Imagine nes games on the pc engine

[johannesmutlu]

The pc engine does have similar hardware of the nes, except that it is a waaay more beafed up hardware with 16bit ppu’s and a 6 psg soundchannel soundchip wich could also run in 10bit pcm modes,

it’s cpu is 4 times faster then that of the nes cpu ,

there are multi cartrides wich does contain ported nes roms on it,

An interface chip with it’s own processor could just line up those adress registers from those nes games with those adress registers from the pc engine’s cpu,while for bankswitching, those mmc mappers could be resambled trough it’s builtin bankswitching feature along with ram expansion cards to curconvent the limited ram of the pc engine among other things,

heck someone even succeeded to port even megaen 2 to the pc engine, wich is sooo cool.

[DavidD]

I vaguely remember seeing something about porting NES games to the TG16 once.  When looking for homebrew, I remember finding a TG16 rom with Super Mario Bros. on it.... I can't remember now, but I thought it played like the original and not a conversion.

[turboxray]

I did the Megaman 1 & 2 NES games to PCE. There was also a Megaman 1 CD (with CD soundtrack, options menu for easy mode, etc). I did a few others, but they're not as polished; Castlevania, Jackal (has two player support), Robowarrior, Contra, SMB, Ducktales, Dragon Warrior.. I can't remember if I'm missing any on the list. The multi-cart thing you're taking about, is from the Netherlands crew.. and it's meant of a PAL 50hz modded PCE (the games are expected in to run in 50hz). They completely redid all the graphic and sound routines, and heavily modified the game code to use different ram locations. My approach was different. Since the PCE's cpu is 4x as fast (and faster because it has newer instructions), I literally wrote a video and sound simulation core in pure ASM on the PCE side - it converted all the NES formatted data to the hardware, into PCE compatible data (and that was a HUGE pain in the ass because they're not alike). The CPU isn't emulated and rom code is left to run natively. I setup the ram to mirror correctly as it would in the NES (for address range $0000). The mapper and gamepad code I just replace with stock code that I have the uses the PCE's built in mapper. So, basically I just scan the rom for all hardware read/write ports opcodes, and replace them with JSRs to my simulation interface. And the games run. I even added extra uses for unused bits in the NES video side emulation, so you could have it access the PCE's extra sprite sizes and colors, but through an pseudo upgraded NES ppu. I was even working on upgrading all the graphics in the first Megaman game this way. But I stopped. PCE Works sold my Megaman game (in the early beta of it). I wasn't going to waste my time just so repo sellers could just sell my work. So that was the end of that haha.

 

 I had the source code out there available for anyone to try this out on NES roms. Only one person that I know of used it. When it comes to this stuff, time is better spent on making actual homebrew. Ports are a nice novelty, but why when you can just play it on the original system. Between the selling issue, and that, it kinda makes it a moot point to continue doing these. It was mostly a proof of concept, and a joke, back in 2007.. and got a little out of hand haha.

 

[+jgkspsx]

PCE Works, man, the gift that keeps on giving.

[Mik's Arcade]

I have the NES version of Ninja Gaiden on my PC Engine collection

[turboxray]

On 10/18/2021 at 6:16 PM, Mik's Arcade said:

I have the NES version of Ninja Gaiden on my PC Engine collection

You mean the NES remake?

[Mik's Arcade]

1 hour ago, turboxray said:

You mean the NES remake?

Yes

 

Ninja Gaiden PC Engine review (classic-games.net) 

[S.BAZ]

I played some NES games on the Turbografx.  I'm pretty sure they were the straight up, original roms, emulated I guess.  If not the accuracy is very impressive!

[Ecernosoft]

I want to learn PCE and port ICT to the PCE. Shouldn't be too hard, PCE used a better version of 6502.

 

From the specs, It seems like a powerful system! Not to say others like Mega-drive and SNES wouldn't beat it later in it's life, but nothing beat the color of PCE

 

[johannesmutlu]

On 9/8/2021 at 4:35 AM, turboxray said:

I did the Megaman 1 & 2 NES games to PCE. There was also a Megaman 1 CD (with CD soundtrack, options menu for easy mode, etc). I did a few others, but they're not as polished; Castlevania, Jackal (has two player support), Robowarrior, Contra, SMB, Ducktales, Dragon Warrior.. I can't remember if I'm missing any on the list. The multi-cart thing you're taking about, is from the Netherlands crew.. and it's meant of a PAL 50hz modded PCE (the games are expected in to run in 50hz). They completely redid all the graphic and sound routines, and heavily modified the game code to use different ram locations. My approach was different. Since the PCE's cpu is 4x as fast (and faster because it has newer instructions), I literally wrote a video and sound simulation core in pure ASM on the PCE side - it converted all the NES formatted data to the hardware, into PCE compatible data (and that was a HUGE pain in the ass because they're not alike). The CPU isn't emulated and rom code is left to run natively. I setup the ram to mirror correctly as it would in the NES (for address range $0000). The mapper and gamepad code I just replace with stock code that I have the uses the PCE's built in mapper. So, basically I just scan the rom for all hardware read/write ports opcodes, and replace them with JSRs to my simulation interface. And the games run. I even added extra uses for unused bits in the NES video side emulation, so you could have it access the PCE's extra sprite sizes and colors, but through an pseudo upgraded NES ppu. I was even working on upgrading all the graphics in the first Megaman game this way. But I stopped. PCE Works sold my Megaman game (in the early beta of it). I wasn't going to waste my time just so repo sellers could just sell my work. So that was the end of that haha.

 

 I had the source code out there available for anyone to try this out on NES roms. Only one person that I know of used it. When it comes to this stuff, time is better spent on making actual homebrew. Ports are a nice novelty, but why when you can just play it on the original system. Between the selling issue, and that, it kinda makes it a moot point to continue doing these. It was mostly a proof of concept, and a joke, back in 2007.. and got a little out of hand haha.

 

Well if that’s true that you wrote a simulator to emulate nes games on a pce (wich should line up all memory locations to each other among other things as well as potentially emulating nes mappers by using the builtin mapper for bankswitching, then you should post your work on youtube and don’t tell me that it was all just a joke and that all nes roms such as megamen etc,, just run in beta stage on it because that would be very disappointing.

[DavidD]

10 hours ago, johannesmutlu said:

Well if that’s true that you wrote a simulator to emulate nes games on a pce (wich should line up all memory locations to each other among other things as well as potentially emulating nes mappers by using the builtin mapper for bankswitching, then you should post your work on youtube and don’t tell me that it was all just a joke and that all nes roms such as megamen etc,, just run in beta stage on it because that would be very disappointing.

I've played the "NES on PCE/TG16" image file on a PCE/TG16 emulator, so I assume they work!

[johannesmutlu]

On 8/31/2022 at 3:45 AM, DavidD said:

I've played the "NES on PCE/TG16" image file on a PCE/TG16 emulator, so I assume they work!

Well if a nes emulator for the pce does exist and will work with most nes games then i will be all over it😁

Edited September 4, 2022 by johannesmutlu