NES PowerPak: play ROMs on a real NES system!

[Jagasian]

The NES PowerPak is here! Now you can play ROMs on a real NES system!

Edited June 12, 2007 by Jagasian

[PsychedelicShaman]

Personally, I liked the white, clear case better, but what really matters is inside:)

Edited May 17, 2007 by PsychedelicShaman

[Jagasian]

Personally, I liked the white, clear case better, but what really matters is inside:)

 

I think bunnyboy wanted something more distinctive than the clear case, as there is already another NES cart, the Action Replay, which uses the same clear plastic. The clear red plastic, on the other hand, has not been used by any other NES cart out there. So the PowerPak will be visibly unique.

[Jagasian]

Apparently RetroZone will be selling bunnyboy's products, including homebrew parts, reproductions, and the NES PowerPak:

http://www.retrousb.com/

[nathanallan]

Maybe I'm being dense, but what does this cart do? Looks neat, do you download roms to it to be played? Sell this to me.

[Jagasian]

Maybe I'm being dense, but what does this cart do? Looks neat, do you download roms to it to be played? Sell this to me.

 

You can put ROMs on a standard compact flash card, put the card in the PowerPak cart, and play those ROMs on a real NES. It also has built in Game Genie support.

[arch_8ngel]

I just found the link to RetroUsb while browsing google for 'nes development'. Unfortunately it looks like everything worth having except the "PowerPak Lite" is temporarily unavailable. Is there any word about when the full-on CF PowerPak will be available for purchase again? I've done some NES hacks in the past, but I'm way more interested in doing some real development for the system, without building a CopyNES (which would be needed for the PowerPak Lite".

 

I'd have asked through their site, but they've strategically avoided having an email address listed ANYWHERE on the page. Smells of lawsuit avoidance, which is why I'd like to get my hands on that hardware before it's PERMANENTLY unavailable.

 

Also, has anybody bought the NWC 1990? Worth getting for nostalgia, or no?

 

Thanks,

Nathan

[PsychedelicShaman]

NWC's and Powerpaks are up for sale now. BUY NOW!

[SRGilbert]

NWC's and Powerpaks are up for sale now. BUY NOW!

You're the boss!

[arch_8ngel]

Just bought one! AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!

 

Though I have to say...who would try to use a 4GB or 8GB CF card for NES roms?

[SRGilbert]

Just bought one! AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!

 

Though I have to say...who would try to use a 4GB or 8GB CF card for NES roms?

Who knows, if this (or others like it eventually) goes big time, it could blow the homebrew market wide open!

 

I wonder how long it will take to ship out?

[arch_8ngel]

The website said shipping was next business day, I think (and that the Paypal receipt is your shipping confirmation). No weekend shipping though.

 

 

Let me put some perspective on how huge 4GB is for NES. The maximum size that the PowerPak cartridge can handle (and, at the very least pushing

the limit of the NES) is 512k. It would take more than 8,000 games written at the MAXIMUM size to fill that cartridge. They didn't come close to doing

that during the entire production run of the original system! I mean, 1GB will be 2,000 games at the maximum size!

 

Even if the "homebrew market is blown wide open", the average homebrew game (that is completed and not just fantasized about) will probably be

less than 32k.

 

Now, it would be AWESOME if people managed to produce that much quality content, and I've got high hopes, myself, but be real, 4 GB!?

 

 

 

 

On another note, any of you guys read up on Bob Rost's NES classes? Quite a bit of interesting information there, along with some good doses of

reality about how high (or low) people should aim for a first console homebrew.

 

I've thought up some interesting ideas about how to expand the color depth of sprites, but they severely limit how many onscreen characters can exist.

Depending on the game it'd be worth the trade, though. Basically, if you stack sprites, the tiles that aren't in the foreground should show up through

the "transparent" color on the foreground sprite, correct? If this is the case, you can have a single tile appear to have 12 colors, instead of 3.

You quickly run into the 64 sprite total limit, but if it's some kind of puzzle game, or a fighting game, it may be OK. It would take a helluva lot of planning

though, graphics-wise, to choose which pixels to make transparent, so it may just become too gruelingly tedious, though.

 

If this has been done before, I'd love to see an example! If not, and it works, name the method after me!

[+remowilliams]

NWC's and Powerpaks are up for sale now. BUY NOW!

 

Ordered

 

I've been waiting soooo long for a device like this for the NES!

[TailChao]

If this has been done before, I'd love to see an example! If not, and it works, name the method after me!

 

Check out Super Mario Bros 2 (USA)

The whites of the characters' eyes are on a separate sprite which lies behind the rest of the graphic data.

[arch_8ngel]

I'll have to check on that one. That's a pretty mild example, though....I'm thinking BIG.

That is, at least double the color depth of the character.

 

Thanks for finding that, though. Any others that people know about?

[Merrick Bill]

I just ordered one to go with my Cuttle Cart 2, Cuttle Cart 3, Intellicart and Krokodile carts. I love playing games on the original hardware.

 

I almost missed this, I thought the subject header "NES PowerPak" was a thread about power supplies. I skipped over it several times in the last couple of days and by chance checked it out today. I"m glad I did.

 

Bill

 

 

By the way, does anyone know what the mapper compatibility list is? How does it effect someone who isn't a developer and only wants the PowerPack to play existing games?

 

Bill

Edited June 12, 2007 by Merrick Bill

[arch_8ngel]

The mapper compatibility is listed on the product website. It looks pretty solid.

There were only a handful that it definitely can't do, and some of the others

are under development.

 

Apparently the mappers are stored on the CF card and loaded into the cartridge

when you load the game, so it's expandable (within the hardware limitations)

once new mapper support is developed. It has enough hardware to handle

MMC5 (but no mapper YET), so I doubt it leaves much to be desired.

 

I'll probably have CF card of all the games I would've had burned to cartridge

by NESreproductions, and then another for development.

 

Anyone have any idea how long this cartridge will last with regular use? Is it using

ROM or RAM internally to load the games from the CF card? RAM should last

basically forever, but ROM will only make it through about 1 million rewrites, correct?

 

-Nathan

[Merrick Bill]

I saw the mapper compatibility chart on the product website. My question was what the hell does it all mean? It was way over my head. Any indication of what percentage of games will work? What percentage might work in the future?

 

Bill

[PsychedelicShaman]

I saw the mapper compatibility chart on the product website. My question was what the hell does it all mean? It was way over my head. Any indication of what percentage of games will work? What percentage might work in the future?

 

Bill

 

Basically, the more of these sell, the more games will be compatible. The mappers are loaded directly onto the compact flash card itself. I'm sure there will be developers that are willing to produce mappers for this device. Bunnyboy stated that all games worked but like 10, but I'm pretty sure this is best case scenario assuming that all mappers are functioning correctly. I imagine that in like a year we will see this level of compatibility.

[arch_8ngel]

The list of "bad" mappers on the grid were some of the fairly exotic mappers from a number of unlicensed games.

Though I think a first party mapper or two was included.

 

All-in-all, if it supports MMC1 and 3 it's got a solid showing of what people will use anyway. MMC 3 is by far the

most used, especially for the Megaman series, Castlevania, Mario 2 and 3, and MANY more.

 

The mapper numbers 0 - 255 are decoded somewhere out there, and once you know the trade name of the mapper

there are plenty of lists that specify which one appears in various games.

 

I agree, that since the hardware design is supposedly sufficient, it will just be a matter of time until some of the development

community fills in the blanks.

[Great Hierophant]

All of the "Bad Mappers" in that list are either pirate mappers old copiers used, pirate multi-cart mappers, or mappers that are no longer used in emulation. All of the planned mappers are for Famicom games (and some pirate games.) The only buggy mappers that US and European users need concern themselves with are Mappers 5 (MMC5) and 9 (MMC2). The affected games are Castlevania III, Punch-Out!! and Laser Invasion. (I don't believe any of the other MMC5 games work with the Powerpak now. Action 52 can never work with the Powerpak because its ROM is larger than the Powerpak's RAM. I will know soon enough though, since I ordered one.

[Great Hierophant]

On another note, any of you guys read up on Bob Rost's NES classes? Quite a bit of interesting information there, along with some good doses of

reality about how high (or low) people should aim for a first console homebrew.

 

I've thought up some interesting ideas about how to expand the color depth of sprites, but they severely limit how many onscreen characters can exist.

Depending on the game it'd be worth the trade, though. Basically, if you stack sprites, the tiles that aren't in the foreground should show up through

the "transparent" color on the foreground sprite, correct? If this is the case, you can have a single tile appear to have 12 colors, instead of 3.

You quickly run into the 64 sprite total limit, but if it's some kind of puzzle game, or a fighting game, it may be OK. It would take a helluva lot of planning

though, graphics-wise, to choose which pixels to make transparent, so it may just become too gruelingly tedious, though.

 

If this has been done before, I'd love to see an example! If not, and it works, name the method after me!

 

I wouldn't be too quick to recommend Bob Rost's work, it is plagued by inaccuracy, three out of four of the recommended programs fail to work on the Nestopia or Nintendulator, which are almost exact to the real NES. They used Rocknes, which was outclassed in terms of accuracy, even in 2004.

 

As for using multiple sprites to increase the color, I believe this was a hallmark of the Megaman games. Either the stage select or the Megaman and boss character themselves use this technique.

Edited June 13, 2007 by Great Hierophant

[arch_8ngel]

Well, I'll use that technique nonetheless... must have been the later mega man games though, because the first 3 definitely don't do that.

 

I've only played MM4 once and never played 5 or 6, so I don't know about those.

 

 

I was just suggesting Bob Rost as an interesting reference. He suggests Jnes, by the way...and as for the two emulators you suggest,

"almost the same as the real hardware" isn't the same as the real hardware, is it now? I've never seen an emulator that was the great

catch all, each one has its strengths and weaknesses.

 

That's why the PowerPak is so great, because it will be on the REAL hardware. No pussyfooting around.

[Merrick Bill]

So is it safe to assume that if I can play it on Nester DC it'll work on powerpack?

 

Bill

[arch_8ngel]

Since none of us have tested it yet, the current popular opinion is that it will do everything except pirate carts, MMC2 and MMC5.

 

Doesn't cheat you out of much worth playing except Castlevania 3, and if you're ponying up $135 for this powerpak, just pay the

$10 for a real copy of Castlevania 3!