fernando marrin Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Hey Shawn, not a bad idea - I'll do the game first, and if I can fit it, I'll make it autodetect if the XM is present (like the Pac-Man 320 / Ms. Pac-Man 320 games). Only if I can fit it, though. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBrian Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 somehow i got out of that... that bob one day soon will be making a pitfall 3 game for the xm tricked out !!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 (edited) Too bad there's no 7800 emulator on Mac. http://www.macmess.org/ No? EDIT: You'll probably be interested in this as well: http://forums.bannis...&Board=8&page=1 Compile? SDL framework? Frontend? I guess I could reboot into Windows, but that's a real pain just to run an emulator. I'm using OS X 10.5.8 on a G5. I can play 7800 games on SDLMESS 0.132 with Q MESS Cat II as a front-end. QMC2 Download Page http://qmc2.arcadehi...press/download/ MacMESS - Contains link to a precompiled Universal version of SDLMESS 0.132 http://www.macmess.org/ Okay, so I tried this but only succeeded in getting things to crash. Edited May 13, 2012 by BillyHW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Your "Wonderboy question" was answered twice. not at all here we go again: adventure island nes has pokey like sound as well as wonderboy master system so can a "Wonderboy like" game , and by that i mean similar multichannel music quality, similar effects, sprites , scrolling,etc be made on stock hardware? bankswitching and pokey allowed? just theorizing here... don't care if this particular game ends up being for PS4 Yes, it's possible, but he's choosing to use the XM because it's easier for him and offers a couple of other enhancements. At least that's what I gather from what has been posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Hey Shawn, not a bad idea - I'll do the game first, and if I can fit it, I'll make it autodetect if the XM is present (like the Pac-Man 320 / Ms. Pac-Man 320 games). Only if I can fit it, though. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: This would be ideal. To have no sound at all without XM would be lame, but to offer TIA sounds without, and Pokey sound with, would be cool. It would also be cool to see what sort of TIA soundtrack you could come up with. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 (edited) Folks, I believe part of the main focus and the advantage of the XM is being missed here. If the game was made to require the XM only - utilizing the extra memory as well as the Pokey Sound - could it be possibly be done without the system - sure. You would have to pay for the extra memory on cart, the pokey chip, extra assembly time, etc. You buy the XM once, and all that extra cost and time is more than made up after a few games. 2-3 homebrew efforts, say costing ~$40-60 bucks a piece without the XM, due to having purchased and installed extra memory chips and Pokey sound chip on the cart (Like some NES games) would either pay for or more than pay for the XM. Short-term/immediate thinking gets you that homebrew taking more time, effort, and money without the XM. Long-term sees more homebrews being developed taking less time, effort and money with the XM. Again, yes the 7800 can have this - and whatever future titles running with a stock system - just throw all the extra hardware on the cart - Like the NES did for many games. Or save a heck of a lot of resources and have one piece of hardware that needs to be bought and assembled once which a standard cart can feed through. Edited May 13, 2012 by Trebor 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 (edited) so in essence for the 7800 to do a Wonderboy-Like Platformer, it needs an expansion no wonder the Nes kicked its ass... Right...Because "stock" NES hardware accomplished it all: http://en.wikipedia....ment_Controller "These chips extended the capabilities of the original console and made it possible to create NES games with features the original console could not offer." Here are a few titles that would not have existed without the NES XM...err...sorry, MMC chips: Pro Wrestling Ikari Warriors Mega Man Contra The Legend of Zelda Metroid Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Super Mario Bros 2 Super Mario Bros.3 Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse StarTropics Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II Battletoads Wizards & Warriors Cobra Triangle Batman: Return of the Joker If you were to take those MMC chips and house them in one box and feed standard carts through instead...You would have a similar concept to the 7800 XM. Ditto with high score saving - Nintendo threw a battery on the carts (Zelda). Same could be done for 7800 titles...Just throw a battery on every cart to save the data, or instead have the ability in one piece of hardware which also houses the extra chips. Edit: Interesting enough: "The MMC5 was Nintendo's largest mapper. It was also the most expensive, making developers avoid it." Edited May 13, 2012 by Trebor 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinMos3 Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 (edited) The screenshots look incredible Bob. This is exactly the kind of game I've been hoping to see for years! Also, when you said you were working on an original game, I really had my fingers crossed for some kind of platformer, but didn't expect something this awesome. BTW, a Pitfall III as a future project would be a dream come true as well. I've not been able to get the demos to work right in prosystem. It's playable if you set the cart type to 4, but the sprites are garbled. Other type options are not playable, including the type 2 of Crossbow. I can't get it to work in the versions of MESS that I have either, including the Xbox emu. What do I need to do to play this? I'm all for you doing whatever you need to in order to make the best game possible, but I'd prefer to be able to play without the XM if at all possible, and let the XM provide "extra features"... for the simple reason that I'm thoroughly disgusted with the wait and have no faith that it will be delivered in a timeframe that it will actually be useful to me, (as I will probably be gone for the next 2 years after September). And to those who offered attitude to my reasonable & polite post months ago in the XM thread... NO I don't want to hear about requesting a refund. That response angered me so much I'm still soured. Anyway, I don't want to veer this exciting thread off topic; I just wanted to voice my enthusiasm & support for your work, & concerns about "XM mandatory." [edited to make paragraphs, since posting from my phone just made a wall of text.] Edited May 13, 2012 by KevinMos3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernando marrin Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 so in essence for the 7800 to do a Wonderboy-Like Platformer, it needs an expansion no wonder the Nes kicked its ass... Right...Becuase "stock" NES hardware accomplished it all: http://en.wikipedia....ment_Controller "These chips extended the capabilities of the original console and made it possible to create NES games with features the original console could not offer." agree, but that was not the case with adventure island 1 to 4, just bankswitching and stock chips i will always prefer anything Atari related , but let's be just a bit impartial please Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Defender_2600 Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Both the Intellivision and the Odyssey 2 had expansion hardware that plugged into the cart port, and then the cart plugged into it. Both gave enhanced audio (in the form of speech). Were the carts that used it still Intellivision and Odyssey 2 carts? The XM also happens to have RAM in it. Were the Atari 2600 carts that had extra RAM in them still 2600 carts? The High Score Cart functionality is a non-issue as that was planned all along since the beginning of the 7800. ...and also, in 1985 the Atari 130XE has 128 KB of RAM ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 agree, but that was not the case with adventure island 1 to 4,just bankswitching and stock chips Actually, according to this document, Adventure Island parts II and III use the MMC3 mapper (just from having thoroughly played those games myself, I had a feeling that was the case). The original Adventure Island also uses the CNROM mapper. I'm not sure how big of a difference the CNROM makes though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernando marrin Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 agree, but that was not the case with adventure island 1 to 4,just bankswitching and stock chips Actually, according to this document, Adventure Island parts II and III use the MMC3 mapper (just from having thoroughly played those games myself, I had a feeling that was the case). The original Adventure Island also uses the CNROM mapper. I'm not sure how big of a difference the CNROM makes though. mappers allow bankswitching Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 agree, but that was not the case with adventure island 1 to 4,just bankswitching and stock chips Actually, according to this document, Adventure Island parts II and III use the MMC3 mapper (just from having thoroughly played those games myself, I had a feeling that was the case). The original Adventure Island also uses the CNROM mapper. I'm not sure how big of a difference the CNROM makes though. mappers allow bankswitching Right, but these aren't "Stock chips", as you are calling them. They were introduced a couple of years after the Famicom was out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 agree, but that was not the case with adventure island 1 to 4,just bankswitching and stock chips Actually, according to this document, Adventure Island parts II and III use the MMC3 mapper (just from having thoroughly played those games myself, I had a feeling that was the case). The original Adventure Island also uses the CNROM mapper. I'm not sure how big of a difference the CNROM makes though. CNROM usues discrete logic to provide up to four 8 KB banks of CHR ROM which would not otherwise be present in a "stock" NES. So, it evidently appears a "stock" NES could not handle an "Adventure Island" type-game. It needed an NES XM...er...sorry, extra memory and logic banks not present on the system itself. In fact, per that document only the games - and very few indeed - that ran on just a "stock" NES are the ones that show "(0) ----" as the mapper. Everything else required an XM...er, extra hardware. For the record, I love the NES...second classic system I started rebuild collecting again, after the 7800. Prior to my losing my entire classic collection I had over 200 NES carts. I'm a little shy of a 100 now, and have a Power Pak. Much love for the NES here, just like to have facts straight, especially with an underrated and mishandled system as the 7800. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austin Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Much love for the NES here, just like to have facts straight, especially with an underrated and mishandled system as the 7800. Well said, well said. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 (edited) mappers allow bankswitching Mappers = Emulation term representing extra chips and logic that were present inside NES cartridges but not present in "stock" NES systems. The exception to the above as shown in the earlier document is Mapper 0. Any game running on Mapper 0 - the very few that there were in comparison to the vast NES library - ran on "stock" hardware. Edited May 13, 2012 by Trebor 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 The biggest issue people have had with the XM project is the inclusion of the Yamaha sound processor. Even then, I don't see a problem with it. Agreed. For me, it is similar to the SUNSOFT 5B chip used in the Famicom game Gimmick! Or NAMCO163 chip used in King of Kings, Mappy Kids, and the Famicom version of Rolling Thunder Even better, the highly praised, critical acclamied, Japanese version of Castlevania 3 using the "VRC6" microprocessor chip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UberArcade Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 I am just happy multiple people are working on a great game idea like this. XM, stock hardware, whatever. Heck if it required a special controller to play it I would still be excited to see it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 It's worth pointing out that you could technically build nearly all of the XM hardware into a regular 7800 cart, it would just make the per cart price quite expensive. I think that was the main point of the XM, allowing 7800 homebrewers to have the expanded features similar to later NES games without the much higher per cart price. The NES got away with putting all of the hardware on the cart because they were selling at a much higher volume than modern homebrewers. Mitch 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fernando marrin Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 (edited) agree, but that was not the case with adventure island 1 to 4,just bankswitching and stock chips Actually, according to this document, Adventure Island parts II and III use the MMC3 mapper (just from having thoroughly played those games myself, I had a feeling that was the case). The original Adventure Island also uses the CNROM mapper. I'm not sure how big of a difference the CNROM makes though. CNROM usues discrete logic to provide up to four 8 KB banks of CHR ROM which would not otherwise be present in a "stock" NES. So, it evidently appears a "stock" NES could not handle an "Adventure Island" type-game. It needed an NES XM...er...sorry, extra memory and logic banks not present on the system itself. In fact, per that document only the games - and very few indeed - that ran on just a "stock" NES are the ones that show "(0) ----" as the mapper. Everything else required an XM...er, extra hardware. For the record, I love the NES...second classic system I started rebuild collecting again, after the 7800. Prior to my losing my entire classic collection I had over 200 NES carts. I'm a little shy of a 100 now, and have a Power Pak. Much love for the NES here, just like to have facts straight, especially with an underrated and mishandled system as the 7800. Good to know!, thanks Always thought basic mappers allowed bankswitching Castlevania 3 being an entirely different story Wondered if stock 7800 could handle a platformer And now i discover even stock nes can't do it -if you 're right- what about master system and c64? Edited May 13, 2012 by fernando marrin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 It's worth pointing out that you could technically build nearly all of the XM hardware into a regular 7800 cart, it would just make the per cart price quite expensive. I disagree. There is not enough space in a regular 7800 cart because not all the devices used in the XM are available in modern surface mount packages. You also have to factor in the hole needed in the middle of the PCB for the plastics. The hole means you have to route PCB tracks around it and it also limits your component placement options. If you consolidated POKEY, YM2151 and the board logic all into a single FPGA (assuming its possible) then it'd still be a struggle to get everything in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillyHW Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 agree, but that was not the case with adventure island 1 to 4,just bankswitching and stock chips Actually, according to this document, Adventure Island parts II and III use the MMC3 mapper (just from having thoroughly played those games myself, I had a feeling that was the case). The original Adventure Island also uses the CNROM mapper. I'm not sure how big of a difference the CNROM makes though. CNROM usues discrete logic to provide up to four 8 KB banks of CHR ROM which would not otherwise be present in a "stock" NES. So, it evidently appears a "stock" NES could not handle an "Adventure Island" type-game. It needed an NES XM...er...sorry, extra memory and logic banks not present on the system itself. In fact, per that document only the games - and very few indeed - that ran on just a "stock" NES are the ones that show "(0) ----" as the mapper. Everything else required an XM...er, extra hardware. For the record, I love the NES...second classic system I started rebuild collecting again, after the 7800. Prior to my losing my entire classic collection I had over 200 NES carts. I'm a little shy of a 100 now, and have a Power Pak. Much love for the NES here, just like to have facts straight, especially with an underrated and mishandled system as the 7800. Good to know!, thanks Always thought basic mappers allowed bankswitching Castlevania 3 being an entirely different story Wondered if stock 7800 could handle a platformer And now i discover even stock nes can't do it -if you 're right- what about master system and c64? Well, I think Wonder Boy and Giana Sisters both ran on stock machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rorysl Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 Wow! I think this thread is a perfect example of what an awesome community we have here. An idea gets tossed around by a bunch of people, everybody has some input, the wheels start turning and within a week or so we have a playable demo! Incredible! Fantastic work and, as somebody said earlier, I'll plunk down my $ for a boxed copy if the community can pull it off. As mentioned before, I'll certainly lend my talents as a writer to compiling any manual, box text, etc. (Although there are probably people here more experienced in that! Still, the offer is on the table!) Look forward to any future developments! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Propane13 Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 It's worth pointing out that you could technically build nearly all of the XM hardware into a regular 7800 cart, it would just make the per cart price quite expensive. I disagree. There is not enough space in a regular 7800 cart because not all the devices used in the XM are available in modern surface mount packages. You also have to factor in the hole needed in the middle of the PCB for the plastics. The hole means you have to route PCB tracks around it and it also limits your component placement options. If you consolidated POKEY, YM2151 and the board logic all into a single FPGA (assuming its possible) then it'd still be a struggle to get everything in there. Well, that's making 2 assumptions: - that a homebrewer will be using every single feature in one game - that the cartridge size and layout has to very closely match previous 7800 design, i.e. have a hole in the center Let's say that a lot of homrebrewers start taking advantage of XM's extra RAM and pokey features. If there are enough games like this, then I could see somebody making a new cart design without the hole in the middle, and a board with just those 2 features. Then, people could pay more to have a standalone cart, or just buy the XM version and save some money. Doesn't seem impossible; anything could happen. -John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rorysl Posted May 13, 2012 Share Posted May 13, 2012 (edited) Hey all, this is probably a question for the Xport forum but since it specifically refers to this bin, I'll ask it here -- I'm attempting to run these demos on my Xbox using the X-port Atari 7800x emulator. When I load the bin it says: No Header/DB Entry. Rom needs to be manually configured. When I enter the manual configuration menu my options are: Palette: MESS-NTSC Region: NTSC Cartridge Type - Normal Cart Pokey - No Configure Controllers Under Palette my options: 1)MESS-NTSC 2)MESS-PAL 3)New Stella NTSC 4)Old Stella NTSC 5)Z26 NTSC And under Cartridge Type: 1)Normal Cart 2)Supercart 3)Supercart with additional ROM at $4000 (Large) 4)Supercart with additional RAM at $4000 5)Supercart no additional RAM/ROM Any help would be greatly appreciated and would save me trying all the different combos! Thanks! Edited May 13, 2012 by rorysl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts