JetSetIlly Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 (edited) 24 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: I need to read up more what these homebrew carts like champ games have got in them. Like when we cracked Circus Convoy seemed to be the case to me that it was just a sophisticated bank switch scheme with a huge cart size (128k IIRC), but are there homebrew carts that use special chips somewhat akin to superfx on SNES? The problem for the 2600+ (indeed any emulator) is that the cartridge can potentially do anything - all the 2600 cares about is receiving data over the cartridge interface. How the data is generated or where it comes from is irrelevant really. What SuperFX bought to the SNES is akin to the DPC chip in the Pitfall cartridge (more powerful of course but it had a specific purpose like the DPC). The cartridges we can build today by contrast have ARM chips, which are fully programmable. Way more flexible than the SuperFX chip. 5 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: So none of them provide any extra CPU/GPU grunt or anything it's just organisationle routing. They provide a tremendous amount of additional grunt and tremendous amount of flexibility. But it's important to understand that all they do is generate data for the 2600 to consume. The 2600 itself isn't doing anything different - there's no side channel where anything extra is sneaked into the system, all the data is passed over the cartridge interface. Edited January 19 by JetSetIlly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSetIlly Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 (edited) <dupe> Edited January 19 by JetSetIlly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 24 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: Seems like something like the Realsports Boxing problem, because it only required a dumper chip update. any chance we can get a hold of it? Been waiting on the Robot Tank fix for a while! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 2 minutes ago, JetSetIlly said: What SuperFX bought to the SNES is akin to the DPC chip in the Pitfall cartridge. The cartridges we can build today by contrast have ARM chips, which are fully programmable. Way more flexible than the SuperFX chip. That's a bit of a sloppy analogy. Most, if not all, SNES expansion chips were fully programmable... and they had the ability to truly run in parallel with the main system. The ARM-based 2600 cartridges are more of an either/or situation. When the ARM is fully engaged running user code, the 6507 is idled. When they run in parallel, the ARM is working mostly as a ROM emulator that can splice in data occasionally. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 8 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said: any chance we can get a hold of it? Been waiting on the Robot Tank fix for a while! Here you go, just dont say anything to raz0red, I told him I'd cool it with my shoot from the hip style in this beta update thread AtariDumper1.1.0.9.exe 8 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSetIlly Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 2 minutes ago, splendidnut said: The ARM-based 2600 cartridges are more of an either/or situation. When the ARM is fully engaged running user code, the 6507 is idled. Many of the current ARM ROMs work like that but they don't have to work like that. The work @ZackAttack is doing with his project demonstrates a method that is more than just splicing in data and more like the parallel operation that you've pointed out the SuperFX chip could do. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 17 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: So none of them provide any extra CPU/GPU grunt or anything it's just organisationle routing. Incorrect. It depends on how an author utilizes the capabilities within a Harmony/Melody cart: - It can be an equivalent to period appropriate hardware for the 2600s time - like extra RAM in an Atari cart. - Or it can be many orders of magnitude of processing power beyond the 2600s capabilities. Or somewhere in-between... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 19 minutes ago, JetSetIlly said: They provide a tremendous amount of additional grunt and tremendous amount of flexibility. But it's important to understand that all they do is generate data for the 2600 to consume. The 2600 itself isn't doing anything different - there's no side channel where anything extra is sneaked into the system, all the data is passed over the cartridge interface. I'm being kinda silly but are you saying that theoritically champ games could could solder an nvidia 4090 to a cart and play Crysis even if it was constrained to 160 x 192 pixels. Just trying to understand if the extra chips provide obvious things like increased K cart sizes or can they add fundamentilly different technology not around in the 70s and 80s 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 11 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: Here you go, just dont say anything to raz0red, I told him I'd cool it with my shoot from the hip style in this beta update thread AtariDumper1.1.0.9.exe 5.26 MB · 4 downloads Awesome! that one works perfect! any other patch games in this update besides Robot Tank need testing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad5200 Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 13 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: I told him I'd cool it with my shoot from the hip style in this beta update thread But that’s why we love you. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 Just now, John Stamos Mullet said: Awesome! that one works perfect! any other patch games in this update besides Robot Tank need testing? Fucks sake give a guy a inch and they take a mile. Coleco rev 3 carts now should work as well as M network carts like Burger time and Bump n Jump 2 1 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Stamos Mullet Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 5 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: Fucks sake give a guy a inch and they take a mile. Coleco rev 3 carts now should work as well as M network carts like Burger time and Bump n Jump 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tradyblix Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 Ugh. There are folks on this board saying "You have second class hardware" and "It's not my problem, it works fine elsewhere". And then you have folks delivering real world fixes so I can play better games on an official Atari product. I know where my loyalties lie. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 1 minute ago, John Stamos Mullet said: That avatar is not as crude as it looks is it Sir 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSetIlly Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 Just now, Ben from Plaion said: I'm being kinda silly but are you saying that theoritically champ games could could solder an nvidia 4090 to a cart and play Crysis even if it was constrained to 160 x 192 pixels. I'm not sure the specific example of the 4090 would help in this case but I take your point and say that yes, theoretically you could do something like that. However, an important component of all these modern cartridges is that they don't require additional power sources. They take all their power from the cartridge slot. 2 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: Just trying to understand if the extra chips provide obvious things like increased K cart sizes or can they add fundamentilly different technology not around in the 70s and 80s They can add fundamentally different technology to what was around in the 70s and 80s. However, how they communicate with the console is in the same as a cartridge from the 70s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 9 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: Just trying to understand if the extra chips provide obvious things like increased K cart sizes or can they add fundamentilly different technology not around in the 70s and 80s 'Fundamentally different technology' that was designed to work with a cartridge bus from the 70s. Same as the 2600+... fundamentally different technology that wasn't available in the 70s/80s. Some pot and kettle-ness going on there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetmanUK Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 Burger Time and Karateka now work too. Thanks for Burger Time. I'm quite sad about Karateka. I bought that thing boxed thinking it was gonna be like Fist 2 the legend continues. It's not. It's awful. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 1 minute ago, JetSetIlly said: I'm not sure the specific example of the 4090 would help in this case but I take your point and say that yes, theoretically you could do something like that. However, an important component of all these modern cartridges is that they don't require additional power sources. They take all their power from the cartridge slot. They can add fundamentally different technology to what was around in the 70s and 80s. However, how they communicate with the console is in the same as a cartridge from the 70s. Aha great point, the cart socket cant deliver 500 watts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tradyblix Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 (edited) 2 hours ago, Lost Monkey said: Cart before horse. In what world does it make sense to tailor new home-brew to the inaccuracies of an emulation device that has been on the market for 3 months, when its purported goal is to emulate a machine that has >45 years of software? Nobody's saying that. I'm saying you have a bunch of people with 2600+ and if you cared about them you'd provide games for them. The attitudes I have gotten from people so far indicated they don't understand that or care. "play it on the original one". Somehow people on here morphed that into "you must only target 2600+ going forward". No. that's absurd. Maybe going forward more people will consider not doing things that makes new games incomptiable. Especially when the vast majority of homebrews dont' do those things and DO work. Including ones I bought off here. Not that hard to understand. Calm your tits. Edited January 19 by tradyblix 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 2 minutes ago, splendidnut said: 'Fundamentally different technology' that was designed to work with a cartridge bus from the 70s. Same as the 2600+... fundamentally different technology that wasn't available in the 70s/80s. Some pot and kettle-ness going on there. Ok lets go on a flight of fancy, I make a cart that has a 8pin power socket that delivers 1000 watts? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 1 minute ago, Ben from Plaion said: Ok lets go on a flight of fancy, I make a cart that has a 8pin power socket that delivers 1000 watts? You lost me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben from Plaion Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 Just now, splendidnut said: You lost me. Fair enough its friday night 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForceInfinity Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 (edited) Just a wild idea that's probably too out of the box, but is it possible to send write commands to the cart dumper? The idea being... is it possible to send code through the dumper that commands the ARM/DPC/DPC+ to dump contents from some A offset to B offset to a RAM space that is visible to the cart dumper and can be read by it? Have it repeat until some stopping condition? I know what I'm asking about is way out there or can be easily dismissed as naive perhaps. But it was a thought on how to dump those carts using a co-processor and possesses memory that's not immediately visible to the rom dumper. Edited January 19 by ForceInfinity 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisKewl Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 6 hours ago, Ben from Plaion said: I'm going to cool it publicly for a short while regarding the update and wait for the experts to find a solution. AtariAge experts or Plaion? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chad5200 Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 40 minutes ago, Ben from Plaion said: Here you go, just dont say anything to raz0red, I told him I'd cool it with my shoot from the hip style in this beta update thread AtariDumper1.1.0.9.exe 5.26 MB · 12 downloads These are now working for me (all NTSC): Burger Time Masters Of The Universe The Power Of He-Man Robot Tank the pesky white shelled rev 3 Coleco Donkey Kong Junior Only one left of mine that isn't dumping properly is Smurf Rescue In Gargamel's Castle. Nice progress! 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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