New in RC5 EX + alpha

All the RC5 changes, plus:

• Loop points can be specified in storyboards.

New EX + alpha bug fix:

• loop = 0 mp3's didn't stop properly.

Quick FAQ

17. What kind of plugins does this support?

1. M.U.G.E.N only recognizes plugins specifically designed for it. So, for instance, Winamp plugins will not work. You can see the initial EX + alpha blog post for an idea of the kinds of problems involved with non-native plugins. The plugin SDK will be released when we think the interface is stable, so that you will be able to develop your own plugins if you so choose.

17. How do I find loop points for my MP3s?

1. There are several tricky issues involved in picking loop points for MP3 files, so you may wish to consult loopguide.html in the docs/ directory for some tips.

17. How do I set loop points for my other file types?

1. You can't, yet. Looppoint-compatible plugins haven't yet been made for the other file types.

17. The audio stutters/skips!

1. Try turning up the audio buffer size and/or turning down the mixer sample rate in mugen.cfg ([Sound] section). If you can't get it to work right, then please report the issue to us, along with your system specs. In your report, try to distinguish between dropouts (a short period of silence), skips (the music jumps ahead by a small amount), and stutters (the music repeats itself briefly).

   For this alpha build, the BGM system tries to keep track of its status. You can find some summary timing statistics for the mixer callback written to the end of mugen.log. You can also see if the system detected a decoder underrun by searching for lines saying "possible read starvation detected!" This information helps us troubleshoot the possible causes of sound corruption.

17. Why are there three Microsoft.VC90.CRT folders? Is this some kind of joke?

1. Those folders are an unfortunate consequence of the way Visual C runtimes are loaded, and are usually required for correct operation. However, there is a way to get rid of them. You need to download and install the Visual C++ 2008 SP1 redistributable package (x86). Once you have done this, the Microsoft.VC90.CRT folders can be safely deleted.

Detailed change list

The following plugins are in the package. See the comments in mugen.cfg for optional parameters and usage.

• mpg123

  Supports MP3 playback using the libmpg123 decoder, which features several optimized decoding engines written in assembly. Supports looppoints, ReplayGain volume adjustment, and sample-accurate seeking. (Note: seeking will lose an unnoticeable amount of accuracy if the MP3 is at a sample rate different from the mixer sample rate.) mpg123 also fixes the "my MP3 plays slow/fast" problems.

• sdlmix

  Wrapper plugin for all the BGM services provided by SDL mixer. This means OGG, MIDI, WAV (PCM only), and MODs and other tracker files. You can also play mp3s with sdlmix if you want to, but this is not recommended.

  For file types other than MP3, sdlmix performs seamless looping from the end to the beginning of the file. However, arbitrary loopstart and loopend points cannot be specified.

• tonegen

  Demo plugin that just plays a sine wave. Nothing fancy. This is an example plugin for the plugin SDK.

The volume system has also been revamped. There is now a master volume setting, a voice/sfx volume setting, and a BGM volume setting. That's it. Volume settings are floating-point numbers between 0% and 100%, and multiply together to give the final output volume. Plugins may also have individual volume multipliers.

For sound effects, the product of all volume scales (master volume, wave volume, and any additional scaling factors in the case of CNS) cannot exceed 100%. If the product is too large, it is reduced to 100%. For plugins, the meaning of a volume scale exceeding 100% (after including plugin-specific volume scaling) is dependent on the particular plugin.

Previous changelogs

These are just the ones we remember.