Peter Gosztola (NES Driver)

Peter Gosztola

Released 1990-??-?? Programmers Peter Gosztola Language 6502 Assembly

Peter Gosztola (NES Driver) is an unofficial name of the sound driver used in all of the Novotrade NES games. It was programmed by Novotrade programmer Peter Gosztola, who also worked on the sound to all of their NES games, except Tiny Toon Adventures: Cartoon Workshop, which was composed by Andras Magyari, after Peter left Novotrade.

According to Peter, the driver was MIDI-based, where one could input notes using MIDI software or a MIDI keyboard.

Peter said this about the sound engine:

“

I received a kind of music notes or midi file. I created/programmed the NES sound driver, after we "reverse engineed" the 8 bits NES sound capabilities from memory dumps. The driver has been controlled by the data source of the music notes and sound effects. We had 4 voices + digit channel which I used for several digitalised sounds (bass for instance). I arranged the music for this capabilities. Honestly I don't remember the name of Midi sw was used.

„

Release History

The first game to use the driver was Impossible Mission II, which was also the first title Peter worked on. The last game to use the driver was Tiny Toon Adventures: Cartoon Workshop, which was done after Gosztola left the company. An unreleased NES port of Airball also used the sound driver. Despite Novotrade being a Europe-based company, all of the games were released exclusively in the USA.

Output

The driver outputs to the RP2A03 only. It uses the DPCM channel for drums, as well as a bass.

Games

Released	Title	Sample
1990-??-??	Impossible Mission II (NES)
1991-01-??	Qix (NES)
1992-06-??	King's Quest V (NES)
1992-12-??	Tiny Toon Adventures: Cartoon Workshop (NES)
Unreleased	Airball (NES)

Technical

Frequency Registers

For some reason, like some other NES drivers, the high-bytes have a larger number. For example, $06AE has a value of $0EAE, $00FD has a value of $08FD, etc.

B-6 = 1B
A#6 = 1C
A-6 = 1E
G#6 = 20
G-6 = 22
F#6 = 24
F-6 = 27
E-6 = 29
D#6 = 2B
D-6 = 2E
C#6 = 31
C-6 = 34
B-5 = 37
A#5 = 3A
A-5 = 3E
G#5 = 42
G-5 = 46
F#5 = 4A
F-5 = 4F
E-5 = 53
D#5 = 58
D-5 = 5E
C#5 = 63
C-5 = 69
B-4 = 70
A#4 = 76
A-4 = 7E
G#4 = 85
G-4 = 8D
F#4 = 96
F-4 = 9F
E-4 = A8
D#4 = B2
D-4 = BD
C#4 = C8
C-4 = D4
B-3 = E1
A#3 = EE
A-3 = FD
G#3 = 10C
G-3 = 11C
F#3 = 12D
F-3 = 13F
E-3 = 152
D#3 = 167
D-3 = 17C
C#3 = 193
C-3 = 1AB
B-2 = 1C4
A#2 = 1DF
A-2 = 1FC
G#2 = 21A
G-2 = 23A
F#2 = 25C
F-2 = 280
E-2 = 2A6
D#2 = 2CF
D-2 = 2F9
C#2 = 327
C-2 = 357
B-1 = 389
A#1 = 3BF
A-1 = 3F8
G#1 = 435
G-1 = 475
F#1 = 4B9
F-1 = 501
E-1 = 54D
D#1 = 59E
D-1 = 5F3
C#1 = 64E
C-1 = 6AE