In fact, according to Lin Lixin's original plan, he intended to open a separate production line to produce sound effect cards.
However, since professional DSP audio processors and general-purpose CPU processors are completely different things, the workload they would need to handle would be far too great.
Putting aside Vivian, who was utterly frustrated by this demand, this approach was indeed far too unwise.
Since it's designed for arcades, cost control doesn't need to be as strict.
If we really want to completely upgrade the next generation of consoles with Hi-Fi audio quality, then we can consider collaborating with Motorola or designing a completely new circuit board ourselves.
Actually, using processors as sound cards is not a new thing in the industry.
In the late 1990s, Rockwell Automation, located in Wisconsin, attempted to use ARM...
Use the processor to make the sound card.
Although that thing was still far inferior to a proper DSP sound card, it did prove that this approach was viable.
One week later.
Michael received an invitation from Lin Lixin to visit the GAMENOVA headquarters again.
Besides the familiar gaming equipment, what awaited him this time was a completely new gadget he had never seen before.
It was a black box, completely encased in an outer shell, with only a few essential interfaces remaining.
Next to it is a modified vinyl player, with several Michael Jack records stacked beside it.
Of course, there's also a pair of big guys here, a set of high-powered monitor speakers.
"What is this? It looks like an effects pedal."
With Lin Lixin's instruction, Michael came closer and examined the small black box carefully.
From the outside, this thing looks no different from the amp heads and other effects pedals commonly used by musicians.
As the undisputed King of Pop, Michael has been exposed to these kinds of things his whole life.
He's handled countless studio-grade Mike that are worth more than gold.
"Almost there. This is a sound card, and this is a digital recording device we hastily put together."
Lin Lixin picked up the black box, which was already covered with cables.
Throughout history, the ability to perfectly record the beautiful sounds of the physical world has been a pursuit that has captivated countless people.
In this golden age, every recording studio was equipped with the most advanced and expensive hardware systems available at the time.
Only in this way can the musicians' superb performance be presented to the eager fans without reservation.
However, what Lin Lixin and his team needed to do was not that complicated.
All you need to do is transcribe the high-fidelity audio into the highest possible data format, and then figure out a way to dynamically play it as needed during game runtime.
"Click"
He gently pressed one of the buttons on it.
Immediately, with almost no background noise, the monitor speakers began playing " Smooth Criminal," a song that had been pre-recorded to the sound card.
"AnnieAreYouOkay?"
Michael looked surprised.
A well-trained ear can easily distinguish between good and bad sound quality and timbre.
Admittedly, it is still somewhat inferior to a true live recording or studio master tape.
But compared to the various mainstream digital playback devices nowadays, whether it's tape or CD, it has already won.
They won too much.
"It's completely digital; the entire piece is stored as data on the sound card, requiring no additional storage media."
o
Lin Lixin then explained, "Through the program, I can make it almost omnipotent, starting playback at any point, or extracting any segment, even—"
He smiled, gave Michael a look that said "stay tuned," and then turned a knob on the black box.
Suddenly, Michael's eyes widened.
Because he sensed a strong and obvious change in his vocal tract.
It was as if the orchestra that was playing the music started to move to one side.
The sound traveled from right to left, then seemed to circle around behind me before returning to the right side, finally stopping directly in front of me again.
But Lin Lixin seemed unsatisfied after doing all that, and started turning several other knobs.
As he spun around, the sound rose and fell, sometimes seeming to be on the horizon, and sometimes leaping right in front of him.
This is real-time dynamic stereo rendering!
Achieving a lifelike, immersive sound effect using only two speakers!
Moreover, it does not achieve all this by dynamically adjusting the volume of the two speakers, but by processing the data at the encoding and decoding level.
These two speakers are simply playing back the signals transmitted to them by the sound card.
"Hey-hey."
Lin Lixin put on a smug look, this thing was truly his masterpiece, "It's a pity that time was tight, and I didn't have time to prepare a complete test platform. This little guy has many more functions."
While using a CPU to emulate a DSP results in a loss of some performance, it also gives it more powerful scalability.
This tool integrates a complete API written by Lin Lixin for real-time waveform stream processing.
Simply put, it's like the hardware acceleration OpenGL embedded in Nova Radeon; it's a hardware-accelerated sound card with a large number of easy-to-use functions built in.
"Look, these knobs actually represent the parameters we'll pass to it in the game later."
"Parameter?"
"Yes, for example, the player's current location coordinates."
Lin Lixin drew a square on the whiteboard, then casually drew a black dot to represent the player.
"Look, if the player is currently near the bottom left corner, we can transmit this position data to this audio chip in real time. Guess what will happen?"
Michael's eyes lit up, and he immediately understood how this system could be integrated with the game.
"You mean—they can actually hear the changes in stereo sound depending on the player's position?"
"That's right, that's exactly it."
Lin Lixin smiled and nodded, "Of course, this thing can also be used for sound effects processing and volume equalization mixing. Theoretically speaking, I've already programmed all the necessary functions for it."
"All of these things—were all done within this week?"
Michael stared blankly at the unassuming black box.
Even if he goes to the recording studio to record a new single, it will probably take him a week to arrive.
He had long heard that GAMENOVA's production capacity was terrifying, but this was the first time he had witnessed it firsthand.
"Yes, as long as you have a clear idea, the workload isn't too bad."
Over the past week, Gerald worked on the assembly, Vivian arranged for prototyping, and Lin Lixin began writing the API for this hardware layer.
The three of them worked together, and their efficiency was simply terrifying.
As an arcade game tailor-made for Michael Jack, this level of audio chip was essential in Lin Lixin's view.
"That's amazing!"
One has to marvel at how magical the digital world truly is.
By simply piecing together a bunch of electronic components, this incredible effect can be achieved.
"By the way, the reason I invited you here today, Maikou, wasn't just to show off this little baby."
The claim that the game was "tailor-made for Michael Jack " is not simply about using his songs as background music.
"I hope you can do the voice acting for the game's main character, including the sound effects for all kinds of moves."
These are the essential elements of the soul.
Just like Bruce Lee's highly recognizable battle cry, Maikou's shout is also quite distinctive.
Incorporating these elements into a game is essentially like Guile and his enchanting Shuting.
"Of course! Lin, of course!"
Michael was already prepared for this, and even had an expectant smile on his face.
A game where you are the protagonist should naturally have your own voice acting.
This will definitely be very interesting----
"Hey, that's good, but before that, we have other things to do."
Which other game company in the world could invite Michael Jackson himself to participate in the game development process like they have?
Globally, only Sega has ever achieved such an honor.
Having finally seized this opportunity, one should naturally make the most of it.
Michael Jack has one major and fundamental difference from other artists in the film and music industries.
That means all of Michael Jack's copyrights are held by his own Mijac Music Publishing Company, not by those mainstream large publishing companies.
This made the collaboration between the two parties much smoother than expected, and even reached a depth that other artists could hardly achieve.
This is a comprehensive strategic partnership that extends to all aspects, including copyright and voice-over.
As long as Michael himself agrees, even his image can be used without reservation.
"Image?"
"Yes, I hope to use you, Maikou, as the body model. As for the costume design, I'll choose the ' Smooth Criminal ' music video."
The white suit and fedora in the picture.
After saying that, Lin Lixin directly pulled out a draft concept drawing.
The picture shows exactly what Lin Lixin had just described, and it's exactly the same as Michael's outfit in " Smooth Criminal ".
"It's not just about character design; according to my plan, I intend to design all of the protagonist's moves to be based on your famous dance moves."
Lin Lixin continued flipping through the documents on the table, showing them to Michael one by one.
In addition to the classic moonwalk and 45-degree forward lean, it also includes moves like front kicks and hat tossing.
"I tried to replicate these movements by hand, but after trying, I realized that no matter how excellent my drawing skills are, it can't compare to the spirit of you performing them yourself."
Prior to this, GAMENOVA had already experimented with all sorts of strange and unusual techniques in action design.
The most classic example is the rotoscoping machine used in early Street Fighter and the King of Fighters games.
They had Schwarzenegger and Brandon Lee perform the planned moves in front of the camera, and then used a rotoscoping machine to project the images onto a canvas, which Lin Lixin and his team traced stroke by stroke.
This approach does indeed produce animations that are both highly precise and smooth.
This time, Lin Lixin does not intend to continue using this technology, or at least will not use it completely.
Even as he was drawing these sketches, he remembered a request that Lucas had made to him some time ago.
Due to time constraints, this matter has not yet had the opportunity to be formally implemented.
Now it seems like a good opportunity to take a bold step and try.