Home Video Game Console Sound Chip Round-Up compiled by shifty@gweep.net thanks to Stefan Lindberg, idrougge, and painkiller ------------------------------------------------------ Apple Apple ][ - one-bit speaker ][GS - Ensoniq 5503 DOC-Chip - 32-voice 8-bit PCM synth, 16-bit freq. divider, sync, ring mod - default two channels, 8 available on sound expansion connector, 128KB waveform memory on chip. ][GS chipped with 64KB Atari - Game Consoles 2600 - TIA - 2 voice, 4-bit volume control, odd waveform selection, dreadful scale approximation due to 5-bit freq. divider 5200 - Pokey, like Atari x00's 7800 - TIA - same as 2600 Lynx - - 4 channels, 8-bit DAC for each channel Jaguar - Jerry - A 27 MIPS 32-bit DSP capable of stereo 16-bit, 44.1KHz sound, including FM, wavetable, FM sample and AM synthesis. Atari - Home Computers 400 - Pokey - 4 voice version of TIA's sound section, 8-bit freq divider or combine 2 voices for 16-bit freq divider, plus internal speaker voice 800 - Pokey - see above, plus internal speaker voice 1200 - Pokey - see above, no internal speaker voice? ST - YM-2149 - 3 voices - each pulse wave or adjustable period noise, 5-bits of duty cycle control, 12-bit freq. divider - single env (not ADSR) for total sound? some amplitude modulation, too. separate outputs for each voice. Falcon - YM-3139 Coleco Colecovision - TI SN76489A - 3 Tone Gens, Adj. noise source, indv. volume. Noise Commodore PET - "CB2" - CPU PIO pin VIC-20 - incl in VIC - 3 square waves, one octave apart, with 7-bit freq. resolution, one noise wave, global 4-bit volume, 64 - SID - 3 Voice, 16-bit freq. dividers, 4 Waveforms, sync, ring mod, ADSR env's, non-linear analog multi-mode filter Amiga- Paula 8364 - 4 Voice Variable bit rate 8-bit voices, external waveform memory, on-chip freq modulation, amplitude modulation. IBM PC - originally introduced with single voice square wave with n-bit frequency divider. A decade and a half of crappy soundcards would follow, such as the soundblasters with a single, noisy 8/16-bit 64KB stereo waveform and/or bottom-of-the-barrel Yamaha FM chips. Mattel Intellivision Master Console - GI AY-3-8914 - 3 channels of sound + noise gen. ADSR env's. Intellivision III - ? - Six channel sound MSX standard: AY-3-8910 MSX2: Yamaha YM2149 (PSG) 3 Channel Audio Note: The Yamaha YM-2149 (YM2149F) is a noise and square wave generator and is compatible to the AY-8910 (GI AY-3-8910). MSXTurbR: Sound chip: Yamaha YM2149 (PSG), Sound chip: Yamaha YM2413 (OPLL), 16 KHz, 8-bit PCM, MIDI in/out (FS-A1GT only) MSX2+: # Sound chip: Yamaha YM2149 (PSG) # Optional sound chip: Yamaha YM2413 (OPLL) (MSX-Music) The YM2413, also called OPLL, is a cost-reduced sound chip manufactured by Yamaha Corporation and based on their YM3812 (OPL2). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_YM3812 Nintendo NES - pAPU (Pseudo-Audio Processing Unit) - 4 analogue channels (2 pulse/square, 1 triangle, 1 noise) , 1 digital PCM channel. Super Nintendo - SPC-700 - programmable coprocessor, 4-bit ADPCM sampling sound x 8 tones. stereo. two adsr env's. 8 tap FIR filter. dedicated 64KB(32KB?) memory Game Boy - 4 voice: noise, freq ramp, 4-bit sample, Quadrangle Virtual Boy - 4 voice 32x6 "chip" samples, 1 voice Sweep/Modulation. 1 noise source. 13-bit samples, 41.7KHz? N64 - DSP mixes approx 13 8/16-bit PCM waveforms Sega Genesis (16) - Z80, Yamaha YM2612 and TI psg - 5 channels of 4-Operator FM and one channel 8-bit PCM. Stereo CD - 10 channels stereo FM sound, plus 8 channels of Stereo 16-bit sound at 32KHz, w/ 8X internal over-sampling digital filter 32x - - Stereo PCM chip adds 2 channels to Genesis Saturn - - stereo, 32 8/16-bit PCM voices, 32 FM voices Dreamcast Sinclar 1000 - None - there are reports of users controlling the computer's electromagnetic radiation with software and receiving this sound with AM radio Sony Playstation I - SPU - ADPCM audio source 24 Channels(!) 44.1KHz, digital effects: pitch mod, indiv. ADSR amp. env's. loop modes, reverb, 512K waveform memory. Plus MIDI Instr. Sony - Playstation II Texas Instruments TI99 4/A - TMS9919 - 3 voices, mono, 1 noise channel, indv. 4-bit volume, 6-bit freq divider links to specs on many of these chips: http://www.mameworld.net/hardware/sound.html Some reference links that should go up and down with the breeze: http://www.xmission.com/~trevin/atari/atari.html Pokey http://www.gamehunt.com/cheat/Sony_Playstation/cheat2851.html http://www.makingit.com/bluesky/tech/intelli_tech.html http://www.zophar.net/tech/colecovision.html http://www.emuclassics.com/aer/bin9/es_tiasn.txt Atari 2600 http://php.indiana.edu/~rmelick/0.htm VIC-20 http://php.indiana.edu/~rmelick/prg.txt http://www.stanford.edu/~thierry1/ti99/tms9919.htm TI 99/4A http://www.emulationzone.org/consoles/nes/tech.htm http://www.zophar.net/tech/snes.html http://www.zophar.net/tech/psx.html http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n7/stsound.html http://www.bookcase.com/library/faq/archive/apple2/soundmusic.html http://www.breezer.demon.co.uk/spec/tech/ay-3-8912.html personal notes to self: by mfg, year, complexity, user quality ratings, example sounds, link to specs, link to emulator, photos?, designer name, comments, logos