In the European version, the options menu has three different languages, but the American and Japanese versions don't have a language selection, with the options menu containing only sound options and the language being locked into English or Japanese, respectively.Speaking of background change above, this one from the "Game Over" screen was also changed in the iQue version.The background was changed in the iQue version, just to let you know what version you're playing. The Shindou version has a unique graphic on the bottom right of the screen, used to indicate that a Rumble Pak can be used. The intro screen says PRESS START in the US and Japanese versions, but just START in the European version.The copyright info was also updated to reflect the European and Shindou releases, and iQue, in addition, that iQue has an extra copyright year (2003, the year that the iQue was released).The "TM" texture has 3 different colors and a different font in Europe, Shindou and iQue (JP/US white, PAL orange, Shindou/iQue blue).The SUPER MARIO 64 logo was squashed a bit in the European version and it was completely changed in iQue. ![]() Doing so would guarantee only 5% cpu power allocated to sound, so most developers, even big ones, used this method.General Differences Title Screen Japan/North America GBA sound is literally just two digital sound channels, one for left ear one for right ear (if you didnt care about headphone users you only needed one channel).ĭS audio is kinda similar, except that it has 16 digital audio channels rather than just two, and Nintendo recommended that developers use them for mod-style music, pre-loading instruments into the 16 channels and then using those for the music. It can sound amazing or like crap, it’s up to the developers, their sound engine, how much processing power they allocate to it, how much cart space they use to store samples. Other than games using the GBC sound chip inside the GBA, all of its sounds including music are pure samples, they can make it sound like whatever the heck they want completely orchestrated, someone singing, 8-bit chip tune, demo-style tracked mod music, whatever. until it was repurposed and reused for the 3DS!Ĭlick to shrink.GBA music doesn’t really have a sound. ![]() The DSi would thankfully bring back the dedicated audio DSP chip, though it didn't see all that much utilisation outside of DSi Sound. Though the DS' audio capabilities are still very limited overall (in some ways, still inferior to the SNES), it was a big step up over GBA. Game developers on the DS basically worked exclusively on the ARM 9.Ĭouple this with the vast increase in ROM storage space available, and you get a big improvement in sound quality over the GBA. It was dedicated to handling Wireless communications, I/O, Touchscreen and Audio and these were presented as plug-in APIs for developers (in terms of sound, this was simply presented as 16 audio channels to the developer). However, unlike the GBA, the ARM 7 was treated as a black box and was basically off limits to developers you couldn't really do any custom coding on it. Much like the N64 and GBA, all of the DS' sound processing was done in software on the ARM 7 processor. The DS didn't have a dedicated sound processor at all. But assuming it does have 16 sound channels, then that means it could play 16 simultaneous sounds without really using the CPU much at all. GBATek (the famous, big GBA/DS hardware document from hackers) also says that the DS has 16 hardware sound channels, a fact that one person here on Resetera disputed, but I didn't verify either way. In most, if not every Nintendo DS game, that second CPU is dedicated entirely to playing sounds and music. The second CPU is actually the same as the GBA's CPU, but it's twice as fast. ![]() The Nintendo DS, on the other hand, not only has a much faster CPU, it also has two CPUs. It also takes less CPU power to mix less sounds together, so a lot of GBA music might not be composed in a way that has a lot of simultaneous instruments playing, to fill out the music. It takes less CPU power to mix lower quality sounds together, so a lot of GBA music has lower quality sounds to save on CPU power. This means that if a game on the GBA wants to play more than 2 simultaneous sounds, then it will need to use precious CPU power to combine, or mix, some sounds together. Not including the GBC sound hardware, the GBA hardware has two sound channels for playing custom sounds.
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