Trebor Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 I just tried rc5 ntsc on pro emulator. First, does the demo only contain the first 2 levels? After the first 2 levels I go back to the start screen, so I can't test the other 2 screens. Secondly I don't know if this is the case on the real game, but in your demo on the second screen, if you jump straight up when standing next to a fire demon(not sure what they are really called), you get 100 points even though you never jump over them. Pretty easy to reproduce. I did it several times. Bob Bob, play the game in JAPAN mode instead of US, and you play all four screens for both levels provided. The 100 points obtained when not even juumping over the fire is something found in the Arcade as well as the trick of obtaining a 100 points everytime you jump and push left (right) with the joystick while mid-air when standing near Kong on the Rivets board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 11, 2013 Author Share Posted June 11, 2013 Bob, Thanks for checking it out. The demo is setup to play through a level then return to the menu. If you are playing the US screen order, level one only has the Ramps and Rivet stages. To play the other stages, you will need to start at a higher level or play the Japanese screen order. I havn't tried jumping next to a fireball or firefox on the arcade, so I don't know if the behavior you describe is arcade accurate. It is correct for the barrels though. This was a change I made to make the game more authentic. The 7800 versions uses the same jumping code for both barrels and fire critters. I'm curious now, so I'll check in MAME later. But, even if it isn't technically correct, I won't be making any changes at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 11, 2013 Author Share Posted June 11, 2013 Bob, play the game in JAPAN mode instead of US, and you play all four screens for both levels provided. The 100 points obtained when not even juumping over the fire is something found in the Arcade as well as the trick of obtaining a 100 points everytime you jump and push left (right) with the joystick while mid-air when standing near Kong on the Rivets board. Thanks Trebor. I figured you would know how it's supposed to work for the fire critters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 Here's two screenshots demonstrating the 100 points obtained while not jumping over, but just next to, a fire-critter. I ensured a separation gap via the open rivet also preventing them from taking my life...lol. Bob, on that same platform, if the fire-critters were not there and the area was cleared you can also score a 100 points every time you pull off the other trick I mentioned. Same behavior/technique is found under DK XM, thanks to Perry's awesome coding implementation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollett Posted June 11, 2013 Share Posted June 11, 2013 OK thanks for the info on the jump/point scoring when next to a fire fox. But now I have a new problem. I don't know the pro system emulator that well, so I simply started pressing the F1-F12 keys to see what they did. I found F2 starts the game and F3 selects the starting level / number of players. F4 seems to do nothing and after this is I get in trouble. Pressing F5 changes the screen order from US to Japan, but only as long as I keep the F5 key pressed down. As soon as I release it the screen order reverts back to US. The same thing happens when I press F6... Pressing and holding it changes the difficulty to B, but after releasing the key, it goes back to A. Thanks, Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Pressing F5 changes the screen order from US to Japan, but only as long as I keep the F5 key pressed down. As soon as I release it the screen order reverts back to US. The same thing happens when I press F6... Pressing and holding it changes the difficulty to B, but after releasing the key, it goes back to A. That is a bug with the current (public) release of the ProSystem emulator (1.3x) respecting the difficulty switch configuration. Instead of behaving like a true switch position, it behaves more like a toggle that needs to be held down. There is a newer (private) version (1.5x) that should hopefully see a public release after the XM module is distributed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 You can hold the f5 and/or f6 keys down while starting the game to get the desired difficulty. f4 key is the pause button. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollett Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 You can hold the f5 and/or f6 keys down while starting the game to get the desired difficulty. f4 key is the pause button. Thanks, I'll give that a try. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Cafeman Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Since there didn't seem to be a clear release date for the XM module, I've been not keeping up with this thread. I see the final game has Pokey sound - how is that possible - Tep392, are you putting pokey chips right on the PCB board, or is some other thing needed? I'd love one of these if it is self-contained in 1 cart! Please clarify. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7800 Posted June 12, 2013 Share Posted June 12, 2013 Since there didn't seem to be a clear release date for the XM module, I've been not keeping up with this thread. I see the final game has Pokey sound - how is that possible - Tep392, are you putting pokey chips right on the PCB board, or is some other thing needed? I'd love one of these if it is self-contained in 1 cart! Please clarify. I might be wrong but, I think this game is coded to use the XM's enhancement features... In other words, you need the XM to get the improvements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 12, 2013 Author Share Posted June 12, 2013 There aren't any POKEY carts available that will handle the memory structure of this game. You will need to either have an XM or an XBOARD mod for the music/snd fx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 So this game uses the extra ram on the xm?? If so that would be a first right? As in first game to use sound and ram of the xm that people can play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edweird13 Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 From what I understand It only uses the Pokey sounds from the XM. The xtra memory is used up by the rom. Meaning the sound will only work with the XM. The game will play with no sounds if there is no XM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted June 13, 2013 Share Posted June 13, 2013 Oh the ole ram rom trick now i get it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted June 13, 2013 Author Share Posted June 13, 2013 The game uses the POKEY and HSC features of the XM. Extra RAM wasn't needed. There is fixed ROM at $4000-$7FFF and $C000-$FFFF. The ROM from $8000-$BFFF is bank switched between 3 banks. Total ROM for the game is 80K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted July 17, 2013 Author Share Posted July 17, 2013 I have updated the demo to RC6. It is mostly bug fixes but I made some other tweaks. - Added Pauline "standing" pose after being saved - updated kong's climbing sprites to look more like arcade - When Mario stops walking, he maintains his current pose instead of going back to standing pose. - Fixed barrel logic with Japanese screen order. Mario now has to have hand above top rung of ladder for barrels to not go down ladder. - Tweaked platforms on Cement screen so it is not too difficult to jump. Close to arcade now. - Adjusted positions of blue poles supporting Paulines platform on Rivet screen. - Tweaked rivet sprites - Hammer didn't clear if Mario is killed while holding it. - Changed Menu screen colors and added flashing affect to "Donkey Kong" graphic. I'm told that I will be getting a test XM unit soon, so I can do some final testing. If I get it, I will be able to start shipping carts at the end of the month. I have also decided to start the 2nd batch and ship at the same time as the 1st. I'll be contacting people on my 2nd batch list to verify addresses and get payments. I'll also be sending notes this week to everyone in the 1st batch to check if addresses have changed. And please try out the demo in hardware with the CC2 if you have one. The sound won't work, but the High Score cart should. I think all the bugs have been fixed, but just want to make sure nothing significant crops up before I start burning chips and soldering boards. Thanks! Perry 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gorfcadet Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 Awesome! This is great news Perry! Congrats on the great port and I can't wait to give it a spin on real hardware! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 I had a thought: The "How High Can You Get" music, I noticed you are using distortion #12 for the bass notes. If you use 16-bit mode (combining channels 0 and 1) in distortion #10 (pure tones) you can get a bass sound which is closer to the arcade version of the music. It's the same trick I used in the title and end stage music for Bentley Bear: Crystal Quest, to get the low bass notes. It sounds cleaner and you don't get that odd timbre variation everytime the bass plays. What you do is store $50 in AUDCTL, set AUDC0 to $A0 to $AF (for the volume), and AUDF0 and AUDF1 are used as low-order high-order frequency values ($0000 to $FFFF). AUDC1 is set to $00 and not used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted July 17, 2013 Author Share Posted July 17, 2013 I had a thought: The "How High Can You Get" music, I noticed you are using distortion #12 for the bass notes. If you use 16-bit mode (combining channels 0 and 1) in distortion #10 (pure tones) you can get a bass sound which is closer to the arcade version of the music. It's the same trick I used in the title and end stage music for Bentley Bear: Crystal Quest, to get the low bass notes. It sounds cleaner and you don't get that odd timbre variation everytime the bass plays. What you do is store $50 in AUDCTL, set AUDC0 to $A0 to $AF (for the volume), and AUDF0 and AUDF1 are used as low-order high-order frequency values ($0000 to $FFFF). AUDC1 is set to $00 and not used. That's a great suggestion, but I'm past making any significant code changes. I'm only making bug fixes at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollett Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 This probably doesn't qualify as a bug, more something that just looks a little funny. I'm not sure if this is just an emulator issue, but I noticed that when Mario is riding one of the up/down elevators he kind of bounces up and down a pixel the whole ride. Bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted July 18, 2013 Author Share Posted July 18, 2013 This probably doesn't qualify as a bug, more something that just looks a little funny. I'm not sure if this is just an emulator issue, but I noticed that when Mario is riding one of the up/down elevators he kind of bounces up and down a pixel the whole ride. Bob Great observation. I've noticed that too but havn't thought much about it. I think the original Atari release does it as well. It looks like the elevator platform and Mario just are not in sync so they are not changing position within the same video frame. There may be an easy way to fix that so it looks smooth. I'll take a look at it tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Defender_2600 Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 Great observation. I've noticed that too but havn't thought much about it. I think the original Atari release does it as well. It looks like the elevator platform and Mario just are not in sync so they are not changing position within the same video frame. There may be an easy way to fix that so it looks smooth. I'll take a look at it tonight. Maybe I'm wrong but I always thought that it is a issue with Prosystem. I say this because the same phenomenon occurs in Ms. Pac-Man, is particularly evident when the ghosts rise to the top in the intro screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tep392 Posted July 18, 2013 Author Share Posted July 18, 2013 Maybe I'm wrong but I always thought that it is a issue with Prosystem. I say this because the same phenomenon occurs in Ms. Pac-Man, is particularly evident when the ghosts rise to the top in the intro screen. I could be. I'll have to burn some roms tonight so I can run it on my 7800 to check it out. But there is still a sync issue between Mario's upward movement and the elevator platform. The bottom row of Mario's pixels sometimes overlap the platform and other times are just above it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 I could be. I'll have to burn some roms tonight so I can run it on my 7800 to check it out. Or you could just try to 'stomach' the original and try it on the 7800 (Which I will do tonight). The issue is also present under MESS with the original Donkey Kong, so I am strongly leaning towards it is an issue with the original game code and not emulator specific (but an actual play on the system is of course necessary to determine for sure). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 Question of the day... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.