AGSC (File Format)

AGSC is the sound effect format for Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Each AGSC file contains a group of sound effects. The first two Metroid Prime games utilize the MusyX audio engine created by Factor5 and as a result, AGSC files are essentially just embedded MusyX files.

The audio codec used in AGSC is the standard GameCube DSP ADPCM codec.

Format
The AGSC format is essentially four data chunks combined into one resource, each of which is a standard MusyX file. Of the four data chunks (pool, proj, samp, and sdir), there's one for sound engine scripts, one for sound properties, one for actual ADPCM sound data, and one for sound metadata. The main difference between Prime 1 and 2 is the header, and some slight changes in the way the four chunks are organized. In Metroid Prime, each chunk begins with its own size value; in Metroid Prime 2, every chunk instead has its size listed at the beginning of the file, at the end of the header. In addition, in Metroid Prime, the third chunk is samp, and the fourth is sdir; in Metroid Prime 2, it's the other way around.

Pool
The Pool chunk contains tables for SoundMacros, ADSR, keymaps, and layers, if applicable. It starts with a 16-byte header before the different data tables begin.

SoundMacros
The first Pool table denotes MusyX's SoundMacros, small scripts that apply various effects on the sounds in the game. Each macro is composed of a header followed by a number of commands; each command specifies its type through a single-byte command ID, then specifies the parameters of that particular command, which vary.

The header of each SoundMacro is eight bytes, and is structured as follows:

On the commands, each 4 bytes were originally little endian, but have been swapped to big endian in the AGSC files (despite not being longs). To read the data as originally formatted, every four bytes needs to be byte-swapped. Each command is 8 bytes, and is structured as follows:

The SoundMacro will continue with commands until it terminates when the END command is executed. The command ID for END is 0 and has null command arguments; the next SoundMacro begins after reading it.

These are the possible commands:

After the last soundmacro, the table terminated by a value of 0xFFFF.

Tables
Tables have two functions: for defining curves for volume scaling, or to be used as ADSR envelopes.

The entire Pool chunk is terminated by a value of 0xFFFF.

Project
The Project properties chunk contains values for the sounds, including priority, polyphony, volume, etc.

After the header are a number of data tables.

SoundMacro ID Table
This is a table of shorts; there's no count value, so it's terminated with a value of 0xFFFF. It's a list of SoundMacro IDs present in the file. Occasionally there's gaps in the list; these gaps are signified by the top bit, 0x8000, being set on the size value preceding the gap.

Sample ID Table
This functions the same way as the SoundMacro ID table, but it contains a list sample IDs instead.

SoundMacro Settings
This table begins with a 16-bit count value, then 16 bits of padding. Each entry in the table is 10 bytes.

Sample
The Sample chunk is all the sound data encoded using the standard Gamecube DSP ADPCM codec. It can be decoded the same way as a DSP file. Each sound's size is padded to 32 bytes before the next sound's data begins.

Sample Directory
The Sample Directory chunk (chunk 4 in Metroid Prime, chunk 3 in Metroid Prime 2) is made up of two sets of tables. The structure of both these tables is identical between both games.

Table A
The first metadata table has one entry per sound, and is terminated with 0xFFFFFFFF; since there's no known sound count anywhere in the file, the only way to read this correctly is to read until you reach the terminator value. Each entry is 0x20 bytes long.

Table B
These are accessed through the offsets in table A's entries; note that it might not match the sound count, because the same entry in this table can be used with multiple sounds. Each entry is 0x28 bytes long.

Tools

 * Prime Audio Decoder by Parax will dump all sound effects contained in a given AGSC file.