The contents of this page are also visible here: http://www.neillcorlett.com/psf/faq.htmlPSF Frequently Asked Questions
Highly Experimental v2.08 supports the Winamp Advanced Title Formatting feature, which lets Winamp decide what the title format will be, rather than each individual plugin. To alter this behavior, go to Winamp's Preferences dialog, under "Titles", and see the section named "Advanced Title Formatting".
Why are some PSF sets missing certain songs, such as the opening or ending?
The PSF1 format works with sequenced music only, not streamed.
- Did you know there are existing tools like PSMPlay which can rip XA streamed songs?
- VB2rip works with various other Playstation streamed formats.
"Streamed?" "Sequenced?" What's the difference?
I'll give you an example:
- MIDI, MOD, S3M, XM, and IT are examples of sequenced formats.
- WAV, MP3, OGG, MPC, WMA, and RM are examples of streamed formats.
But I saw a streamed .PSF2 file once. What was that about?
It is possible to create PSF2 files that hold streamed music, but only under certain circumstances, and often this is impractical due to the size of ADPCM versus more advanced lossy formats such as MP3 or MPC.
I'm looking around on this game CD, and I'm not seeing any PSF files. Where are they hidden?
You'll probably never find PSF files by looking directly on game CDs. They have to be created by hand using the original game's data.
I want to rip PSFs, but your mini-howto frightens and confuses me. Can you make a PSF ripping guide for dummies?
Ripping PSFs involves knowledge of R3000 assembly. It's not for everyone.
Here's a list of games. Can you rip them? I'm not requesting, I'm just giving you ideas?
Please don't send me emails of this sort.
I noticed a new game on your TODO list. Where can I get it? Why isn't it on the mirrors yet?
If the game is listed as finished/released, it should show up on the mirrors soon.
I think you should modify the PC versions of Final Fantasy 7 and 8 to use PSF music!
Well, today's your lucky day! See
FF7 Music with FF7 PSFs from the Final Fantasy Soundfont Project.
Would you consider doing a music format for some other game system?
Saturn and Dreamcast sound formats are now under development. Besides those, I have no plans to make other music formats or players at this time.
No, but it's pretty close:
- Per-channel resampling is done with 4-point interpolation, using the same response curve as a real PSX. It also happens to be the same response curve used by the SNES, which I discovered a few years ago and called "Gaussian" because it looked a little bit like a Gaussian curve. This is the same curve used by ZSNES in "Gaussian interpolation" mode. In reality, I have no idea if it's a Gaussian function at all, but I have the table numbers and that's all that matters. (It should be a well-known fact that Sony also made the sound chip used in the SNES.)
- Envelope timing has one-sample resolution. Timing and amplitude measurements were taken from a real PSX and used to form a model of how the real enveloping hardware works, which turned out to be rather simple. I donated this information to Pete's SPU plugin project.
- I discovered how the reverb hardware works, and what all the registers do, during 3 days of intense experimentation with a test program I wrote that graphed the reverb buffer output onto the screen in realtime. I donated this information to Pete's SPU plugin project, and the Eternal SPU plugin now has a "Neill's" reverb mode as well.
That having been said, there are a few things Highly Experimental does not do:
- The exact output coefficients used for playing the contents of the reverb buffer haven't been found yet, but they're approximated fairly well.
- The exact algorithm for downsampling channel data going into the reverb buffer was never found, but it's also been approximated well enough (using an 8-point filter).
- Pitch modulation modes aren't supported, but practically no music uses this. Mostly it's just sound effects.
- SPU IRQs aren't supported, but they're only used for streaming music, which PSF1 doesn't support anyway, and there are other equally-valid ways to do it on PSF2.
Can full-size PSF soundtracks be converted to MiniPSF?
Technically yes, but the space savings would rarely be significant, or the soundtrack would have probably been ripped as
MiniPSF in the first place.
It depends on the game. Some games lend themselves well to the
MiniPSF format, such as games where all songs share a common sound bank (Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy Tactics).
I double-clicked on PSFPoint and all I got was a black window that flashed on the screen for a second.
That's because it's a command-line program. Please don't ask me how to use the command line.
I can't play files ending in .minipsf or .psf2!
I tried renaming the .RAR to .PSF and it won't play. Why not?
If you downloaded a .RAR file somewhere, it's an archive that you have to extract other files from first. See also:
What is a RAR file?
How do you convert PSF to WAV, MP3, OGG, etc.?
You can use Winamp 2's
DiskWriter feature to do this. Go to the Preferences dialog, select "Output" under "Plug-ins", and select "Nullsoft Disk Writer".
Why is the tempo is wrong in some songs?
Several possibilities:
- Try upgrading to the latest version of your player, such as Highly Experimental.
- You may be using an outdated or improper PSF set. Try finding a better copy.
- You may be running into a NTSC vs. PAL issue. Try adding _refresh=50 or _refresh=60 in the raw tag editor.
Can you add a feature to mute specific channels?
Not yet. This feature is under consideration.
I'm a musician. Can you write a PSF to MIDI converter, or something to rip samples out of PSFs?
I understand that there's a demand for these sorts of programs, but that's not my focus at this time.
"JinxIsAGoodBoy"? WTF?
Set it to 0 to disable the random pics.
CategoryPSF