I am just wondering what everyone's stances are on this topic. I looked up the price of a 6116 SRAM at Unicorn Electronics, and it seems a 6164 and 6116 for 8KB WRAM and 2KB VRAM cost about $3.00 for both. Cheaper is you go by 10's or 100's. I think that is really, really cheap for what it gives you. With the price of the RAM being so cheap for both RAM's, do you think a 4-way scrolling game should have any reason not to include it and get rid of glitches on the side and also throw in the WRAM if needed? I see all this stuff done, but I don't think anyone who scrolls, let alone 4 ways, uses it. I think it seems justified for the price and how much more it gives you to work with.
Just wondering what everyone else thinks on this matter. I believe if I made a 4-way scrolling game, I'd use both just for the heck of it.
Not using VRAM with 4-way scrolling...
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Something to think about is if you want to manufacture a cart run (which apparently you are thinking about, otherwise you wouldn't be looking at prices 
). You won't be able to use the boards from RetroZone, you'll have to make your own. This ups the technical complexity and startup investment.
Also on-cartridge VRAM does not work on most FamiClones. For me at least that's a show-stopper.
). You won't be able to use the boards from RetroZone, you'll have to make your own. This ups the technical complexity and startup investment.Also on-cartridge VRAM does not work on most FamiClones. For me at least that's a show-stopper.
I don't use the extra VRAM it because as far as I know, there's no way I can put my game on a cart without destroying existing carts if I use it. Cheap RAM existing doesn't mean custom boards are commercially available that can use it. If there is such a solution, I'd like to know about it.
As for WRAM, I don't use it yet, but may use it for saving. My game just leaves 4 screens of 32x32 tiles in a page of the regular RAM for now. This way the time spent decompressing my level data is only done when going to a new screen. Getting an 8x8 tile from a 32x32 tile is not as big a deal for the CPU as having to find a screen, then get a tile from that.
8KB WRAM is a lot of space and if I don't use it for work RAM, I could even allow the user to store one level replay in it if it's <2 minutes.That would even leave 992 bytes for the rest of the data which is still a lot, and I could have a level editor AND an actual save. I do recall bunnyboy's MMC1 clone not supporting a battery save either, but I think that'd be easier for him to support if a good enough game comes across his table.
As for WRAM, I don't use it yet, but may use it for saving. My game just leaves 4 screens of 32x32 tiles in a page of the regular RAM for now. This way the time spent decompressing my level data is only done when going to a new screen. Getting an 8x8 tile from a 32x32 tile is not as big a deal for the CPU as having to find a screen, then get a tile from that.
8KB WRAM is a lot of space and if I don't use it for work RAM, I could even allow the user to store one level replay in it if it's <2 minutes.That would even leave 992 bytes for the rest of the data which is still a lot, and I could have a level editor AND an actual save. I do recall bunnyboy's MMC1 clone not supporting a battery save either, but I think that'd be easier for him to support if a good enough game comes across his table.
Actually, unless you want to use the Gauntlet boards, or that weird ass famicom game, you'll have to make your own boards. Like QBrad said. I believe if I (or anybody) made a game that used it and would sell and then be able to get boards made, I believe we could get some help and get 20 or so made at cost and then sat on for anyone who'd like to develop on it, then just sell it at cost to encourage development with it. I think if I were to make a game and see if my father would be up for making a couple, they'd probably be 8 or 32KB SRAM/WRAM, 32KB CHR-RAM, and then probably 512K-1MB ROM, and then of course 2KB VRAM added. Something like that. I just don't know though, it's just me brainstorming. Seems like all ideas I come up with, that board would be perfect for it, even if it won't come out to be 1MB, the options are great for it.
And I won't even let a famiclone stop what I think of getting put onto a board. Then the PowerPak wouldn't even exist if you limited like that.
And I won't even let a famiclone stop what I think of getting put onto a board. Then the PowerPak wouldn't even exist if you limited like that.
As stated in my previous post, that's issue for me. I won't destroy old boards, and am incapable of making my own. Should you manufacture one, I would perhaps use it if it's cheap enough. It is probably definitely not a big enough deal to me to spend any more than I would already spend on bunnyboy's MMC1 board though, just to hide scrolling attributes however.3gengames wrote:Actually, unless you want to use the Gauntlet boards, or that weird ass famicom game, you'll have to make your own boards.
Are there still instructions on how to add a battery? http://www.retrousb.com/downloads/repro ... manual.pdfqbradq wrote:The MMC1 repro board at RetorZone says it supports battery-backed SRAM. There's even spots on the board for the diodes and resistor, and instructions for how to solder everything in.
I do seem to remember there USED to be some, but there doesn't seem to be now. Could you post the instructions you have, or show me that I'm not looking hard enough? I did check.
Last edited by Kasumi on Thu Jun 30, 2011 11:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Fair enough. Just to prove my suspicions were correct: http://bertozi.com/adb/telecomunicacao/ ... manual.pdf
That is the old pdf. The one on the website (linked in my last post) no longer explains how to do it. Why he removed step 5 with how to add battery backup, I have no idea. So I would assume someone has bought this board recently, and successfully added a battery to it? Otherwise, my worry would be he removed step 5 because something wasn't working properly or the board changed in some other way. Getting off topic so feel free to just PM me.
That is the old pdf. The one on the website (linked in my last post) no longer explains how to do it. Why he removed step 5 with how to add battery backup, I have no idea. So I would assume someone has bought this board recently, and successfully added a battery to it? Otherwise, my worry would be he removed step 5 because something wasn't working properly or the board changed in some other way. Getting off topic so feel free to just PM me.
I bought the board when the manual still had the battery instructions, and my board does have the solder pads for the battery on the back. Thanks for that link!
As for WRAM it really depends on your requirements. For my Adventure Game Demo I used WRAM to decompress an entire level to RAM so I could easily support scrolling in two directions. For my latest NROM game I am only scrolling forward, so I use a wrapping buffer 32 columns wide.
I could have used a wrapping buffer for the adventure game as well but it would have been somewhat more complicated. Add to that the fact that I want battery-backed saves and there's not much of a reason to.
As for WRAM it really depends on your requirements. For my Adventure Game Demo I used WRAM to decompress an entire level to RAM so I could easily support scrolling in two directions. For my latest NROM game I am only scrolling forward, so I use a wrapping buffer 32 columns wide.
I could have used a wrapping buffer for the adventure game as well but it would have been somewhat more complicated. Add to that the fact that I want battery-backed saves and there's not much of a reason to.
Well, yeah, but today, don't you think there should be more people using it? Although I guess most people like everyone here can't exactly make a board on the spot with it, so that could play in with it....Bregalad wrote:The question is not how much it costs today, but how much it costed in the late 80s - early 90s.
I don't think many, if anybody, doesn't do something because clones don't support it.qbradq wrote:I've been wondering about that myself. Again my only problem with this is the issue of clones apparently not supporting it.tepples wrote:Wouldn't it be dead simple to make a board using an always-enabled 62256? It'd provide CHR RAM in $0000-$1FFF and nametables in $2000-$2FFF.