nesdev.org

I just beat Metroid for the first time on the hardware! I did not get the "Good" ending, but I did find all of the E-Tanks and most of the missiles. It took me four tries to get through Touran.

I am so excited I decided to let you folks know too. This game has been the stuff of my nightmares since I was 6, and now I've conquered it!

Note: No music issues on my Yobo Famiclone.

qbradq wrote:Note: No music issues on my Yobo Famiclone.

Which issues?

I actually beat metroid for the first time within the last year too. This was mainly due to my poor handwriting and not being able to read my passwords, though.

@socram8888,

The clone systems that are based on the Nintendo On A Chip have inverted duty cycles. This causes pitch and harmony problems in some games (Crystalis is especially bad).

@Ian A,

I had that problem as a child too. I recently inherited an iPod Touch with a camera, and have been taking pictures of the password screens. It's not let me down yet

Is there any way to know if any of my NOACs have the duty cycles inverted? I have a Metroid cartridge. Any song where it is detectable easily?

I can upload MP3s from the NOACs

socram8888 wrote:Is there any way to know if any of my NOACs have the duty cycles inverted? I have a Metroid cartridge. Any song where it is detectable easily?

I can upload MP3s from the NOACs

Just for the remind. My emu supports switched duty cycles.

socram8888 wrote:Is there any way to know if any of my NOACs have the duty cycles inverted? I have a Metroid cartridge. Any song where it is detectable easily?

I can upload MP3s from the NOACs

Metroid did not have any issue with it that I could hear. The problem seems to happen when the duty cycles of the square waves are changed very quickly to produce different effects.

Crystalis is very bad. All of the music sounds dissonant, and it should not.
TMNT has some minor issues with this, but not enough to really notice.

Anyone else have examples of games with bad music on the NOAC's? I have been working my way through my NES library over the past two months and have not seen any example that is noticeably bad.

qbradq wrote:The clone systems that are based on the Nintendo On A Chip have inverted duty cycles.

Not really. Famicom clones that were manufactured here in Brazil have swapped duty cycles, and they're not NOACs.

Zepper wrote:

qbradq wrote:The clone systems that are based on the Nintendo On A Chip have inverted duty cycles.

Not really. Famicom clones that were manufactured here in Brazil have swapped duty cycles, and they're not NOACs.

Interesting. Would you mind posting a photo of the guts of a non-noac famiclone? I'm curious what it looks like. Do they have discrete chips (cpu, ppu, ram, ram, logic) like the original NES, or something else?

Haven't you ever seen a non-NOAC? There in Spain were even more famous than the original NES, and you could still buy some used "NASA"/"Creation" (as they were named) in flea markets for ~10€

Yes, they have standard NES CPU and PPU, and you can even put them on a real NES, because they have the same pinout

They have way better compatibility and quality than NOACs (for example, Castlevania 3 works perfectly without any graphical glitches)

http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/5187/1010261w.jpg
This one is from Google Images, from a Spanish forum

This is a closeup I took from my NASA:
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/6360/nasamobo.jpg

Unfortunatelly, it has the same vertical banding than the FC2 and NES2:
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/7927/thisshit.jpg

socram8888 wrote:Haven't you ever seen a non-NOAC?

No, a lot of us haven't, in fact. Are non-NOAC clones still manufactured?

Anyway, the easiest way to tell if the duty cycles are inverted or not is to just play it. Play one on an authentic NES or emulator, and play it on the famiclone. If the duty cycles are wrong, they will sound significantly different.

I've seen youtube videos of Super Mario Bros running on a NOAC famiclone with reversed duty cycles, and it isn't pretty.

Mercifully enough, the 25% duty cycle is fine, only the 50% and 12.5% are swapped. No clue about the 75% duty cycle (which is normally a crackling duplicate of 25%).

Dwedit wrote:I've seen youtube videos of Super Mario Bros running on a NOAC famiclone with reversed duty cycles, and it isn't pretty.

Mercifully enough, the 25% duty cycle is fine, only the 50% and 12.5% are swapped. No clue about the 75% duty cycle (which is normally a crackling duplicate of 25%).

In the video you linked, it sounds like the 25% is swapped with 50% to me.

Example of 25% swapping

I'd buy an NOAC famiclone to test myself if only it would boot my PowerPak.

So the 12.5% is completely missing then.

tepples wrote:

socram8888 wrote:Haven't you ever seen a non-NOAC?

No, a lot of us haven't, in fact. Are non-NOAC clones still manufactured?

I'm nearly 100% sure they aren't still manufactured. These were made before NOACs existed

133MHz have a post on his blog repairing one of these famiclones were you can see it internally: http://133fsb.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/ ... ne-part-1/

On, I forgot something: usually, these famiclones had internal games, which were usually a standard 60-pin cartridge connected to a second internal slot. Removing that cartridge with games, you can use standard Famicom cartridges!
http://www.retrovicio.org/foro/showthre ... os-bazares