Hardware MP3 on M3 for GBA?

[Rummy]

Hi! First off, hope I put this in the right place, as I'm pretty useless at getting stuff in the right forum, wasn't sure if it should be here or in GBA Dev. Anyway, a pretty basic question which I've not been able to find anything much on, but is it possible in any way at all, to play MP3s on a GBA using an M3 SD Perfect? I've half foolishly bought a micro thinking I could, as I'd done it before on the DS without trouble, and now coming to realise moonshell was DS specific. I know the M3 has a music option in GBA mode, but I don't think it plays mp3s AND I can't figure out how to convert my music to the format it uses either(again, it seems little is said on the topic). Anyway, I'd prefer to be able to play them straight off, and is there anything that can do that? Like a Moonshell DS, or some other homebrew? Many thanks for any info you guys can provide!

 

[DanTheManMS]

The problem is that the GBA, being only 16 MHz in clock speed, is not powerful enough to decode mp3 files in real-time. The main options you have are GBA GSM Player (my personal favorite), Music Player Advance, and the M3's built-in support for converted GBS audio files. I don't have an M3, so I'm not entirely sure how you'd convert the files to GBS, but I can help with the first two if you're interested.

 

[Rummy]

Ahh, Thanks for the reply. I was afraid it might be a hardware issue, but held out hope having considered the play-yan's release. I'd be well up for any help with the first two options, as it seems I don't have much other option lol. I guess a conversion of a ton of stuff could be done as a one time dealie, is there any major quality/size differences with conversions? The smallest would be ideal, but I'll try both and see what I like.

 

[DanTheManMS]

The Play-yan has dedicated hardware on-board that decodes music and video files. There's a similar device out in the US if you want to try that.

http://wiki.pocketheaven.com/GSM_Player has instructions for GBA GSM Player. I personally use Wavepad rather than Winamp for converting to high-quality wave, though the choice is up to you. You can also use stereo if you want when converting to wave (and in Wavepad at least that's the best option) since when the batch file converts them to GSM it will automatically mix the two channels together.

Once you run the batch file once, you can delete the huge wave files and move the gsm files to a separate folder for safekeeping. Then when you want to create a new compilation, just copy the gsm files to the "gsms" folder and run the batch file again.

The resulting GSM files are very small in size, but compared to mp3s they sound worse. Just try out a compilation in VBA to get an idea of what I mean. It works fine for noisy situations, but in silent areas you'll notice the background noise.

If you want to try getting slightly higher quality music out of the GBA, try Music Player Advance. Instructions are at http://www.gameboy-advance.net/emulated/mu...nce_gba_mp3.htm but again you can use Wavepad or Winamp to export your Wave files rather than Cooledit. PCM is a subset of WAV, so don't be confused about that. In the MusicPlayer Advance application, when browsing for your files just change it to "all files" to see your converted wave files. Also note that stereo at 16,000 bitrate doesn't work correctly, but every other combination should work.

Personally I don't like MPA as much since it's such a hassle to get each compilation going, but you may find otherwise.