66 replies to this topic

[Rikkarr]

Please forgive my ignorance, and feel free to ignore this if it's a stupid suggestion, but what if you designate a "fast" button when playing with a standard controller? What I mean is, what if the catcher-thing moves at a set rate normally, but can be sped up by holding the "A" button or something? Just a suggestion, maybe it wouldn't even work well...

Either way, this looks like you're doing a great job! Good luck, sir, and keep up the excellent work!

[Jess Ragan]

I'd say that you shouldn't use the overly detailed background... it's kind of ugly and will make it tough to see the bombs as they fall. What WOULD be kind of cool is an option to have a rainbow trail that follows the bomber around as he moves. If you're going to make this look like the box art for the 2600 game you should go all the way!

[tokumaru]

You could draw the wall with lighter colors (and less contrat overall), so that it doesn't interfere with the foreground objects, kinda like this:

[GreenDayRlz]

tokumaru, on Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:16 PM, said:

You could draw the wall with lighter colors (and less contrat overall), so that it doesn't interfere with the foreground objects, kinda like this:

kaboomwall.png

Yeah, I might change to a lighter color for release, but we'll see what people have to say for the beta ROM that actually works. :3


And wow, now you added a shadow to the buckets, Tokumaru! Another good idea. I think I can do that myself, but you need to stop giving ideas.

EDIT:

And for the controller games, I am probably going to designate A+B as the speed buttons, and you'll have to change to different speeds to not over run or be behind the bomber, so it's kinda hard to follow him. None held will be the slow sped, A held down will be faster, B will be even faster, and A+B will be the fastest speed. Something like that. ^_^


Well, time to get some work done on this today! -goes off to work on it. (And shadows on bombs won't happen. :3)

Edited by GreenDayRlz, Fri Dec 10, 2010 3:31 PM.

[BrianC]

Could you make this support the Famicom Vaus, as well? They have a different plug since they use the Famicom's expansion port. The Famicom Vaus seems to be more common than the US version. It's not hard to find Arkanoid II on ebay complete with the model 2 Vaus (works with both JP Araknoids and Chase HQ and has a port to plug in another Vaus), but it's not compatible with the US Arkanoid.

Edited by BrianC, Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:52 PM.

[GreenDayRlz]

As no emulator has support for Famicom mode, AFAIC, And I have no famicom, I am going to say no. I just can't test it. Sorry. You'll have to import a console if you want to play it. As of right now. I will lookup documents later, it's probably the same controller, just different PIA addresses in the NES's memory. If it is, I might add it.


The expension port on the bottom of the NES scares me. ^_^

[BrianC]

GreenDayRlz, on Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:51 PM, said:

As no emulator has support for Famicom mode

I'm not sure about this, but some of the Famicom only features are supported. Plenty of emulators have support for Akumajou Densetsu's (JP CV3) sound. Nestopia has support for emulating controllers from the expansion port like the JP 4 player and the JP Arkanoid controller (and I confirmed that it works testing it via mouse with Taito Chase HQ and Arkanoid II).

Edited by BrianC, Fri Dec 10, 2010 9:17 PM.

[GreenDayRlz]

Well Nestopia doesn't even use the normal NTSC American arkanoid paddle correct, I wouldn't trust the famicom one at all. Maybe FCEUXD and Nintendulator are wrong, but 2 emulating right beats one emulating wrong. Until I can test on real hrdware, I can't even say if the paddle controller program for this is even right/working! LOL.

[BrianC]

GreenDayRlz, on Fri Dec 10, 2010 10:19 PM, said:

Well Nestopia doesn't even use the normal NTSC American arkanoid paddle correct

link? I searched the forums, bug reports, and google and couldn't find any info on this. When I played the US Arkanoid, it played fine with the mouse and the paddle set to controller 2. According to other posts I read, Nestopia is the more accurate emulator compared to FCEUX and Nintendulator. The latest one does have a different issue with Arkanoid 2, though.

From what I read, the JP Vaus works similar to the US one, but is read out of the expansion port. It's not re-routed lines like with the Zapper where you need the JP controller on Famicom and US Zapper on NES, regardless of which version, but programming for the JP controller in the JP versions and US controller with the US Arkanoid. I tried my US Vaus on my AV Famicom with Arkanoid 2 in port 2 and it didn't work (good thing I have a JP Vaus).

Edited by BrianC, Sat Dec 11, 2010 7:55 PM.

[GreenDayRlz]

Nestopia isn't a good emulator when it can't even use common carry branches right, or maybe it returns bogus values. But whatever it is, the paddle steps wrong on the ends, which shoudn't happen. IMO, Nintendulator is the best. I don't use it, but it is just awesome. FCEUXD is what I use, simple, emulates very good, and is just eeverything I need. Nestopia is last for me, it doesn't work on my computer at all on startup and from what I've seen it running my code, it either doesn't know what values to return for the value of the paddle, or doesn't use carry operations correct.


It also seems there's no info on the expansion port on the NES on how to use it. No registers or anything. It seems it uses $4016.0-$4016-.2, but I am not sure and don't want to be writing code blindly guessing what bits do what. lol.


I'll research more later, if I find something, I'll write a quick and dirty Famicom vaus routine. It's not hard at all including it, it's just that there's no info out there for me to determine how to use it.

[tokumaru]

GreenDayRlz, on Sat Dec 11, 2010 11:35 PM, said:

Nestopia isn't a good emulator when it can't even use common carry branches right

Nestopia might even not emulate the paddle correctly, but it emulates the NES architecture VERY accurately. I once made several tests with PPU operations that required precise timing, using Nestopia, FCEUX, Nintendulator and a PowerPak on a real NES, and Nestopia was the closest one to the real thing almost every time. Don't call it crap just because it may or may not (you won't know until you test on hardware to verify which emulator is right) support an obscure controller nobody has.

Quote

FCEUXD is what I use, simple, emulates very good, and is just eeverything I need.

FCEUX(D), on the other hand, is very inaccurate. It doesn't emulate several low-level details, it just implements a high-level version of what it thinks is supposed to be the common behavior of the system. It doesn't emulate the internal behavior of the sprite evaluation system for example, so if you try to experiment with enabling and disabling sprites, or bankswitching sprite patterns mid-frame you will get incorrect results. Also, its rendering system appears to be scanline-based, meaning it's worthless for timing mid-frame or mid-scanline effects.

Its debugging features are very good though, I use them all the time too, but don't mistake that for good emulation. Most programs will work well if they "play by the rules" and don't use special tricks, but if you deviate from the standards in any way (something you can do by accident even, in which case you need the correct reaction to diagnose the problem and fix it) it will prove to be unreliable.

You can use FCEUX(D) as your main emulator, but keep in mind that it's not accurate. It's years behind Nestopia and Nintendulator. This means you shouldn't use it exclusively, you should test your programs on Nintendulator AND Nestopia from time to time, specially if you can't test on a real NES.

Edited by tokumaru, Sun Dec 12, 2010 2:33 PM.

[GreenDayRlz]

I still will never use Nestopia, tokumaru. It's hard to use, is made very crappy (Start up errors and just a bad UI) and is impractical to use for me, it also shows bad values for Arkanoid controller, and I would never trust it over FCEUXD, you can, but it's not my cup of tea. ^_^ It might emulate right, but everything else is just bad.


Now if we really want to talk about bad emulators, lets talk about VNes.

[tokumaru]

I think I understand what you mean: emulators can be judged by how accurate they and also by how they interface with the user. The latter is obviously important in a program you have to use often, but you can't forget that you are making NES software, and an important step in that is making sure your software is 100% compatible with it. using FCEUXD only is a poor way to guarantee that.

When emulation was in its infancy, the main goal of emulator authors was to get games running, not to accurately simulate the hardware. FCEU and its derivatives are still a lot like that, they emulate the environment only enough so that software that is known to work on the actual platform will work, but when you are developing new software which is not yet known to work, you need an accurate platform in order to reduce the chances of relying on some inaccuracy by mistake, because these emulators are too forgiving.

Nestopia and Nintendulator belong to a newer era of emulation, where the goal is to emulate the machine as accurately as possible, so that games working correctly is a natural consequence. These make better development tools, obviously.

If you don't plan on ever using Nestopia and/or Nintendulator, I sincerily hope you at least have the means to test your program on a real NES, like a PowerPak or a development cartridge.

[GreenDayRlz]

Oh yes I will use them at important spots of new programming is done, I just don't use them as my main testing ground. And every time I start Nestpoia, it alerts me that the directories are not made that are needed, when they are right there! It just gets annoying. Starting an emulator and loading a rom is 2 steps that takes me 9 on Nestopia, it just isn't worth while for me until I get to important parts.


And FCEUXD runs battletoads, thats good enough for me ATM! Although in the decent part, I can't kill a bird if I can't kill it within a certain amount of time.......emulating problem? :/

[tokumaru]

GreenDayRlz, on Sun Dec 12, 2010 8:20 PM, said:

Oh yes I will use them at important spots of new programming is done

That's enough, I just wanted you to understand that this is important.

Quote

And every time I start Nestpoia, it alerts me that the directories are not made that are needed, when they are right there!

That's realy weird. I never had problem with it in XP... What OS are you using?

Quote

And FCEUXD runs battletoads, thats good enough for me ATM!

What I said before applies even to Batletoads, it's a finished program known to work on hardware. When you are programming an emulator, you can tweak it to make a game work, but that doesn't necessarily mean you are making it more accurate, you could very well be doing the opposite, and making the emulator more forgiving.

For example, if an emulator doesn't count the cycles right during VBlank, a game that uses all of the VBlank time might end up writing to the PPU after VBlank ends in this emulator, which would result in graphical glitches. An emulator focused on accuracy would fix this by correcting the timing, an emulator focused on getting games to run might just accept PPU writes outside of VBlank. The second option is not what an NES does, but will get the game running anyway. Two errors combined can end up canceling each other, so games will run despite them.

Another example. You might know that you can't modify the vertical scroll mid-frame using register $2005. Since all existing games were made by people who know this, and these games were tested on hardware, none of them tries to do this. But them someone that ignores this fact makes an emulator that lets you change the vertical scroll. The existing games will still work, because they never used this feature anyway, but a novice programmer might try this and get positive results, only to find that it doesn't work on hardware.

I'm not saying FCEUXD has severe problems like these (my examples sound more like Nesticle!), my point is that just because emulators run games, even the ones known to be difficult to emulate, that still doesn't necessarily mean they are accurate.

I know for a fact that FCEUXD doesn't do the sprite rendering right. Sure, it draws the sprites at the requested X and Y positions in OAM, but that's only the final effect, it doesn't properly emulate the process of clearing the secondary OAM, scanning through all 64 sprites looking for the ones in range and copying them to the secondary OAM, fetching the patterns for the in range sprites during HBlank, and all the tiny operations an actual PPU does in order to draw the sprites. For most games, that doesn't matter, but if a program needs to read $2004 or bankswitch CHR during HBlank, the results will be wrong.

I don't want you to stop using the emulator you like, I'm just advising you to not trust it so blindly. I want you to be aware that it has flaws, and that it alone can't possibly serve as "the ultimate development tool".

[GreenDayRlz]

Yeah, I understand it's a released game, but that doesn't take back the fact that it requires VERY accurate timing for PPU and CPU operations and such. Yeah, it's XP Home I think, but it's XP none the less. And when I click "Make Directory", it still fails to "make" the directory. It's super weird. 0_o


I am a programmer and I understand that emulators are just that and emulation is different quality, I just take convience first for testing, and FCEUXD might not be the best, but it gets the job done for what I need. I'm not doing PPU tricks or anything, and when I do, I shall probably move on to a better emulator. Just have to get used to it. Shouldn't be a problem. Hell, I'm sure no emulator does all the NES stuff still unfound, so who knows what else these others are missing?

[GreenDayRlz]

Added bomb hit detection for each bucket, all major subroutines are about to be re-written, but before that happens I just wanted to show you some progress has been made, just needs cleaned up.





Don't expect much more progress for a while, I'll probably be playing with my Christmas toys for a while. ^_^

[BigO]

Looking good.

[Devin]

Excellent work. I can't wait to see more work on this.

Why not use the Gun Controller? Emulators, such as Nestopia, support it. It might be quite fun to shoot the bombs. I'm not sure of the limitations of the gun, but is it possible for it differentiate between different bombs?

[GreenDayRlz]

It would be possible, and I even thought about it. But for that to happen, I'd either have to have some code that can work as efficiently as heck in HBlank, or use a frame to detect which bomb is being shot from the screen, one frame for each bomb. Having somebody shoot while somebody else is using the paddle would get distracting and slow the game down. Now if you mean ONLY use the zapper, yes that would be interesting, but I'm trying to make a port of Kaboom!..... I've also never worked with the zapper, it scares me!


Once the game is completed I'll look into programming zapper games, but it probably won't happen, but if it is easy enough, that might be a mode in the game....

I hope I don't sound rude, I am just being as realistic as possible. I don't like to promise anything because I don't even know what will be included or not. I should have ALOT of space once the main engine is done, since it's half way there already and takes up about 1K of space. About 300 bytes for the main loop, most of that is subroutines. Just change the way the main loop works and what subroutines run when and it'll be a new game mode. So adding new modes isn't a problem hopefully, just adding new support for different things.



A technical problem with this though is on start-up, it will detect if you have either a paddle or a NES controller inserted. If I add the zapper, it might get icky detecting what controller is inserted. I'll need to check that. :/

This menu might be awful long if I implement all these modes! Not to mention making them all! XD

Edited by GreenDayRlz, Fri Dec 24, 2010 2:13 PM.

[rjchamp3]

AtariLeaf, on Tue Dec 7, 2010 3:43 PM, said:

Looks good. The vaus controller would probably work great for this but they're hard to come by. Will this work well with a standard NES pad? How are you addressing the control issue?

You took the words right out of my mouth with that being said, did ANYONE have plans in creating a new vaus controller or something of it's nature.

That item is NOT common

[GreenDayRlz]

You can make one if you know what your doing, we did for the development. It's being put together now.


EDIT!

NOW HAS CONTROLLER SUPPORT. PHEW. Not really, it needs tidy'd up now, but here's a ROM to test it out. Pressing A or B will cause it to start dropping bombs, but you can miss one then they don't matter. No buttons pressed=slow, A=Medium,B=Medium fast, A+B=Really fast.


http://3gengames.web...ntrollerPad.nes

Edited by GreenDayRlz, Sat Jan 22, 2011 7:07 PM.

[GreenDayRlz]

After a long time of this project getting put on the back burner, the last 2 weeks have been pretty good for me to jump on and work twords actually finishing it. Not read for a demo ROM for the public yet, but it's close and will hopefully be here soon!

Edited by GreenDayRlz, Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:47 AM.

[GroovyBee]

Your link didn't work for me. It was asking me to login. However this works :-

[GreenDayRlz]

Heh, updated the update post with a new video anyway. But yeah, I got it now! Thanks.