6th channel on the YM2612

[GiGaBiTe]

I've hooked up a YM2612 debugger while running several different games and have noticed that VERY few games ever use it or let alone initialize the channel.

I think that I read somewhere that the 6th channel could be switched into being used as a channel for playing voices, but I never see that.

So I was wondering why nobody ever uses it.

[jlf65]

The sixth channel can be switched to a DAC for digital audio, but digital audio takes so much memory that devs try to avoid. However, they try not to use the sixth channel for FM just in case they DO need it for DAC.

Digital audio became more popular as the price of larger ROMs dropped. Games at the end of the Genesis era had a lot more digital audio than earlier games. In fact, many early games rarely had any digital audio beyond the "Seeeeeeega!" at the start of the game. ;D

Earthworm Jim was one of the first games to make fairly extensive use of digital audio.