Search found 1718 matches

by 93143
Mon Jan 22, 2024 6:26 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: Updating background tiles during hblank
Replies: 10
Views: 1141

Re: Updating background tiles during hblank

When you say it's very expensive, in what way do you mean? CPU-wise. Responding to an interrupt, pushing registers to the stack, reading the H-counter, branching or using a jump table to execute the appropriate length of dummy code to arrive at a precise location in the scanline, setting up the DMA...
by 93143
Mon Jan 22, 2024 2:12 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: Updating background tiles during hblank
Replies: 10
Views: 1141

Re: Updating background tiles during hblank

So, with the idea that it is possible to update specifically a few background tiles during hblank, can that be done on one of the background layers without visually glitching out any of the other background layers and sprites on those scanlines where the one layer's background tiles are being chang...
by 93143
Fri Jan 19, 2024 1:01 am
Forum: General Stuff
Topic: Formula 0
Replies: 11
Views: 10490

Re: Formula 0

I've been thinking that it might be reasonable to require a player to train a bot on his playstyle before he's allowed online, or as part of graduating from the bush league. This bot would be uploaded to everyone else's machine for use by the predictive netcode, resulting in a much more accurate app...
by 93143
Sun Jan 14, 2024 2:15 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: Snes only showing background
Replies: 8
Views: 1939

Re: Snes only showing background

We've previously figured out that's possible to get the two PPUs very slightly out of sync by writing to the scroll registers in a nonstandard order. ...I must have missed that somehow. My game just writes two 16-bit zeroes, so it should work, but it's good to know I was so close to knocking my hea...
by 93143
Tue Jan 02, 2024 10:03 pm
Forum: General Stuff
Topic: Formula 0
Replies: 11
Views: 10490

Re: Formula 0

I don't think the realism of a racing sim is necessary, it's the journey from small to big that I'm after, while also showing off more of the F-Zero universe. A little more realism (and fixing "bugs" like momentum throttle and using attack moves to take corners) would be great, but if you...
by 93143
Wed Dec 27, 2023 9:37 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: Fast 2D blitting on Super FX
Replies: 23
Views: 20202

Re: Fast 2D blitting on Super FX

So, uh... I recently found out that Nikku4211 posted a video of my 640-bullet render test on YouTube. It looked somewhat glitchy, but I put that down to bad encoding (it is pretty bad; I personally think that lower-resolution videos should be encoded with at least as much quality as high-res videos,...
by 93143
Mon Dec 25, 2023 5:41 pm
Forum: General Stuff
Topic: Formula 0
Replies: 11
Views: 10490

Re: Formula 0

Well, I've been playing a lot of F-Zero 99 on my brother's Switch lately, and while it is very fun, it clearly illustrates one thing: online multiplayer in a serious GX-tier game is not on the cards unless they can radically improve the netcode. When I first saw this game on YouTube, I thought it wa...
by 93143
Fri Dec 01, 2023 2:29 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: How do I make my code more "modular"?
Replies: 26
Views: 7534

Re: How do I make my code more "modular"?

I had to change the code slightly so that both places use the same macro. I figured it was something like that. Why would you do that? Using two macros would be pretty nearly as readable and not cause slowdown. Similar to what turboxray just said: with this sort of project, I think "maintainab...
by 93143
Tue Nov 28, 2023 5:59 pm
Forum: Other Retro Dev
Topic: Sprites: SNES vs Genesis
Replies: 35
Views: 44821

Re: Sprites: SNES vs Genesis

OK. So, would that mean the main advantage in sharing some tiles across both BG and sprite banks is just to save a bit of overall VRAM space and/or cartridge space if necessary then? Yes. [which previous comments say is only applicable with the 4bpp layers] Technically you can do it with 2bpp or 8b...
by 93143
Tue Nov 28, 2023 3:54 am
Forum: Other Retro Dev
Topic: Sprites: SNES vs Genesis
Replies: 35
Views: 44821

Re: Sprites: SNES vs Genesis

So, could you place the HUD graphics for a game onto some free space in the 4bpp background layer's tileset and then use sprites with those background tile graphics for the actual in-game HUD, thereby still allowing the HUD that's made of sprites to appear over all the normal background layers whil...
by 93143
Sat Nov 25, 2023 9:29 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: How do I make my code more "modular"?
Replies: 26
Views: 7534

Re: How do I make my code more "modular"?

I had to change the code slightly so that both places use the same macro. I figured it was something like that. Why would you do that? Using two macros would be pretty nearly as readable and not cause slowdown. Similar to what turboxray just said: with this sort of project, I think "maintainab...
by 93143
Sat Nov 04, 2023 8:43 pm
Forum: Other Retro Dev
Topic: Clever tricks developers implemented for performance
Replies: 12
Views: 3342

Re: Clever tricks developers implemented for performance

smushing sprites closer together to fake scaling down a sprite, which Treasure used in their Genesis Yu Yu Hakusho game. There are a couple of SNES games that do that. Revolution X , for instance, uses it to scale a helicopter on a scaling Mode 7 background. Art of Fighting 2 uses a somewhat more e...
by 93143
Wed Sep 20, 2023 2:25 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: Is there a replacement Chip for the SNES S-APU?
Replies: 3
Views: 1639

Re: Is there a replacement Chip for the SNES S-APU?

Most FPGAs have to load their internal logic every time they power on. It seems there are some types that don't, and one of those or a CPLD might be a better choice. The more permanent, the better - ideally something that can reasonably be expected to last as long as the games, given a nice solid-st...
by 93143
Mon Aug 14, 2023 2:54 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: Developing test ROM of $2,100 XBAND keyboard so it can be cloned
Replies: 3
Views: 1793

Re: Developing test ROM of $2,100 XBAND keyboard so it can be cloned

Since there is in fact legacy software that can use the XBAND keyboard, and the network has apparently been cloned, the fact that a new keyboard protocol would be incompatible with XBAND is not actually irrelevant. Also, it would be nice if owners of XBAND keyboards could use it with any new softwar...
by 93143
Tue Jul 18, 2023 9:34 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: Does anybody know of an easy way of organizing AI and physics routines in games?
Replies: 8
Views: 2121

Re: Does anybody know of an easy way of organizing AI and physics routines in games?

Build the subroutine out of macros, so you can swap out pieces more easily? The unique parts wouldn't even need to be macros; only the repeated parts. I don't think I have more game development experience than you, but I do know what happens when you don't respect DRY and then have to make a small c...