Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!news
From: "Nick Slaven" <NickSlaven@compuserve.com>
Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.beginners
Subject: Re: Found the problem, but need more help!!!!
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 20:34:50 -0000
Organization: PlayStation Net Yaroze (SCEE)
Lines: 84
Message-ID: <79ni2o$1do3@chuka.playstation.co.uk>
References: <36BDFC53.2014A8AC@yahoo.com> <36BF458A.4D0F9814@yahoo.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mfs-pci-bqk-vty203.as.wcom.net
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0

Ed Fear wrote in message <36BF458A.4D0F9814@yahoo.com>...
>I am following the Sound For Dummies tutorial, and to play midi I have to
>load a file called std0.vb (I do also have to load a .vh file, but it's
only
>small...).  Unfortunatley, it is 300kb...  can anyone suggest a way of
>making it smaller or using another method?  Please respond in 'plain
>English' - I'm just a lowly beginner!
>
>I can't see that they expect you to give up 300kb for a file that you need.
>
>To make a soundfile, you have to split it up into a .vb and .vh file.  Can
I
>get a very small sound file and use these as the .vb and .vh file?
>


Have you considered the fact that the VB portion of your data does not
need to be retained in main memory once you have transferred it to sound
RAM?
My solution to this problem is to load the std0.vb into the memory space
that
will be occupied by the heap before I initialise the heap. BTW the stdo.vb
file is stored on your Yaroze boot disc so you can load it from there inside
your code. You need to do something along the lines of

main()
{
LoadSounds();
MakeHeap();
// now use malloc to create areas for the ordered table etc rather than
// statically defining them in your code & you will reclaim the area used by
// std0.vb when loaded from CD
}


void MakeHeap(void)
{
 // heap initialisation stuff
 // heap starts after the main program on a 16-byte boundary
 unsigned long lclHeapStart=(_end & 0xFFFFFFF0L)+0x10;
 // heap extends to the bottom of the stack.
 unsigned long  lclHeapSize=((_stack_addr-(_stack_size<<10)) &
0xFFFFFFF0L)-lclHeapStart;

 InitHeap((unsigned long *)lclHeapStart, lclHeapSize);
}



// loads sound from cd & sets up vabs etc
// NOTE : This is called before InitHeap
void LoadSounds(void)
{
unsigned long LBuff=(_end & 0xFFFFFFF0L)+0x10; // program end
// LBuff will now be pointing to the 1st word boundary after your program in
memory
GetFile("\\data\\sound\\STD0.VB",(ulong*)LBuff);
GetFile("\\data\\sound\\STD0.VH",(ulong*)ST_VH);
MusicVabID=SsVabTransfer((u_char*)ST_VH,(u_char*)LBuff,-1,1);
// the VB file has now been transferred to sound RAM & therefore you can now
// initialise the heap over the area it was loaded into
}

void GetFile(char * File,ulong*LBuff)
{
unsigned char Result;

CdReadFile(File,LBuff,0);
CdReadSync(0,&Result);
}


You can also do something similar with your tim files once they have been
loaded into
video RAM.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Nick S