nesdev.org

I'm sorry if this question is kind of ridiculous but I'm using Windows Vista and don't really want to change that but I have been wanting to learn how to program and create new NES games. The problem I'm having is it seems like most programs won't open, including NESASM, ASM6 (I think it was called that), etc. If anyone out there is also using Vista, could you kindly give me a list of programs that you use so that I can start making some awesome games? Or, if I flat out CAN'T use Vista, let me know so that I can stop wasting time on this craptastic OS. Thanks guys!

eleventhirtyfour wrote:The problem I'm having is it seems like most programs won't open, including NESASM, ASM6 (I think it was called that), etc.

What error message are you getting when you try to open them? If it's a command prompt window that opens and closes immediately, that means they work like this:

• Write your code in Notepad.
• Open a command prompt.
• Tell the program to compile your code.

Perhaps you're expecting them to act like Visual Studio, which has its own built-in code editor.

Oh. Yeah, I kind of don't know what I'm doing really, yet, so thanks. I'll try that. And keep up the good work! I dig Lj65 and look forward to the platformer as well!

If it actually did have problems running in Vista you could get a VM Machine software to run Windows XP within Vista like I do in order to run certain programs that aren't compatible with Vista. Really just one thing actually.

Vista does suck, but as far as I know, it can assemble NES ROMs.

It's just that assemblers are usually something called "command line programs". This means that they don't have a user interface (with windows, menus, buttons, etc). These have to be called with parameters, then they do their thing, possibly give messages of success or failure, and finally exit.

Nowadays everyone is used to double-clicking. If you double-click a command line program it won't receive any parameters, so it will have nothing to do and will just exit. In the case of assemblers, the most obvious parameter they need is the name of the file that contains the program to assemble.

To make your life easier, it's best to place the assembler in some folder that's easy to type, such as "C:\ASM6". Then you have 2 options: open a command prompt and go to the folder where your asm file is and type "c:\ASM6\ASM6 mygame.asm" or something like that. The other (much better) option is to create a file in the same folder as the .ASM file, name it something like "assemble.bat" and type the following in it:
This .BAT file can be double-clicked, and it will tell the assembler to assemble your file. The "pause" command is there to prevent the window from closing right away (it will only do so after you press a key), so that you can see whatever text the assembler outputs (messages of success or failure).

EDIT: If you do need to make a virtual machine, VirtualBox is free and is pretty good.

Hmmm just tell ya that I have Windows Vista on my new Laptop (yep, can't get rid of that, Vista is pre-installed), moreover, Vista 64-bit, but I've not encountered compatibility issues yet, and I'm finding myself lucky. It's true that I'm not a gamer, I only have a few programs in my machine, but it is doing well. Hell, my old console programs run correctly. ASM6 runs correctly, too. So Vista isn't that bad... Vista is just annoying at times and it lacks some useful menus found in XP.

For ASM6, I made a script in Notepad++ so I just hit Ctrl+Alt+F12, it compiles and run it if successful, else it shows me the ASM6 errors (in Notepad)

(Yep, I didn't make any advertising, but now I understand the NES PPU and I'm able to make NES ROMs, I only annoyed for a few seconds kevtris in order to understand the infamous "loopy doc's", that's all (BTW, thanks again kev))

~J-@D!~ wrote:I have Windows Vista on my new Laptop (yep, can't get rid of that, Vista is pre-installed)

Of course you can get rid of it. Mine came with Vista as well, I couldn't stand it for even a week. Now it runs XP and it's 100 times faster.

I only annoyed for a few seconds kevtris in order to understand the infamous "loopy doc's"

Which you really don't *have* to unless you plan on using advanced scrolling tricks.

tokumaru wrote:

~J-@D!~ wrote:I have Windows Vista on my new Laptop (yep, can't get rid of that, Vista is pre-installed)

Of course you can get rid of it. Mine came with Vista as well, I couldn't stand it for even a week. Now it runs XP and it's 100 times faster.

Unless XP's installation menu doesn't recognize the HDD which seems to be the case with many (all?) of the current laptops' SATA drives.
I had this problem, but fortunately, the manufacturer had already released drivers for XP on its website. So I created an iso of my XP disc and added the drivers with nLite, then burned the altered copy to a CD-R. That seemed to be the easiest way since I didn't have access to any other external storage media to put the driver on.

My XP disc was pretty old, though, no idea if the problem still exists with newer ones.

miau wrote:Unless XP's installation menu doesn't recognize the HDD which seems to be the case with many (all?) of the current laptops' SATA drives.

Must be an Intel chipset system. This is fairly common, and although annoying, is justified. AHCI support isn't something XP includes, so you get to disable it in your system BIOS to install the OS then install AHCI support + set the BIOS back to AHCI. You solved the problem in a more efficient manner by making your own XP CD with slipstreamed drivers using nLite.

Otherwise, if you have a USB or non-USB floppy drive on your system, download Intel's AHCI drivers and put them on a floppy disk as instructed, then hit F6 during the XP installation (during the initial blue screen; bottom status bar should read "Press F6 to install a third-party driver").

The drivers you want in both cases (slipstreaming or via F6 install) are here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_ ... 3&lang=eng

miau wrote:My XP disc was pretty old, though, no idea if the problem still exists with newer ones.

Microsoft does not include AHCI drivers with their operating systems (XP nor Vista), thus the latest XP SP3 OEM CDs do not include AHCI support.

I'm unable to confirm/deny Windows 7 having native AHCI support, since the version we use at work is IT-managed which means it includes numerous drivers of all sorts for different desktops/laptops/etc... I work for Microsoft, in case anyone's questioning the authenticity of my statements. :-)

tokumaru wrote:

I only annoyed for a few seconds kevtris in order to understand the infamous "loopy doc's"

Which you really don't *have* to unless you plan on using advanced scrolling tricks.

Advanced scrolling trick??? SMB does that, and that isn't an advanced game, plus that helped me understanding the exact behavior of writes on $2005/$2006, and now I just *can't* forget in which order to update those regs in order to move the scroll where I want in a frame. That wasn't too hard to grasp because I'm basically an EE first.

~J-@D!~ wrote:Advanced scrolling trick??? SMB does that, and that isn't an advanced game

It does? I thought it only modified the horizontal scroll after the status bar. This does not require any $2006 magic, since the horizontal scroll can be changed normally ($2000/$2005) during rendering. $2006 is only necessary when changing the vertical scroll.

plus that helped me understanding the exact behavior of writes on $2005/$2006

Sure it is a good thing to know, what annoys me is when people think it's necessary to know that in order to program anything, and this causes lots of people to not handle the scroll properly, using $2006 needlessly and overcomplicating things, while the hardware provides a simple and efficient way to do it during VBlank.

Even I was upset at one point because I couldn't understand that document (there is a thread in here somewhere from when someone explained it to me and I finally got it). Maybe the title is just misleading, as it got me to think that it contained some essential information about scrolling that I couldn't live without (although I think that by the time I asked I in fact needed to change the vertical scroll mid-frame).

tokumaru wrote:Even I was upset at one point because I couldn't understand that document (there is a thread in here somewhere from when someone explained it to me and I finally got it). Maybe the title is just misleading, as it got me to think that it contained some essential information about scrolling that I couldn't live without (although I think that by the time I asked I in fact needed to change the vertical scroll mid-frame).

The thread you're likely referring to:

http://nesdev.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=4883

And yes, I'm in full agreement -- the way said registers behave internally / manipulate the PPU needs to be documented in a concise way for 3 kinds of readers: 1) folks more interested in the hardware implementation of it, 2) folks doing actual programming on the NES, and 3) emulator authors.

Until all 3 of those are covered, likely in the Wiki, and a forum Sticky post made to reference that page (e.g. "Want to know how 2005/2006 work? Read this!"), this issue will keep coming up.

I guess it's extra amusing for me given that I stopped maintaining NESTECH almost 10 years ago, and people still haven't managed to write a concise explanation of it that provides ample explanation to those 3 classes of users/people.

koitsu wrote:The thread you're likely referring to:

http://nesdev.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=4883

That was the thread I was looking for before asking kevtris a few questions... I already read this at a time when I wasn't really into learning how the PPU works, and because of that it was a useless read but I knew that I might find it interresting when I try to understand the PPU, so that was somewhere in my memories... but I had no chance finding this exact thread, and thus I poked kevtris in #nesdev rather than open another thread about that.

I guess it's extra amusing for me given that I stopped maintaining NESTECH almost 10 years ago, and people still haven't managed to write a concise explanation of it that provides ample explanation to those 3 classes of users/people.

I guess we're lazy, or not sure how to present it simply.

tokumaru wrote:It does? I thought it only modified the horizontal scroll after the status bar. This does not require any $2006 magic, since the horizontal scroll can be changed normally ($2000/$2005) during rendering. $2006 is only necessary when changing the vertical scroll.

Ahhhh, I thought when you talked about advanced scrolling techniques, you ment just changing the scroll mid-frame. Of course, if I need to change the vertical scroll mid-frame(like in multi-direction scroller), that means my game's graphic engine is going to be complex, and I don't want to start with something like this. I'll probably start with something involving a ball and only one paddle .

BTW, this is going off-topic and that's my fault. Sorry.

~J-@D!~ wrote:Of course, if I need to change the vertical scroll mid-frame(like in multi-direction scroller), that means my game's graphic engine is going to be complex,

Umm why would you need to change vertical scroll mid-frame in multi-direction scroller?

Anyways, as long as we're going on about this, I didn't understood "skinny" docs either, I found this Brad Taylor's doc the most helpful: http://nesdev.com/2C02%20technical%20reference.TXT It takes a little deciphering but after that it's pretty easy.

thefox wrote:

~J-@D!~ wrote:Of course, if I need to change the vertical scroll mid-frame(like in multi-direction scroller), that means my game's graphic engine is going to be complex,

Umm why would you need to change vertical scroll mid-frame in multi-direction scroller?

If using the background for a status bar, is the main example that comes to mind.