XM games - Imaginary game release thread

[The Usotsuki]

I dunno, the 6502 machines I had access to were almost entirely 128K. xD

[AtariNerd]

Oh, the first 100 or so Famicom games most certainly did - the ones that play like classic Atari 400 games; it's only the 1400+ games afterwards that use added chips/hardware.

 

Would like to see at least a simple Zelda-like proof of concept on the 7800, though.

[DracIsBack]

Would like to see at least a simple Zelda-like proof of concept on the 7800, though.

 

There is one that Propane13 did.

[DracIsBack]

I dunno, the 6502 machines I had access to were almost entirely 128K. xD

 

I had a 128K 6502 machine growing up too ... an Atari 130XE. Ramdisk was handy when I was writing papers and does but otherwise didn't make much of a difference vs. the XEGS I got later.

[HammR25]

Something that would be cool is if we were able to get Pole Position II with it saying "Prepare to Qualify" and "Good job you qualified for the race".

[The Usotsuki]

I like the Namco version's "yosen sutaato desu" voice-over, personally. But I've always been a bit weird.

[Corby]

- Ghosts 'n' Goblins

- Wrestling game

- Contra type game

- boxing....like Mike tyson Punch Out

- Star Trek

- Doom game or a thrid person shooter

- Anyone remember "Street Rod" Drag racing game, for money or pink slips!!!

- Dukes of hazzard game

[Lynxpro]

I dunno, my half-hearted comparison to the 32X got nothing but responses of "SACRILEGE!" when I uttered the words.

 

That's because it's not the same. You need to look beyond the form factor of it plugging in. This is more akin to taking hardware intended for a cartridge (ie. sound chip, RAM, mappers) typical of the day and putting it in one unit instead of multiple cartridges.

 

32X was VERY different:

 

- It transformed the 16-bit Genesis into a machine capable of about 1 million instructions per second to a 32-bit console capable of running 40 million instructions a second. This doesn't give the 7800 additional CPUs

- It enabled a console that couldn't do scaling, rotation and 3D texture mapping to do so in hardware, typical of other 32 bit machines. This does not jump the 7800 up a tier into 16-bit or 32 bit consoles.

- It increased the 64 colors onscreen out of 512 colors to 32,768 on screen colors out of 16.7 million! This does not increase the color palette of the 7800.

 

The XM does:

- Adds RAM, much like cartridges back in the day did. See IMPOSSIBLE MISSION, WINTER GAMES, TOWER TOPPLER, JINKS

- It adds sound hardware, just like COMMANDO and BALLBLAZER did with the POKEY. Atari also originally intended to offer other sound chips (see GUMBY) than POKEY. This chip was used in arcades of the day. While I tend to agree that this one aspect may be overkill, the idea has precendence.

- It adds mapper hardware that enable the existing MARIA to do a bit more, in a way that's similar to the NES mapper chips did with the PPU. See Castlevania 3 or Super Mario 3 Mike Tyson's Punch Out for examples.

- It saves high scores, similar to the intended 7800 HIGH SCORE cart. See Curt's reproduction from a few years ago.

- It allows connection of peripherals, similar to the initial 7800s with expansion ports (removed from most 7800s)

If this were like the 32X, it would transform the 7800 into a SUPER NINTENDO or something. It doesn't.

What it does do is enhance the 7800 in a way that would have been how Atari intended and/or how Nintendo enhanced the NES in cartridge ... but without the expense of building invidivual carts to do so.

 

 

 

I'm in total agreement but wouldn't it have been more plausible for Atari Inc. to have offered a Dual POKEY option over bundling a Yamaha sound chip?

 

 

My wish list would be all of the Atari Games Corp/Namco titles of that era that should've been made available for the 7800 in the first place...

 

Having finally played - via emulator - Mat Mania Challenge on the 7800, I feel a bit guilty having pestered Atari Corp often back then to license the two original arcade games [Mat Mania and Mania Challenge]. The port is terrible while the original arcade games were awesome.

 

 

 

Looking at this video of

their aren't many moving sprites so its definitely possible on the 7800.

 

As for STUN Runner it should be possible given that you can do hardware polygon filling with MARIA. See this emulator only demo by andym00. The scaled graphics would be a bit of a ROM hog.

 

 

Wasn't STUN Runner's [arcade version] graphics made possible by a very special and expensive TI graphics chip?

 

 

 

I already threw this out there in an earlier XM thread, but Crystal Castles would be great. Not only would it sound good with XM, but it would be fully possible to have an Arcade perfect port, and room to throw in some extras. Also, this project would be perfect for any XM programmer, since Crystal Castles was slated to be released for the 7800, but never seen the light of day.

 

 

To do it justice, you'd need a Trakball controller. With that in mind, I also suggest Marble Madness. The C64 was able to do the title decently, so it should be well within the XM's abilities.

 

 

 

Sequels to Atari 2600, Atari 5200 or 7800 games:

Adventure 3

River Raid 3

Rador Lock 2

Solaris 2

 

 

Isn't Solaris basically a port of Buck Rogers?

 

 

 

Ninja Golf 2: you and your wolf-caddy fight your way across 18 holes of death. use ninja magic, poison powder, double jumps and your attack caddy. play golf in a live volcano, fight sharkmen in the lost city of atlantis, rescue kidnapped geisheas and become the greated ninja golfer ever.

 

 

I think you just wrote the scriptment to the greatest stoner action film ever. Pick of Destiny what?

 

 

 

 

Would love to see any of these ported...

Vindicators

Zoo Keeper

 

 

Ever notice the music from Vindicators is taken from the soundtrack to Futureworld?

 

 

 

4D tic-tac-toe

beat um and eat um 2

Realsports Pie Eating

Video Staring Contest -3D

Indian Summer games

Geddy's Lee's Pancake Canoe

Triple Dragon

Midday Mutants

Possible Mission

Realsports Zen Buddism

 

 

You could play Realsports Zen Buddhism with the Mindlink controller.

 

Hey, what's Jake Gylennhal (sic) doing in your avatar?

 

 

 

Having a caricature of Muhammed in it would be awesome.

 

 

That would certainly be a way to get free publicity for the XM via the traditional media.

 

 

lol...yeah...I fall into the same trap as koolkitty does with my long posts, so I can understand there's some initial, I dunno..."excitement" there that causes us to perhaps omit editing and brevity. Gotta get those thoughts down as quickly and as soon as possible lest they float away from us lol

 

A little off-topic, the amount of RAM and the FM chip are my only "concerns" about XM. Something along the lines of at most 64k and just the POKEY would've been more feasible for Atari back in those days as on cart or as part of the keyboard add-on. And because of that, we'll have a harder time showing XM games to NES fanboys and having them take it seriously as it's not running on "stock" hardware, and the argument of "it would've been on cart or the keyboard add on" kinda falls flat due to the inclusion of the FM chip and that amount of RAM (and lack of keyboard, )

 

 

Then just use 32K of the allotted RAM, a 256K/512K ROM image, and use of the Pokey... That's more than enough to show off the power of the 7800 to the NES weenies.

 

 

 

I dunno, the 6502 machines I had access to were almost entirely 128K. xD

I had a 128K 6502 machine growing up too ... an Atari 130XE. Ramdisk was handy when I was writing papers and does but otherwise didn't make much of a difference vs. the XEGS I got later.

 

 

 

Well, in fairness, what was the lowest common denominator of RAM most A8 games were written for? 16K? 32K? 48K?

 

I mean, how many games for the ST were written for machines with 1MB RAM or greater? Most were written for the 520ST's 512K RAM...

[Lynxpro]

Is there any chance of any homebrew games getting onto Xbox Live and PSN if they begin offering emulated console titles? I'm still cheesed off that XBox Live offers what reports to be the arcade version of Gyruss but was actually the NES version...

 

 

And have any homebrewers tried to gain the attention of Chris Hardwick [nerdist.com] and his crew at G4? Yes, I know G4 sucks in comparison to the old TechTV channel they murdered, but it is still publicity...

[The_Laird]

Isn't Solaris basically a port of Buck Rogers?

 

No its an original game by Doug Neubauer who was the creator of Star Raiders and originally the game of the Last Starfighter. The game still blows my mind today, never thought the 2600 could pull off a game like that.

[Lynxpro]

Isn't Solaris basically a port of Buck Rogers?

 

No its an original game by Doug Neubauer who was the creator of Star Raiders and originally the game of the Last Starfighter. The game still blows my mind today, never thought the 2600 could pull off a game like that.

 

 

It looks a lot like Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom. Granted, the graphics are incredible for the 2600...

[kool kitty89]

Yeah ... the RAM thing was purely a cost thing. I would have expected it to have 16K, 32K, 48K or something typical of a 6502 system. But turns out it's economics. In this day an age, 128K is cheaper to put in than smaller sizes.

Hell, back in '87/88 it was already extreme enough to make them opt for a 32kx8-bit SRAM in games like Winter Games over dual 8k SRAMs (let alone DRAMs with added logic -custom logic would have made that cheaper, but they weren't using custom LSI banking logic either).

 

The Yamaha chip took me a while to warm up to as well. I also thought it would be more typical just to have a POKEY. That said, now that it's in there, I cannot wait to see the music demos that programmers come up with.

Yes, it's a pretty awesome chip and hopefully we'll see some stuff even putting better Amiga tunes to shame. (and thus also better than anything Atari Games ever did with it -at least AFIK: all the Atari Games YM2151 music -and most western arcade games in general- tends to be rather average and bland in terms of what the chip is capable of -weaker than the better examples of Adlib stuff, and the YM3812 is much less capable than the 2151 -tons of awesome 4-op FM from better examples of Megadrive/Genesis games -Japan, North America, and Europe- as well as various Japanese Arcade/Computer stuff)

 

 

With some of them, we'd get that anyway because of the form factor of the XM ... particularly if they don't know the hardware additions that live in some NES carts as well.

It's well beyond what most/all NES carts have onboard. (even some historical 7800 carts do a lot more than most -or even all- NES carts, though if you go by the context of the 7800 only using 16k of the 32k SRAM on the carts, it's more in the range of what a few NES/FC games pushed -FC games pushed a lot of sound add-ons, but NES didn't push any since they were never offered for the expansion port as such and the on-cart audio input was removed)

 

A relatively small percent of NES games use any advanced mappers or added RAM. (even SRAM for battery saves was extremely rare). Most of the added chips were just normal bank switching logic, mappers actually enhancing the VDP capabilities (or in a few cases accelerating other things -I think some were sued to completely avoid the CPU overhead for switching 8/16k banks for delta modulation playback)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, the first 100 or so Famicom games most certainly did - the ones that play like classic Atari 400 games; it's only the 1400+ games afterwards that use added chips/hardware.

No, those games only avoided bank switching, like the 48k (and smaller) 7800 games did. The vast majority of any added logic for later games would be simple bank switching. (a relatively small portion of games actually used "advanced" mappers that actually offered significant enhancement -like the MMC5 in SMB3 allowing 8x8 color attribute cells rather than the default 16x16)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking at this video of

their aren't many moving sprites so its definitely possible on the 7800.

 

As for STUN Runner it should be possible given that you can do hardware polygon filling with MARIA. See this emulator only demo by andym00. The scaled graphics would be a bit of a ROM hog.

 

 

Wasn't STUN Runner's [arcade version] graphics made possible by a very special and expensive TI graphics chip?

It wasn't a "graphics chip" as such, it was a graphics-oriented DSP (or DSPs rather: 2 or more depending on the Hard Drivin' based arcade board in question) used for rasterization (which they were relatively inefficient at compared to dedicated blitter logic) and for 3D calculations, etc. (with a 68010 as the main CPU for game logic and such) That DSP-like chip in question was flexible enough to also be re-used as a sound DSP on some of the boards.

 

And the 3D math and logic (including realtime physics) would be among the biggest issues for practicality on the 7800. It could probably be possible to some extent, but extremely cut-down (ie much more than the Lynx -which has a fast math coprocessor on top of a fairly fast 65C02 and blitter for simple fill operations)

 

Line fill is useful, but only a small component necessary for building 3D graphics. Even the Jaguar might have had a hard time managing an arcade perfect STUN Runner. (then again, given the resolutions you'd be pushing on a TV, it wouldn't ever be truly arcade perfect as such -and the Jag can do a ton of stuff the Arcade machine would be horrible at -the Saturn Race Drivin' port isn't arcade perfect either, but it would obviously be capable of many things the arcade board wouldn't do well)

 

Then just use 32K of the allotted RAM, a 256K/512K ROM image, and use of the Pokey... That's more than enough to show off the power of the 7800 to the NES weenies.

You'd still have limitations though, especially since you won't be doing any A8 style POKEY tricks. (you could do software timed versions of many of them, but not the same interrupt driven ones -you also have less CPU time in general than the A8, let alone NES, and NES pushed quite a bit of CPU driven sound -less often graphics- stuff from envelopes to PCM) And then there's things like the hardware delta modulation channel. (you could match that to some degree with good quality 4-bit PCM, but that would need to be done in software and cater to MARIA's bus sharing issues -which are the main problems with using IRQ- and have enough CPU time for that to be practical as well -and the NES could easily beat any of that with software 7-bit PCM anyway -interrupt or software driven)

 

So the biggest advantages for the 7800 XM for sound (sans the 2151) would be use of POKEY's (and TIA's) strengths in hardware that wouldn't require CPU intervention (you do have 6 channels vs the NES's 5 -stock, or always if you don't count Famicom- and more flexible in some areas than the NES's sound -but less so in others) The same thing as if you were going up against the C64's SID.

 

OTOH, if you wanted to limit things for late 80s tech, you'd probably limit ROM to 256k max (256k NES games only appeared at the tail end of the 80s -512k not until the 90s and there's only a handful of such large games -Zelda was only 128k, for example), and probably limit RAM to 32k as well. However, you wouldn't have to discount the YM2151 either, just use it to simulate a cheaper sound chip from the time. (like the low cost OPLL -YM2413- used in add-ons for the SMS and MSX, or the full OPL2/YM3812 of Adlib and such or the older/slightly simpler YM3526 -or for non FM stuff as well -like a simple pulse/triangle/saw/etc sound chip)

Edited February 22, 2011 by kool kitty89

[8th lutz]

 

No, those games only avoided bank switching, like the 48k (and smaller) 7800 games did. The vast majority of any added logic for later games would be simple bank switching. (a relatively small portion of games actually used "advanced" mappers that actually offered significant enhancement -like the MMC5 in SMB3 allowing 8x8 color attribute cells rather than the default 16x16)

SMB 3 didn't use the MMC 5 chip. SMB 3 used the MMC 3 chip.

 

I got that info from http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/916386-nes/faqs/2946 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Management_Controller .

Edited February 22, 2011 by 8th lutz

[Lynxpro]

Yes, it's a pretty awesome chip and hopefully we'll see some stuff even putting better Amiga tunes to shame. (and thus also better than anything Atari Games ever did with it -at least AFIK: all the Atari Games YM2151 music -and most western arcade games in general- tends to be rather average and bland in terms of what the chip is capable of -weaker than the better examples of Adlib stuff, and the YM3812 is much less capable than the 2151 -tons of awesome 4-op FM from better examples of Megadrive/Genesis games -Japan, North America, and Europe- as well as various Japanese Arcade/Computer stuff)

 

 

I dunno. Audio from the Amiga Paula chip seems "warmer" to me. The Yamaha just sounds "synth" in comparison. I can't imagine the Yamaha chip doing as good of a job with the music from, say, Shadow of the Beast.

 

It would make me chuckle if someone wedged a SID or a Paula chip into a 7800 homebrew title.

 

And while I didn't care for TI back in the day, I did like their speech synthesizer module for the TI99/4A. Which reminds me, I'd love to see a port of Parsec to the 7800...

 

Are any programmers planning on using the YM chip for music and the Pokey for sound effects?

 

 

 

A relatively small percent of NES games use any advanced mappers or added RAM. (even SRAM for battery saves was extremely rare). Most of the added chips were just normal bank switching logic, mappers actually enhancing the VDP capabilities (or in a few cases accelerating other things -I think some were sued to completely avoid the CPU overhead for switching 8/16k banks for delta modulation playback)

 

 

It amazes me nobody [MOS, Atari, Synertek, Rockwell, etc.] didn't produce a modified version of the 6502 that allowed for more memory without bank switching. Don't stone me if the Lynx's version of the CPU actually accomplished this...

 

 

 

 

limit ROM to 256k max (256k NES games only appeared at the tail end of the 80s -512k not until the 90s and there's only a handful of such large games -Zelda was only 128k, for example), and probably limit RAM to 32k as well. However, you wouldn't have to discount the YM2151 either, just use it to simulate a cheaper sound chip from the time. (like the low cost OPLL -YM2413- used in add-ons for the SMS and MSX, or the full OPL2/YM3812 of Adlib and such or the older/slightly simpler YM3526 -or for non FM stuff as well -like a simple pulse/triangle/saw/etc sound chip)

 

 

Well, I brought up 512K ROM images as optional of that era since the SMS did have them. Oh, in Sega talk, that would be "4 Mega"!

[DracIsBack]

Well, I brought up 512K ROM images as optional of that era since the SMS did have them. Oh, in Sega talk, that would be "4 Mega"!

 

[The Usotsuki]

Well, there WAS the Western Design 65C816, which was 6502-compatible and could push 16 MB RAM... though it was a 16-bit CPU not 8-bit.

[AtariNerd]

A relatively small percent of NES games use any advanced mappers or added RAM. (even SRAM for battery saves was extremely rare). Most of the added chips were just normal bank switching logic, mappers actually enhancing the VDP capabilities (or in a few cases accelerating other things -I think some were sued to completely avoid the CPU overhead for switching 8/16k banks for delta modulation playback)

 

Ah! Thanks for that..cheers.

[Lynxpro]

Well, there WAS the Western Design 65C816, which was 6502-compatible and could push 16 MB RAM... though it was a 16-bit CPU not 8-bit.

 

 

Very true, but as you stated, its a 16-bit CPU. I'm surprised MOS didn't change the memory limitations in the 6510...

[The Usotsuki]

Hm. What about Commodore's 6509?

[Lynxpro]

Hm. What about Commodore's 6509?

 

 

 

Let's refer to it as the MOS 6509. Wikipedia reports it supported 1MB via bank switching but it apparently had a reputation for being difficult to program.

 

I'm surprised Commodore didn't sign up for MOS to have a second-source license on the Motorola 680x0 series of CPUs. All the animosity between MOS and Motorola should've been paved over by then...

[kool kitty89]

 

No, those games only avoided bank switching, like the 48k (and smaller) 7800 games did. The vast majority of any added logic for later games would be simple bank switching. (a relatively small portion of games actually used "advanced" mappers that actually offered significant enhancement -like the MMC5 in SMB3 allowing 8x8 color attribute cells rather than the default 16x16)

SMB 3 didn't use the MMC 5 chip. SMB 3 used the MMC 3 chip.

 

I got that info from http://www.gamefaqs.com/nes/916386-nes/faqs/2946 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_Management_Controller .

Right, thanks, I remembered right about the MMC5's capabilities (though I oversimplified the feature set), but mixed up SMB3, it uses the earlier and cheaper MMC3 and thus does no add the 8x8 attribute cells. (normal 16x16 cells)

The MMC3 does add scanline interrupts to faciliate added software effects. (on top of various scrolling effects, it would allow interrupt driven raster effects as well -like palette reloading) I'd though the NES had built-in raster interrupts, but maybe I was mistaken. (or maybe it was hblank interrupts rather than scanline interrupts)

 

 

 

Well, there WAS the Western Design 65C816, which was 6502-compatible and could push 16 MB RAM... though it was a 16-bit CPU not 8-bit.

That's just done via bank switching, not fundamental extention of the address logic. It's actually unattractive in some areas due to the multiplexed address and data lines and need for an external latch to make use of the expanded addressing. (so less flexible than some external bank switching schemes anyway) The HU6280 expanded the 65C02 (or rather the "full" version with the added instructions from Rockwell -and thus all the instructions of the 65816 but lack of the added internal logic) to a 20-bit (2 MB) address space (also using bank switching, but non multiplexed and with some other advantages including internal logic facilitating single cycle bus accesses rather than 1/2 cycle accesses requiring faster memory -the same thing several 6502 systems accomplished with external logic). The 6280 also added sound and I/O hardware on top of the CPU core and mapping logic.

 

And, of course, there's various options for external banking with discrete logic or a cutom mapper IC, or the option of merging such logic with a 6502 (or '816) core for a custom CPU ASIC. (which was relatively common with the 6502 -especially due to it being relatively cheap/easy to license, even Atari Inc did that by merging halt logic into the custom SALLY 6502c for the A8, Nintendo/Ricoh did it twice with the NES's CPU+sound+I/O chip and SNES's CPU+I/O chip -the latter also added a fast multiplication coprocessor on-chip iirc)

 

 

 

I'm surprised Commodore didn't sign up for MOS to have a second-source license on the Motorola 680x0 series of CPUs. All the animosity between MOS and Motorola should've been paved over by then...

Unlike the 650x family (or even Z80 or x86 to some extent), the 68000 was not particularly cheap/attractive to license and thus you didn't see nearly as much licensed/custom implementations as such. (only large, dedicated foundaries tended to licence it -Signetics, Hitachi, etc- up to the mid 90s when you saw it being more readily used in embedded ASICs -like Sega merging it with the VDP/system ASIC in late model Genesis consoles and with the audio ASIC of the Saturn)

That's also a major reason Nintendo went with the 6502 architecture twice and both times with custom implementations merging additional logic. (or NEC doing the same, or Atari with SALLY, or with the single chip VCS, etc)

 

So even with CBM's in-house chip manufacturing, there would be considerable overhead from the license to counter the advantages of in-house production. (let alone economies of scale -volumes CSG/MOS would be producing it in vs what Motorola or other licensees were putting out -unless CBM sold 68000s as a general 3rd party vendor on top of using it in-house)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, it's a pretty awesome chip and hopefully we'll see some stuff even putting better Amiga tunes to shame. (and thus also better than anything Atari Games ever did with it -at least AFIK: all the Atari Games YM2151 music -and most western arcade games in general- tends to be rather average and bland in terms of what the chip is capable of -weaker than the better examples of Adlib stuff, and the YM3812 is much less capable than the 2151 -tons of awesome 4-op FM from better examples of Megadrive/Genesis games -Japan, North America, and Europe- as well as various Japanese Arcade/Computer stuff)

I dunno. Audio from the Amiga Paula chip seems "warmer" to me. The Yamaha just sounds "synth" in comparison. I can't imagine the Yamaha chip doing as good of a job with the music from, say, Shadow of the Beast.

There are a lot of trade-offs, but in a pure "game" setting without an Amiga with a beefed up CPU and lots of RAM (for large samples and software mixing), the only major disadvantage of the Yamaha chip is for some percussion instruments -which is what you most often see sample channels being used for to supplement FM. (everything else is possible to synthesize -or in some cases nearly perfectly replicate, and at mugh higher sample rates/carity- with FM, though some string instruments and such many require pairing channels -which you'd also do for echo/reverb effects among other things)

 

There's a lot of mediocre FM synth out there, especially underutilization of 4-op FM synth chips (like the YM2151 and the YM2612 in the Genesis/MD), but also some exceptional examples that really show what's possible. (even without added PCM perchssion in some cases -though FM percussion is certainly one of the weakest areas, you still have some good examples with the likes of Sunsoft and Technosoft on the Genesis among others)

For 2-op FM a la Adlib, weaker sound is less surprising, but even then there's tons of wasted potential. (underuse of pairing channels for more complex sounds, underuse of the variable waveforms, underuse of the full 9 channel if pairing isn't used, etc)

 

The 4 channel limit of Paula (without software mixing) is rather significant as well in terms of the complexity of music, granted, if you pair 4 channels on the YM2151 you'd be limited to that too (but it's optionaldepending on the case).

You see music catering to the limited hardware channels of the amiga as such, and better examples of FM arrangements catering to the strengths of that as well. (it's really nice to have both though -and that's why you see a lot of the better sound engines on the Genesis pushing the 5th FM channel in DAC mode as an 8-bit software driven sample channel -almost always managed by the Z80- )

 

As for Altered Beast in particular, yes I think the YM2151 could do better renditions of most (if not all) of the tracks in the game, though "better" is relative (up to personal taste) and you wouldn't get the best example (by far) if you just tried to emulate what the Amiga does. (some people don't like the arranged CD-DA tracks on the FM Towns or PC Engine CD versions of Altered beast for that matter)

 

And while I didn't care for TI back in the day, I did like their speech synthesizer module for the TI99/4A. Which reminds me, I'd love to see a port of Parsec to the 7800...

You don't need a speech synthesizer either, you can do it in software with some speech samples on the cartridge and CPU driven speech algorithims triggering software playback of various samples with the right timing. (with very limited memory, you'd need to use an actual speech synthesis engine as such or very cut-down speech samples in number/length/quality, but with more memory, you can push more for straight recordings -there's also the possibility of lossy compression beyond just dropping the resolution or sample rate, but that's CPU intensive -maybe possible if you halt the game when speech is played)

 

Are any programmers planning on using the YM chip for music and the Pokey for sound effects?

You'd probably want to use both for both purposes (on top of TIA) depending on the circumstances. (a lot of Genesis games make use of the limited SN76489 for music -sometimes even for lead instruments or for additive synth with FM channels, and POKEY is more useful in many ways than the simple SN PSG)

Even TIA might have some value for music (mainly for bassline and percussion type stuff), but would obviously be useful for SFX as well. (it would depend on the game and the FX sounds you wanted to determine what mix of sounds you'd want)

Given the limits of TIA and the fact you probably wouldn't be doing IRQ based sample playback, TIA would probably be the most attractive option for 4-bit volume modulation PCM playback.

 

 

A relatively small percent of NES games use any advanced mappers or added RAM. (even SRAM for battery saves was extremely rare). Most of the added chips were just normal bank switching logic, mappers actually enhancing the VDP capabilities (or in a few cases accelerating other things -I think some were sued to completely avoid the CPU overhead for switching 8/16k banks for delta modulation playback)

It amazes me nobody [MOS, Atari, Synertek, Rockwell, etc.] didn't produce a modified version of the 6502 that allowed for more memory without bank switching. Don't stone me if the Lynx's version of the CPU actually accomplished this...

That has nothing to do with the NES's DMC banking though: the DMC channel is limited to reading 8 or 16k blocks of memory (via DMA) for playing 1-bit delta modulated samples at ~4 to 33.5 kHz with no CPU assistance otther than switching banks if a sample exceeds the 8 or 16k limit. (iirc, an interrupt can be generated for switching banks)

 

As for the 650x architecture itself, I'm not sure, but I'd think extending the 16-bit address space might have been tricky to do while maintaining full bankwards compatibility. (or maybe it was more of a low-cost/silicon issue) It took x86 until the 386's protected mode to achieve practical flat 32-bit address space. (the planned 32-bit successor to the '816 would probably have added flat 32-bit addressing though)

 

The bigger issues with the 65816 was that it was only offered with address/data lines multiplexed, and that wasn't so much of an issue for the 808x CPUs with slow memory accessing, but for 650x that made things more problematic from what I understand. (on top of not resolving the 1/2 cycle memory access timing needed -without addign external logic)

NEC's 6280, while simpler and less powerful (per clock) in many respects, also managed a considerably more useful design with the fully integrated mapping/MMU logic and full ingle cycle bus accesses meaning memory could be clocked at the same speed as the CPU for zero wait states.

Going from the side of missing features to the line and aside from a 32-bit memory model there's things like:

-added/enhanced prefetch or full dynamic caching beyond that (goign beyond the single cycle memory accessing and making it far more useful to have faster 650x chips without goign beyond memory limits of the time)

-a derivative of the '816 with a 16-bit external data bus (on top of non-multiplexed address lines)

 

And a variety of other possibilities for the line. (the route taken with the Z800/280 would have been rather interesting for the 650x architecture)

 

Well, I brought up 512K ROM images as optional of that era since the SMS did have them. Oh, in Sega talk, that would be "4 Mega"!

Yes, but very few games did so with Phantasy Star among those exceptions. (more games pushed such in the later years of the system's life, but that's a different context than '86-89) Remember that the vast majority of Genesis/MD games were no larger than 512k for the first couple years. (and was still the common standard in '91 -Sonic 1 was only 512 kB)

The Phantasy Star games were among the exceptions to those too.

Edited February 23, 2011 by kool kitty89

[gdement]

Yes, but very few games did so with Phantasy Star among those exceptions. (more games pushed such in the later years of the system's life, but that's a different context than '86-89) Remember that the vast majority of Genesis/MD games were no larger than 512k for the first couple years. (and was still the common standard in '91 -Sonic 1 was only 512 kB)

The Phantasy Star games were among the exceptions to those too.

 

I remember Phantasy Star 2 being advertised as "6 mega", and I just now checked that's actually truly the ROM size. I didn't realize how weird that was at the time, but it is quite odd. I guess it's a pair of 512KB + 256KB 16-bit chips mapped at different address ranges, + another SRAM chip for save states (probably 8KB).. crazy cartridge.

 

A pair of equal sized 8-bit chips, or a single 16-bit chip, would seem much more sensible.

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

How about a guy in a Starfleet uniform, with a script in his hand, running away from a lawyer with a billy-club trying to stop him from shopping the script around?

[Atari_Falcon]

Isn't Solaris basically a port of Buck Rogers?

 

No its an original game by Doug Neubauer who was the creator of Star Raiders and originally the game of the Last Starfighter. The game still blows my mind today, never thought the 2600 could pull off a game like that.

 

 

It looks a lot like Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom. Granted, the graphics are incredible for the 2600...

 

Yes my friends, THIS is the best damn game I have ever seen on Atari 2600 (the gfx were recycled for Radar Lock what does a decent job, too) Solaris II would be awsome!

 

And yes, it is similar in some ways to Buck Rogers, but the graphics are not compareable. If that is how an Atari port of an old game looks, then I would have liked to see more ports

[kool kitty89]

Yes, but very few games did so with Phantasy Star among those exceptions. (more games pushed such in the later years of the system's life, but that's a different context than '86-89) Remember that the vast majority of Genesis/MD games were no larger than 512k for the first couple years. (and was still the common standard in '91 -Sonic 1 was only 512 kB)

The Phantasy Star games were among the exceptions to those too.

 

I remember Phantasy Star 2 being advertised as "6 mega", and I just now checked that's actually truly the ROM size. I didn't realize how weird that was at the time, but it is quite odd. I guess it's a pair of 512KB + 256KB 16-bit chips mapped at different address ranges, + another SRAM chip for save states (probably 8KB).. crazy cartridge.

 

A pair of equal sized 8-bit chips, or a single 16-bit chip, would seem much more sensible.

There's lots of games with such odd ROM sizes, and much further off than that (Ghouls n' Ghosts was 640 kB/5 Mbit, Panorama Cotton is 2.5 MB/20 Mbit Super SFII was 5 MB/40 Mbit), and it happened on the SNES too. (SFII Turbo was 2.5 MB/20 Mbit among others)

 

If production volumes got high enough, they could have opted for a single higher density chip or mated 8-bit chips and wasted the added space. (which may have happened anyway for later revisions of such games -or rereleases) However, take cost into account: you may get less bang for the buck with separate 256+512k chips or 128+512k for that matter, but if the smaller densities are still cheaper overall (including PCB manufacturing costs), they'd be preferable in the short term at least. (some games used 4 ROM chips and a ton of PCB space even -vertical orientation)

It's all a matter of context and how important short run cost is over long run. (opting for the single larger capacity chip or 2 matched smaller 8-bit chips would mean more room for animation/detail and no more cost in the long run, but higher prices or lower profits in the short run -especially important for games that only sell well in the short run)

 

With high enough production runs, it may have even been possible to push more custom ROM sizes (like actual 640/768k chips or 2.5/3/5 MB chips for that matter), and Sega did actually do that with RAM chips in the MD with the semi-custom 32kx16-bit PSRAM chips used in later models (up to the early revision model 2 MD/Genesis, they were using 32kx8-bit PSRAMs for main memory). Unless, of course, it's actually a 64kx16-bit chip that wastes 1/2 to save space over 2 separate chips. (all references point to an actual 64kB density though unlike the 128kx16-bit SDRAM used on the very final model 3 units -that's a 256 kB chip, so also a little odd but apparently industry standard since it was a normal off the shelf chip used in the Saturn and 32x as well -Saturn had a mix of those and 512kB SDRAMs)

 

The only other option that would keep costs down would be to constrain the ROM size to the next smallest density available (like 512 kB using one 256kx16-bit ROM or 2 256kx8-bit ROMs), but that would mean limiting game content more. (thouch also decreasing cost significantly or taking more time to carefully pack the data and/or implement more efficient compression schemes -any data that didn't need to be loaded on the fly could be losslessly compressed)

Edited February 25, 2011 by kool kitty89