09126: offroad, offroad3, offroadt, offroadt2p: Choppy Sound Effects

ID	Category [?]	Severity [?]	Reproducibility	Date Submitted	Last Update
09126	Sound	Minor	Always	Feb 23, 2025, 14:30	31 days ago

Tester	mmarino4	View Status	Public	Platform	MAME (Official Binary)
Assigned To		Resolution	Open	OS	Windows 10/11 (64-bit)
Status [?]	Confirmed			Driver	cinematronics/leland.cpp
Version	0.274	Fixed in Version		Build	64-bit
		Fixed in Git Commit		Github Pull Request #

Summary	09126: offroad, offroad3, offroadt, offroadt2p: Choppy Sound Effects
Description	The sound effects in Super Off-Road are often very choppy. The sound is better in version 0.149. Starting in 0.150, significant changes were made to the sound in this game. Initially, it sounded significantly worse but was improved a few versions later. All versions after 0.149, however, have choppy sound effects. This is best observed when you pick up a powerup on the track and it plays a horn sound. The distortion or choppiness doesn't happen every single time but if you pick up a few powerups in a race, you will definitely hear it. When I recorded the attached video, it happened on the first very two pickups. It's not limited to this situation but that is the most noticeable.
Steps To Reproduce	Start the game and pick up money and upgrade powerups on the track. Listen to the horn sound effect that plays. It will often be choppy. If other sound effects are playing such as the last lap indicator it will be very noticeable.
Additional Information	When I opened the quick video I made for this, I observed that there are constant tiny audio drops (hundreds or thousands per second). I did a recording on an old version and this was not the case. In this picture, the upper audio is from the old version. The waveform looks as you would expect. The bottom is from 0.274. Notice the constant audio drops. Other games in 0.274 do now have this issue so it for Off-Road specifically. https://i.ibb.co/Dg9rSgcg/Offroad-Sound.png
Github Commit

Flags
Regression Version
Affected Sets / Systems	offroad, offroad3, offroadt, offroadt2p

Attached Files	Offroad.mp4 (2,433,794 bytes) Feb 23, 2025, 14:30 Uploaded by mmarino4

No.23043 hap Developer Feb 24, 2025, 09:52 edited on: Feb 24, 2025, 10:47	Yeah this is quite an old bug, I thought it was on MT already but apparently not. Sound hardware is pretty complicated. It's probably something with PIT and/or Intel 186 timers.
No.23075 Robbbert Moderator 31 days ago	The horn sound was rather anemic, but it didn't seem choppy. Still, hap says it's a bug so I'll confirm it.