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Sound is an important part of game play. You can use sprites, backgrounds and fonts to appeal to just one of the 5 senses. Sound, by itself can satisfy another. We will explore how to give the player the best immersive gaming experience possible.
On the Nintendo DS, there are 2 types of sound which are commonly used. The first is RAW, which is mainly suited to short sound effects, and the second is MP3, which is mainly suited to background music. Note that MP3 sounds are only available in the Registered Version.
RAW Sounds
RAW Sounds are great for short and snappy sound effects. They are low quality but for their purpose there is no problem. They are also quite lightweight, so you can use dozens of them in a game without worrying about efficiency. They are not, however, suited for background music. For one, their quality is noticable bad if they are used in such a way. And, a full length background music track in RAW format will probably eat up all of the space in the NDS you have for music.
RAW sounds have the file extension '.raw'. That is not a very common file extension as it happens, and you'll have trouble finding plentiful archives of them on the internet, but don't worry, converting to the RAW format is really easy. You can take any WAV/WMA/MP3 short sound effect you already have and turn it into a RAW by using a free program called Switch.
Converting to RAW
For the purpose of the exercise, I have provided a sample sound file for you to convert. It is in WAV format. You can simply search the internet for 'wav sound effects' or 'free wavs' and you will find thousands. Download the Sample WAV sound.
Now that you have a sound to work with, download and install Switch. There's no need to install any of the other software it recommends, it's good, but you don't need it. Once you have completed installation of the program, you should arrive at the main screen:
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Next, we will need to use the "Add Files" button to select some files to convert to RAW. The screenshot on the left highlights the correct button. Note that you can also drag files into the program from Windows Explorer.
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Now you will see that the file(s) are now listed in the program. We need to tell Switch we want to convert the files to RAW. To do this we use the Output Format drop down box. Select '.raw' from the list.
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Switch still needs to know some more information about how the RAW files should turn out. To provide this information, click the 'Encoder Options' button.
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This information is crucial to how Switch will convert your files to RAW. If you do not select the right settings, your RAW files will sound horrible on the DS. Once you have a dialog similar to what is pictured, click 'Okay'.
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Switch is now ready to convert your files to RAW. Finally, click the 'Convert' button.
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Now that the RAW files have been produced, you need to navigate to Switch's output folder to make sure they are all there. The Output Folder is shown in the text box at the bottom of the window. You can paste this into Windows Explorer to open the folder, or click the large 'Open Output Folder' button.
You may now add these RAW files to your DS Game Maker projects.
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