Hello, all. 1st post here, so be gentle.

My dream is to use orchestrated versions of tunes I have on CD of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games in SNES ROMs as opposed to the MIDI synth versions we're all used to. Although the SNES CPU didn't have the power to play MP3s, I'm wondering if it would be possible to make this a reality via emulators. Or if it would be possible to bundle in the WAVs into the game.

I realize how bloated the ROM would eventually get, but I can't say that I care too much about its eventual size.

***My goal is to be playing my favorite RPGs and hear the orchestrated soundtracks in all their glory in real-time.***

Can this be done? I have zero programming experience, but can supply the tracks for this project.

d4s did something similar in his BoF2 hack, Monovibes sound system he called it.
Not sure if it was mp3s in particular, but he added the song from the BoF2 commercial.

Nah. I actually meant if the ROM itself could be hacked for this. Apparently, it could theoretically be done, but only up to 6 megs.

Playing Dragon Quest 8 with the symphonic music spoiled me. Going back to MIDI synth when I listen to the symphonic stuff on my MP3 player all the time was a letdown.

... without non-standard address decoders in the "cartridge" (i.e. ROM + emulator). You could hack the game to use a custom "mapper".

Huh???

Who cares if it doesn't play on the real hardware? Emulators have a million features the actual hardware lacks, so whether it works on an actual SNES or not is a moot point. I specified in my original thread that how big the ROM gets doesn't matter. Even if the sound files would need to be in WAV and therefore the ROM would bloat to 900 megs, it wouldn't bother me at all.

Due to the fact that I'm entirely inexperienced in the programming field, how much work is involved in creating a custom mapper? I just assumed (wrongfully, I guess) that you could "reroute" the musical points to various files outside of the ROM or different sections from within that same ROM (MP3 integrated into the ROM).

I don't mind this, so long as you no longer claim the result as an SNES game, because it's not. What you're doing, in effect, is creating fictional hardware that never existed and likely never will. Even if someone deigns to produce a "cartridge" of such a thing (and I can't even imagine what kind of Frankenstein's Monster monstrosity it'd be) it would never see anything even close to wide release, where "wide" is defined by the number of units needed to accomplish a successful commercial release, irregardless of publication rights or licensing. Even most HK or Taiwanese pirates saw more than 1000 units produced, I'd wager.

Modifying an emulator to properly hook into a fictional mapper is an interesting theoretical question and technical challenge, but I don't think the result can even be tangentially classified as "romhacking" or "emulation."

The difference is that we work within the confines of the system. Our hacks on the original hardware - a lot of people have copiers or flashcarts, have played hacked games on their systems, and can verify this. (I own a copier, myself.) It's not splitting hairs at all - what you suggest requires the modification of the SNES's inherent capabilities and not just the original game. You're talking about the emulation of hardware that does not exist in any physical form. This is fine, but it's not emulation - it's bytecode or virtual machine or whatever the hell Java and the like are.

This is different because you're talking about modifying the system at the absolute base level. Graphical filters or savestates are something different - they take the resulting output of the original hardware and spiff it up a bit. Creating a new mapper based conceptual hardware and then writing code to "emulate" that virtual hardware is something else entirely.

Please tell me I'm misunderstanding you and you're not advocating rewriting an entire game from scratch just to add a small feature or two, after I just posted on how absurd an idea that was :/

It would take me maybe two or three days to get an SNES game hacked and playing MPEGs and streaming audio. It would take me maybe two or three years to port an entire game to the PC, and it'd never be even close to identical to the original. Little details like algorithms for battle damage would be different, etc.

The idea really is a cool one. It would only work though if we could all agree and standardize on an interface for the new features. But that'd never happen. Most people don't even want to acknowledge the potential of the idea. However, I do agree that we should be very careful not to call it an SNES game. Because it would not be. Yes, anything can be ... fuck, you can hardwire a Core 2 Duo and use it in an SNES game if you want. Or stick an eSATA connector on the top of a cart. But since nobody has it but you, and it was never commercially sold (not to mention officially), it doesn't really matter whether or not a hardware proof of concept exists.

The semantics are important: with idiots like Cowering indexing anything ending in SMC, it would easily blur the line between what really is an SNES-compatible game, and what is specific to one particular emulator. We already have this problem with fan translations. I've received more than one bug report now about a fan translation not working on my emulator, when the reality is that it doesn't work on real hardware, either. It just so happened to run on emulators that failed to emulate the SNES' limitations. Some people go out of their way to verify their works run on real hardware, eg Gideon with his recent re-release of Ys 4, and they should be commended for that. We don't want to dillute emulation in the future to accomodate hacks.

I would absolutely be using a new file extension for this. I'd probably even make a separate emulator and not call that an SNES emulator anymore.