pouët.net

This release features the new optimized 'Pretracker 1.6' replayer
to allow easier use in intros (less rastertime, smaller replayer).

The PreTracker synth precalcs all samples on startup. For actual replaying packed register dumps are used which get decompressed at runtime. The iterative PreTracker packer tries to find a balance between song size, decompression performance and final size when compressed with Shrinkler. Longer songs pack better and filesize doesn't grow linearly with playtime.

The song 'Plastic Dove' from Abyss' 'Coda' intro is used as example. The original register dump takes 153.568 bytes. The packed file takes 12.802 bytes (for a duration of 1 minute and 35 seconds). Much better pack ratios are possible but cause larger files when finally compressed by Shrinkler.

The replayer takes around 10 rasterlines on A500 and needs no interrupts.
This includes the mandatory 8 rasterlines DMA wait which are needed by PreTracker tunes that use certain features. In this intro a slightly smaller but slower version is used (this gains another 1000 bytes in the final size).

Thanks Rez. Credits must of course also go to Mariya Takeuchi.

Thanks. More or less inverted visuals of yours :)