Shenmue Dojo

Nico0020 wrote: Only for about 30 mintues. I ran around the first area talking to random people. Here is an example of the downsampled audio in the 99 minute version. Please note that not all NPCs sound like this, the free speech seems better than the cutscenes.

phpBB [video]

Sorry for the shakyness, I recorded from my phone, but you can easily hear the audio.

Thanks for posting that, Nico. Now I have to apologize. There's a bit more compression present in that clip than what I heard of the 99min version from doof's clip and Disc 4 of the 80min (which is identical to the 99min dub's Disc 4, apparently). I only heard the faintest hint of robot in Shenhua's voice on Disc 4 that was barely noticeable, and didn't really hear any compression at all in the earlier clip posted, but it's definitely noticeable in yours. If this is a good example of the quality, something tells me that certain voices and such will only get worse in Discs 3 & 4 just as the entirety of all the speech -- especially the street NPC's -- did in the 80min dub since those discs must be chock-full.

Still leagues better than the 80min version, though. If you have both, just compare and contrast when you get to Disc 2 to see what I mean.

The free speech seems to be better in disc 1 than the cut scenes. I'll post another view later with scenes from free speech on disc 1. I haven't played any one disc 2/3/4 of this version so I cant comment on those yet.

The release is quite good. But I bet with if someone could optimize it (removing unneeded and duplicate files) we could have a perfect English Shenmue II on Dreamcast via 99 Min CD-R. I really hope someone can pick up this project.

What I think should be done first is for us to note what parts of the dialog is affected and then have somebody remove the unneeded files, and replace them with better quality versions. 100min discs would be best for this over the 99 min, as they have 30 more mb on the disc, and that 30mb along with taking out unneeded duplicate files could in fact make the bad sections sound much better.

Problem is finding somebody to do this and then we still have to find working 100min 900mb cdr's, as the MediaRange don't work.

So I guess the first step really is to find fully working 100min discs.

Anthony, regarding those 100 minute discs. What speed did you burn them at? Did you try different burners and different speeds? I know some 99 min CD-Rs can be a bit unpredictable when burned on new hardware, but when using an old computer burned at 4X they work every time.

I tried every program I could think of, Alcohol, IMGBurn. Discjuggler, at the lowest speed. I even tried at max and it had no effect. Every disc I burnt made my lens jump up and down trying to read it making a bad clicking noise. I even tried the discs on 2 Dreamcasts, and one even has the Samsung Gdrom.

I bought my Samsung burner for this PC in either the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013, so it is pretty recent, and it is thankfully capable of burning 99 min and 100 min discs, it is just that these latest batches of the Banana and Media range discs people are really having issues with. I mean 2 different brands and many people are reporting it so it is not just me or my burner.

That's a shame. Well it doesnt matter anyways unless someone picks up the project anyways.

BTW you wouldnt happen to be the same Anthony from DCemu? Also I saw you were from Texas, do you live in the metroplex?

Yes sir that is me Dallas/Fort Worth born and raised. XD

Does this work with dreamshell?

It depends. If you are using the G1-ATA IDE HDD mod then yes Shenmue 2 works on it. If you are using just the SD card adapter then no it will not work.

i've noticed the compression has MUCH more trouble with high pitched voices haha. so kids and women sound way worse than men

The 99min version was only compressed. (If something went wrong idk?? or care)
The 80min version was downsampled dramatically in order to fit a standard cd-r.
There was a time here at shen dojo when people were trying to gather any info necessary to find unused assets in shenmue 2 that could be removed.
This however never came to fruition.
Like I have said before I never wanted to even make a 99min version.
I am completely fine with the 80min version.

If you want a definitive version of shen 2 english speech for DC...
Swap the files from the xbox version and build a .cdi.
No downsampling, No compression.
The version will be too large for any cd-r and would only be for emulators or gd-rom emus.
If you don't want to create this version, then you can download the premade emulator only shen2 eng speech iso somewhere in the community projects section.

If anyone cares to make new versions of shen2 eng speech for dreamcast the ahx tools are found in the dreamcast sdk.
I have no desire to work on any shenmue projects.
So its up to someone else that wants to do it.
Sorry for the rant.

Well, thanks for the effort that you put in, sm1th. It looks like someone else is going to have take the reigns on this project if we ever want to see it come to fruition. A key step to getting this done is finding all the unused content so that we can remove it and free up space. I'm surprised that nobody has made a list after 14 years, surely someone here has a good idea of what files can be thrown out?

I would perfectly fine with the audio in the 99 min version, if I could just find some discs to burn it too that didn't cost 30 or 40 bucks to ship haha.

Yea, the audio in the 99min version is just fine. The freespeech is great, the only place it really seems to suffer any is during cutscenes. Eventually I will get a GDEMU for my dreamcast to play the 1GB version. Anyways, thank you smith and everyone who worked on this release. I still have some 99min CD-Rs if anyone is interested please PM me.

Here is a video of some random freespeech from disc 1. Sorry for the quality again, its from my phone.

Somebody needs to sell me some discs lol. I can tolerate the 99 min version just fine if I can finally finish the game haha.