MSX-Audio BIOS 1.3

A new version of the unofficial upgrade for the MSX-Audio BIOS was just released. It's been a productive year for sd_snatcher. Now that real life duties are knocking on his door, he'll have to shift priorities. As such, this will his be last production for 2011, and he may not even have time to provide lots of feedback. It's thus recommended that you'll read the readme.txt and its FAQ. Lots of new features and fixes grace this new version:

Lots of bugfixes and optimizations in general
Enhanced Instrument set, from the MSX-Music BIOS
Support for OPL3 soundchips (and OPL4fm)
Support for stereo sound
The new WaveSelect parameter of OPL2/3/4 soundchips (register E0h) is now supported on instruments, on its parameter +21 (1st operator) and +29 (2nd operator), allowing enhanced custom instruments
Brand new SoundChipFish extension. This is a soundchip translation library that supports on-the-fly translation of commands between the following soundchips: OPLL->OPLn (YM2413 to YM3527/Y8950/YM3812/YMF262/YMF278), AY-3-8910 to OPL3 (OPL4fm included, of course)
Software compatibility with the MSX-Music BIOS. All games/tools that use the MSX-Music BIOS INIOPL/WRTOPL functions will work with this BIOS, as the BIOS will use the built-in SoundChipFish library to translate OPLL commands to OPLx commands on-the-fly! This is meant to end years of incompatibility created by a bad design decision when the MSX-Music was created. Hopefully this this reducess the confusion that always afflict many MSX users. Of course, programmers need to respect the MSX standard to take advantage of this (use the BIOS instead of direct hardware access).
This means the following MSX-Music games will work just fine on any device containing the MSX-Audio BIOS v1.3, and will even be played in stereo on OPL3/4 cartridges: Penguin Kun Wars 2, Dante2, Lübeck, Sea Sardine, Fleet Commander 2 (requires the patch to fix a race-condition that the game had on its initialization routines), Gladius
..and the recently released FireHawk-HDD. The translation is light enough, so a game like this runs better than the original DSK version even while translating OPLL to OPLn commands. For simultaneous OPLL->OPL3 and PSG->OPL3 translation, at least a 5.37MHz Z80B is recommended though.
This new version is bigger now and requires a 64KB ROM. The Philips Music-Module upgrade board already supports this. It's just a matter of installing a 27C512 EPROM and jumping the board accordingly. For the Toshiba Music-Module, a small mod of the upgrade will be required.
Because of the bigger ROM requirement, the Panasonic FS-CA1 isn't supported anymore. If anyone ever releases a guide on how to upgrade this cartridge to support this version of the BIOS, then it may be supported again in future versions (only if openMSX emulates the upgraded FS-CA1).
Dual-OPL support was removed, because it was slow, buggy and didn't add new FM channels to be used. But many of the routines were fixed, paving the road for real dual-OPL 18 channel support in the future.
OPL2 (YM3812) is now supported as well, but no binary was released because there's currently no real cartridge or emulation that contains this soundchip (and for home-built cartridges it's much better to use an OPL3 anyway).
New soundchip detection routines that follows strictly the Yamaha's recommended algorithm.
It now properly detects and supports any of the OPL soundchips, on the following I/O ports configurations: I/O ports C0h-C1h or C2h-C3h for OPL1/OPL2 soundchips, and I/O ports C0h-C3h or C4h-C7h for OPL3/OPL4 soundchips
MSX-Music style transpose/temper tables are now supported. When a CALL MUSIC is issued, the MSX-Audio will now lower the RAM top to allocate RAM for the necessary structures to mimic the MSX-Music in-RAM structures, giving greater compatibility to the BASIC FM music that makes use of POKEs.
Other MSX-Music extensions connected to the same machine will be disabled once this BIOS receives a CALL AUDIO or a CALL MUSIC command, providing a way to solve the conflict on machines with an internal MSX-Music on a lower slot (like the Panasonic MSX2+/TR and CIEL Expert-Turbo)
Fixed a bug that reported the rhythm channel incorrectly as an ADPCM channel
Moved many initialization routines to the frame-2, to free space for the new routines in frame-1.
0066h will now call HNMI, to allow real-hardware debugging using the NMI
Turbo Z80 machines without a system-timer are now fully supported, up to 7MHz

Relevant link: FRS' MSX Page

Comments (19)

By ro

Prophet (3650)

04-10-2011, 12:54

both thumbs-up!

By Google

By Bastiaan

Champion (286)

04-10-2011, 20:37

impressive !

By msd

Paragon (1078)

04-10-2011, 22:02

Which cartridge or msx has an opl2?

By Manuel

Ascended (8297)

04-10-2011, 23:26

msd, didn't the text sayOPL2 (YM3812) is now supported as well, but no binary was released because there's currently no real cartridge or emulation that contains this soundchip (and for home-built cartridges it's much better to use an OPL3 anyway).

By Sky_hawk

Master (211)

05-10-2011, 10:17

So whats the best way to take full advantage of this bios, could someone enlighten us mortals what all the number means?
OPL3? is that in a moonsound? should I modify my philips msx-audio and through away my fm-pak stereo?

Greetings,

Jan

By sd_snatcher

Paragon (1077)

05-10-2011, 19:24

@Sky_hawk

Yes, it is indeed confusing. Have a look at this thread for a more in-depth explanation.

The best way to take full advantage of this BIOS is to buy upgrade kits for both your Philips Music Module and Moonsound. You can also buy (or build DIY-style) an OPL3 cartridge.

- Upgrade kits for the Philips Music Module are sold both by Maluf and SuperSoniqs
- OPL3 cartridges are sold by MSXpro
- Unfortunatelly, there are no upgrade kits for the MoonSound - yet. But let's wait the for hardware guys to make their move.

But keep in mind that:

1) You will not be able to throw away the MSX-Music yet, because many softwarehouses didn't respected the MSX standard and made direct I/O access to the OPLL soundchip. Such games will require patching to fix this. Those patches will come.

2) The stereo provided by the MSX-Audio BIOS 1.3 is incomparably better than any OPLL Stereo module, just because OPL3 and OPL4 have true stereo support. For the vast majority of the games, the OPLL-stereo cartridges will produce the entire music on the left side, and the drumkit will beat alone on the rught side. Not pleasant at all. On the MSX-Audio BIOS, the entire music is stereo, including the drumkit. It's fun to hear it distributed in stereo, with some pieces beating on one side, while others suddenly appear on the opposite side.

3) The sound quality of the OPL3 and OPL4 cartridges is also way superior to the OPLL cartridges, because they produce 44.1Hz/16bits on sound output. On the other hand, the OPLL produces sound at 18KHz with a cheap multiplexed 4bit DAC, if I record correctly. This DAC is multiplexed between each of the sound channels sequentially. Everything is then mended together by an analog circuitry. It's the type of thing designed to be cheap, leaving the sound quality as secondary.

By Manuel

Ascended (8297)

05-10-2011, 23:05

What do you mean with a MoonSound upgrade kit? What exactly would it do? Add ROM to provide an MSX-AUDIO BIOS?

By sd_snatcher

Paragon (1077)

05-10-2011, 23:14

@Manuel

Exactly!

By KdL

Hero (571)

06-10-2011, 02:31

hi, is it possible into megaflashrom + moonsound or music module combined?

By sd_snatcher

Paragon (1077)

08-10-2011, 02:40

@KdL

You didn't read the FAQ, right? tsc, tsc...

Q: Can this BIOS be run on a MegaFlashROM/similar device?
A: No, it requires a special configuration of ROM+RAM on the same slot, so a
a MegaROM emulation don't fit. You can install it by these two ways:
1) Upgrade your MSX-Audio cartridge to support the ROM internally, using
the recipes available on the Net.
2) You can opt to modify a 32KB game cartridge with the following recipe:
a) Upgrade it to contain 64KB of ROM and 8KB of RAM
b) The memory mapping must be as follows:
0000h-2FFFh: ROM
3000h-3FFFh: lower 4KB of the RAM
4000h-6FFFh: ROM
7000h-7FFFh: lower 4KB of the RAM (mirror of 3000h-3FFFh)
8000h-AFFFh: ROM
B000h-BFFFh: upper 4KB of the RAM
C000h-EFFFh: ROM
F000h-FFFFh: upper 4KB of the RAM (mirror of B000h-BFFFh)
This game-cartridge approach can be used for users who don't want to
upgrade their OPL1/OPL3/OPL4 cartriges internally.

By KdL

Hero (571)

11-10-2011, 06:09

thx! and excuse me for my distraction

By Wild_Penguin

Resident (62)

19-10-2011, 20:36

I got the Toshiba HX-MU900 recently (from the fellow MSX'er who didn't want his MSX-Audio anymore). Yay!

It has the upgrade kit with MSX-Audio BIOS v 1.2 and sample RAM already built in by Bas. I read in the readme:
"- This new version is bigger now requires a 64KB ROM. The Philips Music-Module
upgrade board already supports this. It's just a matter of installing a
27C512 EPROM and jumping the board accordingly. For the Toshiba Music-Module,
a small mod of the upgrade will be required. The upgrade-guide was updated
to reflect this, just check it."

Now, which upgrade-guide is this referring to? The one on SuperSoniqs page? The guide says v 1.0, and nothing about what to change for the new BIOS....

By Retrofan

Champion (457)

12-02-2012, 13:13

- Unfortunatelly, there are no upgrade kits for the MoonSound - yet. But let's wait the for hardware guys to make their move.

The stereo provided by the MSX-Audio BIOS 1.3 is incomparably better than any OPLL Stereo module, just because OPL3 and OPL4 have true stereo support. For the vast majority of the games, the OPLL-stereo cartridges will produce the entire music on the left side, and the drumkit will beat alone on the rught side. Not pleasant at all. On the MSX-Audio BIOS, the entire music is stereo, including the drumkit. It's fun to hear it distributed in stereo, with some pieces beating on one side, while others suddenly appear on the opposite side.

The sound quality of the OPL3 and OPL4 cartridges is also way superior to the OPLL cartridges, because they produce 44.1Hz/16bits on sound output. On the other hand, the OPLL produces sound at 18KHz with a cheap multiplexed 4bit DAC, if I record correctly. This DAC is multiplexed between each of the sound channels sequentially. Everything is then mended together by an analog circuitry. It's the type of thing designed to be cheap, leaving the sound quality as secondary.
Could someone - Supersoniqs or Sharksym ? - create a seperated cartridge (just call it OPL4 extender) for MoonSound and the Korean version Dal So Ri which contains the MSX-AUDIO BIOS v1.3? Preferable with flash, so it can be modified when there are updates. It is fun if this extender also has extra hardware to convert ADPCM samples from the Music Module on-the-fly into PCM samples for MoonSound / Dal So Ri. This way we can finally use our OPL4 also for OPL1 software, but as mentioned above, with better sound. Also it would be cool if the extender has a effect chip we wanted so badly when the MoonSound was released.

By igal

Expert (95)

06-10-2012, 20:10

Hi Sd-snatcher. (Google translation On)

I tested the Msx-Bios 1.3 with audio demos as "cyber sound" of Compjoetania. all work perfectly.

I connected the Midi-Pac to replace the FM-Pac and send signals to my [Midi Expander SC-88Pro].

The Music Module is connected also because the music is in the format [Moon Blaster]

I was wondering if you knew as directing the music to Moonsound OPLL.

Is that you can direct the OPL music to Moonsound?

This will permit to obtain music format with "Sound Blaster" music that simultaneously use the [Midi music with Midi-Pac] + [OPL4 Music with the Music Module that returns the music to Moonsound]

By mesiasmsx

Guardian (1595)