SNES 9X and Dolby

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CaptainKoloth
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Joined: Thu May 20, 2021 2:10 pm

SNES 9X and Dolby

Post by CaptainKoloth »

Hello all:

I've gotten big into audio lately. It's not perhaps commonly known but the SNES actually did surround for some games via various forms of Dolby Surround, meaning they matrixed the surround sound into a stereo signal that could be decoded by a proper receiver.

Does anyone know if SNES 9X accurately reproduces the stereo signal such that, if your PC is connected to a receiver, the surround information can be recovered? This is a pretty technical question and I'm not actually expecting to get the answer (somehow when I've asked this in the past it devolves into a discussion of whether Dolby is "true" surround, which is not what I'm asking) but i thought I'd give it a shot! Unfortunately there are to my knowledge no surround test modes with games from those generations so it's not something one can easily check even if you have all the appropriate audio equipment.
Deathlike2
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Posts: 1158
Joined: Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:34 am

Re: SNES 9X and Dolby

Post by Deathlike2 »

I don't know the exact answer, but if you are not sure, you should get someone to try it. SPC emulation comes from blargg's SPC core which you may want to research in other SNES emulators using it for a more clear answer. AFAIK, when it was implemented, it was the "most accurate SPC emulation" at the time. IIRC, anything that was not able to decode Dolby encoded data is still valid stereo. Again, I'm not an expert to this topic, but you should may want to google "SNES Dolby games" and see what may come of it as such topics do exist.
Continuing FF4 Research...
Deathlike2
Snes9x Brown Belt
Posts: 1158
Joined: Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:34 am

Re: SNES 9X and Dolby

Post by Deathlike2 »

Sorry about that, it seems like the audio is created from the libretro library, so you should look into that instead. This lib is used in other SNES emulation projects so if you are using a different emulator emulating the SNES, it is probably using this and should have similar behavior across emus that use it.
Continuing FF4 Research...
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