Search found 102 matches

by coto
Fri Jul 21, 2023 9:38 am
Forum: General Stuff
Topic: Homebrew feels commercial by default now
Replies: 27
Views: 4598

Re: Homebrew feels commercial by default now

I actually have a lot of feelings on this subject! FIrst of all, the program which ended up coining the "homebrew" term was actually sold with a profit. This would be SoundX by Ed Federmeyer for the Atari 2600, released in 1995 and eventually sold for $16 a copy, of which $11 was manufact...
by coto
Sun Jul 16, 2023 1:46 pm
Forum: General Stuff
Topic: Homebrew feels commercial by default now
Replies: 27
Views: 4598

Re: Homebrew feels commercial by default now

Software development, even Game Development ain't cheap. It IS a luxury after all. It's not the same doing "hobby" things at 15 as opposed mid 30s. If you're able to make a living out of it then that's great. If not... you're stuck... home stuck. Literally. Using software development metho...
by coto
Fri Jul 14, 2023 9:43 am
Forum: NESemdev
Topic: What's the meaning of WRAM?
Replies: 7
Views: 2143

Re: What's the meaning of WRAM?

I've seen recurrently Nintendo designing their hardware like this: CPU -> BUS -> RAM -> GPU -> VRAM -> Rest of IO coprocessor. (joypads, Serial IO), -> Sound CPU Since CPU caches (if available) are minuscule, and RAM usually generates heavy stalling (locks down BUS Read / Write pins, freezing the re...
by coto
Tue Jul 11, 2023 2:25 pm
Forum: Other Retro Dev
Topic: Guide: 3D Open GL NintendoDS ports for beginners
Replies: 0
Views: 3006

Guide: 3D Open GL NintendoDS ports for beginners

Regards. Coto from Chile here. I'm sharing the ToolchainGenericDS 3D Project template i've developed for porting 3D OpenGL games into NintendoDS with extremely ease, so OpenGL games can be developed on Visual Studio 2012 (+ SP5 update) then built directly into NintendoDS: It relies on ToolchainGene...
by coto
Sun Dec 18, 2022 7:32 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: What's are the differences between the ST018(snes) and the ARM7TDMI(gba)?
Replies: 15
Views: 1739

Re: What's are the differences between the ST018(snes) and the ARM7TDMI(gba)?

But, How can we verify this information?. Check for chip IDs on the internet and see a manual describing the ISA standard and architecture implementation? That seems to be a fact, that the ST018 and the GBA's cpu, are an ARM7TDMI, and it would be easy to determine that is the same cpu if there were...
by coto
Sat Dec 17, 2022 5:48 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: What's are the differences between the ST018(snes) and the ARM7TDMI(gba)?
Replies: 15
Views: 1739

Re: What's are the differences between the ST018(snes) and the ARM7TDMI(gba)?

There seems to be two versions of that ARM7TDMI: rev3 and rev4. https://developer.arm.com/documentation/ddi0210/c/Differences-Between-Rev-3a-and-Rev-4/Summary-of-differences-between-Rev-3a-and-Rev-4?lang=en The thing is, Do "morita shogi 2" has built in the rev3, and GBA the rev4?. (the s...
by coto
Tue Oct 11, 2022 9:42 am
Forum: Newbie Help Center
Topic: Most Common Problems for Beginners
Replies: 16
Views: 2534

Re: Most Common Problems for Beginners

I know that the subject seems a little cliche, but I think it would be nice to discuss the most common holdups/problems that beginners in this scene have and what the more experienced users have done in order to overcome those problems. - Fixed point math. Most beginners will just have a one-byte X...
by coto
Mon May 30, 2022 8:59 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: The SNESdev documentation project
Replies: 37
Views: 4167

Re: The SNESdev documentation project

This doesn't appear to be a coherent statement. It doesn't sound like you know how the SNES works. I couldn't care less if it ain't a coherent statement, the thread is full of what ifs as always. And I was agreeing with you a few posts back anyway. The SNES is not a software renderer. It has no fra...
by coto
Mon May 30, 2022 7:14 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: The SNESdev documentation project
Replies: 37
Views: 4167

Re: The SNESdev documentation project

It's not the size of the write that matters. It does matter, there's a difference between changing a whole line vs some pixels. DMA hardware can actually cause bus stalls (blocks the CPU bus while being used), specially if main memory sucks at sequential vs non-sequential reads/writes. If the whole...
by coto
Mon May 30, 2022 6:17 pm
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: The SNESdev documentation project
Replies: 37
Views: 4167

Re: The SNESdev documentation project

You cannot (yet) do linescroll effects on actual sprites. That only works on BG layers, until someone figures out how to reliably write OAM during active display or active HBlank. So this is only true if you treat a BG layer as a sprite, and there are examples of this being done (certain battle eff...
by coto
Mon May 30, 2022 11:48 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: The SNESdev documentation project
Replies: 37
Views: 4167

Re: The SNESdev documentation project

I've never seen a single SNES game change a sprite's position while the sprite is still rendering. From what I've heard, you have to force-blank in order to change the OAM table. I'm not asking you to reverse engineer games using affine transformation on sprites, because the SNES can't do that. Sto...
by coto
Mon May 30, 2022 10:45 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: The SNESdev documentation project
Replies: 37
Views: 4167

Re: The SNESdev documentation project

Nitpick: HDMA doesn't involve interrupts. H-DMA (H-Blank DMA) H-DMA transfers are automatically invoked on H-Blank , each H-DMA is limited to a single unit (max 4 bytes) per scanline. This is commonly used to manipulate PPU I/O ports (eg. to change scroll offsets)... http://problemkaputt.de/fullsne...
by coto
Mon May 30, 2022 9:48 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: The SNESdev documentation project
Replies: 37
Views: 4167

Re: The SNESdev documentation project

you can only draw 4bpp sprites, and the affine transform is only possible on background 1 when you have the mode register set to 7. Affine transformation over hardware has nothing to do with what I said earlier. HDMA can be used to apply custom matrix (2d) transformation to, say, sprites. IIRC that...
by coto
Sun May 29, 2022 9:46 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: The SNESdev documentation project
Replies: 37
Views: 4167

Re: The SNESdev documentation project

you can only draw 4bpp sprites, and the affine transform is only possible on background 1 when you have the mode register set to 7. Affine transformation over hardware has nothing to do with what I said earlier. HDMA can be used to apply custom matrix (2d) transformation to, say, sprites. IIRC that...
by coto
Sun May 29, 2022 9:30 am
Forum: SNESdev
Topic: The SNESdev documentation project
Replies: 37
Views: 4167

Re: The SNESdev documentation project

you can only draw 4bpp sprites, and the affine transform is only possible on background 1 when you have the mode register set to 7. The player won't know that if you use BG3 and warp it with linescroll. There are ways to do 2bpp sprites. The simple and obvious one is to encode them in NES format an...