PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

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thefox
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by thefox »

2600 wrote:You have A12 go through a buffer or two and let's call this A12_delay. Then you AND A12_delay with A12. You'll need to make sure that ISE doesn't optimize out the buffer so you may want to use 2 NOT gates, AND gates, or whatever instead of a buffer.
Ah, combinational. Kind of dirty, but maybe it would be sufficient. I may test this at some point.
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2600
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by 2600 »

thefox wrote: Ah, combinational. Kind of dirty, but maybe it would be sufficient. I may test this at some point.
It's not as bad as it sounds and is used quite often. The delay is whatever the propagation delay is through the buffers, but is still probably less then the MMC3's propagation delay. Might want to try it with your A13 issue as well. Just delay A13 and /A13 to your chip select logic.

Also, the kind of delay you mentioned by using the PowerPak's clock isn't a good idea and generally frowned upon since the PowerPak's clock isn't related to the PPU clock.
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by thefox »

2600 wrote:It's not as bad as it sounds and is used quite often. The delay is whatever the propagation delay is through the buffers, but is still probably less then the MMC3's propagation delay. Might want to try it with your A13 issue as well. Just delay A13 and /A13 to your chip select logic.
Well, the problem is that it relies on the propagation delays of the FPGA, which could change between the FPGA revisions and so on.
Also, the kind of delay you mentioned by using the PowerPak's clock isn't a good idea and generally frowned upon since the PowerPak's clock isn't related to the PPU clock.
Yes, the signals would need to be synchronized, which would add additional delay.
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cubeboy
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by cubeboy »

You are amazing. I have a busy weekend, but I'm hoping to try this sometime. Let me know if you want us to test anything in particular, otherwise, I'll just start playing :)
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by cubeboy »

Your new mappers are truly amazing. Thank you so much for the hard work. Is there a way to convert the old save states to the new ones?
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

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cubeboy wrote:Your new mappers are truly amazing. Thank you so much for the hard work. Is there a way to convert the old save states to the new ones?
Thank you. No, there is no way to convert save states at the moment.
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by cubeboy »

Just coming in to again say how awesome your new power mappers are. I've played a few games now and beat them without any noticeable issues (no cheating with save states either, just a way to "pick up where I left off" between days :D). I even have my 10 and 11 year old watching and helping me with the original Zelda right now, the game apparently still holds up enough to keep their interest. Now I just need to remember how to get through the lost woods without looking it up :)
qwertymodo
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by qwertymodo »

For the A12 buffer circuit, a really simple debounce logic I use is to feed the input into a synchronous shift register and then take your output signal as the reduction-AND of all of the bits in the shift register. Then, you only get an output high when the input has remained high for that many consecutive clock cycles. Then all you have to do is adjust the size of the shift register until you get the result you want. More bits = more consistent, but more delay. At 20MHz, you may also need a clock divider on it, or else you'd need a really large number of bits in the shift register. It's simple, and it works.
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by thefox »

qwertymodo wrote:For the A12 buffer circuit, a really simple debounce logic I use is to feed the input into a synchronous shift register and then take your output signal as the reduction-AND of all of the bits in the shift register. Then, you only get an output high when the input has remained high for that many consecutive clock cycles. Then all you have to do is adjust the size of the shift register until you get the result you want. More bits = more consistent, but more delay. At 20MHz, you may also need a clock divider on it, or else you'd need a really large number of bits in the shift register. It's simple, and it works.
Like I said earlier, this kind of implementation can never match the original MMC3 behavior, because on the real MMC3 the IRQ is triggered directly on the rising edge of A12 (with a very minor delay). Such implementation might still be close enough to be usable, but some games won't like it (Mickey's Adventures in Numberland, for example, requires very precise IRQ timing).
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by cubeboy »

Not sure if this is a glitch that you can control or not (or even care about :)), but I was just playing Zelda 1, and on level 8, when I went into the boss room, some code showed up briefly on the screen while transitioning to the boss room. Everything worked fine after that.
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

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cubeboy wrote:Not sure if this is a glitch that you can control or not (or even care about :)), but I was just playing Zelda 1, and on level 8, when I went into the boss room, some code showed up briefly on the screen while transitioning to the boss room. Everything worked fine after that.
Doesn't sound like something that would be caused by the mappers.
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by tepples »

Mappers can cause "code" to be shown, especially when it causes mirroring to be wrong. This can cause uninitialized video memory to show, a sprite 0 hit to fail, or any of several other sorts of badness.
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deksar
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by deksar »

thefox wrote:PowerMappers is a new set of mappers for the PowerPak NES flash cartridge. It is a complete rewrite of my previous Save State Mappers. I have been sitting on this for a while, but since there hasn't been significant progress in the last month or so, this seems like a good time to release it.

Download and more info at http://kkfos.aspekt.fi/projects/nes/pow ... ermappers/

If you encounter any problems, let me know. This is still in a beta state.

(Cross-posted to NintendoAGE forums.)

Great! Many thanks for the hard work.
Just wanted to ask; is there any possibility to have Mappers 90 supported, someday? As it has some cool pirates such as Tekken 2, Aladdin, Super Mario World, Mortal Kombat, et cetera.
Thanks again.
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thefox
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by thefox »

deksar wrote:Just wanted to ask; is there any possibility to have Mappers 90 supported, someday? As it has some cool pirates such as Tekken 2, Aladdin, Super Mario World, Mortal Kombat, et cetera.
Some possibility yes, but I don't have any current plans to add support for it.
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Re: PowerMappers (a new set of PowerPak mappers)

Post by thefox »

New version (v23) released: https://kkfos.aspekt.fi/

Changes:

Code: Select all

- v23 (2015-12-28)
  * New MMC3 IRQ implementation (RAMBO-1 style, based on M2). Doesn't
  exactly match real MMC3 timings, but should be more robust than the
  previous implementation.
  * Don't enable CHR-RAM if PPU asserts /RD and /WR at the same time due
  to rogue $2007 writes. Fixes graphics glitching in the following games:
    - Noah's Ark (E)
    - Addams Family, The - Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt (U)
    - Baseball Stars II (U)
    - Bigfoot (U)
    - Krusty's Fun House (U)
    - Perfect Fit (U)

- v21 (2015-12-16)
  * Fixed a bug in controller read corruption handling (caused menu to
  show up spuriously in Bomberman II). Thanks to WaverBoy for report.
  * FME-7 IRQ acknowledgement behavior changed to match
  http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=142246#p142246 (should not
  affect any games).
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