nesdev.org

Note: 1 and 3 are probably demo coding bugs; 2 is probably an emulation bug; 4 is not related to emulation. This topic should probably be moved to NESemdev, if only because of #2.

1. Why doesn't the non-FDS version of Stars SE Demo work on FCEU/Nestopia/Nintendulator, even though you tested it on hardware? Was something not correct about your devcart setup? The FCEU changelog says that this has to do with CLI RTI not allowing any IRQs (see also blargg's CLI latency test).
2. For that matter, why does the original Stars Demo hang after several seconds (about the time that the DMC samples are supposed to start) in FCEU and Nestopia, but not Nintendulator?
3. What is the reason for the gray glitchiness below the "CMC" letters in Sayoonara! when run in Nestopia and Nintendulator?
4. What is the exact official title of the Comic Bakery music that you used in Stars SE? If there is no official title, where in the game is that music used?

Some of these I already know the answers to.

I believe #1 is, indeed, due to an endless stream of IRQs. I also seem to recall that most (if not all) of those demos were tested not on an NES, but on a Dr. PC Jr. NES-based computer, which may account for some of the differences noted.

I don't know what the deal would be with #2, but I'll test it tonight on my CopyNES to see which emulators are at fault.

#3 is perfectly normal - he's changing the palette mid-screen, and doing so exposes the values previously stored in the palette as small bars of color on the screen. He turns on grayscale mode and all 3 color 'emphasis' bits to minimize the effect.

As for #4, I have no idea.

Even though we're not ccovell

1. See above + I looked at that a while ago, but forgot the details. It can be fixed by changing a CLI to SEI near the start of the program (or if you're using an emulator, by initiating $4017 with $40 instead of the confirmed $00).
2. It crashes if RAM is initialised with $FF.
3. see above
4. err, dunno if Martin Galway ever officially titled the song.. If you want to hear the original tune, check Galway_Martin/Comic_Bakery.sid from the collection at http://www.hvsc.c64.org/

Comic Bakery specific discussion can go here.

Hi, 85cocoa,

1. I tested the Stars SE demo on my NES, using my devcart. (Dr.PCJr. came later in 1999). It never crashed on me, but I guess I was lucky. This leads into #2, however....
2. At the time that I was making the Stars demo (with music ripped from Silius), my NES' connectors were so dirty/worn out that I always had my devcart connected to my NES through a Game Genie. Little did I know that the GG did the work of clearing RAM properly (and that my demo didn't.) It was the music code that didn't like RAM which isn't zeroed.
3 and 4 have already been handled by my attorneys.