Multicart Requirements

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gravelstudios
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Multicart Requirements

Post by gravelstudios »

I found these requirements on a thread for a previous contest multicart. Are these still valid requirements?
tepples wrote:
Mapper-specific advice:
NROM-128: Be careful not to write to $8000-$FFFF. Test with a breakpoint on writes to ROM.
NROM, CNROM: Be careful not to overwrite CHR ROM. Test with a breakpoint on writes to PPU $0000-$1FFF.
NROM, CNROM, ANROM, BNROM: $FFD0-$FFF9 of each 32K PRG ROM bank must be unused.
UNROM (2): $FFD0-$FFF9 must be unused.
UNROM (180): $BFD0-$BFF9 must be unused.
A53: Write to register $81 only once, at the beginning of the program, and match the values written to $80 to the size of the entry: $00-$0F for 32K entries and $10-$1F for 64K entries. Specify whether $FFD0-$FFF9 or $BFD0-$BFF9 is unused.
My current project that I hope to have done in time uses CNROM with 32 KB of Prog ROM and at least 2 banks/16 KB (maybe more) of CHR ROM. Sound good?
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Re: Multicart Requirements

Post by tepples »

CNROM with 2 or 4 8K banks of CHR ROM should be fine.
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gravelstudios
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Re: Multicart Requirements

Post by gravelstudios »

I'm starting to consider switching to UNROM. 32 KB fills up fast. If I do, how many banks of PRG ROM are allowed?
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tokumaru
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Re: Multicart Requirements

Post by tokumaru »

gravelstudios wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2019 5:23 pmI'm starting to consider switching to UNROM. 32 KB fills up fast. If I do, how many banks of PRG ROM are allowed?
As I understand it, there isn't a hard limit, but the ratio between quality and space will be taken into consideration when deciding what goes in the multicart and what doesn't. Huge games appear to be allowed, as long as they're really cool and well made. That's what I got from what happened on the previous competitions.
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Re: Multicart Requirements

Post by tepples »

Category 1
Games participating in the competition are limited to 64 KiB.

Category 2
Tokumaru is right that particularly impressive larger games, such as STREEMERZ and the Haunted: Halloween '85 demo, are includable. The hard limit for a single game on this mapper is 256 KiB, as on UOROM, SGROM, and AOROM.
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gravelstudios
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Re: Multicart Requirements

Post by gravelstudios »

If I decide to enter it (I'm not sure if I'll be done in time--now it's looking increasingly unlikely--we'll see) I'll keep it to 64 KiB. When I first started, my goal was to make a game sort of like SMB1 on NROM. Then decided to switch to CNROM with 4 CHR banks to get some visual variety, but I found myself getting to the point where I was starting to put large amounts of data in CHR ROM, and I still don't have enough space for all the features I want, so I don't really think it's a good fit for my project any more. UNROM with 4 PRG ROM banks would be the same amount of space, but I'd have a lot more flexibility in how I use it. And I think the code I've written so far would be easy to convert.

I was looking at boards on Infinite NES Lives, and UNROM costs barely any more than CNROM, and comes with 128 KiB standard. If I ever make carts, it seems like a little bit of a shame to have that much space and not use it, but I also don't want to allow scope creep to prevent me from ever finishing. I think I can fit everything I really want to into 64 with compression, trying to make the game twice as big to fit 128 just because I have the space feels silly.
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