Although I think that the graphical capabilities of the GBA are certainly spectacular for a sprite based system (quite possibly the best I've seen), I always felt that the audio quality was lacking, especially when you compare it to the graphics. I have a few gba video cartridges, and although muffled, the sound quality was much better than what I would hear in 90% of GBA games. I've read that the GBA has 6 sound channels (aside from lack column scrolling, this seems to be the only thing worse about the GBA than the SNES) And although 4 channels are apparently about as good as the Gameboy, it says there are 2 "Direct Sound" channels, which I assume play back actual recorded music. (You can probably tell I have no knowledge of audio hardware. )
http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/sndsqr.htm
Is the reason we don't get near cd quality sound with the GBA because there would only be 1 sound channel left for sound effects, or is it because of space constraints? (I know bickering won't change how the system was designed, but I figure there has to be some way to have it sound better)
Two more questions I just thought of: If the GBA is using the GBZ80 (how is this different than a normal Z80?) solely for the 4 sound channels, (I think I remember hearing that the "Direct Sound" channels are controlled by the main CPU) than why aren't there more sound channels or higher quality existing ones? I understand that it had to do other things than just sound on the GB, but here it isn't being used for anything else.
Lastly, (though off topic) why didn't the Gameboy Micro or the DS play GB games? I heard that they still have the GBZ80, as it is required for sound on GBA games.
http://www.coranac.com/tonc/text/sndsqr.htm
Quote:
The GBA has six sound channels. The first four are roughly the same as the original GameBoy had: two square wave generators (channels 1 and 2), a sample player (channel 3) and a noise generator (channel 4). Those are also referred to as the DMG channels. New are two Direct Sound channels A and B (not to be confused with Microsoft's Direct Sound, the DirectX component). These are 8bit digital channels.
Is the reason we don't get near cd quality sound with the GBA because there would only be 1 sound channel left for sound effects, or is it because of space constraints? (I know bickering won't change how the system was designed, but I figure there has to be some way to have it sound better)
Two more questions I just thought of: If the GBA is using the GBZ80 (how is this different than a normal Z80?) solely for the 4 sound channels, (I think I remember hearing that the "Direct Sound" channels are controlled by the main CPU) than why aren't there more sound channels or higher quality existing ones? I understand that it had to do other things than just sound on the GB, but here it isn't being used for anything else.
Lastly, (though off topic) why didn't the Gameboy Micro or the DS play GB games? I heard that they still have the GBZ80, as it is required for sound on GBA games.