ROM image size

[krupkaj]

Just poor question from 7800 newbie. I have just found that ROM images of the same game but for another system (NTSC, PAL) differ in the size. For example Joust for NTSC is 32896 bytes long and the same game for PAL is 49280. The difference is 16KB. What is a reason for that?

[+Mitch]

Just poor question from 7800 newbie. I have just found that ROM images of the same game but for another system (NTSC, PAL) differ in the size. For example Joust for NTSC is 32896 bytes long and the same game for PAL is 49280. The difference is 16KB. What is a reason for that?

 

The original game was NTSC and when they went to convert the game to PAL there wasn't enough free space to add the additional needed code. The easiest way to get around it was to bump up the ROM size. Several 7800 PAL games did this.

 

Mitch

[PacManPlus]

Hearing stuff like this worries me.

 

All I had to do to make 'Pac-Man Collection', 'Asteroids Deluxe', and 'Space Duel' work on PAL was to add the 50-line difference in the DLL. I was told by two PAL users that the games worked fine after this - but it leaves me a little leary that GCC added all of this extra code to get their games to work in PAL. It makes me wonder what I am missing...

[+Mitch]

There really aren't that many games that bump up the size. A couple of them are later games as well, they're not all early GCC ones.

 

Mitch

[mimo]

Hearing stuff like this worries me.

 

All I had to do to make 'Pac-Man Collection', 'Asteroids Deluxe', and 'Space Duel' work on PAL was to add the 50-line difference in the DLL. I was told by two PAL users that the games worked fine after this - but it leaves me a little leary that GCC added all of this extra code to get their games to work in PAL. It makes me wonder what I am missing...

Bob, they work perfectly on PAL as you know, you are just a better coder

[kenfused]

Hearing stuff like this worries me.

 

All I had to do to make 'Pac-Man Collection', 'Asteroids Deluxe', and 'Space Duel' work on PAL was to add the 50-line difference in the DLL. I was told by two PAL users that the games worked fine after this - but it leaves me a little leary that GCC added all of this extra code to get their games to work in PAL. It makes me wonder what I am missing...

 

I don't understand why they would much more space. PAL even has the advantage of not needing the space for the signature key I think. Well some PAL games do have enhancements like Impossible Mission to make the game actually not impossible. As cheap as Atari was on ROM space I am surprised they made anything take more space then it would need.

[+Mitch]

All of the Atari made PAL games that I have looked at still have the authentication area empty anyway. The only PAL game that I remember using it was Super Skateboardin'.

 

Just for fun here is a list of games that were larger in their PAL version.

Choplifter 32k-48k

Dig Dug 16k-32k

Food Fight 32k-48k

Galaga 32k-48k

Joust 32k-48k

Karateka 48k-64k

Ms Pac Man 16k-32k

Xevious 32k-48k

 

Hmm, looks like more of the early games were made bigger than I remembered. Maybe the early GCC guys wrote such tight code that when Atari later went to convert it they couldn't get it as tight.

 

Mitch