Current status of Mario Adventure on PowerPak?

djcouchycouch · Post by **djcouchycouch** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 1:32 pm

Whatever happened to the work on getting Mario Adventure working on the PowerPak?

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 1:43 pm

Why does it even need the faster RAM to work anyway?

koitsu · Post by **koitsu** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 1:59 pm

3gengames wrote:Why does it even need the faster RAM to work anyway?

marvelus10 · Post by **marvelus10** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 2:52 pm

3gengames wrote:Why does it even need the faster RAM to work anyway?

I thought for sure you would know.

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Wed Aug 03, 2011 3:48 pm

Well....my file splitter just says this for further record:

Mirroring:Vert.
8K SRAM:Yes.
Mapper 4, MMC3.
Program banks: 16. 16KB each.
But then, CHR-ROM banks: 20. 8KB each. [Why 160K of ROM and not 256?]

Strange. Why would the SRAM need to be ANY different at all? Very weird. Above my technical knowledge.

infiniteneslives · Post by **infiniteneslives** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:34 am

3gengames wrote:Why does it even need the faster RAM to work anyway?

What says it needs it?

tokumaru · Post by **tokumaru** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:54 am

The only guy who makes working repros of this game charges some extra money in order to buy a special RAM chip, IIRC.

cpow · Post by **cpow** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 10:46 am

tokumaru wrote:The only guy who makes working repros of this game charges some extra money in order to buy a special RAM chip, IIRC.

<sniff> <sniff>

SCAAAAAAMMMMMM!!!

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:04 pm

cpow wrote:
tokumaru wrote:The only guy who makes working repros of this game charges some extra money in order to buy a special RAM chip, IIRC.
<sniff> <sniff>

SCAAAAAAMMMMMM!!!

Well why would it not work? I read something that SOUNDED like it said it switches the CHR-ROM into PRG-ROM, but I know that's BS.... Anyone put this on a cart and see what's up?

infiniteneslives · Post by **infiniteneslives** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:17 pm

tokumaru wrote:The only guy who makes working repros of this game charges some extra money in order to buy a special RAM chip, IIRC.

Apparently the nesproductions.com repro comes with a sony 15L (150ns) WRAM chip on it. Not sure how that compares to SMB3's WRAM or the powerpak off the top of my head. But the game works with that chip.

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 2:27 pm

That just sounds stupid....lol. What in the world would case the WRAM to need to be upgraded at all? What feature on the NES can access the RAM that fast?

Post by **tepples** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 3:22 pm

3gengames wrote:What feature on the NES can access the RAM that fast?

The PPU.

A half-cycle time of 150 ns sounds like 3.3 MHz, which is just a tad over the PPU's fetch rate (half dot clock). Perhaps it's been hacked to use CHR RAM in order to get around the IRQ counter's limitation.

Frankly, I think all this could be solved if someone on this board were to just buy one. Yeah, I know, people don't want to patronize alleged scammers, but sometimes there's no better way to catch them.

infiniteneslives · Post by **infiniteneslives** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 3:27 pm

Most smb3 is 10L (100ns). So it doesn't sound like the ram has even been upgraded. I know someone that owns the game, what are you thinking could be done tepples? Use the wram as VRAM?

Post by **tepples** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 4:13 pm

I'm still guessing here; I don't own a copy.

In that case, if the PRG RAM is slower than normal, it might be to work around the bug where writes to $E000-$FFFF also write to $6000-$7FFF due to the delay on /ROMSEL. Or it might be that a certain kind of RAM plays nicer with a battery backup circuit.

So could you have someone open it up and take pictures?

3gengames · Post by **3gengames** » Thu Aug 04, 2011 4:20 pm

If I had one I would. Maybe the other PRG-ROM bit combos from my splitter are wonky because CHR-RAM is used for the rest of it. But even then, it says it doesn't use CHR-RAM, so how can the emulator know what to allow?

Should we just try mailing him and ask him what's up with it specifically?