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Supercharger loads limit


alex_79

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I did some tests with supercharger multiloads and found that the harmony only support up to 4 loads. Are there plans to increase this limit, loading data from the internal eeprom or from the sd_card?

IMHO, with the Harmony available, supercharger games are now an interesting option for homebrews as they can be played on a real Supercharger, Cuttle Cart I/II, Harmony and they can even be published as carts using the Melody board.

 

Here is the source for the test binary that I used if anyone is interested. (It's an hack of the 208 in 1 Multicart Menuscreen, that I did using the fully commented source code posted here by Omegamatrix).

 

 

You can set the number of loads by changing the "LOADS" value in the source file. The resulting binary is a single file ready for Harmony or emulators. You must split it in 8448 bytes chunks if you want to load it on a real Supercharger/Cuttle Cart using Playbin or makewav, or for use in Cuttle Cart II. The rom just keep showing a menu where you can select the next load by setting its index number with the joystick. The index number for loads other than the first (0) is displayed on top of the screen.

post-10599-127029020972_thumb.png

Z26 won't run a file bigger than 512k, so it's limited to 61 loads. Stella will load larger files, but can access only the first 62 loads. The max number of loads (without duplicate index numbers) would be 256, although I don't think any homebrew authos would need all that space for a 2600 game.

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Yes, we have talked about support for larger Supercharger games. We are aware of the current limit of 4 loads in multicart mode, and it was a design choice since no existing game needed more than 4 at the time. IIRC, the limit is 5 loads in single-image mode.

 

We have talked about allowing more than 4 or 5 loads. The image would have to be loaded to the EEPROM, as the SD driver is overwritten after a file is loaded. The Harmony can probably support around 60 loads if we get it going. It's just a matter of coding for Harmony.

 

One of the stumbling blocks is Melody and Harmony single image mode. Generally speaking, with any new scheme, we support this first then adapt it to Harmony multicart mode. The EEPROM would have to loaded entirely through USB so Melody would also work. The software currently cannot load the EEPROM, only the internal flash, so some work needs to be done to support this.

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Thanks for the explanation.

The fact that Harmony capabilities can be expanded by firmware upgrades is a great addition to an already outstanding product. Thank you (and all the Team) for all the hard work you put into this. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

 

P.S.

The source I posted contained a small bug. Here's a revised version.

sc_loader.zip

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