Is an "action/adventure" game the single biggest hole in the 7800 library?

[Is an "action/adventure" game the single biggest hole in the 7800 library?]

10 hours ago, aaron1677 said:

I feel like the takeaway from this subject is that it is more of a development issue rather than a technical one when it comes to the possibility of the 7800 being able to run more advanced games like this.

Pretty much, both then and now.

 

Albeit now that we're in the latter (as far as I know), it's a little easier for anyone to learn the required skills and give it a shot.

[Is an "action/adventure" game the single biggest hole in the 7800 library?]

5 minutes ago, Trebor said:

Well beyond POKEY, the Minnie chip - WaveTable synthesis for the 7800 - during the mid 80's.

 

What we hear from Rikki & Vikki is not beyond anything that could have been heard similarly from the 7800 during the late 80's (or sooner), just presented through different hardware means.

To an extent, because the BupChip is an early Fairlight class sampler. Minnie is more along the lines of Namco's WSG (which I'm assuming is what "inspired" it - given GCC's work on Ms. Pac-Man), the later Namco N163, or Konami's SCC.

 

That said - I do believe you could very closely approximate the overall look and feel of the game in 1990 - 1993, with a reasonable cost when manufactured at scale, and assuming someone would actually fund it. But the support hardware would be extremely different.

 

 

4 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

This fundamentally ties into some of the discussion in the long-running Toki thread. CPUWIZ rightly points out that there are no additional cycles available to push a POKEY for music and sound. But a separate microcontroller/tracker that is only triggered to start and end background music tracks and cues? Something like that could be done for any games even in the late 80’s/early 90’s, albeit at the additional upfront cost for a custom PCB and controller chip/ROM for the tracker data. But of course the 7800 was way behind in the market by then with no hope of catching up.

It could be done, but I don't think this is a good approach. A small Mikey or Konami SCC syle generator (or combination of both) embedded in a mapper which allows Sally and Maria to better avoid resource contention scales better and saves cycles.

 

Again, our design was made around selling you something for $59.99, manufactured in low quantities, in 2018. That's a different kettle of fish chips.

[Is an "action/adventure" game the single biggest hole in the 7800 library?]

20 hours ago, pacman000 said:

Would something like Croc 2 on the Game Boy Color be possible?

You'd probably want to stylize it differently, but yeah I think the 7800 could run a decent facsimile.

 

 

19 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

That would ignore the 'affordable' part of the equation somewhat (or even completely in some cases), but depending on when in the console's lifespan we're talking about, they may not be unrealistic except for market expectations at the time.

 

I'm trying to avoid doing too much 'what-if' with this, though.  The homebrew scene is doing an excellent job in that regard, and I'll cite BupChip and Pac-Man Collection as examples.  I fully support those efforts, but am equally curious to see what can be accomplished with the stone knives and bear skins of the timeframe we're talking about

Sure, we've had enough of those threads. My point is moreso that everyone else ditched the stone knives and bear skins by the late 1980s, which drastically affects not only what the hardware can do - but the ease of working with it. That makes a significant difference.

[Is an "action/adventure" game the single biggest hole in the 7800 library?]

4 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Note that I'm not opposed to non-stock hardware.  In this case, however, it would be interesting to see what could be done with the options that would have reasonably been available in 1984 through 1992.

If you're looking for "used in a product which shipped during the platform's lifespan" then yeah - a POKEY and extra RAM is all you've got.

 

If you're looking for "what could be manufactured affordably during the platform's lifespan" then we need to dip our toe into the fact that Nintendo had widely available graphics paging options on the NES in 1988 which were better than anything the 7800 received ever.

[Can another Atari-collection for the Evercade include top-notch Homebrews in the lot?]

On 5/20/2021 at 2:50 PM, SmittyB said:

Probably their most successful products back then were the Xploder series of cheat cartridges / discs, and the Scorpion light gun for PS1 which seemingly everyone and their mother had.

Yeah, I actually used their MPXchanger to do GameBoy development way back in the before times, paired with the silly passthrough "Game Downloader" cartridge.

 

 

22 hours ago, leech said:

Ha, I only just found out about Rikki & Vikki (haven't had my 7800 for long).  Unfortunately looks like I can't buy the cart, and the Steam version sounds like it has a rom included, but wouldn't run on a standard 7800...  So I went to eBay, where all I found were signed photos of Rikki and Vikki - The Ikki twins... and some playboy magazines...

Watching search engines try to figure out which results to prioritize like this was one of the few good memories I have of our launch, Google was hella confused.

 

 

21 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

I'd buy a Switch version in a heartbeat! Please make it so!

I'm not in a position where this is feasible right now, sorry.

 

Rather, I keep bringing up this and the Steam / Humble Bundle / itch.io approach since these have become prevalent for new releases on other platforms like the NES and Genesis. They're all extremely accessible, and I think if you want to actually want to reach a wide audience which might not have otherwise noticed or taken interest in the 7800 - this is a good way to do so.

[Is an "action/adventure" game the single biggest hole in the 7800 library?]

On 5/19/2021 at 12:12 PM, Jaden (JRH) said:

I would personally like to see some more original games on the 7800. While sequels to already existing games can be a fun idea, original ideas are more exciting to me. Especially since Rikki & Vikki was so good and had a lot of personality to its characters and overall design, I think the 7800 could really benefit from having more games like that.

Original exclusives were a major hook for Nintendo and Sega's consoles, and allow the developer to design everything for that particular hardware. So I'd also like to see more of those for the wedge (or any hardware, really). Another perk is that you can sell the game openly and not worry about any legal issues.

 

 

On 5/20/2021 at 11:00 AM, RevEng said:

While I don't disagree that the 7800 invites all of this complexity, in the past I've advocated for something between Adventure and Zelda. (for both complexity and story). Reason being that Zelda had a dev team of 6. When people say they want a Zelda clone, IMO they really mean something more like the sequels, which had even bigger dev teams.

Even bigger (full time) development teams, more assets, and the benefit of pulling resources from past projects. The scope of content in something like Link's Awakening is really impressive, and there's lots going on under the hood to make the movement gratifying, etc. These guys knew what they were doing and it's not trivial to compete with that (ah, but it'd be cool to try).

 

 

13 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Having said that, it'd be interesting to see what could be done in that regard with fully-stock (POKEY and extra on-cart RAM allowed) hardware.

I understand all these terms are kinda fast and loose, but wouldn't "fully-stock" just be a 48KB ROM?

[Can another Atari-collection for the Evercade include top-notch Homebrews in the lot?]

12 hours ago, CPUWIZ said:

EDIT: By the way, I have never heard of Blaze before, so there is that as well.

They're the same company that did this Atari handheld awhile back, along with a few similar devices (with similar game selections).

[Can another Atari-collection for the Evercade include top-notch Homebrews in the lot?]

19 hours ago, MrZarniwoop said:

Your point about multi-player is exactly why the new Evercade VS sounds so exciting, and I admit Rikki & Vikki was the first thing that came to my mind!

This is... a very strong reminder that I'm not part of the target demographic for any of these products .

 

 

9 hours ago, Giles N said:

I’m not into persuading people to spend overt time on something they don’t find valuable, but its true as others say here: Evercade VS has four joypad ports, and I guess revenue can be of interest since the game already is made (I do not think Evercade releases need updates/maintenance, as they are put on carts which are supposed to be collectible as is).

 

So, since the game already is sort of made, I don’t find it impossible one could make some revenue putting it on an Evercade (VS) cart...

It's not impossible, but moreso my point is the same as before - it's a similar level of investment to migrate the game to the Evercade as with the Switch or PS4 which we got far more requests for. So if my own cash would have to go into it, I'd pick the Switch.

 

I do apologize if this all comes off as a desire to constantly dunk on the Evercade line, but the device didn't make a great impression. The faults on launch and some of the shoddy licensing edits (like the opening of Earthworm Jim 2, where Princess What's Her Name is sitting on nothing because the original logo was just... erased) conjured experiences of buying bootleg Famicom cartridges in Turkey and not a portable Criterion Collection for video games.

 

Would I like to be proven wrong and see this improve?

Yeah, absolutely.

 

 

9 hours ago, Giles N said:

But its not my game, and my initial thread was only concerned with the general question of Atari-homebrews on an Evercade Cart - it could be 2600-homebrews, 5200-homebrews and 7800-homebrews... the Evercade carts often mix games from different consoles.

 

And as I noticed that several Indie-games were out there and will be coming, I wondered what the chances were to see Atari-homebrews on the Evercade/Evercade VS...or if there were any interest in it...

Songbird Productions worked with Blaze for both of the Atari Lynx Collections, so they're technically already there - just for the Lynx and not the 7800. The Evercade's 2600 and 7800 emulators were derived from Stella and ProSystem respectively (at least when I last looked into it). If a game runs in either of those and has no licensing issues then that's a start. So most on this list are actually good examples.

[Can another Atari-collection for the Evercade include top-notch Homebrews in the lot?]

16 hours ago, 8th lutz said:

Great choice, but don't know if the 7800 emulator Blaze Entertainment uses for Evercade needs to be updated for able to play the game.  I don't know possible to update that emulator.

 

The game's hardware is unique compare other 7800 homebrew games when Rikki and Vikki first came out. The game had mappers, 512k for gameplayer, another 256k for sound, and custom made sound chip.

So, there's already an emulator which can run the game and was written with portability in mind - the intention being migrating Rikki & Vikki to other platforms like the Nintendo Switch.

 

The actual problems are...

• The Evercade still has no support (as far as I know) for two player games, which renders half of the content completely unplayable.
• While the custom hardware isn't a show stopper, it means an effort is required. More effort than for migrating other (more popular) titles.
• I've moved on from Rikki & Vikki outside of maintaining the Windows version.
   

To be honest, I don't understand what the point of this device is unless you really like packaging. There's better options available for portable emulation in the same price range (Dingoo or hacked 3DS / PSP / Vita) or bling bracket (GPD Win).

[WIP Wizard's Dungeon]

12 hours ago, Trebor said:

I have to an extent.  Realizing the percentage may be more user friendly than posting degrees, for "Hue" and "Warmth" it does make it a tad more challenging.   Nonetheless, I did come to a rough approximation/range, but honestly haven't spent too much time on it. 

No worries, as long as the feature is (roughly) doing what it's supposed to. I'll add your suggested tuning to the BupSystem thread (the formula hasn't changed since 0.9.6.0's addition of the Brightness and Contrast parameters).

 

 

12 hours ago, Trebor said:

Perhaps some CRT effects, or even just screen cropping options, are hopefully on the not too distant horizon (?)

I can see the horizon but can't discern how far away it is . The only video fixes for 0.9.6.4 are some Direct3D 9 texture update nudges and the formerly mentioned Color Dialog's [Cancel] button not actually, uh... cancelling.

 

A reminder for everyone as well - while I can't invest as much time in BupSystem as I was previously, tossing issues like this in its thread guarantees I'll at least be aware of them.

 

 

14 hours ago, BydoEmpire said:

Ooh, that's nice.  I didn't know the color dialog existed.  Very cool feature!

It's been hiding there since early 2016 (before the emulator was publicly released), mostly because writing one matrix formula seemed less intensive than eyeballing all those hues.

 

Anyway, let's hop in the Chron-o-John and wind the thread's focus back to the nuances of tentacles.

[MiSTer FPGA - 7800 Core]

I primarily use software or the actual e-waste, but peeing in the cheerios is a terrible idea as...

1 hour ago, Kitrinx said:

In a nutshell, yes, both FPGA's software can be accurate, but because FPGA's work extremely similarly to real hardware, it's *much much* easier to write an accurate emulator. In general, people who develop for FPGA (at least MiSTer) value accuracy extremely highly, and make it a priority. Lastly, an FPGA can run at full accuracy with much less hardware. A software emulator would need an expensive PC to run at a comparable level.

...this is kinda the "big deal" of all FPGA / HDL implementations. Replicating many of the real nasty timing quirks (things like clock skews or other nuances in bus arbiters - especially when they don't work correctly) is way way way easier in an FPGA. The MiSTer developer community has gotten a lot of high accuracy cores extremely fast - so it's not just good for an authentic, low latency experience but also for preservation.

 

It's definitely worth a try if these things are important to you, and you don't already own the pile of junk necessary to play on the original hardware.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Kitrinx said:

MiSTer actually has a screenshot feature, although it's at the original pre-scaled, and pre-aspect corrected resolution. Good enough for passwords though

A smartphone can also takes screenshots, just like the ones you'd mail in to Nintendo Power (GATE LEVEL ACCURACY). It can also be used to read manuals. The biggest perk is that many people already own them (check your pockets if unsure).

[WIP Wizard's Dungeon]

2 hours ago, Trebor said:

While there may be differences among displays for colors, BupSystem does tend to lean darker and some hues deviate more from the typical; especially compared to a CRT.

The default YIQ offset is shifted by a few degrees in NTSC, probably wherever the chroma knob in my development console was plus some handwaving. I've seen this brought up a few times and (while I'd like to nudge the parameters eventually) do need to ask - have any of you tried using the Color Dialog (F4) for getting the palette closer to your taste, and if so, did it work?

 

That was kinda the point, to just twiddle some tv-style knobs until it looks right instead of making tuned palettes by hand.

[A Non-Interactive Title Screen is a Safe Screen]

...and the undocumented has been documented. Mystery solved!

 

Some of the chosen allocation is definitely suspect here, including the configuration registers. Generally I'd advise more hesitance when placing things in the lower address space (or just not do it at all) - but at least the manual is thorough enough to know what to avoid and (possibly) emulate the Cuttle Cart II and its quirks later.

[A Non-Interactive Title Screen is a Safe Screen]

14 hours ago, RevEng said:

Pretty sure that from the cart's perspective, A12 being forced low (via U4) made access to $1800-$1FFF look like access to $800-$FFF. The CC2 likely has an undocumented mapping or hotspot in that range. Avoiding $1800-$1FFF seems to have done the trick.

Good to confirm it, thanks - so I guess we're definitely stuck with a heavily segmented RAM / ROM space during cartridge detection. I wonder what the CC2 has stuffed in the $0800 - $0FFF range...

[Investgating PAL 7800 picture issues (was 7800 RGB Musings)]

On 4/23/2021 at 7:15 AM, juansolo said:

Blue wire is the audio take off for the RGB encoder how it was on this machine. So it's taking the TIA audio before the resistor and the Cart audio has to travel through two resistors...

Ah, thanks for this! I thought the electronics' botch would be something similar from the symptoms, but it's excellent to get a confirmation (and solution) without having to import a Péritel 7800.

 

 

Also...

On 4/23/2021 at 2:31 AM, juansolo said:

It will likely be more pronounced with Rikki and Vikki as I've noticed that it's audio is a little low (can be adjusted on cart to a degree). Best to use Commando to check as that uses both Pokey and TIA audio at the same time. Easy to tell when it's not correctly balanced with that.

I've brought this up in previous A/V discussions, but I recommend adding a small audio amplifier to your design if this is going to be mass produced. This'll net you more consistent output and help protect the console + cartridge.

[A Non-Interactive Title Screen is a Safe Screen]

Can either of you share what was causing the issue, assuming it was the cartridges doing something rude?

Gotta keep all the compatibility quirks documented!

[BupSystem]

Thanks to @BydoEmpire and @dualcam's help, support for CX-40 and ProLine controllers using the 2600-daptor, 2600-daptor II, and 2600-daptor D9 will be included in the next version of BupSystem (and Wataroo, and Rikki & Vikki for Windows).

 

Authentic PainLine wrist damage - now that's accuracy!

[Rikki & Vikki]

On 4/20/2021 at 7:51 PM, Shawn said:

Well I guess I'm not patiently waiting for a firmware update to the dragonfly. I'm gonna bug Rafal about this

We discussed adding support for SOUPER, and the Dragonfly doesn't route the necessary address lines for the 8/4/4KB EXRAM paging scheme

 

So the MiSTer is likely to stay the only hardware alternative for awhile - at least until (hopefully) the 7800GD is ready.

[BupSystem]

12 hours ago, BydoEmpire said:

Hope that helps!

It does

 

The Z-Axis on the 2600-daptor is what's confusing it (which I'm guessing is used for the paddles). I'll send you a private build to try once I've got @dualcam's product line figured out.

[BupSystem]

2 hours ago, BydoEmpire said:

I don't see the .jdl file anywhere in the BupSystem folder, just the .joy file.  Is the jdl stored somewhere else?

It should be stored in the same folder, but no worries if you can't find it. The photos you gave are already enough to blacklist the PlayStation / USB Adapter.

 

So what'd be most helpful is...

• A screenshot of the PlayStation / USB Adapter's joystick test panel (see mapping on how to open it) preferably while you're not pushing any buttons or moving the joysticks.
• A photo of the PlayStation / USB adapter itself.
   

 

3 hours ago, dualcam said:

I make the 2600-daptors.  Happy to assist emulator developers in adding support for them.  Probably best to message me directly.

Done.

[BupSystem]

3 hours ago, BydoEmpire said:

Thanks @TailChao.  I'm using BupSystem v0.9.6.3.  I can't seem to configure anything in the input dialog, and reading through the docs I'm not sure what, if anything, I should be adding to BupSystem.joy.  I don't know if this is helpful but I figured I'd share what's happening...

Okay, this is a good start. Don't worry about modifying BupSystem.joy, that just contains the list of automapping configurations for known controllers - we need to first add your adapter to an internal database.

 

If you can send (or post) a copy of the BupSystem.jdl file (which has info about the device) and a photo of the adapter that'd be great. Bonus points if you can remember where you bought it. The info you gave seems to match the EAXUS PlayStation / USB Adapter but all these manufacturers tend to rip each other off.

 

Also, just to confirm - if you unplug only the PlayStation adapter does the 2600-dapter II allow you to modify the controls and works okay?

[A Non-Interactive Title Screen is a Safe Screen]

12 minutes ago, PacManPlus said:

ok...  I'm trying to think of how to check for this.  If I *do* change the RAM we use to stick to the $1800-$1FFF area, there shouldn't be any contention on either the cart or system ends, do I have that right?

Not quite, I'll try again. To preface - if you have documentation on how the Cuttle Cart actually works, that's most important. What I'm writing is a guess based upon other designs dropping registers all over the lower address space, and the stock BIOSes avoiding similar issues by coincidence.

 

When you disable the cartridge using INPTCTRL it forces A12, A14, and A15 low on the slot. Effectively, every single read or write is masked with this...

 FEDC AB98 7654 3210
%00x0 xxxx xxxx xxxx

...so if the BIOS is executing from $8000 - $8FFF, the cartridge (when disabled) will actually see these accesses at $0000 - $0FFF. If there's anything hiding there (again - on the cartridge) which responds to reads, it might try to drive the bus at the same time as the BIOS ROM.

 

A quick and dirty check would be to strip down your replacement BIOS to immediately switch into 7800 mode and dispatch the cartridge. Keep it within the 4KB from $F000 - $FFFF just like the stock NTSC BIOS ROM. If the Cuttle Cart is still acting weird in this situation, then it's probably something else.

[A Non-Interactive Title Screen is a Safe Screen]

3 minutes ago, PacManPlus said:

Thank you!

I don't believe it is that, only because the PAL BIOS uses $23XX and $27XX without issue...  We're (RevEng and I) are using $18XX and $27XX.

Not sure I did a good job describing this, but I didn't mean the console's internal hardware responding to $0000 - $0FFF and $2000 - $2FFF. Rather, anything on the cartridge responding to this range.

 

When the cartridge is "disabled" it only forces A12, A14, and A15 low - which doesn't truly disable it for the entire address space. So if the BIOS executes or reads from $8F80, the cartridge would see a read at $0F80. The sort of symptoms you're describing are typical of a bus fight, hence the paranoia.

[BupSystem]

4 minutes ago, BydoEmpire said:

I'm using a generic 3rd party ps2 controller and that works fine, but it doesn't let me configure anything.  I just got a 2600-dapter II and I think it shows up as controller 2, but everything is grayed out and it doesn't let me reconfigure.  IIRC I was able to do this with a previous 9 pin->USB adapter, but that had other issues.  Sorry, I don't have a lot of details right now, I'll have to test more tonight.

This is a common issue with DualShock and DualSense style controllers. Specifically the axes used for L2 and R2 will idle at (some large negative value) rather than zero, so these require special handling in the software. Luckily, I wrote a guide covering how to submit controller profiles! If that's too confusing, tell me where you found the thing and I'll figure out if we can support it.

 

For everyone else - the cutoff for submitting new controllers is May 1, 2021.

 

 

3 minutes ago, splendidnut said:

This is my favorite 7800 emulator.  Works great, seems very accurate and it's very easy to use.  Wish there was a MacOS version and/or open-source, but that neither of those are deal breakers.

Hey, thanks!

 

Trust me - I wanted a Mac version but fruit maintenance is a lot of work. If the source is ever released it'll be under zlib, it's kept closed for now to make maintenance easier for me (and because it's attached to some libraries I'd prefer to stay closed).

[BupSystem]

BupSystem 0.9.6.4 is on its way for next month, as usual the changelist is in the first post. This will also include a JoyFish update, so if you have any controllers which aren't on this list or (more importantly) aren't working correctly let me know.

 

On 12/17/2020 at 6:27 PM, Cyprian said:

I've just found that a nice emulator.

Would be possible to add an option for screen scan-lines?

It's possible in terms of what the render path supports, but not with my current schedule. I apologize that this is also going to be my answer to most requests...

 

 

On 12/17/2020 at 6:31 PM, Cyprian said:

And also would be cool to have build in debugger.

I agree - something like NO$SNS or BGB's environment is kinda what I wanted, especially the latter where it's easy to use but has rich debugging features if you'd like to prod at what's under the hood. Unfortunately it's going to be boring stability and polishing for a long while rather than cool new features.

 

 

On 3/18/2021 at 12:11 PM, Atari Nut said:

Is there a command-line argument to launch in full screen?

Not right now, I'm guessing this is because you want to use the program with a launcher? There will be an *.ini parameter available in the next update which will force a full screen launch, but I can't rewrite the parser at the moment.