I'm having 2 options in my sound engine, and I'm not sure what to choose. 1st option : 3 levels for PCM0, 3 levels for PCM1 2nd option : 2 levels for PCM0, 2 levels for PCM1, 2 levels for both after they get mixed. Volume levels are Normal, Quiet, Very Quiet. Silence is for both channels together. I like the 2nd option, mainly because it saves few Z80 cycles thus higher overall sample rate
I don't have much knowledge about that subject, but only 2 levels for PCM seems already so great ! That's quite new in an SMD sound driver, right ? I believe just 2 levels should be already enough to do interesting things, and it's better to use only those two levels to their fullest instead of having 3 levels that may not be used as judiciously. Is my reasoning correct ?
There are few drivers that have volume control also. One SMPS variation in one Japanese baseball game, and one Konami driver which on top does low quality multi channel PCM also (only inside one bank though). You have good points, I'll wait for more opinions.