GBS FILE SPECIFICATION 1.02 A file format for ripped GameBoy sound By Scott Worley GBS files are similar to PSID and NSF files. Code and data that is relevant to sound production is ripped from a GameBoy ROM and combined with a descriptive header to produce a compact sound module file. A player program that emulates some of the hardware of a GameBoy is required to listen to these files. If you aren't already familiar with the GameBoy's technical particulars, and are interested in making GBS files or a player for them, you should read the excellent FAQ (GBSPEC.TXT) that was put together by several people. You will have to do a web search for the document, and there are several versions with info that has been added or updated by people other than the original authors. REVISION HISTORY 1.00 11/07/00 Initial release 1.01 01/28/01 Added section for RAM banks, misc. clarifications 1.02 07/15/01 Added GBC 2x CPU clock rate support, enhanced RAM bank section HEADER FIELDS Offset Size Description ====== ==== ========================== 00 3 Identifier string ("GBS") 03 1 Version (1) 04 1 Number of songs (1-255) 05 1 First song (usually 1) 06 2 Load address ($400-$7fff) 08 2 Init address ($400-$7fff) 0a 2 Play address ($400-$7fff) 0c 2 Stack pointer 0e 1 Timer modulo (see TIMING) 0f 1 Timer control (see TIMING) 10 32 Title string 30 32 Author string 50 32 Copyright string 70 nnnn Code and Data (see RST VECTORS) All 2-byte (word) values are little-endian (least-significant byte first). This is also referred to as Intel format. The Load/Init/Play addresses have a lower bound of $400 in order to support the hardware-based player. A well-made GBS file will hardly even approach the lower addresses, anyway. The GameBoy defaults the stack pointer to $fffe at startup, using the $7f byte region $ff80-$fffe. However, many ROMs don't use this default, and the pointer must be set so that stack operation does not interfere with memory used by the init or play routines. Ideally, this should be where the original ROM puts it. The stack pointer and timer fields are in the header as a convenience, because they allow the registers to be set without putting code to do it in the module init. However, the header settings are only initial settings; the registers are set to the header values on init, but init or play code can subsequently change the registers. Sound routines sometimes modify the timer modulo for different selections. The Title/Author/Copyright fields are null-filled on the right, however they do not require a terminating zero byte if all 32 bytes are used. If any of these fields is unknown, they should be set to a single question mark character. NOTE: The author field gives credit to the composer, not to the ripper! RST VECTORS The GameBoy CPU has 8 1-byte instructions that call fixed addresses: RST 00 = CALL $0000 RST 20 = CALL $0020 RST 08 = CALL $0008 RST 28 = CALL $0028 RST 10 = CALL $0010 RST 30 = CALL $0030 RST 18 = CALL $0018 RST 38 = CALL $0038 Basically, these instructions accomplish calls to standard subroutines using a 1-byte instruction instead of the larger 3-byte CALL instruction. A GBS player vectors RSTs to an address relative to the load address of the module. A patch area must therefore be prepended to the module for handling any RSTs that are used. So if the sound code uses no RSTs, you don't need to make a patch area. Example: Load address = $3f00, RST 28 = CALL $3f28 ROM BANK-SWITCHING A GameBoy ROM is composed of 16K "pages", the first page being page number 0. This first page contains the header information, interrupt handlers, and the main routines of the program. The first half of the GameBoy's 64K address space is for ROM, the second half for RAM. The ROM area is divided into 2 16K banks: Bank 0 ($0000-$3fff) which always contains ROM Page 0, and Bank 1 ($4000-$7fff) which contains a selected ROM page. A page is selected into Bank 1 by writing the page number as a byte value somewhere in the address range $2000-$3fff. A small ROM (32K) has Page 1 permanently loaded into Bank 1, no switching needed. Some cartridge memory controllers allow the selection of Page 0; which doesn't seem very useful, but it's possible. A GBS file is similar to the structure of a ROM, except it is loaded starting at a particular address (the load address); therefore any pages within it are aligned relative to the load address, and not absolute offsets in the file. Note that the last page of the GBS file need not be a full 16K, allowing for a smaller file if circumstances permit, but the player program should treat the missing portion as null-filled when loading the last page. Example: a GBS file loads at $3f80 because the upper $80 bytes of Page 0 are being used to do song sequencing, and to contain some init and bank-switch code relocated from elsewhere in Page 0. Page 1 begins at memory address $4000 which is offset $80 in the GBS data; Page 2 is at offset $4080, page 3 at $8080, and so on. Because the pages that are assembled into the GBS file were originally scattered all over the ROM, the page numbers used in the bank-switch code have been changed to the correct page numbers in the GBS file. RAM BANK-SWITCHING Some memory controllers support 8K of bank-switchable RAM at $a000-$bfff, and others support 4K at $d000-$dfff. However, sound routines don't need a lot of memory, so any RAM bank switching going on in the original ROM that is related to the sound routine is only to switch to the ONE page that the routine uses. Player authors: you should disregard writes to $4000-$5fff and $ff70, and just implement main RAM from $a000 to $dfff. Rippers: you should remove any code that writes to $4000-$5fff or $ff70. This will not only eliminate a useless operation, it will allow the hardware-based ROM player to work with your rip. TIMING The v-blank interrupt rate (~59.7 Hz) is very frequently used to drive sound producing code, and this is simply encoded into the header of the GBS file by setting both TAC and TMA fields to 0. However, sometimes the timer interrupt is used to create different playback rates (generally close to 60 Hz, though). The 1-byte registers related to timer interrupt operation are these: Register Name Description ======== ==== ============= FF05 TIMA Timer Counter FF06 TMA Timer Modulo FF07 TAC Timer Control TAC Field Bits: Bit 1 & 0, counter rate 00: 4096 Hz 01: 262144 Hz 10: 65536 Hz 11: 16384 Hz Bit 2, interrupt type 0: Use v-blank 1: Use timer Bit 6 - 3, reserved for expansion Set them to 0 Bit 7, CPU clock rate 0: Use normal rate 1: Use 2x (fast) rate The timer is enabled if bit 2 of TAC is 1. The TIMA register is incremented at the rate set by bits 0 & 1 of TAC. When TIMA overflows, it is reloaded with the TMA, and the interrupt occurs. The rate of the interrupt is calculated thus: interrupt rate = counter rate / (256 - TMA) In a real GameBoy, the interrupt handler at address $50 is called when the interrupt occurs; but a GBS player doesn't need to treat the timer as an interrupt in the strict sense, it only needs to call the Play address at the rate of the timer interrupt derived from the TAC and TMA settings. IMPORTANT: The GameBoy Color has two CPU clock rates: 1x and 2x. Modules from ROMs using the 2x rate will indicate it with the high order bit of the TAC field. In practice, the CPU clock rate doesn't effect music playback all that much; however, the best accuracy is obtained by using the correct clock rate. Also, the timer counter rates are doubled along with the CPU clock rate, so timer-based GBC 2x CPU sound routines will run too slow if the counter rates aren't doubled (one could, of course, halve the TMA divisor to compensate; which is what the ROM player does for non-GBC hardware, out of necessity). PLAYING There are 3 steps a player program must go through to play GBS files: LOAD - The ripped code and data is read into the player program's address space starting at the load address and proceeding until end-of-file or address $7fff is reached. After loading, Page 0 is in Bank 0 (which never changes), and Page 1 is in Bank 1 (which can be changed during init or play). Finally, the INIT is called with the first song defined in the header. INIT - Called at the end of the LOAD process, or when a new song is selected. All of the registers are initialized, RAM is cleared, and the init address is called with the song number set in the accumulator. Note that the song number in the accumulator is zero-based (the first song is 0). The init code must end with a RET instruction. PLAY - Begins after INIT process is complete. The play address is constantly called at the rate established in the header (see TIMING). The play code must end with a RET instruction. RIPPING Ripping GBS files can be difficult, and even more difficult to do "correctly". The goal of making a GBS file is to produce a sound module that is as compact as possible. This sometimes requires finding bits of code that are scattered around Page 0 and relocating them as high as possible within the page, thereby minimizing the Page 0 portion of the GBS file. Put your sequencing stuff and any needed RST jumps immediately in front of the relocated code, and you will have made a clean rip. It is good practice to arrange, or sequence, the songs into meaningful order; because the original order of selections may have no real organization, or even gaps or redundant items. The music is more interesting than the sound effects, so you might want to remove the sfx, or at least place them at the end of your sequence so they can be easily disregarded by a listener. There are many ways you might organize your sequence; like grouping level music and boss area music together, perhaps in the order you encounter them in the game. Sequencing the songs is easily accomplished with a few instructions and a table of translation values placed in front of the original init routine. Here is a simple example: ld hl,songs ; point to selection table add a,l ; add accumulator to L ld l,a jr nc,$+1 ; increment H on overflow; if all table entries inc h ; have same address MSB, you can eliminate this ld a,(hl) ; read song number from table into accumulator jp init ; jump to the init routine songs: .db 3,1,5,4,2 ; selection sequence table The above example assumes that there is only a song selection number needed to init; however, you might find init routines that need to have selection numbers written to different memory locations, and those locations should be looked up in a similar table. Good luck, and happy ripping!