SNES sees a huge amount of new FastROM patches

[Kirk_Johnston]

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/03/dedicated-romhacker-converts-more-than-80-snes-games-into-fastrom

 

It's pretty cool to see so many games get a nice speed boost with the move to FastROM. I noticed it making a difference in most shumps on the system almost instantly. And we know most of these games could almost certainly be optimized even further on top of that to run better still, much like the FastROM version of Gradius III by Aaendy that even gives the unoptimized 10.74 MHz SA-1 conversion a decent run for its money:

 

I hope he keeps 'em coming until pretty much every SlowROM SNES game at least has a FastROM version.

[Tanooki]

Been awhile, wondered what happened.

 

I'd like to see more of this  FastROM exploitation, I know it exists, but never really dug into it.

 

Yet another two questions popped into my head and probably has an easy to find answer, but given the reality if it, it's pretty simple.

- Could an existing game that runs with slowdown, such as Gradius III up there, be transplanted to a compatible FastROM board and just work?

- And given how well Gradius III is working up there on a stock board, was FastROM available at the time this game was made or was LoROM only open for Konami at the time?

 

I'm wondering if that game was made to run better and got gimped using a crap slow board when Konami may have intended to run the game at full speed on FastROM levels of hardware access.

[Kirk_Johnston]

12 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Been awhile, wondered what happened.

 

I'd like to see more of this  FastROM exploitation, I know it exists, but never really dug into it.

 

Yet another two questions popped into my head and probably has an easy to find answer, but given the reality if it, it's pretty simple.

- Could an existing game that runs with slowdown, such as Gradius III up there, be transplanted to a compatible FastROM board and just work?

- And given how well Gradius III is working up there on a stock board, was FastROM available at the time this game was made or was LoROM only open for Konami at the time?

 

I'm wondering if that game was made to run better and got gimped using a crap slow board when Konami may have intended to run the game at full speed on FastROM levels of hardware access.

I'm always around.

 

I think FastROM was available day one as one of the two main SNES cartridges formats at the time: The cheaper SlowROM or the slightly more expensive FastROM. And a bunch of publishers just cheaped-out and went for the SlowROM to pinch a few pennies, even sometimes when the game was likely initially developed with FastROM in mind and intended to run at that speed. The result was that many games that really should have been running fine upon release on SNES actually ended up gimped with some pretty bad slowdown that shouldn't have been there and wasn't intended by the developer (the actual designers and programmers working on the game).

 

A classic example of how publisher decisions like that can make a huge difference to the end product on SNES was the whole Another World debacle. There's a bit about that further down this article:

 

https://fabiensanglard.net/another_world_polygons_SNES/ 

 

That's cheap-ass publishers for you.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[Tanooki]

Same bs another decade and developer.  In the early 2000s on GBA in the UK/EU area there was Pinball Challenge Deluxe, an effectively as perfect as possible port of the amiga/dos classic games of Pinball Dreams & Pinball Fantasies as one game. The develoeprs were super proud of it, until it came time to publishing.  Ubisoft said they would sell the game with the ability to save high scores so it was coded in.  They decided they literally wanted to save a dollar per cartridge and left off the save chip and battery when it went to the pressing plant.  The developer found out, got furious, and then spouted off about it online to anyone listening.  They outright advocated for people to STEAL THE GAME and use EMULATORS and FLASH KITS to play the game as they intended, with saved scores.  They were pissed and out to burn Ubisoft for it.  I own the game, it is fantastic, but lack of save does suck knowing it is there.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

Do any of you get so used to the slowdown in any SNES games that it just feels like it's supposed to be there?

[Kirk_Johnston]

I did that for most of the games with slowdown back in the day to be honest. But it was always a little disappointing that this was even a thing on SNES, and certainly when it was to the extent that it was in games like Super R-Type, Gradius III and even Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts, etc. So it's just good to see so many of these games getting patched now. And I think this will help change some of the more negative and/or false narratives around how "slow" the SNES is coming from certain people in other places around the Internet imo, which is an added bonus. Next I'd like to see some of these games get a bit of additional code optimization too, like Gradius III got, and then we can really see them running at or close to their best on SNES finally. And then, following that, I'd ideally like to see lots of brand new SNES games that demonstrate even better what it was/is really capable of when truly masterfully pushed to its limits--the kind of stuff to really blow people's minds.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Kirk_Johnston

[Tanooki]

Honestly and this isn't some rose tinted view or denial of things.  I never noticed, it, and really I thought it was just how the game was intended.  WHat got me was the graphics dropout in the huge ass plant boss and occasional bubbles of Gradius III.  That was my first real taste of something being off.  The only time I felt something was actually suffering slowdown and broken were FX chip games I got on the mid 90s aftermarket (local shop) when I snapped up Vortex and Stunt Race FX.  I mean I can deal with some mid teens and up FPS fine without it ruining my ability, but those two dip into the single digits where you need to turn in advance of your actual turn, that's game breaking crap that should never been put out in that state.

 

To me when Gradius III would slow down, it seems more like a dramatic choice whereas the others were just crappily done and probably shouldn't have.  At this rate as much as I think I'd like to try the FastROM patches since it really isn't doing anything but a basic speedier PCB swap, I think it would just feel wrong.

[Kirk_Johnston]

Another welcome addition that's a FastROM patch plus some extra optimization:

[Cris1997XX]

Obligatory "Can the SNES handle a horizontal shooter in Mode 0!?!?" comment

[jeffythedragonslayer]

On 12/8/2023 at 11:44 AM, Cris1997XX said:

Obligatory "Can the SNES handle a horizontal shooter in Mode 0!?!?" comment

With most this is impossible, but with Kirk, all things are possible.

[Razzie.P]

15 minutes ago, jeffythedragonslayer said:

but with Kirk, all things are possible.

Except developing for the SNES.  He's admitted many times he can't do that, sadly.

 

And following simple instructions for installing dev tools.  He couldn't do that either.

 

And... Ah, this could go on all day.

[jeffythedragonslayer]

1 hour ago, Razzie.P said:

following simp

Sure, let's go with that.

[Tanooki]

Go away a few days and things got 180, at this rate if the ignore list still exists I see a new add coming.