Moguta

o.o I would never have guessed that. Thanks! And I was trying the darndest to figure out a way to holster my guns, too. Just hold in reload? Wow. Yeah, ever since Morrowind became a runaway hit on the original Xbox, Bethesda has been making their interfaces for console gamepads. For the PC, they literally just translate gamepad buttons to computer buttons. I mean... because directional pads only have 8 directions, we can only use numbers 1-8 for hotkey items. They didn't even bother to extend the capacity to all 10 keyboard number keys. And despite all the unused keyboard buttons... there's no pulling up the map with M, or going right to your inventory with I. Just Tab and a lot of clicking back-and-forth. And one of the most frustrating things for PC users, too, is how you have to use different buttons to exit different interfaces. We're used to Esc does everything, but no, you have to Tab out of the Pip-Boy, E out of an inventory exchange, and Esc out of the main menu. At least mods let us dress the interface so it better fits the PC, like this: Default Barter Menu DarNified Barter Menu

Nice work, dude. For my private "http://www.ocremix.org" album graphic, I had just cropped the OCR headphone/gamepad graphic (up there in the left top corner). But your little design has a sweet vibe to it that my hacked-together graphic doesn't, I think I'll use yours instead.

Wait, the Pip-Boy has a flashlight? I don't see mention of it in the manual or anything... Is it a special item? Haha, amen to that! Also, I swear I'm going to try to clean this up and get it on the GNR playlist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgjDftd5Ldk

Nice work, and thanks for getting it out to us, Joe Public. More comments when I'm less asleep, perhaps.

Well, dang. I was just about to suggest using DownThemAll! But since multiple copies of each MP3 are linked, it would want to download all those duplicates too. Still, rather than dealing with 30 separate "Save As..." dialogs, you can still use something like DownThemAll! to select each link & save them all to the same location at once.

Hey. You can't say that about Argyle! Also, for all those owning the PC version who want a little more variety in their Galaxy News Radio playlists, there's now a mod that inserts 40 more 78RPM recordings from the 20s-40s era: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=1418

Ah, you're right. This website shows exactly what you were saying. I was envisioning a vertical flip of that curve, thinking that an exponential fade would use the form -(c^x), not c^(-x). Ooops. Back on topic, I think when I burn this soundtrack to an MP3-CD for my portable/car players, I'm probably going to join the regular & heavy damage tracks, since they're meant to be heard together & shuffling would separate them. Hopefully I can pull that off gracefully. o.o

It seems that in order to make an input plugin in Songbird, you need to make a GStreamer plugin, since they rely on that media streaming library. If an API wrapper is possible, that would be nice, but somehow I don't think it would work so swell. I have heard a lot of plugin authors over on the Winamp boards state that they have to use messy "hacks" to accomplish certain things... hacks that I'm guessing try to jump Winamp's API altogether and access the core program. Plus native development gives the opportunity for a nice, clean start.

Ahh, you're completely right! I was thinking in my head that all videogame chiptunes are from ROM-rips, and had completely forgotten about the original chiptune scene. Somehow, I'm a little doubtful that this niche-use will convince Songbird devs, though. Honestly, I think that if Songbird gets enough nerd-popularity -- which it's already well on-course to do (I mean, hell, it's based on Mozilla) -- then chiptune support will eventually materialize. And probably also due to the continual prodding of a certain AnSo. I wonder what it takes, exactly, to make a Songbird input add-on.

I have high hopes for Songbird, and I do support the idea of it playing VGM chiptunes. However, AnSo, one significant roadblock I see to the official Songbird team implementing chiptune support is that no chiptunes come from legal sources. Just as in WinAmp, if Songbird supports these formats in the future, I bet it will be from 3rd party plugins made on someone's free time.

D-Rux and I have a room to share, as long as people are comfortable with crashing on the floor (or alternating nights between bed & floor). PM me if interested!

Congratulations guys, on a soundtrack terrifically done! The sound quality for the entire project is top-notch! Thanks to whoever encoded this stuff in FLAC... despite the earlier discussions of the unpopularity of FLAC, whoever did this certainly knew what they were doing, even embedding album artwork in the files & applying ReplayGain. (Just one small thing... when applying album-mode ReplayGain, the entire album must be scanned together. For some reason, the SSF2THDR album had different album gains among its tracks. After correcting it, I had to stop seeding since the torrent will see the changes as corruption. ) As far as the musical quality, the percussion rhythms for almost EVERY track are made of some seriously tasty grooves. Even the tracks I enjoyed from Blood on the Asphalt are notably improved. José's rap tracks are missed, but their absence is understandable considering their potential for standing out distractingly in game. I especially enjoyed how the Cammy theme sounds at an accelerated tempo, as opposed to its original laid-back chill vibe. "Army Girl", "Red Cyclone", and "Clamato Fever" have to be my top favorites, but there are so many other aural goodies as well. Guile's theme has always traditionally been a favorite, and the rendition here certainly does not disappoint... plus it made me ROFL pretty good when I went back to compare it with Blood on the Asphalt's "Mile Long Dong". Also, "Reaching for Nirudha" and "New Mexican Thunderbird" were definitely appreciated. The melody and groove of Dhalsim's theme were improved so that he now feels like a real Indian fighter. And the group whistle & clap intro to T. Hawk's new theme is a perfect demonstration of the awesome western feel. (Although it mysteriously makes the Tribal American sound like a cowboy. ) As for "Flying Heaven", well there's not much to say but that it's electro-gasmic zircon goodness. However, it was surprising to find "Sagat's Moonbike" as the mix Capcom picked, especially considering all the recent Thai Guy mixes. Not that it's a bad mix -- it's wonderful -- but I just don't see its technological purely-electronic sound fitting so well into a stage that primarily features an ancient statue. Plus, if "Live Thai Guy" could've been remastered to the quality of "Red Cyclone", how awesome would it be to have both The Grammar Club AND The OneUps on the SSF2THDR OST? Hey Kaleb! While I do find myself agreeing with most of what you say... 1) I'm pretty sure the songs are at least just starting to loop before they cut out. The stage themes certainly all seem to, and the ending themes just tend to be incredibly short loops. 2) True, the number of repetitions could be more consistent. I didn't really find that it bothered me too much, though. 3) Longer fade-outs I can certainly agree on. They seem a bit abrupt as-is. Also, don't you mean fading with a logistic curve (aka cosine-, "S"-, or sigmoid-fade)? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't an exponential fade be even sharper than linear? 4) More silence at the end of each track is indeed helpful for avoiding run-on songs. (Like run-on sentences? Get it? Ha ha?) But then again, one might want no gaps, say, between the stage themes and their Heavy Damage counterparts. Seriously? They put the iconic Vega intro back in? Wish I could hear it. This is just a guess, but since DJP stated the downloadable soundtrack was made from exactly what they sent Capcom, perhaps Capcom did a little editing of their own, or in some cases decided to use earlier versions of some songs. I can't say for sure, though. DJP or Liontamer would probably be able to answer with more certainty. But enough nitpicking & speculation about what could've been. This is an impressive release for OCR, and I will definitely be listening to many of these tracks for a good while to come. OCR has quite simply set the bar for reworked soundtracks.

Getting this in here now, at the beginning of the thread: For those of you who just want the MP3s, remember you can unselect the files in the FLACs folder, and the torrent will be done a lot quicker. Also, thanks to the OCR staff for the nice shiny new FLAC files. But, Larry, I'll hate you forever for sparking that debate and not reading a word of it. o.o

Even better, there are free programs which will mass-copy tags for you! Foobar2000 -- popularly regarded as a spartan media player -- is actually very useful simply as a media file utility. Just add all the tagged MP3s, then add the untagged FLACs, select all, and right-click -> Tagging -> Copy Info Between Files. Done! Wait. Are you saying you can tell the difference between any MP3 and the original audio? Unless you've done double-blind listening tests with 320Kbps MP3, this seems highly unlikely. Sure, there are a few kinds of samples which will trip up MP3 at even the highest quality, but this doesn't occur too commonly, and while the effect is noticeably different it tends to be more-or-less subtle at high bitrates. I'm all for the flexibility of FLAC, but I find it difficult to accept that someone can hear immediate and obvious flaws with any and all MP3 encoding.

Whoa, did anyone read the news? Evidently Bethesda plans to let us see a fair bit more than just the capitol in post-apocalyptic ruin. http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/11/25/fallout-3-getting-editor-dlc-next-year

To all of you who are stating that 192Kbps MP3s are difficult to double-blind (ABX) test against the original audio... I completely agree! Out of all the OCR-hosted material at their various bitrates, it took a 103Kbps Valse Aeris for me to really, unmistakably notice MP3 artifacts. I'm not going to say 192Kbps is bad quality; it simply is not. However, FLAC represents choice. I notice that many are rallying against FLAC, but yet those who say they want MP3 encoded differently are ignored. Where bgc sees only 15% who want FLAC, I also have to notice that 47% of voters want something other than 192Kbps MP3. With a lossless codec, they can encode the original files into whatever other bitrate or format they'd prefer, be it 256Kbps CBR, -V0 VBR, 192-256 VBR, or maybe even something smaller if they want to save space. Additionally, MP3's flaws can become more apparent when audio processing is applied, such as dynamics compression (common in terrestrial radio), splitting stereo into multi-channel audio (for surround setups), and dramatic EQing (or other 'enhancing' effects). It just seems professional to release with full 1-to-1 quality at least as an option. However, don't get me wrong. If this soundtrack is still released in naught but MP3, I'll still enjoy it. After all, OCR hasn't stopped being a favorite destination for music, and they still sometimes release music in (ew!) 128Kbps MP3!

To be honest, I think your average person is going to look at the options ("hmmm... Lossless torrent: 500MB, MP3 torrent: 80MB") and just download the MP3s, even if they want to burn it to CD. Even if WAV is one of the options. Most of us forum-posters know this, yes. But that average person you were referring to before, they're just likely to click on the torrent link and let it download away on autopilot, even if they only want part of what's in there. It's just a waste of bandwidth and time. What's the disadvantage of making two torrents? And FLAC really is the PNG of audio. To me, distributing WAVs is like distributing BMPs. Why? EDIT: Well, I guess the FLAC/WAV debate has been beaten to death already, as partly evidenced below. I hope it's clear by now that FLAC is no Ogg Vorbis. It's here to stay, and has some serious pro recognition. Hahaha, yes! To say that WAV is in fact lossy because it loses the tag data... that's as wonderfully hilarious as it is true. Thank you, sir, for making my day (hour/minute/second?).

I think Voices of the Lifestream had a pretty good model. Simultaneous release of lossless & lossy formats. And this time you could put them in different torrents, since many folks don't realize you can selectively download files in a torrent. Also, I have to agree with Brendan & gang, that the lossless format ought to be FLAC rather than WAV. In addition to supporting tags, it also occupies significantly less space, meaning 1) torrent downloads will be quicker, and thus it'll be distributed to more people in less time, 2) more people will be likely to keep it seeded since it doesn't take up so much HDD space. Also, anyone who cares about having lossless quality will have something to decode FLAC, I guarantee it. As far as the lossy format... strictly speaking, LAME VBR at -V2 is the optimal solution (and is not always >192Kbps either, its efficiency can lead it above or below when needed). But really, comparing 192Kbps CBR with a VBR format is nitpicking for the large majority of folks. 192 sounds absolutely fine in most cases, and plus there still are some (although very few) old MP3 players that don't play VBR. Whatever MP3 quality you folks decide to go with will likely be absolutely fine.

The ONLY thing that Chipamp would possibly mess up is WinAmp (or cause WinAmp to crash the OS). ALL it does is install plugin files into the \Program Files\Winamp\Plugins directory on your computer. If other programs were experiencing bugs after installation, it's likely a mere coincidence. Though it's an easy mistake. Believe me, all sorts of things get credited with causing or resolving errors when the bugs in question are intermittent.

I have to thank you though, SmartOne. Even though I didn't end up using that SPC plugin, it prompted me to do a for-the-heck-of-it search for a newer version of SNESAmp... and lo & behold, there was a new release this year! Also, with NEZplug++ I can't find a way to change the master volume. And it really matters, because as it is, all my NES chiptunes play much quieter than the rest of my music. NSFplug has that ability and is based on NEZplug core code, but for some reason the latest version seems to crash my WinAmp (I'm running an older NSFplug).

Thanks for letting everyone know of the newest emulated game music plugins. I'll have to check them out. However, while SNESAmp may be a little inaccurate, I noticed that the SPC plugin you mention provides absolutely NO features or configuration. It never advances to the next song, even if the SPC is only a few seconds of audio. It's just too much of a break from the expected media player experience.

You can probably run it fine. I have a GeForce 7800 GS, 2GB RAM, and a Athlon64 3200+. It runs kinda choppy in High detail mode, but there are also Medium and Low graphics modes that would make the game run more smoothly. Hell, all I want to do is find a way to make it so that Three Dawg doesn't repeat his news so much, and add even MORE music to GNR's playlist. That would be my Fallout 3 musical perfection.

That certainly makes sense. I just would've never done that myself, as the first time I went to the capitol mall, it was too super-mutant infested to do much but do my main-quest mission and get out. Perhaps I ought to clear it out, now, and take a little exploratory stroll down the lane.

If you're talking about the Declaration of Independence quest... it starts at the Capitol Preservation Society in Rivet City.

No kidding. Her gun is the most powerful automatic weapon I've found yet. Well, besides the minigun. But I'm not a big guns guy, and miniguns are pure annoyance to use outside of VATS. That "charge up" time is killer. Despite Sydney's death, though, I didn't find the Declaration of Independence quest all that hard. Unloading with the combat shotgun worked pretty nicely, well, and the fact that I was loaded with stimpacks. And the fire resistance from the Greyditch quest, helped by some fire ant nectar I still had around, was useful against the flamethrowers and gas leaks that inevitably blew. I'm also going around the capitol as the virtuous knight in shining armor. If I play the game again, I'll have to go for a mow-everyone-down dude with a testy attitude. As absorbed as this game has me now, I have little doubt I'll go through it again. The portrayal of the nation's capitol in post-nuclear ruins is just somehow so compelling, chilling, and yet awe-inducing at the same time. I mean, seriously. A group of ghouls living in the Museum of Natural American History? An entire city inside a beached & broken aircraft carrier? A skyline that always seems to include the swiss-cheese remains of the Washington Monument? What other game gives such a surreal experience as that?