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Some information about UCDM - The Software Soundchip


Copyright
---------
The UCDM-players TAMMANY, TERMODY, NIKITA, RACHEL, BANSHEE, NAISHEE,
ANGELICA, CATHRYN and MORTICIA are Copyright NEW CORE SOFTWARE and may
not be used or included in any commercial software without our written
permission. Nor may they be changed or rewritten in any way.

Registered Octalyser users are allowed to include the UCDM-players in
their own non-commercial software. We consider Shareware and 
Licenceware as non-commercial as long as the accumulated sale of the title
brings in less than 1000 GBP. If the income from your title exceeds 
1000 GBP you are obliged to send 10% of the profit to New Core 
Software.

Unregistered Octalyser users are only allowed to use our UCDM-players
from within the Octalyser.

The UCDM-standard is public domain so anyone is allowed to write 
his own Players and Feeders. The ASCII-string beginning 362 bytes from
the start of every player states who owns its copyright.


What is UCDM?
-------------
UCDM is simply a standard for replayroutines, consisting of two parts,
Players (UMP) and Feeders. A Feeder reads the songdata, translates it
into sampleadresses, volumes and frequencies with which it feeds the
player, that makes the actuall replay (the heavy bit).

The idea is that every user shall be able to combine these two routines
so it suits him the best. I have a large variety of players from 12.5 kHz
4 voice with no volume control taking approximately 12% CPU-time on a
normal STE, to an 8 voice 25 kHz player taking aproximately 95 % CPU-time.

In the same way I can easily make different feeders ranging from normal
Tracker- or Quartet-Feeders to EPSS lookalike MID-file-Feeders, thus
beeing able to play all known songformats without having to rewrite the
whole replayroutine. However, the only Feeder I've written so far is a
CORESONG-Feeder (my own fileformat, more about this later), the Feeder
in Octalyser is written by Code.

How do I use UCDM in Octalyser?
-------------------------------
Octalyser has a built a Feeder, so the only thing you have to do is to
load the desired Player from the UCDM-menu and activate it.
If you then play a module you will probably notice that toneslides sounds
terrible. To make it sound better you simply increase the variable in the
UCDM-menu marked 'TO' and then activate it again. The higher the value,
the better will toneslides, tonevibratos and finetune-settings sound, but
the more memory will the Player take if it uses a frequency-table (like
Tammany).
If you are using 60 Hz screenupdate (including a Falcon in VGA-mode)
the players will mess with the 8-channel-editor and make it flicker.
Tammany doesn't work any good with the 8-channel-editor at all.


Why should I use UCDM in the Octalyser?
---------------------------------------
The internal Octalyser replay routine is written to be flexible and take
smallest possible amount of memory. My UCDM routines are more speciallised
and have therefore some other advantages and disadvantages. Tammany for
example plays 8 voices in 25 kHz on a normal STE, with other words it's
a lot faster than the internal routine. On the downside it takes a lot of
memory and some calculations are a bit rough, which results in a slightly
distorted sound (you will probably not notice it if you don't listen very
carefully).
If you are a Falcon-owner you should absolutely use the Players called
Naishee and Banshee, that takes better use of Falcons increased resources.


How do I use UCDM in my own programs?
-------------------------------------
To use UCDM and Octalysermodules in your own programs you will need a
Feeder that can read modules or CORESONG-files (modules can easily be
converted to CORESONGs). If you register Octalyser, we will send you a
CORESONG-Feeder, a Module-to-CORESONG-converter and one or two more
UCDM-Players (among them Rachel, the fast 12.5 kHz player).
Why we use our own fileformat is that it is more compact than a module
(the songdata (not samples) takes about 20 % of it's original size) and
that we want to put the song and samples in two different files, so you
can have more than one song in your program using the same samples.
You will, of course, also receive a simple example-source in assembler
(if demand is high enough we can also fix examplelistings in STOS
GFA-Basic, C or Pascal). Please make sure that you follow the rules
stated in the Copyright-section above.


Information about the UCDM-Players
----------------------------------
Here follows some technical information about the UCDM-Players supplied
with Octalyser. All CPU-time is refered to a standard STE if nothing else
is stated.

ANGELICA - This is a new 50 kHz 4 voice player that replaces TERMODY,
           which was delivered with the earlier versions of Octalyser.
           It's based around the same Algorithm as Termody and plays
           four voices in REAL 50 kHz (no 25 kHz multiplex as in 
           Protrackers `Hi-Speed 50').
           The main differences between Angelica and Termody is that
           Angelica supports CIA-timing (The B-flag in Octalyser can 
           be set), takes a lot less memory, is Falcon-compatibel and
           gives better soundqualithy. Besides, it's also a lot slower
           than Termody but still fast enough for Octalyser.
           I really recommend you to use this player as your premiere
           player for 4-voice modules since it gives the best possible
           soundquality and supports everything in the Octalyser.
           It uses the blitter, which will make the lower border 
           flicker when used in 60 Hz. 

TAMMANY - This is a 25 kHz Multiplex 8 voice player taking a maximum of
          about 95% CPU-time, but it varies a lot depending on the
          amount of voices actually playing and effects in use.
          It takes quite a lot of memory and distorts the sound a 
          little bit, although it is very hard to hear.
          Falconcompatible and uses the blitter. Does not support
          CIA-timing. Can't be used together with the 8-voice-editor
          since the blitter is called anywhere during the first 200
          scanlines, making the screen flicker since it disturbs a 
          very important interrupt.
          
CATHRYN - This player was meant to replace Tammany fully. It takes 
          half the amount of memory that Tammany does, it supports
          CIA-timing, it doesn't disturb the 8-voice-editor and takes
          a maximum of a little more than 80% CPU-time. Unfortunately
          it takes more CPU-time in average than Tammany and it also
          sounds a little bit worse, especially when using very high-
          pitched samples since it's not using Multiplex. The sound-
          difference should be about the same as between Protrackers
          normal 25 kHz and 50 kHz Hi-Speed. 
          If you're low on memory or using the 8-voice-editor I 
          recommend you to use Cathryn instead of Tammany.
           
NAISHEE - Is a 4 channel 16-bit 50 kHz Falcon-only player. Since I can't
          program the DSP yet, this runs on the 68030, taking nearly half
          it's processortime. The reason that it's this slow is that I
          have used the slowest kind of replayroutines in order to increase
          the replayquality as high as possible. It doesn't distort the
          sound at all and the 16-bit output makes sure that it takes
          use of all eight bits of the samples even when playing at low
          volume. Supports CIA-timing. Takes almost no memory at all.

BANSHEE - This is an 8 voice version of NAISHEE. It's slow, but plays
          eight voices at highest possible quality.
          
ATTENTION!!!!
-------------
BOTH NAISHEE AND BANSHEE ARE UNSTABLE!!!
They might crash Octalyser anytime and will almost certainly do it 
within 2 hours of use. I have probably spent more than 100 hours trying
to debug them and can only say that they contain no bug whatsoever!!!
I honestly believe that I have run into some kind of hardwarebug in 
the Falcon's sound-system. The routine runs without a hitch if the 
soundchip is turned off and the computer won't crash either if I turn 
on the soundchip and stop the routine, they simply doesn't seem to be 
getting along very well...
The crashes I had were extremely suspicious. According to MonST I had 
once gotten a Line-F exception during a "addq.l	#1,a0" and the other 
crashes I had left totally different, but equally suspicious, 
errormessages.
I shall run a couple of new tests that has come to my mind as soon as I 
have got the time. 


NIKITA  - This is a slow 25 kHz multiplex, 4 voice Player taking nearly
          no memory at all. No distortion either. It should give the
          same soundquality as the internal player. The only difference
          is that this uses multiplex instead of Anti-Alias, so all of
          you that have argued about which method gives the best
          quality can now make comparisons. The reason I wrote this
          is that there absolutely is need for a normal allround-player
          for gameintros etc.  Falcon compatible.

And to all of you that wonder why I name the players like this I have
no good answer except that it's easier to talk about 'NIKITA' than
25KHZM4V.UMP (which would mean 25 kHz, Multiplex, 4 voices) and that
I give them names that I like.


OTHER UCDM-PLAYERS
------------------

I have written three UCDM-Players that are not in this package:

RACHEL - This player is totally oriented towards fastest possible 
         replay. It plays 4 voices in 12.5 kHz without volume-control
         and doesn't take more than 12 % CPU-time. It doesn't take so
         much memory either, making it THE player for demos or games
         containing a lot of movement.
         
MORTICIA - This player was written for Unique Development Sweden and will 
           be used in their game called "OBSESSION" which will be a 
           totally fabulous pinball-game. The player uses 5 voices in
           25 kHz (4 for the music and 1 for the soundeffects).
           This will not be distributed to others than softwarehouses
           that are ready to pay for it.

TERMODY - This is an old 50 kHz player. It plays 4 voices in 50 kHz
          and don't take more than 60% CPU-time. But it totally eats
          memory, might produce some clicking sounds now and then, is
          not Falcon compatibel, doesn't support CIA-timing and 
          distorts the sound a bit more than any other of my players.
          Because of all these negative side-effects I decided to not
          bundle it with the Octalyser anymore (it was bundled with 
          all earlier versions of the Octalyser).
          If anybody wants it, then just send me enough money for a 
          disk, envelope and stamp and I will send it to you.



If anybody out there is interested in writing UCDM Players and/or Feeders,
then feel free to contact me for information.

If somebody out there want to write UCDM-Players for the Amiga or Macintosh
in order to create a standard (would be useful when converting games
between platforms) they are very welcome to contact me.

Happy UCDM-using out there!


                         Best wishes

                 Tord Jansson ( Blade of New Core )
