Hertz Overload - new AGA Amiga demo

[saimo]

Just a quick heads-up to let you know that I have just released a new demo for AGA Amigas.
This one focuses on delivering very high quality music also on base machines equipped with just a mass storage device (which is needed to stream the huge amount of audio data).
"Very high quality translates" to: 2 true stereo channels, 14 bit resolution and 70937.9 Hz sample rate.

Download: https://www.retream.com/Hertz_Overload / https://retream.itch.io/hertz-overload

Those who can't (bother to) run the demo on an actual Amiga can see it in this video (beware: due to technical reasons, the audio of the video has a sample of rate of just 44100 Hz).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zDJEW_2qT0

[AndyFC]

Thanks for sharing this; it's excellent. I recently swapped to external desktop speakers from the built-in (very tinny) speakers in my screen and this sounds fantastic.

For me the biggest let down of the Amiga is that the last Commodore (and Escom) machines had exactly the same sound capabilities as the A1000; this demo is another great example of those capabilities being really pushed.

It runs nicely from my CF card attached to the build in IDE port which has a Sysinfo speed rating of about 1.8MB/Sec.

[saimo]

Thanks for sharing this; it's excellent.

I'm happy to hear this - thank you!

I recently swapped to external desktop speakers from the built-in (very tinny) speakers in my screen and this sounds fantastic.

I have the same problem: my Amiga is connected to a monitor with useless speakers, so I need to resort to headphones (which I almost never do, as they are a pain to my ears) to hear sound properly.

For me the biggest let down of the Amiga is that the last Commodore (and Escom) machines had exactly the same sound capabilities as the A1000; this demo is another great example of those capabilities being really pushed.

Indeed it's a pity that there was no advancement in so many years, but the upgrade was not easy because Paula couldn't be given more resolution and frequency without making changes to the CHIP  bus.

It runs nicely from my CF card attached to the build in IDE port which has a Sysinfo speed rating of about 1.8MB/Sec.

Ah, yes, 1.8 MB/s are plenty for the demo. I have a CF card connected to the IDE port as well, and with it 2 MB/s my A1200 can stream music at crazy frequencies like 200+ kHz - I didn't measure the exact limit of 100% correct playback, but the standalone playback tool breaks completely only at 322445 Hz (when the Blizzard 1230 IV is activated, that is).

[klx300r]

@ saimo

sweet Demo! I can really here the quality of the music when played through my amp and 14" old school Boston Acoustics speakers 

[Ancalimon]

Is the demo in double pal?

[saimo]

No, it's PAL.

[saimo]

I justed released an update that features even higher quality music - which is quite relevant for a music-centric demo

CHANGELOG

v1.2 (10.6.2024)
* Improved streamed music: made arpeggio and strumming guitars stronger in the mix; managed to eliminate some more peaks, thus exploiting more the resolution and increasing the overall quality; made an overlapping solo guitar enter from the middle-left and then move to the center gradually; converted data with an updated and more precise custom converter.
* Increased the volume level of the arpeggio guitar in the tracked music.
* Improved a few pixels.
* Extended and fixed manual.

https://www.retream.com/Hertz_Overload / https://retream.itch.io/hertz-overload

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mkJDGtZdr8

[saimo]

@all

In the afternoon I discovered that the new music was way too noisy, so I realized that something must have gone wrong. It turned out that the last-minute changes to the custom converter were totally ill-advised and also buggy, so the converted music was affected by a horrible noise!
I have uploaded the fixed version now - download from the usual place: https://retream.itch.io/hertz-overload