SD2SNES implements Byuu's MSU1

[derekb]

Didn't see a related thread, and it is a pretty impressive development for the SNES. ikari_01 has implemented support for Byuu's previously software only enhancement 'chip' for the SNES which enables cd quality audio streaming and video playback off mass storage.

Check out some videos of the device running the Mario Odyssey MSU1 hack (wip mario hack with cd quality audio playback) and a video demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqXYPvhHMCo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULkopwR8oA

[Dr.Wily]

Yeah, nice to see this ! I follow Byuu's work for few years now. I saw his impressive CD quality Demo and the Lunar FMV opening. This is a pretty good work to demonstrate fully potential of the SNES. This machine, has been too limited by space on cart at the time.

[derekb]

I wonder if that chrono trigger snes + psx fmv hack could work on sd2snes, in theory I guess it should

[karsten]

what s the story behind this chip?

[derekb]

Byuu originally wrote it in software with it tested to work with bsnes and in such a manner that the code itself would be hardware compatible if someone built it

http://byuu.org/snes/msu1/

MSU1 is a special enhancement chip for the SNES that grants a full 4GB of additional storage space, and allows the playback of full motion video at 240x144x256 colors @ 30fps and lossless 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo PCM audio.

Support for this chip is present in bsnes v060 and above.

[bearkilla]

i LOVE stuff like this

[Mystical]

amazing work

[splith]

I saw it a few years ago and thought it'd be cool to see it being made but didn't think it would happen.

Now, that's fucking awesome, it in theory gives it better capabilities than the GC, which is a 12 year newer console! Crazy.

[Alchy]

in theory gives it better capabilities than the GC, which is a 12 year newer console! Crazy.

That doesn't make sense. Which particular aspect of this design is superior to the Gamecube?

[bearkilla]

Now, that's fucking awesome, it in theory gives it better capabilities than the GC, which is a 12 year newer console! Crazy.

lolwut

[LeGIt]

Am I missing something?

It just looks like a game playing music to me - but then I never was much of an audiophile. I'm not content to live without at least RGB signals to my TV, yet oddly I'm quite happy with stereo sound so (though I do go deaf or get tinnitus at random too :P)

If it is the miracle of high fidelty sound on a SNES though, why use shitty bastardised music? If you're gong to be a copyright thief you my as well do it properly and do it without the artsy fartsy alterations.

[Shakey_Jake33]

Well, they are obviously just examples. The point of the development is to allow up to 4GB or storage, as well as FMV and PCM audio playback. This can be used (and indeed is being used) for homebrew development.

http://byuu.org/snes/msu1/

There is a real problem in the Snes development scene with people developing homebrew that is compatible with emulators but not actual hardware, this goes some way towards rectifying that.

The idea of a 'chip' gives the incorrect impression that this is a really complicated solution similar to the SuperFX, but it has clearly been (relatively) trivial to implement this into an SD card interface.

[Calpis]

"Enhancement chip"? It's more of a now-hardware-accelerated enhancement hack. The hardware is totally abstracted thus pretty akin to "Hi-Res packs"; it takes cues from the SNES but is a separate entity. Lame. Worse it's simulation/high-level emulation of a device that doesn't have a true implementation in the first place and the design is so clean it's soulless. While the game hacks could potentially be cool, it's not as cool as a simple bit-banged SPI storage interface where audio was streamed to the SPC. Of course the CPU isn't actually fast enough for that during game play hence this implementation, but it would allow for extremely large games nonetheless. If on the other hand it was an Nintendo-ordained MCU with slave parallel port decoded into SNES memory, with a SD interface and audio DACs, THAT would be an enhancement chip and maybe less of a turn-off. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks this is just wrong from a design and hardware POV.

[derekb]

LeGiT here is a better example, this is Chrono Trigger SNES with the playstation fmv intro hacked in and running via the 21fx (MSU1's predecessor)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn_jXf7FHGA

and here is a demo you can run yourself in bsnes:

http://byuusan.kuro-hitsuji.net/lunar.sfc

run that and then you will understand where the real strength lied, shame it couldn't happen in the SNES' lifetime

[splith]

That doesn't make sense. Which particular aspect of this design is superior to the Gamecube?

1.44GB storage compared to 4GB.

[Shakey_Jake33]

An in-depth explanation about the MSU1 here, as well as an explantion about the registers etc. for people smarter than I.

http://helmet.kafuka.org/msu1.htm

[derekb]

On the cd quality music front, if I'm not mistaken aren't there already some other emulators that will hijack the rom's music calls and playback an mp3 or the like in it's place?

note that I'm well aware this is not what MSU1 does

[Shakey_Jake33]

Yeah, but that's actually a real problem - people are developing homebrew and hacks that are compatible with emulators, but not the actual hardware. That's partially what spurred the development of this in the first place - so people have a solution to work with that actually works on real Snes hardware.

[Alchy]

On the cd quality music front, if I'm not mistaken aren't there already some other emulators that will hijack the rom's music calls and playback an mp3 or the like in it's place?

I've heard of that in the Sonic hacking scene. If it can't be done in hardware then I have zero interest. I also don't really understand why you're running an emulator, at that point. Might as well go the whole way and build your own application.

[MottZilla]

"Enhancement chip"? It's more of a now-hardware-accelerated enhancement hack. The hardware is totally abstracted thus pretty akin to "Hi-Res packs"; it takes cues from the SNES but is a separate entity. Lame. Worse it's simulation/high-level emulation of a device that doesn't have a true implementation in the first place and the design is so clean it's soulless. While the game hacks could potentially be cool, it's not as cool as a simple bit-banged SPI storage interface where audio was streamed to the SPC. Of course the CPU isn't actually fast enough for that during game play hence this implementation, but it would allow for extremely large games nonetheless. If on the other hand it was an Nintendo-ordained MCU with slave parallel port decoded into SNES memory, with a SD interface and audio DACs, THAT would be an enhancement chip and maybe less of a turn-off. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks this is just wrong from a design and hardware POV.

Well for gamers the hardware design POV isn't something they consider. They just want to see cool games and hacks. They don't care too much about the implementation on the hardware level.

One thing I'd like to see though would be this as a separate device, not only built into a flash cart. It's still interesting. I'm sure most find this interesting since we never got a SNES CD add-on.