/vr/ - Retro Games

what's your dream homebrew, /vr/?

>>8069316

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Bc69J6tSU

uggh, TMNT is a fucking shitshow. so much status bar flicker. Konami should have just used MMC3, it's not as if it wasn't available by the time the game came out.

>>8115726
Whole new Shantae and Rusty port on TG-16.

https://neogaf.com/threads/neogeo-emulator-is-in-development-for-nintendo-64.1604990/

Alisha’s Adventures new level: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3LY2laM-94A

>>8115726
Darkstalkers: The Night Warrior homebrew on the SFC and PC-FX.

Though use dev kit program of Darkstalkers 2 for N64.

the CHR ROM setup on the NES was probably pretty useful because it saved you a lot of PRG ROM space. the earliest games used only 16k ROMs so putting the graphics data in a separate ROM freed PRG room for other stuff. on a system like the Colecovision almost half the ROM was taken up with graphics data.

Thoughts on this upcoming NES game?
https://eldenpixels.com/alwas-awakening-nes/

>>8115728
I'd miss it

>>8115970
oh goody, another homebrew where they use those stupid UNROM-512 PCBs from Ali Express. who didn't see that one coming?

>>8115726
Sweet game like Metal Gears 2, Mythic Warrior, Bloodline, Hard Corp, RKA2, Burning Force on the SNES.

>>8115982
What's wrong with that?

>>8115726
Sequels to this, going from Cell thru GT.

>>8115982
Why do you care about the implementation of the ROM? How does it affect the game in any way?

>>8115982
>>8116168
meh still no scanline IRQ or 8k banking like MMC3 does

>>8115726
NARC for the Genesis, but it has a much more Japanese flavor to it.

>>8115982
Yeah, how dare they want to make physical copies for the game they've been working on and not want to cannibalize a MMC3 game to do it. Fucking assholes.

>>8117187
>physical carts
lyl it's 2021. you can just put ROM on Steam as download and put it on Flash cart if you want to play it on real NES.

>>8115982
I think the only reason they use it is because there's not enough skill to make games utilizing MMC3 or the like. At least in the west, the Japanese seem to know their way around it.

>>8117193
>>8117187
The entire point of a physical cart release is to scam coomlectors.

>>8117216
MMC3 does the following:

>address decoding to support PRG RAM
>bank PRG ROM in 8k pieces and CHR ROM in 1k pieces
>scanline IRQ for split screen scrolling
>soft switching of the mirroring direction

But many games never use all of its features anyway.

>>8115924
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc4SO3qS2jM

Galaxian on the Atari 8-bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKI7gzf496Q

And the Famicom port. Which is better because, aside from the obvious that Namco made it themselves, the separate CHR ROM frees a lot of space in what is actually the only NES game to use an 8k PRG ROM.

Disassembling the Atari ROM shows that of course it has to put the graphics data in there and use up code space. So there's no demo mode or music or anything like on the NES because the ROM has no room for it. Mostly. There's actually 207 unused bytes at the end they could have filled with something but it was probably rushed to get it finished.

Someone should just port the NES Galaxian to the A8 and C64 as both of those have quite deficient ports of the game and it's 6502 code which makes it a lot easier.

>>8115726
Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate + Kokoro

Dragon's Dogma on PS2

>>8115726
An N64 3D Platformer version of Castle of Illusion.

>>8117289
I wonder what is possible with MMC5, arguably the best mapper for the NES. It leaves a lot to be desired in the audio department, though it would be nice if the extra 7-bit PCM channel can play samples without tying up the NES. That way you could have higher quality basslines or orchestra hits and play alongside simple drum samples.

>>8117558
https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/MMC5

A lot of stuff including up to 2MB total ROM although no games ever made use of all of its features. It's mostly a clone of the Konami VRC6 but with slightly different scanline IRQ behavior.

>>8117576
The most impressive features are the ability to define background palettes to individual tiles as opposed to a cluster of 4, and evidently giving you much larger VRAM, allowing for more detailed, less repetitive backgrounds.

>>8117289
>bank PRG ROM in 8k pieces and
This was important for SMB3 and Kirby's Adventure. When you get a power up it switches in the object code for the power up. The DCPM drums in SMB3 are also banked in and out as part of the code loop. However a lot of MMC3 games are basically just MMC1 except maybe using the 1k CHR banking for animated tiles.

>>8117434
how much graphics data could the Atari version have anyway? there's just the spaceships and some text for the score bar and whatnot.

>>8117713
Wouldn't you just be able to get text from the ROM font anyway? NES games obviously require you to provide your own alphanumeric characters while on most computers you could pull it from the ROM.

>>8117289
Kirby is the only game that uses every MMC3 feature including the maximum possible ROM size (768k)

>>8117741
I'm not as familiar with the A8s but on C64 you normally always have your own char set and only a text adventure will use the ROM font.

>>8117289
and unfortunately dropped MMC1's single screen mirroring

>>8117783
Really only useful when you have 8 way scrolling with no score bar.

A rom hacking question; are there any tools that allow you to alter the learnset of Generation 1 Pokemon? What few tools there are, it seems like they only let you change enemy teams, and they are spread across 3 tools. I tried the RSE editor and it allowed you to easily check what TMs worked on each mon, and even change their level up moves, but I feel like such a thing isn't quite possible with the first generation games.

>>8117997
You could just edit the ASM.

https://github.com/pret/pokered/blob/master/data/pokemon/evos_moves.asm

>>8115726
Corpse Party 64 and Tomb Raider 64


More horror and action adventure genre.

>>8117225
>>8117193
Digital marketing ain’t retro, boi. Physical chad rise up.

>>8115608
Hardware UV Texture Coordinates on the Sega Saturn:
https://segaxtreme.net/threads/texture-coordinates-on-the-saturn.25017/

>>8115608
Here Blue Sliver the Hedgehog: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Rj_HhSI0Q

>>8115726
Alice 2000, Castlevania Sonia, Contra SS, Oni, Silent Hill 3&4, Ghost in the Shell, JJBA, Godhand, Ecco, and Blue Dolphin port on GameCube.

Is nesdev gonna update soon?

>>8115608
Fastrom of Konami air shooter SNES games.

>>8117225
Where you get this meme?

>>8117434
Hmmm

>>8115726
Make a Princess Daisy’s edged dark video game.

>>8118190
Or alternatively, I could hack FRLG instead, but find a way to re-implement some of RBY's obsolete mechanics, namely criticals tied to speed and hyper beam not requiring a recharge on KO.

>>8115608
best SotN mod?
Is there any good DXC mod?

>>8115924
Well more like 15% of the ROM and the Colecovision was a Z80 machine so the code doesn't use as much room as the 6502 code in the NES. The extra space saving from the separate CHR ROM was important here because it takes about 15-20% more 6502 code to accomplish the same task.

Why haven't you started a disassembly of your favorite game, anon?

>>8118301
fucking collectorfags i swear

>>8115850
Funny way of spelling 32X but okay.

>>8119407
too busy talkin shit
>>8118503
god i sure hope so. invaluable resource and helpful community. you can use archive.org to find old forum posts, which i have done many times, because no one has some of that information anywhere: it does not exist.

Could somebody please point me to the new Super Mario /V/orld 3: New Vegas thread or does the new thread not exist yet. I ask because >>8091205
got archived.

>>8119015
>>8119407
How do i even compile Fire Red anyway? I have decompiled file of GEN3 games and Fire Red rom.

Do /vr/ games just use global variables for everything? Do they even use a call stack that much?

>>8119040
>mod
I sleep...
>Home brew port
Real estate: https://gbatemp.net/threads/symphony-of-the-night-n64-tech-demo.480087/

>>8115728
Konami and Sunsoft should done VRC6 and 5B music outside JP.

>>8115728
The status bar is on the bottom. I understand if you use sprite 0 hit then it's easier to have the bar on top of the playfield ala Castlevania rather than the bottom.

>>8119419
Can’t wait you bitching.

>>8119430
Funny way your post is extremely irrelevant.

>>8121042
you can't do 4 way scrolling+status bar on NES without MMC3. at least not when anything is moving.

>>8120918
> call stack
Sometimes. Memory addresses are mostly managed by hand: either with a built in stack or temporary variables which can be a little quicker depending on the processor instruction speeds. Most classic systems have a flat memory structure and most classic games have no higher level languages: til ya get into the nightmare that is bankswitching. It differs on a game by game basis: no one is the same.
Get an emulator with debug tools to see how it's done. Here is a good example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWQuCGdiMDs

>>8121157
>til ya get into the nightmare that is bankswitching

Atari 2600 banking is very simple, there isn't much to that. what is ass and AIDS is NES/Master System/Gameboy banking in which you're having to continuously switch code, music, graphics, and level data banks on the fly.

>>8121183
You want to keep the game in the stable part and switch out your resources. Plan your game accordingly. It takes skill and care.

>>8121183
they all access 32k ROM at once. usually the first 16k is a fixed piece with core game routines and second 16k is the part with the level and music data, swapped as needed. also there's usually a bank with object data specific to level currently being played.

$C000-$FFFF=core game engine
$8000-$BFFF=other shit all swapped on the fly

say in Mega Man 1 when you go in (for example) Elec Man level it loads in level data, sets it up, then switches in object code for the level. when you're playing it also swaps the music bank during vertical blank, plays one note per frame, and switches object code bank back in for game logic to process.

but MM1 is an UNROM game so the banking setup is still much simpler than how it works on, say, MMC3.

>>8121245
MMC3 is kind of similiar but of course you can have multiple game engines and swap the ROM in smaller pieces. In Kirby's Adventure when you get a power up it switches in the object code for that power up.

In Dragon Quest 1 the bridges mark a different set of enemies. Each time you go over a bridge there's momentary slowdown because the game is switching in the sprite set for the next group of enemies. Perhaps you may have noticed this when playing the game.

>>8121301
Wish all were non-JP only.

maybe it didn't lag as badly on the Famicom original because that was CNROM and not MMC1 which has notoriously slow bank switching but idk

>>8121245
>it also swaps the music bank during vertical blank
You can bankswitch at any time. It's free, well, besides a few cycles. It has nothing to do with the PPU.

>>8115726
>what's your dream homebrew, /vr/?
Every worthwhile non-Nintendo NES game being remade for PC-Engine/TG16. There's a project by a guy who ported NES games to the PCE, but it ain't the same if it isn't actually making use of the hardware.

>>8121357
I know. Which is exactly what happens in DQ1. But with MMC1 it gets a little annoying because you need to make 6 register writes to switch a ROM bank (only 3 writes on MMC3 and 2 for most discreet mapper).

>>8121368
> But with MMC1 it gets a little annoying
Right. It's a barrel shift register: one bit at a time on one line with one trace. The controller works the same way. Fucking nintendo cheaping out on the manufacturing, but, i guess those pennies add up when you scale to millions.

>>8121245
UNROM locks the first 16k of ROM but ASIC mappers don't and you have no idea what bank will be at $C000-$FFFF at power on so you need to waste ROM space putting redundant code in each bank including the system vectors at $FFFA-$FFFF.

>>8121117
oh no I get to keep my money while you needlessly waste yours

>>8121183
In what way is Gameboy banking supposed to be difficult?

>>8121395
it saved money because it allowed reduced pin count since MMC1 used poke-through pins while MMC3 was surface mounted. yes if you play some MMC1 games there's noticeable pause when switching screens while UNROM games switch almost instantaneously.

>>8121418
not really difficult since there's only one banking setup compared to NES's 350 or so but still a bit annoying to have to be switching between sound/graphics/level data constantly during code loop.

MMC3 is always better unless you need the single screen mirroring feature which was dropped from it.

>>8121245
Mega Man 1 is 128k ROM so...

>4 code banks
>1 music bank
>1 level data bank
>2 graphics data banks

and CHR ROM games obviously don't have graphics data banks.

>>8118418
High quality beta

>>8121535
It depends on how big the game is. A physical 128k ROM may still have unused space in it. But MM1 probably does use everything.

>>8121357
i think you can't switch graphics except during blank because PPU will shit itself

>>8121638
possibly. i never tried on hardware. emulators will let you get away with all kinds of weaponized autism.

>>8121638
You'd have to disassemble some games and find out.

>>8121301
There is a disassembly of the US DW1 online if you want to see how it works.

And also you can see the hoops they had to jump through for certain game algorithms due to the lack of 6502 BCD mode.

>>8121482
Gameboy and Master System both only have one standard mapper but it's not as flexible as some of NES's banking options, for example you don't have 8k banking like with MMC3.

>>8121747
to be fair you can also get away with smaller ROMs since their CPUs don't need as much code to do something as 6502 does

>>8121773
I'd think the Gameboy's tile data might be a little more compact since the screen resolution is lower and graphics are generally simpler.

>>8121720
I remember a hidden programmer rant in some pachinko game where the programmer was complaining about that. Not as bad as the Iron Tank programmer who was absolutely livid at Nintendo. Did Nintendo not have MMC3s to sell to SNK so he had to work harder to use a worse mapper?

>>8121805
Iron Tank came out in mid-1988. I don't think MMC3 was even available yet or else they were just starting production and didn't have significant quantities available.

>>8121245
The Gameboy MMU always locks the first 16k, it cannot be switched out like with NES and Master System MMUs. This does make stuff a little less flexible since you can in practice only have one game engine.

as anon said the only thing MMC1 is better than MMC3 at is option of single screen mirroring which makes 8 way scrolling easier

Mega Drive coding is so much nicer. Just flat memory with no banking at all.

>>8120546
There isn't one, I've checked /v/ and /vr/, seems they're almost done with the hack and don't intend to do another afaik

>>8121885
It's mainly finishing the music, cover art, castle 5 boss and some small things that OP has to code in. I just hope that they don't rush it out before the end of this week

SMB2 and Zelda II have this lengthy pause when you switch screens. I can't remember the specific technical explanation for it but apparently it was some PPU fill routine they did not code very well.

>>8122024
some artifact of converting them from FDS?

>>8122018
indeed, that's what brought me here. there's a bunch of minor kinks and glitches, luckily I was able to post what I found so far before it archived. I'm still in the early game, so I'm sure I'll find more. hopefully they don't roll it out in an unpolished state.
can't wait to fight the Magikoopa boss that I envisioned, and is now becoming a reality. not to fag out, but it's an amazing feel. that battle existed only in my head, and it'll be brought to life via meme magic.

>>8122032
Hope it gets in. For one of my levels I had an anon make a boss for me while I gave them the attack ideas. It was meant to be basic on purpose and I'm glad the anon followed my ideas.

>>8122036
fairly confident it's in there like swimwear. my only concern is if I don't get to critique it before release.

>>8122032
At least some of the /v/orld anons are going to be around in this thread: >>>/s4s/9874429

>>8121687
The hand pick nose*

>>8118301
based based based

>>8121805
Maybe he was also upset at the lack of BCD mode but it's hard to say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rqpDvXUXzE

Iron Tank's not bad or anything but not really my kind of game. These war sim games always seemed to be for boomers or guys serving in the military. Also doesn't this actually use the MMC1's single screen mirroring mode? It looks like it.

>>8115608
Simultaneous Multi-Video Playback on the Sega Saturn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXfhiCh3nAc

>>8122419
The Gameboy and Master System don't use a tile map setup like the NES. Former has partial mirroring of 4 rows of tiles and the latter is strictly single screen. Having an entire mirrored screen is dumb and inefficient but probably made sense in the early 80s when it was designed.

>>8120890
Read the instructions.

page 9 bump

>>8122381
He also programmed Guerilla War before this, but he didn't have any rants this time. Though he also mentioned that he hates the Famicom, probably some hardware quirk with it. Iron Tank flickers a lot, so maybe he was irritated with that.

bump

>>8124971

AVE used a mapper that lets you bank the PRG ROM in a whole 32k piece and the CHR in an 8k piece for a total of 128k ROM supported (64k PRG and 64k CHR).

what are the best LTTP romhacks? I'm looking for something that changes up the current dungeons and possibly items as well.

>>8115608
Does anyone have a link to ImageDiff? I can't find it anywhere because there's an image comparison program with the same name.
I'm trying to apply a translation to a PSX BIN/CUE. (King's Field III : Pilot Style)

>>8115726

>>8124971
maybe not "dream" but C64 port of this would be fun

CNROM NES games often put the level data in unused parts of the CHR ROM and turn off the PPU to read it.

>>8125992
For there to be best LttP romhacks, there would have to be good LttP romhacks in the first place.
But I guess if you want changes, go look at Parallel Worlds.

There's that one Conker's Bad Fur Day styled Zelda hack

bump

>>8125992
>>8128171
Parallel Worlds is basically kaizo LttP. it has great assets, but I don't have the patience for it.
if you want something more than vanilla, I'd recommend randomizer.

>>8128812
>Parallel Worlds

Oh fuck me, that shit sucked hard, i cant believe i played vanilla PW on Zsnes back in 2007 and actually put myself trough the end, i actually tried to play the ''remodeled'' edition, but it was a fucking joke, one which all it did was, no not fixing, but just superficially alleviate the bigger issues JUST A LITTLE, and last time i touched that shit, was in my old Super Everdrive, and i still have that rom and haven't touched it ever since 2014.

>putting many enemies meant for late in the original game and many in one room without sense of balance, design and craft.
>zsnes is speedhack so it werks, will play on real console just fine..........

Is there a Super Metroid romhack that turns acquired items into dots on the map like its sequels? I'm too smooth brain to keep track of which items I've already grabbed so I've never tried to 100% the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch3GsWBSTKI

I'd talked about doing a NES port of Gateway to Apshai but yes it would be an issue due to the status bar+4 way scrolling which you can't do without MMC3. Bleh.

>>8130123
You could just drop the status bar and maybe have a separate status screen by pressing Select.

>>8130123
You could do what a lot of old ports did and have the UI be a bunch of sprites, and have them cycle between different data.

>>8130123
it also used the Atari/C64 keyboard and Colecovision numpad for control inputs. That would be hard to pull off with a NES controller.

>>8130123
what ROM size was this?

>>8130886
It's 16k. Though on the NES you might need to go to 32k since it doesn't have RAM to de-pack stuff like the A8 and C64 and the Colecovision uses a Z80 so it doesn't need as much code.

>>8130892
all those systems also have a BIOS so you don't need as much code for certain I/O tasks

>>8130892
>>8130123
I don't think any of those early NROM titles do 4 way scrolling, at most it would scroll in one direction.

>>8130915
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwfI2tPO334

Challenger. This has full 8 directional scrolling, but it's also 32k not 16k.

Counterpoint: Maniac Mansion on C64 filled up two 170k disk sides completely (that's 340k total space) while NES MM fit in 256k cartridge and has music too.

>>8130123
ZX Spectrum port?

>>8130980
Sure a Speccy port of GTA would be no big deal to pull off (and due to shared CPU the Colecovision port is the best one to use as a basis), but it would create problems for people this side of the Atlantic to test it on a real machine

>>8130123
uggh, scrolling is something i'd totally be looking forward to. you think Sea Chase was a pain in the butt and that doesn't even scroll.

>>8130123
>>8130892
Just do something like on Adventures of Lolo where it's MMC1/3 but singe PRG bank.

>>8130123
>>8130892
Just do something like on Adventures of Lolo where it's MMC1/3 but single PRG bank.

>>8131165
>inb4 whinnying about oh but I has physical cartridge release so it has to be NRO...
just release it as a ROM and put it on a Flash cart. sheesh.

>>8131165
AOL2 was MMC3 right?

>>8131189
AOL1 and 2 were 32k PRG+32k CHR and used MMC1 and MMC3 respectively. AOL3 was MMC3 and had 256k ROM.

consider it like enhanced CNROM

I mean, unless you're big enough of a purist that you need to make GTA to authentic 1984 Famicom spec in which case you're basically limited to a 16k NROM game.

>>8130892
Lode Runner fit 50 levels, scrolling screens, music, and a level editor in 16k so you tell me.

>>8131231
LR's also mostly got black screens and only a few graphics objects present on screen.

>>8115726
a hentai rpg on nes

>>8131221
Remember that a lot of computer ports to the Famicom came out years later. The closest I can imagine would be Raid on Bungeling Bay, which got an NES port the following year. Christ, the NES had tons of ports of computer games.

>>8131783
Lode Runner and ROBB were ported in 84-85. Some early Famicom titles were ports of Japanese computer games (Hydlide, Flappy, Exerion, etc). There was also a Famicom port of Dough Boy, a Synapse C64 game (not many people know that one). The ports of Archon, Boulder Dash, and MULE came years later and those were all 128k UNROM carts.

I hate the NES Boulder Dash, it's a complete butchery and it wasn't even a source port--none of the tricks you can do on the original computer versions work in it. I've always wanted a proper remake of this in genuine 1984-85 NROM fashion.

I hate the NES Boulder Dash, it's a complete butchery and it wasn't even a source port--none of the tricks you can do on the original computer versions work in it. I've always wanted a proper remake of this in genuine 1984-85 NROM fashion.

>>8131851
Christ, this port took 6 years to get made. I guess the Japanese have a thing for making old ports, nowadays releasing PC versions nearly a decade later.

>>8131941
Not fair because >>8131789. Many of these games were not years old when they got ported.

bump

bump

>>8133793
Wait a minute, that's not Yoshi

>>8133825
...could be

>>8131851
Note that Boulder Dash was still an UNROM game so no score bar, it's just using sprites for that.

can anyone explain NES mapper configuration? they're confusing to me.

>>8133985
what's to explain

>>8133985
The most commonly used setups are:

>CNROM
Only one 32k PRG bank. CHR ROM is switched in 8k pages. In theory it would be possible to have 256 CHR banks for 2MB total CHR ROM but in practice they only used 16 or 32k CHR ROM. Some of these games store level data in unused parts of the CHR ROM and turn the PPU off to read it.
>UNROM
The PRG ROM is switched in 16k pieces, the first 16k being fixed and non-movable. There is no CHR ROM, but instead CHR RAM which means you put your graphics in the PRG ROM and copy it over. Normally 128k ROM, there are four games that use 256k.
>MMC1
Allows max 512k PRG and 128k CHR. The mirroring direction can be set in software and isn't hard-wired. Can have 8k PRG RAM. Optionally one may use an UNROM type setup with CHR RAM. PRG ROM is switched in 16k chunks and CHR ROM in 4k chunks.
>MMC3
Allows up to 512k PRG and 256k CHR w/ soft selectable mirroring direction (but single screen mirroring was dropped from MMC3). Optional PRG RAM. The PRG ROM is switched in 8k chunks and the CHR ROM in 1k chunks. It also has a scanline IRQ for easy split scrolling with no sprite 0 hit.

>>8133825
>>8133873
Whats a Yoshi

>>8134784
Is this made in game maker studio or something? This is definitely not running on the NES, and its not an SMW hack either. With so many "make your own Mario game" engines already out there, why not just make an SMBX world or actual rom hack?

>>8134921
It's pretty obviously SMW, anon.

>>8134946
I thought that at first, but the physics look wrong to me. Maybe it's been too long since I last played it. removing the hud altogether seems odd too, and the door transition is weird.

>>8134963
>implying it's not possible to alter the physics in SMW

>>8134963
>>8134921
It's SMW, physics aren't even modified yet(though I would like them to be closer to SMB3), must be recording weirdness.
I'm no good at assembly so I'm making do with what I can in the boundries of vanilla SMW and the few resources on hacking sites.

>>8134021
banking on the Gameboy is basically the same thing as UNROM but with ROM sizes up to 1MB supported

>>8134986
Ah well I guess it has been too long since I've played SMW. The bird is pretty cool as a Yoshi replacement, and I like the Mario 2 vibe. Have you done any work on the overworld? That was always my favorite part of SMW hacking.

>>8135018
I've done a bit, each of the levels is gonna span the length of 3 levels and have lots of branching paths so I'm only doing one world.
The SMB2/USA is the level before the star on the map, and other levels take inspiration from other games in the franchise. (Even Wario Land)

>>8135018
Told ya so.

>>8115982
>UNROM-512 from ali-express
how can i buy this?

>>8135297
nah you don't need that shit. just put your ROM on an Everdrive if you want to test it on a real NES.

test

>>8115982
Is UNROM 512 the same mapper that NES maker uses? I noticed that Battle Kid has 512 kb of program data but none for graphics, is there any advantages to dedicated graphics data versus using prg data?

So to try and explain NES banking more succinctly, usually you keep 16k ROM locked in $C000-$FFFF which contains the core game engine and $8000-$BFFF has the object code for the current level, music, level, etc bank. During your game loop you'll be constantly switching between the music and object code bank--the level bank is only switched in when you start a level and need to read the data so you can set the level up. More complex games like SMB3 will use PRG RAM for additional work space as the built-in 2k isn't enough. But I did notice none of the Mega Man games did that, all of them made do with just the basic 2k.

>>8121301
I'm pretty sure there's an NPC that explicitly tells you to be wary when crossing bridges. It's a pretty smart way of warning players honestly, getting btfo by random mobs in FF2 when exploring got old real quick.

>>8135310
it's wasteful and time consuming to burn an EEPROM every time you want to test something. SD card is a slicker solution. ED pro is a waste of money though compared to the original.

>>8135378
>I noticed that Battle Kid has 512 kb of program data but none for graphics, is there any advantages to dedicated graphics data versus using prg data?

The obvious advantage of CHR ROM is that it's immediately available on power-on and requires no setting up. You can also switch in different CHR ROM sets instantaneously. Another advantage, and especially true in the early days of the Famicom, was that it saved precious PRG ROM space because they only had 16 or 32k ROM and putting the graphics data in a separate ROM chip left more room in the PRG ROM for other stuff. Say on the Colecovision, a 16k game meant some of that space had to include the tile and sprite data. On top of that, you need to include a copy loop to move the graphics data into video RAM which takes some space too. On the NES however it was even more important because it uses a 6502 not Z80 like Colecovision and 6502 code tends to take more memory space than Z80 code.

CHR RAM games are usually always UNROM or MMC1 and this setup was done primarily so they could have animated tiles or on-the-fly sprite transformations. But it does mean you have to sacrifice some PRG ROM space for the graphics data, even though it can be compressed some.

>>8136714
How tf is it wasteful?

>>8136714
Please don't talk about things you have no understanding of. :/

>>8137269
time
>>8137275
try me

>>8137316
Seethe

>>8115726
Zelda 1 and 2 remakes as OOT/MM hacks

ITT: Kids who read one Wikipedia page and think they can code on a retro system

>>8137356
Yeah, that's a lost art only reserved for the most autistic coders, not some underage Pokemon spergs.

>>8137256
how much ROM space do you realistically save here?

>>8137378
A single NES CHR set is 8k. But it's compressed when CHR RAM is used so figure more like 5k. But that's still 5k precious kb out of 32k ROM. SMB for example completely fills up the PRG ROM. There is no space left. The game just wouldn't be possible if you had to also shoehorn the tile and sprite data in there.

AFAIK one of the advantages to the CHR ROM setup on NES is that it cost Nintendo less money than the 16k video RAM in Colecovision/SG-1000, because you only needed 2k VRAM in the console and the cartridge would have a separate graphics ROM. however the space saving in the main game ROM was probably an asset as well.

>>8137403
but the Master System used normal VRAM setup right?

>>8137414
Yes it did so you had to put the graphics in the main game ROM and copy them into VRAM. On the Master System it was less of an issue since it's Z80 so you don't need as much code to do stuff (Z80 on average 20% less code than 6502 for same operation) and it had nice convenient block copy commands.

>>8115608
I’m going to update that pre-patched rom hack mega drive soon. I got kicked off the internet for 6 months by my isp for pirating cause I never saw the warning emails or got any letters. But yeah next time I can bring my laptop somewhere with internet I have lots of good shit to upload. Be patient with me i will add every rom I patch forever.

>>8137534
Thanks, shame about that.

>>8115726
The Ooze SNES

How difficult is it to make games for the Amiga or other such computers? Considering most of their games were made by small teams under a tight deadline, it must've been easy enough. What about vintage PCs, for example a hypothetical DX7 port of some modern 'retro fps'?

>>8138426
No harder than any other retro platform and the Amiga is more amenable to coding in C so you won't be as reliant on assembly language.

>>8137590
Blessing in disguise I’m chipping away at my backlog of games with no distraction which is huge.

>>8138435
What about making shitty ports to other computers, like the CPC, Dragon 32, or ST? For the essential cheap brit gaming experience.

bump

bump

bump

>>8115970
I played this on PC. It's neat but not too much content.
.

>>8115970
This better not be more NROM shit posing as a 1992 MMC3 game.

>>8143515
it's more UNROM 512 shit. faggots always make everything as NROM or UNROM 512 because they get cheap chink PCBs for those off Ali Express

I doubt Alwas Awakening even gets close to needing 512k anyway.

>>8143548
>>8143690
UNROM-512 was supposed to be "everything but the kitchen sink" mapper setup for homebrewfags that provide support for 512k ROM, CHR RAM, soft mirroring select and save game RAM.

>>8121015
I don't think the NES could accept external audio chips. Forgot why, but I think it was a hardware bug, just like the sheer difficulty of playing a PCM sample.

>>8144663
the ext audio lines are on the bottom expansion port not the cartridge slot

>>8144667
That explains a bit.
Do you think they planned to release an NES variant of the FDS which used the expansion port, ala Sega CD style?

>>8144351
Oh, save game ram huh? How difficult is it to program such a function? Is there a limit to how robust the save function is? Most nes games with battery backup only save bits and pieces, Zelda 1 saves your items and bosses killed while Kirby's adventure only saves what world you're on iirc.

>>8144686
most NES carts use an 8k SRAM for the save game. this RAM is usually used for other game tasks as well so only a small portion tends to be reserved for the save game.

>>8144694
ok

>>8144694
Natch. I forgot about that.

>>8144694
SMB3 just has extra memory, it doesn't save anything. It's for the levels. Keeps track of the bricks.

>>8147379
>Keeps track of the bricks.
No, it doesn't. The bricks are tracked in main memory, because at most it takes 96 bytes of RAM(for 768 breakable bricks.) It has extra memory because it's basically the most advanced game out there for the NES and needs a lot of RAM to keep track of most things.
Stop perpetuating this lie, I'm tired of seeing it.

>>8131198
HAL had a tendency for using odd mapper setups like this, the MMC5 used in MSG, and Defender II is CNROM with 16k PRG.

>>8147619
> blah blah blah
Proof. Watch. Shut the fuck up.

>>8147841
There apparently was a misunderstanding, because I didn't mean question mark bricks, I meant breakable bricks, which appears to be different from what you meant.

>>8147890
> which appears to be different
Ok. It's the whole level. Mapped out.

>>8147934
You know what? I give up. I swore that the mapping address started at $100f, not $6000. That's on me.
Still doesn't excuse the fact that all of this could be contained in 96 bytes and totally stored on the regular RAM.

>>8147947
Sure that's true, but, i don't know what they were thinking.

>>8147976
It's just frustrating because the excuse I hear for no leftward scrolling in SMB1 isn't the fact that it took up a good 8-16kb of memory and broke during development so it was decided it was worthless, but rather because it would take too much RAM to store all of the brick data.
Sorry for going gungho.

the NES only got 2k RAM and SMB uses every available byte, there wouldn't be any room to track destroyed blocks

>>8147983
It's all good. SMB1 is a different beast because it actually loads the level into the adjacent nametable while you're scrolling right, so, it's loading the future before you get there. It has to do with custom compression. Walking backwards would end up with a messed up level.

i heard LOZ also didn't use free moving overworld map because of insufficient memory to preserve the status of everything, but it has PRG RAM so I don't buy that

>>8148029
There was an interview where Nakago mentioned they had leftwards scrolling, but it took up a large section of the available ROM. When it broke, they just decided to rewrite scrolling to be locked to the right, since it played just fine like that.
Unfortunately, I can't find the interview anymore, but I do have friends who remember it because they shared the interview with me. One of them mentioned the site it was on went defunct.

>>8148000
Nice get, but uh... pretty sure that's not the case. Especially since I know about $03F0, which stores a variable that is otherwise unused.

all the NES Mega Mans somehow made do with no extra RAM, they just use the base 2k

>>8148052
that 32k is jam packed

>>8148064
and that's only possible because the CHR ROM means you don't have to use some of that precious 32k to also store the graphics data (on the Master System you would have to).

>>8148073
right. separate chips on the PCB. 40k in totality.

>>8148073
the Master System is Z80 though so your code's a little smaller. for the NES since it's 6502 the space savings from CHR ROM are very important.

>>8148073
>>8148093
Deja vu, I swear this exact argument was made before about the possibility of such scrolling.

>>8148064
>32k is jam packed
You're acting like they didn't replace the leftwards scrolling feature with more worlds or something. 8k is enough for... what, 3-4 more worlds?

>>8148036
>>8148073
LOZ is a CHR RAM game btw it has 2x 16k graphics banks for 32k total graphics data. if the game were CHR ROM it would probably be like Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle where is 64k PRG+32k CHR ROM.

>>8148107
> leftwards scrolling
no proof it ever existed? i know about the compression, and since i know that, i don't know how that would fit into the existing system.
i would explain the whole thing to you right now, but, i'm a little sleepy. it's naptime. maybe tomorrow.

>>8148128
Eh, get some sleep. I'll go find this interview, it's gotta be backed up somewhere.

>>8121301
>Each time you go over a bridge there's momentary slowdown because the game is switching in the sprite set for the next group of enemies.
if there is it's nigh unnoticeable, to the point I think you might be bullshitting

>>8148119
it's probably got a little more than that. LOZ is a fair bit bigger game than Crazy Castle.

I think Kirby's Adventure also uses the PRG RAM to keep track of destroyed blocks.

>>8143548
>cheap chink PCBs for those off Ali Express
Where can I find these?
i'm making a game
how cheap are they?

>>8148628
bout tree fiddy

engine devving

>>8148947
fucking black magic

>>8115726


>>8148959
>>8148948
NES port of Horace Goes Skiing. Muh ha ha ha ha ha....

>>8115726

>>8148959
>>8148948
NES port of Horace Goes Skiing. (^:

>>8148995
just for yucks I disassembled the TAP image of this. it's 16k but the actual code portion is only about 6k, all the rest is graphics data. also since it's Z80 figure on 6502 it would be closer to 8k of code.

>>8149027
how much code/data would that translate to in NES terms?

>>8149037
8k worth of code and maybe another 2-3k worth of sound and level data in the PRG ROM and then maybe half the 8k CHR ROM page gets used since you probably wouldn't come close to filling it all the way in a game this short. so a normal 16k PRG/8k CHR ROM setup. but for an NES game you wouldn't want to just go with Spectrum minimalism; you'd dress up the audiovisuals some to take advantage of the available ROM space and hardware capabilities.

>>8149049
If the Japanese handled this port, they'd make it look like the Boulderdash port. There's something really appealing about sprite-based UIs, but this chews up valuable sprite totals and scanline sprites, something the NES can't really afford.

>>8149097
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgcXmyKzPZo

Take a careful look at the game. The skiing part has vscroll+status bar which you cannot do on NES without MMC3, at least not where there's stuff actively happening. For games like Boulder Dash they didn't really have a choice but to use sprites for the sprites+score bar. The part with the cars would be a little tricky as well since you'd likely use sprites for those and some of them would have to be shrunk in size to fit the NES's sprite limitations.

>>8149027
>>8148093
just as an aside why does 6502 code take more space? all of its instructions are 1-3 bytes.

>>8149114
A few solutions-
-Draw the vehicles as background titles, and shift them around tile by tile against a featureless background. Amagon and Thundercade do something similar.
-draw them as background objects that scroll, kinda like the steamroller from TMNT 2. It will be smother than the above method, but they can only move one way, they can't move around traffic.
-draw cars and trucks as background objects and have them scroll on a plane like above, but make the motorcycles sprite objects. It won't imitate the actual method of working, but it will be close enough and look the smoothest.

>>8149126
Actually looking at it better, the large trucks don't move at all, so those can be background objects while the others are sprites. Have the vehicles change lanes in a pattern so that they don't occupy that many sprites on a scanline, tmnt 2 style.

>>8149120
The main reason for this is that it takes a lot more code to handle 16-bit numbers and block copies of memory. You have to do a fuckload of zero page access you don't do on the Z80 where there's 16-bit registers and nice convenient block copy instructions.

>>8149126
I think the Atari 8-bit and C64 Frogger do something like this. also Konami ported it on MSX, that probably uses tile shifting of some kind.

Hey guys, programming-let here. I used to be pretty hardcore into romhacking from 2010-2015, have music related utilities gotten any better for games? Particularly NES games. Does Super Mario Brothers 3 have good editors now? While I am aware this can easily be Googled, I trust random faggots on 4chan to give me their educated opinions.

Making a persona like rpg for the GBA.

This is what happens when you don't have enough mp for a summon.

>>8149481
Famitracker is still the standard. Famistudio is interesting, but, while a bit more modern, it has a slightly counterintuitive interface.

>>8149713
I was under the impression that fami tracker is extremely bloated and isn't well suited for actual games, unless this has changed?

>>8150214
it's still the best option. i'm doing something about that. the future will soon be here.

>>8150457
Do you need to edit the music file manually to make it less bloated? I have a lot more respect for composers of old who seemingly had to punch in hexadecimal for music.

>>8148171
LOZ isn't that complicated. There's two main code blocks, for the overworld and dungeons and it switches in the object code for each screen/dungeon as needed. Some core routines are kept in the PRG RAM so they can always be available. if you play the FDS version it's more obvious how the game is structured.

>>8149692
looking good
how do you plan to makes cartridges?

>>8151070
No plans for that, since it is a fan game (made for fun, not money).

>>8115726
resident evil 0 on n64 and playstation and saturn

>>8149713
>winamp 2.x
Good taste, have a dancing karate man.

>>8121405
it has bus conflicts. the way you switch banks on UNROM is to write anywhere to the PRG ROM. generally you keep a table of bank selects somewhere so you just LDA TABLE STA (any address in $8000-$FFFF) to switch a bank. The Famicom Crazy Climber also uses a unique UNROM setup where $8000-$BFFF is fixed in place instead of $C000-$FFFF.

If you want to play my game, you will need to send money to my PO Box, and you'll get a USB drive with a minimal OS, map, instruction manual, and possibly some concept art, depending on your letter

doesn't the Master System got its cartridge ROM in $0-$7FFF instead?

>>8152249
yes because Z80 got its CPU vectors at $0-$5 while 6502 has them at $FFFA-$FFFF. the standard Sega mapper pages ROM in 16k, but the first 1k of cartridge ROM at $0-$3FF is fixed in place. if you have cartridge RAM (say for a save game) it maps in $8000-$9FFF.

>>8149692
game over

>>8150484
i'm making the format now. it will come with an editor. after i write the documentation, feel free to type in all the hex you want.

Anyone might have an idea why Codemasters decided to use 7-bit PCM samples for Ultimate Stuntman? As a whole it seems like Euro composers avoided digital samples, but some exist like Magician.

>>8152708
Gta5 might suck but it easily has the best 'busted' screen by far. Nice touch.

how do I hack kof 2002?

>>8148093
hmmm well the NES Bubble Bobble is 160k. 128k PRG and 32k CHR. the Master System port is 256k and the ROM is almost completely filled up (there's about 720 unused bytes).

the Master System Double Dragon however is 128k while the NES is 256k, split between 128k each PRG and CHR ROM. so you tell me.

>>8153502
The NES DD is twice that big because it has that silly arena fighting mode. I have no idea about Bubble Bobble though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d2bGzDuU0w
This genuinely looks like a better 3D Sonic than Xtreme

>>8151537
>Crazy Climber also uses a unique UNROM setup where $8000-$BFFF is fixed in place instead of $C000-$FFFF

wonder why?

>>8153516
Crash started out with a code name of "Sonic's Ass Game".

>>8115726
>>8152079

Master System port of Adventures of Lolo

>>8154259
not a big deal from a technical POV except you have to recode everything from 6502 to Z80 which sucks dick

>>8154267
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbAnD2Jea68

The original MSX Eggerland would be much easier to port to the Master System due to the largely shared system architecture. actually even ZX Spectrum port of this good for lulz.

>>8154284
too bad it runs so slow, it's like 25 fps

>>8154292
Not really a big deal, especially if you're looking at it from the 'port a popular game to as many platforms as possible as easily as possible' angle. If a western publisher was to get in cahoots with some of the major MSX devs, they could make a lot of bank with simple ports to the spectrum and Colecovision, or SMS if you're feeling juicy. These Z80 based systems are like the modern PC platform, you can pretty much release them as is on any compatible format.

There's lots of other games on the MSX like Kings Valley that are 60 fps so didn't really have an excuse there.

>>8154284
Wouldn't surprise me if it's already done, an anon linked a forum thread with hundreds of ported MSX games.

>>8154284
i checked. it's 32k. yes you could do an Oiy me Speccy port and the game should fit in a single load. optionally: Spectrum 128 support for music

>>8147627
>Defender II
>16k PRG+16k CHR
wonder what was the reason for this?

also yeah, the Master System can't flip sprites in hardware instead it has the less useful function of flipping bg tiles. a game section like this would be royal PITA.

>>8148947
Based

>>8155314
I think you can use bg tiles for the enemies?

>>8156323
yes but it's choppy. the Master System can do 512 tiles but it's really 448 since the tile map takes some video RAM and you can assign any tile to sprite or background while NES has fixed 256 each bg tiles and sprites. it would be annoying to try and recreate a game like LOZ on Master System because it has many enemies moving around at once.

>>8156336
well according to 4chan it should take you about 3 weeks to develop Alex Kidd in Miracle World

Yeah. The Master System and C64 are better at games with a few large sprites while the NES is better at games like LOZ with lots of small sprites.

>>8156610
take your allergy meds

>>8157793
Mighty Bomb Jack is NROM in the Famicom version (but one of those dumb copy protected variants) and CNROM in the Western version but I can't see any obvious differences outside the title screen. Someone should disassemble the two and find out.

>>8156937
Common misconception, the C64, despite being a year older, actually decimates the NES in terms of sprite capabilities. https://youtu.be/x7Dc3IuVKEw

So, I want to develop for the Sega Master System, but SMSPower has a bunch of really basic info without much explanation(granted that feeling could be that I'm sleep deprived.) Are there are any other resources where I could learn where they could go into more detail?
I already accept I have to learn the Z80 on my own, kind of had to do that for the NES because no NES documentation also covered 6502 programming.

>>8157896
I'll give you a few rundowns:

>sprites are 64 8x8 sprites w/ 8 per line ala NES
>they cannot be flipped in hardware
>you can flip background tiles
>448 total tiles can be fit in video RAM which can be apportioned between bg and sprites as you need, no hard 256 char/sprite limit like the NES has
>instead of sprite to background priority there's background to sprite priority
>it does have collision detection registers and scanline IRQs which the NES does not have
>the tile map is single screen, there is no mirroring like on the NES
>you can do easy split screen scrolling in either the H or V axis (no sprite 0 hit or only select mappers w/ scanline IRQ)
>you can manipulate the VDP RAM and registers whenever you like unlike the NES
>sound is garbage, just 3 square wave channels+white noise
>there is only one standard memory mapper, it supports ROM configurations up to 512k and ROM is paged in 16k segments

Anyway...

https://www.smspower.org/uploads/Development/richard.txt

>>8157919
>>they cannot be flipped in hardware
>>you can flip background tiles
this is such a weird thing, why would it be that way

>>8157925
Beats me. But it would make doing a game like LOZ a real nuisance on the Master System.

>>8157925
Probably done to help save VRAM with background tiles. It would've been nice for both, but... y'know. Probably only so much space on that die.

>>8157919
Thanks man.

Basically, you can offset the top two rows for H split screen scrolling or the rightmost eight rows for split V scrolling.

Master System games very often have symmetrical backgrounds so they don't need as many tiles.

>>8157919
Out of curiosity, I've been looking but couldn't find details for the Z80, and maybe you could help a little. How do I handle errors, IE divide by zero errors or CPU crashes in general? Is there even a method to handle it?
I'm a bit of a newbie to assembly so... this is all new to me.

>>8157971
don't worry about that stuff, this isn't a quad core PC. if you fucked your code up it will just lock up and need to be reset.

>>8158009
Is that a challenge?

>>8158096
is that a challenge?

>>8157984
Yeah, but I'd at least like to know WHAT fucked up, instead of spending a few hours combing through a bunch kilobytes trying to find the exact RAM address that caused it all to collapse.

>>8158130
you would use a debugger to trace/single step through the code; most emulators should have one of those. Mesen does anyway.

>>8158168
You know what, fair enough.

>>8158009

this is a fun possible SMS port project to attempt and it has no scrolling which makes your job a lot easier

>>8158261
Are you asking me to port this?

>>8158265
I just mentioned it for lulz because it's Z80 code so it would be easier than trying to port NES stuff.

>>8158270
I mean I was planning to make my own game and tech demo to fuck with it but this might work too. I'll consider it.

couldn't really think of many good port projects since a lot of the classic games/systems were 6502-based, a lot more than there were Z80. for Z80 you basically just have the Spectrum, Amstrad, and TMS 9918-based machines of which the Master System is just the bigger brother of anyway.

Mr. Wino is a 32k game which would be like a small mapperless Master System cartridge (more likely card). Some Spectrum games are smaller but those would be better as SG-1000 ports since the "minimum" Master System game size was 32k.

>>8158301
I've noticed a few things, I still need to figure out how to get bigger cartridges through the checksum if possible, but the BIOS supports 8 and 16k cartridge sizes for checksums.

>>8158318
beg pardon? you should not need anything for a <32k game. no mapper, nothing.

>>8158330
Oh no, my goal is to make a far larger game eventually. I'm curious how the checksum worked for Street fighter for the Master System. The 1 megabyte ROM checksum apparently is bugged and never used, and the Street Fighter cartridge was 12 megabytes.

>>8153893
DPCM

>>8158389
yeah you can't switch in the music bank on the fly for DPCM samples. SMB3 gets around it because it's MMC3 so it can just leave in an 8k piece of ROM with the drum samples and switch in the music bank for other stuff as needed.

>>8158274
>>8158270
the Spectrum has same screen resolution as the Master System so don't have to redraw the graphics except to add more color/details

>>8158113
Yes, bonus points if you make it a complete bastardization like Boulderdash and give it more Japanese graphics, such as a Buddha statue or a shinto gate.

>>8158420
I think you'd end up with something like the Master System Montezuma's Revenge.

>>8158443
don't really have Boulder Dash for the Master System unless you hacked the Colecovision or MSX ports to run on it

yeah on the Master System you can use up to 48k from $0-$BFFF but mapperless carts can only go to $7FFF since they lack the additional address decoding to use $8000-$BFFF. that space can be used for an additional 16k ROM (often the graphics bank) or RAM for a battery save. the first 1k of ROM at $0-$1FF is fixed because that contains the CPU vectors. Master Systems in the West also have a small boot ROM that displays the Sega logo and checks the cartridge for a copyright string to make sure it's licensed. The Mark III didn't have this boot ROM. For that reason a Master System normally can't play SG-1000 games as they don't have the copyright string so they won't boot.

>>8158487
I meant the NES Boulderdash, if 'Uino-San' was going to be an NES game

>>8158631
Not only did they cutesify it to appeal to Japanese 7 year olds but it's not even a source port from the original Atari code.

>>8158656
Japan has what's referred to as 'culture of cute', likewise 'chibi' (or super deformed) styles work best for small sprites, as the head is often the area that needs the most detail but the body can get away with less. It's why the Kunio series looks so different from Renegade to River City Ransom.

Were any computer game ports even source ports? Virtually all games on all platforms were approximations.

>>8158665
>Were any computer game ports even source ports?
If it was a Japanese system like NEC PC-6001 or MSX probably. Western games like Boulder Dash likely not.

>>8158679
Metal Gear on the NES was an approximation of the MSX, and wound up being drastically different.

>>8158687
It was an UNROM cart and I believe there were certain graphical effects from the MSX they couldn't replicate due to that.

>>8158694
Chiefly they didn't have enough graphics data for the eponymous Metal Gear and instead replaced it with a computer with repetitive tiles. I guess they must've ran out of graphics data, I assume mmc1 could let you swap in the page necessary for the Metal Gear.

>>8158714
I'd think the fact that the MSX used a 512k ROM and the NES port was 128k might be a reason for it.

>>8158735
Christ, they really cheaped out on that. Guess they thought it wasn't worth the effort.

the Famicom port was done in only 3 months IIRC

anyone familiar with some of the better double dragon openbor projects? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmhXiIfF4os&t=124s it's a pretty damn sophisticated hack,, full of new moves and complex combos. that made me think it could be very cool to have a game that matches that complexity to a metroidvania type of game .

>>8115726
Crash 2: Cortex Strikes Back but ported on the Sega Saturn.

>>8160347
I like the way you think.

>>8119407
I did, it's a super niche title and I'm the only one interested in it

>>8119407
Lack of time and skill.

>learning genesis dev
>having a good time with the ASM aspect of it
>figuring out how hardware communicates with each other
>need some graphics to work with
>start getting into Genesis graphics
>try using palettes for GIMP to force proper colors
>all "totally working" palettes cause GIMP to shit itself with errors
>they don't even resemble the palettes that came with GIMP
>check Genesis dev wiki
>no programs
>check spritesmind wiki
>all graphics programs are out of date or otherwise worthless
>most tile and graphical software is geared for NES/SNES dev or barely any useful features
I was having a good time up until I touched graphics, now I wanna punch a hole in my screen. Unless someone can point me to some actual useful tools for Genesis graphics, I'm just going to make what I need in raw fucking hex and deal with it. All I wanna do is take some paintings and convert them into the Genesis's 9-bit RGB colors without them turning into a psychedelic shitshow. Do I really need to pirate a copy of photoshop to do this simple task?

>>8115726
8-bit/16-bit Katamari Damacy.

>>8161919
Paint.net has a palette plugin, all you'd need to do is change the 16x4 palette to a Sega Genesis compatible, and then run it from there. Then maybe you could convert it with GIMP or something idk.
Here's the plugin.
https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/111468-recolor-using-palette/
You may need to make your own palette.

>>8161941
Was worth a shot, but doesn't seem to let me specify a palette, just drops down to 96 colors, well short of what the Genesis is capable of. Piskel won't allow a palette of 512 colors, much less the 1,536 you can get using the shadow/highlight effect. GIMP took a shit trying to make a palette out of the picture with all available colors on the Genesis. I'm hitting a brick wall here.

>>8162006
Really? It's 16x6, not 16x4? God my memory is fucking going out.
Anyways, it should be more than enough for sprites. Infact, the normal limit, without any coding tricks, is 61 colors on screen at once. With shadows and highlights, that doubles for background, but... still probably not necessary.

>>8162006
Also, you need to first pick a color slot, and then define a new color. You could do that with a color picker, or if you have hex values for all the colors, you could click on one of the 96 color slots, and input the hex value using the more option.
Like I said though, on average you're probably going to be using a bit less than 96 colors, so there's nothing wrong with just creating a specific palette for that part of the game, modifying it as need be.
Just remember to SAVE the color palette.

>>8162006
Oh wait a minute I forgot I just had photoshop on this computer. Give me the files and I'll just do it with photoshop.

>>8162028
The paintings are specifically for backgrounds, and it's gonna be a rather static RPG, so I'm not too worried about lagging it down with h interrupt triggered palette changes. Also, shadow/highlight triples the amount of possible colors, if just darker or lighter versions of the normal ones. Normally changing out the palette on backgrounds wouldn't be too useful, but a number of the paintings I have tend to shift colors after a certain point horizontally, so it could actually be of use here. Any other recommendations for graphics programs?

>>8162054
So photoshop is going to be the way to go on this then? I had the feeling, but I was hoping there was something else I could use to make things quicker.

>>8162062
No, unfortunately. Paint.net is my main driver when making things.
Hypothetically, if you wanna get complex, you could do a very specific process. First, should split the image into how ever many times you plan to use the h interrupt. From there, you can split the highlights and shadows by using a 3 color palette. Just stick a copy of the image section on another layer, and then run the palette change to shift them into pure black for shadows, gray for regular, and white for highlights. After that, magic wand the top layer, cut the bottom layer, and paste it into a blank document to the side. Then, just find a good set of colors you think will work, create a palette, and do the palette shift.
Lots of manual work, and tedious, but it probably offers exactly what you're looking for. Of course, not easily, but still...
As for >>8162065, I don't know. I just have photoshop, and you mentioned photoshop being an option, so I could just do whatever you wanted me to do in photoshop. It's available 6 PM to 12 AM to me.