Beepola vs. VT2.5

[Cheez26]

So, I decided to try out Beepola and it was unbelievably user-friendly with its built-in beeper engines.

Might use Beepola for my 48k games, but would still use Vortex Tracker for anything else.
What do you guys think?

[Cheez26]

Here's the tune btw:
https://cohost.org/cheezs-sinclair-23/p ... -beepola-j

[ParadigmShifter]

I only do 48K games at the moment so I used Beepola (with Jof's Firefly SpecialFX engine for SJOE). There's a lot of choice of engines though which is good.

It's very good and since it outputs the source code it was ideal for me and if you need to change the source a bit you can (I tried to modify the interrupt so it only exited when certain buttons were pressed instead of any but that had an effect on the playback quality on Spin so I didn't do that in the end). EDIT: Changing any of the other code - not just the ISR - would not have been possible since it was Jof's code so it self modified up the wazoo (technical term) so would take weeks to work out what the heckers it was actually doing I did remove the ISR vector setup since I had one in my game already I think, I just changed my ISR to either call my in game ISR or the SpecialFX one using LD HL, (whichisr) : JP (HL)

I would like a "transpose" button since I realised when adding the bassline that SpecialFX did not support a low E bass note That depends on the engine though I think. SpecialFX only went down to a low G I think.

I would also have liked a fretboard interface as well as a piano one really since I only really know how to play the guitar and that would have made things a lot easier for me (also wouldn't really have needed a transpose functionality then either, could just move it up the fretboard).

For SFX I used BeepFX as well which is also excellent.

Not tried any AY stuff yet but if I have to make something in 128K I will have a look I guess.

[Cheez26]

@ParadigmShifter Yeah...this is especially useful when going for something with more limitations. This includes Jonathon Caudwell's early game creation tools such as Platform Game Designer.

[ParadigmShifter]

I don't use an existing engine (except for music and SFX obvs) so don't know about its interoperability with any of those.

I assume it isn't too hard to get working with z88dk using C though, you may have to replace the ISR I guess.

For BeepFX you also get the source code so I removed any functionality I did not use (I did not use the sample playback so I removed all code relating to that). Both engines compile fine with Pasmo and sjasm and are completely relocatable (obvs needs to be in uncontended RAM though and the ISR needs to be at an address of the form #XYXY (i.e. same high and low byte address) cos of how the z80 interrupt mode 2 works. I use sjasm myself since it has better macros than Pasmo I found.

BeepFX you just call once per frame (you can call it from the ISR if you want I think) and I just had an "SFX to play this frame" ID so I only called the play routine from the main loop if I had SFX pending (and also had an SFX active variable which skipped the SFX play completely). You have to turn interrupts off with DI before calling the play routine of course. I just played any pending SFX right at the end of the game loop before the HALT.

[ParadigmShifter]

This is where I got BeepFX from I remember it being quite hard to find the link for it originally.

https://shiru.untergrund.net/software.shtml

Looks like they (Shiru) also have a tool to convert Beepola file format to AY as well which may be of use for you AY guys who want to use same tune for 48K and AY versions?

The "tuning a radio" style SFX I use as soon as SJOE starts the menu was the very first SFX it generated with the "random" button The original tune (which I wrote in 1988 or something) started with a "slide the plectrum down a string to make a growly sound" so I wanted something to replace that

EDIT: Dunno why a "how to do a pick slide" video takes 3 mins lol



I would have liked to have made the bass and drums a bit better on my Beepola tune though tbh.

[hikoki]

Both trackers are useful for MPAGD Sound which is a MPAGD mod quite unstable in my experience. Anyways one can develop a game with Standard MPAGD and at the end compile with this mod enabling beepola, pt3 ingame music and ay effects.

[Lee Bee]

I think the beeper is amazing for sound effects, and no games machine should be without one. Though when it comes to music, I vastly prefer AY to beeper, which is why I've never even tried Beepola yet, though would like to sometime, especially after your recommendation, Cheez. Where do you DL Beepola from, anyway? The main site (http://freestuff.grok.co.uk) is down.

[ParadigmShifter]

I got it from here I think but it's warning me about an insecure download (I thinks it's probably fine though)

http://freestuff.grok.co.uk/beepola/

EDIT: Hmm that's the same site it just says insecure popup blocked in Chrome but I think if you say keep it is fine.

[Cheez26]

Yeah, it's fine. Just an old website is all. I'll probably make a quick, more secure mirror and stuff.

[Cheez26]

Have at Beepola, kids.

[ParadigmShifter]

Not sure if that link is correct, dropbox made me sign up with my new email but even then if I click link it says I shouldn't be there or something, maybe it's a private link?

Dropbox kind sucks though. EDIT: Yeah it's sent me a spam email after signing up it's annoying google drive is a lot better than dropbox

[Cheez26]

Not sure if that link is correct, dropbox made me sign up with my new email but even then if I click link it says I shouldn't be there or something, maybe it's a private link?

Dropbox kind sucks though.

I know, but maybe this'll fix it.

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah that looks like a good link. I already have it so I didn't try downloading it again.

[Cheez26]

Yeah that looks like a good link. I already have it so I didn't try downloading it again.

Thanks for testing anyway.