House of Truth ROM and minimapper

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domgetter
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House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by domgetter »

So we whipped up 3 different ROMs and mappers for the PowerPak, N8, and N8 Pro so that you can view some 8x1 art on your own hardware.

We've tested on 2 NES front loaders, an NES top loader, Analogue NT, NT Mini Noir, AVS, Famicom, and Twin Famicom.

Here is the image that gets displayed:

Image

Be sure to read the README in the zip you download to follow the instructions; they're a little different for each rom loader.

For those who don't know, this is a scene from an upcoming NES game Former Dawn that I'm a developer on.

Let me know how it looks!

In the worst case that it doesn't load properly, please let me know what console and which rom loader was used.
Attachments
HoT_SNS_powerpak_1_0_d.zip
PowerPak version
(41.02 KiB) Downloaded 96 times
HoT_SNS_n8_pro_1_0_c.zip
EverDrive N8 Pro version
(31.33 KiB) Downloaded 100 times
HoT_SNS_n8_1_0_b.zip
EverDrive N8 version
(31.73 KiB) Downloaded 98 times
domgetter
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by domgetter »

Here is the known compatibilities that I tested myself:

Image
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tokumaru
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by tokumaru »

Cool! That image looks really good, right out of a Genesis game!

I probably won't be able to look at the ROM or mapper any time soon, so let me ask something: does the mapper handle the 8x1 attributes automatically or does it provide 8+ name tables that the program bank switches every scanline?
domgetter
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by domgetter »

does the mapper handle the 8x1 attributes automatically or does it provide 8+ name tables that the program bank switches every scanline?
They're handled automatically by the mapper, just like MMC5.
calima
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by calima »

Very pretty, but at this level of customization, custom mapper and all, one has to ask if you're not working on the wrong console ;)

"It's not SNES anymore if you embed an ARM chip"
"It's not NES anymore if you go that far to get better colors"
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tokumaru
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by tokumaru »

Bundling additional hardware with a game is something Nintendo did very frequently with the NES and the SNES, so I think it's perfectly acceptable for a modern homebrew/indie game to do the same. It will make production harder and more expensive, but if that's not a problem for the publisher, then it's not a problem.

People target old consoles for different reasons, and for some developers it might be more fun to work around the limitations of a system and come up with something outstanding for the platform than going with a more capable system and coming up with something that's commonplace.

Other developers, however, are more sensible and not so hung up on one particular console, so in that case it makes sense to target the system that can most comfortably host the game they want to make.

The notion that there's a limit to how much hardware you can put in a cartridge before a game is no longer authentic is bullshit to me. As far as I'm aware, noboby ever contested the authenticity of Star Fox and Doom on the SNES, or Virtua Racing on the Genesis. The only reason Nintendo and SEGA didn't stuff PlayStation 5s in their cartridges back then was because it wasn't technologically or economically feasible, but you can bet they would have if it was!
Joe
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by Joe »

calima wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:22 am"It's not SNES anymore if you embed an ARM chip"
Isn't there a Shogi game with an ARM chip?
domgetter
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by domgetter »

calima wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:22 am one has to ask if you're not working on the wrong console ;)
I'd say we're working on *just the right* console :)

You can't explore the limits of a system that you aren't targeting.

Some games adopt the general "style" of the NES for their game (e.g. Shovel Knight), but then make things that cannot be put on the system no matter what hardware you throw at it (general parallax, too many sprites, etc).

We've made certain our game can run on a real NES by running it on a real NES.
calima wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:22 am "It's not SNES anymore if you embed an ARM chip"
"It's not NES anymore if you go that far to get better colors"
One thing I want to be clear about: we are not "putting an ARM chip" in the cartridge. For this project, we have disallowed general computation in the mapper. It's only job is to map more memory, and use some simple counters (e.g. scanline counter for interrupts a la MMC3).

The image you see is what can be achieved with electronics available during the heyday of the NES and Famicom.

You can read more on the philosophy of this game project here: https://somethingnerdy.com/unlocking-th ... rmer-dawn/
calima
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by calima »

Joe wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:45 pm
calima wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 2:22 am"It's not SNES anymore if you embed an ARM chip"
Isn't there a Shogi game with an ARM chip?
Yes, and that too is going too far.
domgetter wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 3:25 pm The image you see is what can be achieved with electronics available during the heyday of the NES and Famicom.

You can read more on the philosophy of this game project here: https://somethingnerdy.com/unlocking-th ... rmer-dawn/
After reading that, my opinion is not changed. You are going too far, and this game would have been better targeted at the SNES. You're even putting in hw decompression for christ's sake.

But I won't argue this, NES is your choice, so NES be it. Once the game is done, it can probably be ported to SNES relatively easily, should you want to. I look forward to playing it on my NES.
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tokumaru
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by tokumaru »

domgetter wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 3:25 pmYou can read more on the philosophy of this game project here: https://somethingnerdy.com/unlocking-th ... rmer-dawn/
I think you're trying waaaay too hard to justify what you're doing... I disagree with most of what's written in that page, but I also believe that what I think or anyone else thinks about the path you chose doesn't matter.

You decided to make your game in the way that's most interesting to you, and this is all that matters. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone.
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aquasnake
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by aquasnake »

The core is the attribute mode of 8X1 mini-tile, 8 pixels in each row can have an independent palette

With the usage of 4-screen NT (ciram), I can directly say that some famiclones based on NOAC of VR-tech are incompatible without testing

In addition, I think that in the late 1990s, some NOACs produced in Taiwan had realized similar PPU expansion, such as UM6578 (by UMC) and NT6578 (by NovaTech)
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pubby
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by pubby »

domgetter wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 3:25 pm You can read more on the philosophy of this game project here: https://somethingnerdy.com/unlocking-th ... rmer-dawn/
I'm confused by this. Most homebrew fans don't care about the underlying chip hardware, nor do they care about what arbitrary restrictions you've set. What are you gaining by not using a co-processor at this point?

There's lots of justification, but I'm wondering who it's targeted at. Non-technical people will love the game regardless, and hardware people can see it as a really cool accomplishment, but I don't think you'll convince programmers - there'll always be an asterisk around the project with them.
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aquasnake
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by aquasnake »

I am very interested in this MXM mapper project, and I am also engaged in the same hardware design work. I guess your extended attribute mode is based on mmc5,and is enhanced to 8x1
Theoretically, this will require an additional 8K cxram as attribute table, but I guess the real hardware will occupy 128KiB

I designed 8x2 mode before, but the problem is that the color is quite satisfying even under 8x8 attributes. The enhancement of attribute table requires a high increase in hardware cost. It feels like another Paprium to release such a homebrew game with a hardware carrier equivalent to everdrive N8 level

To achieve the extended addressing of 768m PROM + 1m CROM at the same time, and support ext_attr mode, the pin fan-out of CPLD/FPGA has exceeded 100, and the closest choice is the chip with 144 pins. The upper cost limit is N8, and the reasonable and competitive price should be set below 1/2 N8 (cracking this mapper and updating FPGA firmware will appear at a certain time). This will pose a great challenge to hardware design, whether it is self-development or outsourcing customization.
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jekuthiel
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by jekuthiel »

calima wrote: Wed Feb 09, 2022 2:25 amAfter reading that, my opinion is not changed. You are going too far, and this game would have been better targeted at the SNES. You're even putting in hw decompression for christ's sake.
Can you explain, even in rough terms, what constitutes "going too far" in your view?

Also, you should be aware of the fact that the people in the SNESdev Discord server told me that general 8x1 attributes on the SNES are impossible. There are examples where it can be done, but there are other examples where it cannot be done. So it does appear that we have staked out an aesthetic on the NES that is unique to the system. That doesn't mean that Former Dawn will look better on the NES than it could've on the SNES (had it been created from the ground up for the SNES), but it does mean that it's something special and unique to the NES.

Re: using hardware decompression -- yes, that is being investigated specifically in order to remain period correct. It would've been flagrantly period incorrect (in say, 1989-1990) to load ~1MB/s from anything but a mask ROM or hard drive. Mask ROMs never got as big as what we need (CD-ROM scale) and hard drives did not have enough capacity by that point to be a plausible basis for an expansion system. The only game in town was CD-ROM drives. Therefore, the data needs to be compressed, again because of the data transfer rates required by FMV on the NES. A single-speed CD-ROM drive can transfer data at 150KiB/s. We're fairly certain that a simple [de]compression scheme like LZ77 would've been both fast enough and cheap enough to include on an inexpensive expansion system. Uncompressed data and more exotic [de]compression schemes are both out.

There is precedent on the SNES for hardware-facilitated decompression (see: Star Ocean); we're just pulling it to 1 generation earlier and doing something simpler, cheaper, and focused on CHR data. And again, the SNES can't actually transfer data from the cartridge into its internal VRAM fast enough to facilitate full framerate full entropy FMV even if it has hardware assistance on the cartridge.
But I won't argue this, NES is your choice, so NES be it. Once the game is done, it can probably be ported to SNES relatively easily, should you want to. I look forward to playing it on my NES.
Well, this is certainly a confusing set of statements. Again, we don't think it could be ported easily to the SNES because of the 8x1 attributes problem. If we do end up including any high framerate, high entropy FMV, that will also make it impossible to port directly to the SNES.

I'm glad that you're looking forward to the game, especially given the other things that you've said about our approach. I guess it's hard for me to understand that, but I welcome the positivity nonetheless. =)

-jekuthiel
Last edited by jekuthiel on Wed Feb 23, 2022 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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jekuthiel
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Re: House of Truth ROM and minimapper

Post by jekuthiel »

tokumaru wrote: Wed Feb 09, 2022 7:27 amI think you're trying waaaay too hard to justify what you're doing... I disagree with most of what's written in that page, but I also believe that what I think or anyone else thinks about the path you chose doesn't matter.

You decided to make your game in the way that's most interesting to you, and this is all that matters. You don't have to explain yourself to anyone.
Well, if you think that we don't have to explain/justify ourselves to anyone, any amount of justification is "trying too hard". So I don't know what to do with that first statement other than to state in turn that our justification is being given specifically because so many people in the nesdev community have so many negative things to say about our approach on this project. You're sort of an ally in the sense that you think those people should not do that, but our reasons differ.

I think there is such a thing as cheating/going too far, but I also think that we are very far from that point.

I've never heard anyone say they disagree with "most" of what's on the Unlocking the NES blog post. Would you care to outline the nature of your disagreement?

-jekuthiel
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