nesdev.org

Actually, 64k of memory, not 32k, unless you want to allowcate some memory for sound effects.

One guideline: Try to fit your .xm file in 96 KiB (assuming 8-bit waves) including sound effects. If you can do that, it should fit after all the samples are converted to BRR and a player is added.

But you can't do FM and echo delay on a MOD or MX or IT file. That's why it should have it's own tracker. I really don't understand why nobody made tracker for the Snes yet.

Doesn't modlite (the IT converter) support echo and such through the IT effect commands? You just can't hear them until you play the tune on a SNES (or in an emulator).

But noone's stopping you from writing a tracker if you want one.

I know it may come as a shock to a lot of people but ASM is all I know, and even for that I have to rely on other people's tools.

The Command Prompt never works on my computer either.

Yeah it would be cool if someone made a tracker for it. But that also entails fully emulating the SPC, for a long time (I don't know about now) it seemed like there was always a small percentage of games that just didn't sound right. It seems like kind of a case where if a musician has a real SNES and can hear their stuff there, but then 99.9% of anyone who has an SPC file is going to use whatever emulator they want (and never know if it sounds wrong).

Anyone know if SNES sound emulators are any better now? Maybe bsnes?

Actually that's a big problem with .XM files, as well. A Castlevania cover I did ended up on youtube, but it was played by something that got 90% of the pitches wrong (out of tune and awful) because I was using the 3xx effect. A while after I whined about it someone else actually uploaded a proper recording of it, which was cool to see.

So you can release any tracked file, but when it comes to the more advanced or rarely-used effects, the only way to know everyone will hear it the way it's supposed to play is to release an MP3, unfortunately.

SPC-700 is a more strictly-defined system though, if everything is documented and info is verified, ideally it wouldn't be a problem.

psycopathicteen wrote: The Command Prompt never works on my computer either.

Sounds weird, what OS? I'd have a hard time managing without it. Have you tried creating a shortcut to it (cmd.exe), and editing the properties?

BTW for programming I've used ASM exclusively for I guess 12 years, and only recently started using C. I got by one way or another, heheh.

I have WindowXP. The command prompt stuff and all this confusing .bat and .bin file stuff is preventing me from both programming the spc700, and using the .IT to .SPC conversion tool. I wish people would stop skimping on user-freindliness when it comes to development tools. Just because we're into tech doesn't mean we can easily figure everything out.

There's a popular tool called GNU Make that takes a list of files A that can be translated from other files B, with a list of the command lines needed to translate each set of files B to a file A. For example, it could have a rule to translate each .s (assembly language source code) to a .o (object file) and another rule to translate each .xm to an .spc. Then when you change multiple .xm files in your tracker, GNU Make notices that you changed them and automatically calls the command-line program to translate each of them to .spc. But GNU Make works only with command-line programs. It can't script clicks on GUI buttons.

There's a difference between "easy to learn" and "easy to use". But once you learn Make, you can just set it for your game project and forget it.

The Command Prompt never works on my computer either.

What is it about it that doesn't work? I use cmd frequently in Windows 2000, Vista and on multiple XP machines.

Some things just make more sense to have as command line utilities, because you want to automate their use through scripts (e.g. batch files or makefiles), rather than having to press a bunch of buttons and dialogs.

Warning, an error occured and the command prompt is now closing!

Closing? Are you running the bat files by double-clicking them? I always start cmd, then cd to the directory containing my bat file, and run the bat file from the prompt. That way the command line window remains open and I can read all the output from the commands I run.

mic_ wrote:
Some things just make more sense to have as command line utilities, because you want to automate their use through scripts (e.g. batch files or makefiles), rather than having to press a bunch of buttons and dialogs.

How is memorizing and typing a ton of random puncuation that you have to do perfectly or else the computer will crash, easier than pressing a single button?

I've never seen any random punctuation involved. And I've never had my computer crash from doing a cd at the prompt.

Long paths are no problem either since you've got tab completion at the prompt in XP and later. In XP you can even drag&drop folder paths to the prompt IIRC. In Vista I think they removed that feature for some reason, but you can still right-click the folder in the explorer address field and select "copy address as text" and the paste it at the prompt.

Is there any Command Prompt for dummies? Because everytime somebody tries to explain how to the command prompt, they either tell me stuff I either already know, or stuff that requires knowledge that don't have. After so many times of failing, I've gave up.

The only way for me to learn to use the command prompt is if somebody is sitting right next to me does it.

There are probably lots of sites that explain Windows command line arguments. Google for "windows command line".

But for building your own programs you really only need to know one command, and that's cd (to go to the right directory).

If you open up a new prompt and it's initial location is at C:\Documents and Settings\Username and you wanted to go to C:\NES\Projects you'd type:

cd \nes\projects
(or cd \n[press tab until you get to nes]\p[press tab until you get to projects])

or if you wanted to go to E:\SNES you'd type

cd /d e:\snes

All the other stuff is application-specific, like what kind of options it accepts. Usually you can get a list of options for an application by running it without any arguments or with -h, /h or /?.