Audio quality on N64 Rayman 2 cartridge

[Adsolution]

First of all, the Nintendo 64, because of the cartridge support, would have been EFFECTIVELY (so we exclude any hypothesis) able to reproduce the soundtrack of the game in the SAME digital audio quality of the PlayStation 1 counterpart?
Yes or No? If yes, the most experienced motivate the first answer.

No. Even if it were able to, through MIDI, play back every sample used in the original soundtrack - which it can't - it wouldn't be able to live-process the plugins used beyond maybe a really basic reverb or delay.

Secondly, the choice of the (MIDI) format used for the soundtrack of Rayman 2 for Nintendo 64 has depended OF FACT on the capacity of the cartridge or the fact that the Nintendo 64 was not able to reproduce the sound in digital audio quality? I give a practical example, suppose that the developers had exploited a large cartridge twice the size of the game (from 60MB or higher if it existed) could have inserted and then SOUND, REPRODUCE, the soundtrack in the same digital audio quality of the CD format?
Yes or No?

Okay look - the largest N64 games are 64 MB. That is not enough space to fit the Rayman 2 soundtrack (nor is 128), and compression is out of the question. How hard is the math, honestly?

Frankly I have some doubts since the OFFICIAL story teaches that cartridge games have never supported digital audio except for some sound effects.
As this question is the fulcrum of the whole discussion I ask for a direct and precise answer, thank you.

I don't really know what you mean by "digital audio" in this context. All audio in games is digital, even the samples used to play back the music. There's no technical difference between a sound effect and the full, rendered music tracks played back by the PS1 version.

could have played and then play better than they did the soundtrack in the Nintendo 64 version?

This part of the question isn't legible, can you re-word it? If you're asking whether they could've done a better job than they did, then yes, they absolutely could have.

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Are you, thejack and raysak all the same person? All of you seem to have the exact same linguistic skills, way of formatting your posts and personality, insofar as manually sending me a PM every time there's a reply to this thread.

[StelzenBomber]

First of all, the Nintendo 64, because of the cartridge support, would have been EFFECTIVELY (so we exclude any hypothesis) able to reproduce the soundtrack of the game in the SAME digital audio quality of the PlayStation 1 counterpart?
Yes or No? If yes, the most experienced motivate the first answer.

No. Even if it were able to, through MIDI, play back every sample used in the original soundtrack - which it can't - it wouldn't be able to live-process the plugins used beyond maybe a really basic reverb or delay.

Secondly, the choice of the (MIDI) format used for the soundtrack of Rayman 2 for Nintendo 64 has depended OF FACT on the capacity of the cartridge or the fact that the Nintendo 64 was not able to reproduce the sound in digital audio quality? I give a practical example, suppose that the developers had exploited a large cartridge twice the size of the game (from 60MB or higher if it existed) could have inserted and then SOUND, REPRODUCE, the soundtrack in the same digital audio quality of the CD format?
Yes or No?

Okay look - the largest N64 games are 64 MB. That is not enough space to fit the Rayman 2 soundtrack (nor is 128), and compression is out of the question. How hard is the math, honestly?

Frankly I have some doubts since the OFFICIAL story teaches that cartridge games have never supported digital audio except for some sound effects.
As this question is the fulcrum of the whole discussion I ask for a direct and precise answer, thank you.

I don't really know what you mean by "digital audio" in this context. All audio in games is digital, even the samples used to play back the music. There's no technical difference between a sound effect and the full, rendered music tracks played back by the PS1 version.

could have played and then play better than they did the soundtrack in the Nintendo 64 version?

This part of the question isn't legible, can you re-word it? If you're asking whether they could've done a better job than they did, then yes, they absolutely could have.

---

Are you, thejack and raysak all the same person? All of you seem to have the exact same linguistic skills, way of formatting your posts and personality, insofar as manually sending me a PM every time there's a reply to this thread.

how big is rayman 2 anyway? (pc/ dreamcast) over1 gig?

[Steo]

Dreamcast GD-ROM discs could hold 1GB of data. The sounds on the Dreamcast are also only 22kHz to save spece even though they had 1GB of space to work with vs the N64 version so there wasn't a chance of getting the soundtrack on the cartridge. Maybe a few tracks would be able to fit but it'd be counterproductive when they had so little space to work with to begin.

I do agree that they could've done a better job with some of the music though as some of the N64 MIDI music actually sounds great. Or maybe that's only because I'm comparing them to the actual tracks.

[uuseu]

I think the MIDI work in the N64 version is... mediocre. That's my biggest gripe with it. They do well to convey the feel of the originals, but they sound so flat and barren when compared to something like SM64's soundtrack which sounds absolutely fantastic. It's crisp, hard-hitting, and - let's be honest - sounds better than a lot of other produced CD soundtracks of the era.

Well, yourself have defined the adaptation of the soundtrack done by the developers on the Nintendo 64 version mediocre, but from what I see they did everything possible instead, so they could not do better than that, right?

Why only have some tracks be MIDI and others not? I'd rather everything stay consistent. They could probably fit the entire CD soundtrack onto the cartridge, but it would have to be compressed to such a terrible extent.

Okay, but anyway the Nintendo 64 would have been unable to play in the same CD quality, so what would have changed even if they were able to insert the entire CD soundtrack? It would have played in midi anyway and nothing would have changed.

Nintendo 64 is NOT able to reproduce this quality:
https://youtu.be/7prVkV7bFi0

useu wrote:
could have played and then play better than they did the soundtrack in the Nintendo 64 version?
This part of the question isn't legible, can you re-word it? If you're asking whether they could've done a better job than they did, then yes, they absolutely could have.

I mean: they (developers) could have done better than they did with N64 version audio? That's all.

[The Jonster]

useu wrote:
could have played and then play better than they did the soundtrack in the Nintendo 64 version?
This part of the question isn't legible, can you re-word it? If you're asking whether they could've done a better job than they did, then yes, they absolutely could have.

I mean: they (developers) could have done better than they did with N64 version audio? That's all.

Well I guess that answers Ad's question (well to an extent anyway)

[Steo]

It's only because of the memory as Hoodcom already posted. Nothing would even stop the NES hardware from playing digital audio if you wanted it to.

MIDI is data which is basically an arrangement that tells the console what sounds to play and what pitch to play them at, so it's not actual sound itself.

Memory limitation is literally the answer to this question.

[kstone]

Reading this old discussion and turning on the net, on YouTube specifically, I tried to listen to the audio tracks of different games published for both Nintendo 64 and Playstation, such as Spiderman, Nascar and some others that I do not remember now. Of course I can not look around the entire N64 library games converted on Playstation and then I went on those I already knew and that were not exclusive Nintendo.
I would add that I also wanted to hear the soundtrack of V-Rally 2 to hear if there were differences in the audio of the two versions but the N64 version and Playstation are in itself two different games, making it impossible to make an effective comparison.

At this point I ask you, besides Rayman 2 The Great Escape, which is the one whose difference between the soundtrack of N64 and Playstation is more marked, there are other titles published on both platforms in which the audio difference is so evident? If yes, could you kindly post some videos of the game in question highlighting the comparison on how "sounds" on N64 compared to the counterpart with CD support (PlayStation or PC) just like the case of Rayman 2 himself?

I can not think that the case of Rayman 2 is the only conversion from Nintendo 64 to PlayStation in which the soundtracks results so different.

I await answers. Thank you.

[rayblast]

Reading this old discussion and turning on the net, on YouTube specifically, I tried to listen to the audio tracks of different games published for both Nintendo 64 and Playstation, such as Spiderman, Nascar and some others that I do not remember now. Of course I can not look around the entire N64 library games converted on Playstation and then I went on those I already knew and that were not exclusive Nintendo.
I would add that I also wanted to hear the soundtrack of V-Rally 2 to hear if there were differences in the audio of the two versions but the N64 version and Playstation are in itself two different games, making it impossible to make an effective comparison.

At this point I ask you, besides Rayman 2 The Great Escape, which is the one whose difference between the soundtrack of N64 and Playstation is more marked, there are other titles published on both platforms in which the audio difference is so evident? If yes, could you kindly post some videos of the game in question highlighting the comparison on how "sounds" on N64 compared to the counterpart with CD support (PlayStation or PC) just like the case of Rayman 2 himself?

I can not think that the case of Rayman 2 is the only conversion from Nintendo 64 to PlayStation in which the soundtracks results so different.

I await answers. Thank you.

Guys no one who knows?

[rixu]

Just no one??

[maggotsecond]

Reading this old discussion and turning on the net, on YouTube specifically, I tried to listen to the audio tracks of different games published for both Nintendo 64 and Playstation, such as Spiderman, Nascar and some others that I do not remember now. Of course I can not look around the entire N64 library games converted on Playstation and then I went on those I already knew and that were not exclusive Nintendo.
I would add that I also wanted to hear the soundtrack of V-Rally 2 to hear if there were differences in the audio of the two versions but the N64 version and Playstation are in itself two different games, making it impossible to make an effective comparison.

At this point I ask you, besides Rayman 2 The Great Escape, which is the one whose difference between the soundtrack of N64 and Playstation is more marked, there are other titles published on both platforms in which the audio difference is so evident? If yes, could you kindly post some videos of the game in question highlighting the comparison on how "sounds" on N64 compared to the counterpart with CD support (PlayStation or PC) just like the case of Rayman 2 himself?

I can not think that the case of Rayman 2 is the only conversion from Nintendo 64 to PlayStation in which the soundtracks results so different.

I await answers. Thank you.

I can not believe that no other conversion has suffered an analogous fate to the audio sub-fund how Rayman 2? Does nobody know other titles with so much audio difference between versions?