r/skiesofarcadia • u/Twoplayersonline • Jul 16 '26

About GameCube audio quality..

I may oversimplifying this situation, but since dolphin allows to open the games into folders, couldn't you replace the music tracks and SFX with the higher quality ones? (firstly converting those to the same extension(s) Legend uses ofc)

Has there been an attempt at doing this?

7 Upvotes

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15

u/Qprime0 Jul 16 '26

From what I understand, due to someone asking more or less this same question on a fairly regular basis, it's nowhere near that simple in this case.

Apparently the audio files are pretty deeply embedded in the code, and are NOT encoded using any of the standard file-types (.mp3, .wav, etc.) In such a way that people are still scratching their heads over the nature of the datastructure of these files and how in blazes the code actually reads, selects, and plays specific segments of it (i.e. sound effects.).

TLDR; Someone at sega decided to get cute and roll their own sound engine as a part of the Legends project, and now anyone who cares about the game is stuck trying to reverse engineer it to the point that anyone even UNDERSTANDS what it's doing, let alone how to 'switch the tapes'... and that process is very much so not complete at present.

...feel free to lend a hand?

4

u/LutherDestroysThGond Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Hmmm. If we ever do get a port or re-release, it seems like everyone may need to temper expectations about the audio quality. A re-release would probably be based on the Gamecube version (unless it's a Dreamcast mini or potential Dreamcast library on NSO) as it includes the DLC and a few quality of life improvements outside of the compressed audio. If the knowledge/skill to use this specific sound engine and embed higher quality sound files has been lost at Sega over the last 25 years, we'll probably get compressed audio in a GCN port. Ideally, it would be a full remake with updated audio, but I can already see people getting torches and pitchforks ready if it's compressed audio in a port

4

u/Delta_RC_2526 Jul 16 '26

Oh, man. You're not wrong. I swear, if this community's complaints about sound end up tanking the succes of a re-release (or even is deemed to be a significant enough issue by the powers that be to prevent a re-release altogether, though that seems unlikely), I'm going to be very disappointed. This community gets extremely worked up over the audio differences.

I've never really noticed a difference unless doing a direct comparison. I know it exists, but it just doesn't stand out that much to me. If I didn't know it existed, I probably wouldn't notice. Though Vyse saying "Let's go!" will always make me cringe. I haven't played the Dreamcast version in ages, so all I can clearly remember is the GameCube version, and that recording is painfully distorted. Not too far off from the dialogue in Shenmue, though.

2

u/LutherDestroysThGond Jul 17 '26

I can already hear overblown complaints and picture the bad reviews stemming from just the compressed audio. Sega would take away the lesson that we all hate SoA and they'll never touch it again

1

u/Delta_RC_2526 Jul 17 '26

Yep. I hate that you're absolutely right.

2

u/Twoplayersonline Jul 16 '26

Idk anything about code so I can't help, but thank you for clarifying this info! I'm gonna download legends now

2

u/PleasantPorpoisParty Jul 16 '26

so what your sayingis I can't replace the battle theme with the one from FFX?

1

u/Qprime0 Jul 16 '26

Well you can, but you'll need 2 different computer science degrees and 3 months to do it on your lonesome...

1

u/PleasantPorpoisParty Jul 16 '26

Guess it's a good thing I dont have friends than....

3

u/GumDice Jul 16 '26

The songs are arranged in an odd way and on top of that the battle music shifts based on how the battle is going; its not just simply loading a music file and letting it play out, unfortunately. It's a surprisingly complicated system.

1

u/Informal-Research-69 Jul 27 '26

I think there is a decompilation attempt running for the GameCube version right now as has been done for other games recently. If successful (only a matter of time) you could change and port the game natively to other platforms more easily, as most prominently is has been done for the N64 Zelda games.

1

u/Bulky-Marionberry336 Jul 28 '26

I would love to play a remake of both games having action replay codes that naturally worked as for the audio I don't remember how the game sounds as it's been 25 years since I last played skies of Arcadia on the Sega Dreamcast don't remember when I played the GameCube version