Nintellivision 4.3 Released

[+wavemotion]

Nintellivision is an emulator for our beloved machine on the DS/DSi/XL/LL

 

The latest version can always be found here: https://github.com/wavemotion-dave/NINTV-DS

 

The last couple of releases have been mostly fixes and enhancements for various RAM/ROM segment mapping to ensure all the latest homebrews work.
 

• Loads .ROM or .BIN/.CFG format files.
• Up to 1024KB (512K words) of ROM memory emulated.
• JLP 16-bit RAM emulated (8K Words)
• JLP Flash support of 336 rows (42 sectors) for a total of 64K bytes (actual 64512 bytes). Each game gets their own 64K of file-backed flash.
• ECS emulated with 2K of 8-bit RAM, keyboard and extra sound channels.
• Intellivoice emulated for games that take advantage of voice enhancements.
• Up to 8K of extra 8-bit RAM emulated for games like USFC Chess and Land Battle (note, the 2K of ECS 8-bit RAM comes out of this pool).
• Up to 16K Words of extra 16-bit RAM emulated beyond dedicated 8K words of JLP RAM.
• Paging on all segments of memory provided the full binary is 1024KB (bytes) or less.

 

The emulator provides some quality-of-life improvements such as high score saving, load/save states, various controller maps (including various dual-controller setups to allow for smooth move/shoot such as you might enjoy with a game like Cloudy Mountain).  I've recently added the ability to play the game at 100% to 150% speed - this can be useful for games like Treasure of Tarmin (my favorite Intellivision game!) where I find playing at 130% speed allows me to zip around the dungeons a bit faster and can squeeze in more gameplay into the same time-frame. Numerous cheat codes/hacks are built into the emulation and can be enabled via a menu. A large number of game manuals are built in and can be viewed on screen (text only). Custom overlays are supported - it's a little daunting to create your first one, but instructions are provided.

 

[Morpheus]

That’s a nice trick Ilabnip!🤠

I’ll PM you!

[4ever2600]

That is saweeeeet!

[Crash7]

I can hear that snake already.

[+Rick Reynolds]

I know this has been posted and I'm sure it's somewhere in the README docs, etc., but where do I put the stuff that is in the extras.zip file on my SD card?

[+wavemotion]

Hey Rick. The .cht cheat file goes in /data directory and the other kinds of files go wherever your global configuration says to put them. Load any game and press Config and then Select to see your global options. I’m not at my main computer at the moment so I’m not sure what the default is (I think it’s same dir as your ROMs). 
 

For my preferred setup it’s this:

 

[+Steve Jones]

I love this software and appreciate all the time and effort you have put into it.

I have tested it with hundreds of games and almost all of them work, with the exception of a few recent releases, do you know if they will work soon?
I have a list at home, but off the top of my head, Infiltrator, TNT Cowboy, Defender of the Crown do not work, neither does Onion and Sorrow of Gadlan Thur.(There are a few more)

Do these have something in common that prevents them from working?

[+wavemotion]

Hi Steve - all of those games were recently made working on Nintellivision (the only one I don’t have is Defender of the Crown but I’d be willing to bet that now works given the recent improvements). Be sure to download the latest version. If you’re using something like TWL++ to launch your games, you must replace the built in version of the emulator which is squirreled away in some subdirectory (I’ll find the path if you can’t locate it). Or wait for the next version of TWL++ which always grabs the most recent versions of my emulators. Be sure the splash screen shows 4.3. 
 

For some games that use JLP features, but don’t correctly set the header bits, you may have to load the game with the X button and force the use of JLP. Onion, as I recall, was one such game. Nintellivision will remember the last choice you made when loading - so if you force the use of JLP or Intellivoice or ECS (or any combination), it will use that same hardware the next time you load the same game ROM.

 

If you know of any games that do not work with v4.3, please do let me know so I can work on it!

 

[+Steve Jones]

if you know where that subdirectory is please let me know, I can't find it.

I have the latest version of Nintellivision (4.3) 

and just updated TWL++ to latest version but still no luck, even when I press X and select JLP

 

 

 

[+wavemotion]

Replace NINTV-DS here (by the way, you only need to do this if you're launching the game via TWL++ ... I tend to load the emulator and then use the emulator interface to pick my games).

 

If you're seeing a splash-screen with 4.3 then I'm not sure what the issue is... the games you mention run for me with the exception of Defender of the Crown which I haven't bought yet (just not my type of game... though I should probably still support the developers!).

 

I should also check that you're running TWL++ on a DSi or above. If you have an older DS unit, it doesn't have the memory needed to run the more complex homebrew games - though you should get a message on screen to indicate that the game is "TOO COMPLEX". With a DSi or above, we've got plenty of memory for even the most demanding bankswitching game.

 

 

[+Steve Jones]

Ok I figured out what the problem was.

Because previous versions didn't support bin + cfg files, I had converted some to roms using the bin2rom.exe utility,

but that somehow messed up some of the games that use JLP.

When I replaced the roms with the original bin + cfg files, which 4.3 supports now, things worked fine.

I did have to start using X button and enable the JLP.

I haven't tested them all because of course my DS battery died right when I started testing,

but I can confirm so far that Anthropomorphic Force works so I assume the rest will too.

If I find any that still don't I will let you know.

Thanks as always for your help.

[+Steve Jones]

Update, did more testing, every game works now, even some unreleased titles I am beta testing.

A few you need to start with X and select JLP but most of them do it automatically.

 

So psyched to be able to play Infiltrator and Cloudfire on my DS !

 

Again, many thanks for all your work on this!!!

[+wavemotion]

I'm glad that worked out, Steve.  Once you force a game to start with JLP once, it should remember that you did that and you won't need to force that setting again (unless you want to change it to something else... like forcing ECS or forcing Intellivoice).

 

Yeah, unfortunately the .rom format can't adequately describe more complicated banking schemes used by the Matel/ECS paging. It does handle JLP though it seems that quite a bit of the conversions to that format don't seem to get it quite right. So we're stuck with .bin/.cfg as our best way of describing the more complicated games. And many of the best new homebrews are pushing the boundaries - so it's a bummer that the .rom format can't handle it. It's hard to adopt a new format so "late in the game" now that many emulators and flash cart systems already exist. I know the backbit pro has a .ecs format and I haven't looked into it, but maybe that will "catch fire" and be supported by more than just the backbit pro. Or perhaps the .rom format will get an overhaul... but with so much water already under the proverbial bridge, I think we'll be stuck with having the game information split across two files (.bin/.cfg).