tried it briefly on this core but best I could get is Mario bouncing back.

[ExCyber]

When I was a kid, in our local arcade somebody figured out you could skip the first level by climbing the first ladder, going right a little and sort of back jumping. Mario then would kind of fall through the edge instead of crashing. Has anybody ever heard of this trick? It was nearly 40 years ago and my recollection of it is pretty hazy but I'm pretty sure it's a real memory. I've tried it briefly on this core but best I could get is Mario bouncing back.

I don't think I'd ever heard of it, but the one (1) TASVideos publication available does something like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RNmOz_NFtY

[akeley]

I don't think I'd ever heard of it, but the one (1) TASVideos publication available does something like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RNmOz_NFtY

Thank you, this is exactly what I meant. Nice to see it again after all these years.

[thorr]

I haven’t tried the latest core, but I can do those jumps easily on my real machine, but struggle to pull them off on MiSTer.

Can you do those jumps on Mame as well? I have tried to do it many times with an invincibility cheat both on Mame and MiSTer but couldn't get it once.

I didn't try that specifically, but I just got Groovy MiSTer Donkey Kong working as a comparison and maybe it is just me, but it seemed like I could do the jumping and moving right at the top of the second board next to Donkey Kong to get 100 points repeatedly easier in Mame without mistiming my next jump after landing each time. I am wondering if there are occasional input related issues, like if you hit the button too many times in a row, it misses some of them, or maybe there is some lag somewhere. I am not sure and could just be getting better at timing the jumps there.

[shertz]

I don't think I'd ever heard of it, but the one (1) TASVideos publication available does something like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RNmOz_NFtY

Thank you, this is exactly what I meant. Nice to see it again after all these years.

This trick can only be done on early revisions of the DK roms. You can also be on a ladder and the barrels won't come down on you. Nintendo fixed both of these bugs in later rom revisions.

[shertz]

So I'm really impressed how the audio is now for this Donkey Kong core. It was a long time coming but it's almost perfect. The only thing that needs to be addressed are the 'booms' it seems that when Kong pounces chest or when a barrel hits the oil drum at the bottom of the screen, the boom you are supposed to hear doesn't get played if Mario is walking. Sometimes you will hear the Boom when you're standing still but the moment you start walking the boom goes away.

I also noticed on the rivets screen (blue board), Kong pounds on his chest three times as you are playing this screen. He pounds his chest three times but you only hear two booms. It seems the booms have to be played out all the way before it can be played again. This seems to happen in both emulating and sampled audio.

Again massive Improvement from what it was before and I feel like we're so close to having it perfect.

[thorr]

This seems to happen in both emulating and sampled audio.

Good feedback! The emulated and sampled audio only affects the walking sound right now. All other sounds will be the same between the two. The music was greatly improved.

[lister_of_smeg]

When I was a kid, in our local arcade somebody figured out you could skip the first level by climbing the first ladder, going right a little and sort of back jumping. Mario then would kind of fall through the edge instead of crashing. Has anybody ever heard of this trick? It was nearly 40 years ago and my recollection of it is pretty hazy but I'm pretty sure it's a real memory. I've tried it briefly on this core but best I could get is Mario bouncing back.

Could it have been a Crazy Kong bootleg? That bug that is often used by top players to end barrel boards:-

https://youtu.be/3BPLH0bIFf4?si=1r186OvrhXShFRsS&t=1415

[pcfreak324]

When I was a kid, in our local arcade somebody figured out you could skip the first level by climbing the first ladder, going right a little and sort of back jumping. Mario then would kind of fall through the edge instead of crashing. Has anybody ever heard of this trick? It was nearly 40 years ago and my recollection of it is pretty hazy but I'm pretty sure it's a real memory. I've tried it briefly on this core but best I could get is Mario bouncing back.

This is a bug that was only present in the first version of Donkey Kong (dkongjo1 (JP Set 3)).

[HerrBerzerk]

I haven’t tried the latest core, but I can do those jumps easily on my real machine, but struggle to pull them off on MiSTer.

So wouldn't that mean that Mame is more accurate than Mister, at least on the Donkey Kong core

[goldenage]

So wouldn't that mean that Mame is more accurate than Mister, at least on the Donkey Kong core

This is true of a lot of the classic arcade cores (usually sound issues). To be fair the MAME project has had 25+ years to get it right, and the analog sound engine was only introduced more recently, which greatly improved sound accuracy for some games.

[thorr]

I mentioned it previously, but I suspect there is an issue with the controls where it misses at least the jump input once in awhile when jumping repeatedly. I haven't done extensive testing yet to confirm this. I notice it on the blue board when I try to jump next to Donkey Kong and push right to get 100 points repeatedly. It's hard to get it to never miss a jump (I press and he doesn't jump), and in Mame it is easier to never miss, at least in my limited testing. I need to do more testing before saying it is a real issue. It might have to do with lag and when it makes sense to hit the button, but I don't know.

[paulbnl]

It's hard to get it to never miss a jump (I press and he doesn't jump), and in Mame it is easier to never miss, at least in my limited testing.

That is interesting because I experienced the opposite. Easier to jump in the core than in Mame.

It could be related to controller lag because I used a different controller for Mame.

After a lot of practice I was able to consistently do the double jump a few times in a row. It is just a matter of figuring out when to start the first jump.

[thorr]

That is interesting because I experienced the opposite. Easier to jump in the core than in Mame.

It could be related to controller lag because I used a different controller for Mame.

After a lot of practice I was able to consistently do the double jump a few times in a row. It is just a matter of figuring out when to start the first jump.

Yeah, it could just be a matter of timing. I haven't had a chance to fully test this yet. I can jump 4 or 5 times max before I have a miss, but often it is 3 or so before I miss.

[80sArcadeKid]

I consider myself pretty versed in this game. (11 killscreens & 1 million point player) so I figure I'm speaking from a pretty experienced level when talking about the sound and gameplay. I personally haven't found any input issues at all. I've not played the MiSTer core as much as real PCBs.

The person who reported that bug (Matt Tecchio - 1.2m player & 5th in the world) knows the game inside and out so I have no doubt at the time he was experieincing issues if he took the time to report it. It's an advanced technique that only a very few players use, as the timing has to be pixel perfect.
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/Arcade- ... /issues/19
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/418564989 <-- Gardikis jumps by the WR holder

Matt's issue could have been down to a lag on the controller or configuration issue, very hard to pin down this stuff when it's all about very precise timing and control.

On a side note, newer players often mistake incorrect timing for input issues (ie: leaching kong;s leg on the blue rivet stage), where it's actually the land not finishing out before hitting the jump button again.

A non-sound remaining issue I believe is that the game is playing in 'cocktail' mode by default and Player 1 screen is actually drawing in reverse as noted by Jace Hall (owner of Twin Galaxies).
MiSTer FPGA

uSjMd45.jpeg (111.58 KiB) Viewed 351 times

Orignal PCB

fYPrzRz.jpeg (111.69 KiB) Viewed 351 times

[thorr]

I can confirm that since I first mentioned I was having trouble with multiple jumping, I have gotten better at it to the point it is not really an issue anymore. I think I was jumping too early like you mentioned. Mame might have a bit more lag so that could be why it was less of an issue for me. That's pretty awesome to have multiple Million-plus players using this, so if there are any issues, they can be found, such as the one above.