Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

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DRW
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Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by DRW »

Today, I saw that the game "Soccer" runs at merely 30 fps, having a lag after every frame.
And I always wondered why this game is so slow.

When I set the emulator to a speed of 200 %, it plays quite decently.

So, my question: Would it be possible to hack the game to work at 60 fps?
Is there really so much going on in the game logic that they couldn't fit it all into one frame?

I mean, sure, you have to calculate a bunch of characters, but it's the same with "Ice Hockey", and that game doesn't lag.
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nesrocks
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by nesrocks »

This has been done with a few games. Ghosts'n Goblins and Super Pitfall comes to mind. In my case, it took several months to understand the game's code, but I was learning assembly at the same time.
For such a simple game as soccer it may be very simple.
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dougeff
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by dougeff »

You don't have to change much.

If it plays better at 200%, perhaps just doubling the speed of every object would be enough. Like, if they move 1 pixel per 1 game frame (2 actual frames), have them move 2 pixels.
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tokumaru
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by tokumaru »

That won't make animations smoother though, if the game really updates the screen at 30Hz. In fact it will probably look choppier, since more ground will be covered without you seeing.
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DRW
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by DRW »

dougeff wrote:If it plays better at 200%, perhaps just doubling the speed of every object would be enough.
But isn't there the danger that this will throw off the game logic?

And yeah, what tokumaru said as well: Now you have one frame where the character does nothing and one frame where he walks twice the distance. I doubt this is visually appealing.


Is there a disassembly of the game somehwere?
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DRW
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by DRW »

If somebody would be able to do this, hacking "Soccer" into a 60 fps game: What do you want to have for it? How much would I have to pay you, so that you create this hack?
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Fiskbit
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by Fiskbit »

I glanced at this a little and it looks like the game isn't lagging, but is actually programmed to do different work on even and odd frames. For 60 FPS, the diverging code paths would have to be unified and possibly optimized to avoid lagging.
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DRW
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by DRW »

Interesting.

Can you see how many percent of the total available time for game logic each of the two branches needs?

If both branches need, for example, 90 % of the available time, it should be pretty hard top increase the speed.
But if both only need 51 %, then it might be possible to optimize them, so that they only require 50 % or less, so that both branches can be processed in every frame.
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tokumaru
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by tokumaru »

Maybe that's just me, but I wouldn't feel comfortable "optimizing" someone else's game, specially without proper source code. You'd have to get to know the engine really well in order to know what can and can't be changed in order to not introduce bugs all over the place. Also, I doubt there are many trivial optimizations just waiting to be made, otherwise the original programmers would probably already have made them.

Then again, I'm not much of a hacker... I absolutely hate meddling with code I didn't write or don't fully understand.
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by koitsu »

Sounds to me like a romhacking job, in which case, you should ask folks who do exactly that. Not sure which of their boards is more relevant, but:

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?board=15.0
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?board=4.0

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DRW
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by DRW »

Thanks. I wrote a post there. Let's see if someone answers.
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DRW
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by DRW »

O.k., my chance to find a ROM hacker has declined immensely:

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=6734.0
Hack requests and ideas belong here.
Translation requests should be directed here.

Any requests outside of these areas will be deleted, and you will be warned. This includes offering money or other incentives for others to do the work for you.

Thank you for your cooperation.
You know where the link leads to? Not a sub forum, oh no. A single 270 pages long thread.
Yeah, I'm sure that's the right place to ask for a specific ROM hack work. A single post buried deep into a huge generic thread. :roll:

What are these people even thinking? A single thread? Seriously?
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by Sumez »

Maybe they are getting so flooded with random people that come in and ask for hacks that the only way to handle it was to throw them into a thread to keep it from taking over the entire list of active topics?

If someone is interested in picking it up, I'm sure you'll get a response from the thread. If no one is interested in doing a hack for you, they won't be looking in the thread anyway.
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DRW
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by DRW »

Sumez wrote:Maybe they are getting so flooded with random people that come in and ask for hacks that the only way to handle it was to throw them into a thread to keep it from taking over the entire list of active topics?
Erm, sub forum maybe? "Hacks and translation requests"?
Sumez wrote:If someone is interested in picking it up, I'm sure you'll get a response from the thread.
Because every active member always reads the entirety of that thread? Wall of text is suddenly not an issue anymore?
A named thread list would have no advantage over a single thread that lumps requests and meta discussion into one linear stream of posts?
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Re: Doubling the speed in "Soccer"

Post by tepples »

DRW wrote:
Sumez wrote:Maybe they are getting so flooded with random people that come in and ask for hacks that the only way to handle it was to throw them into a thread to keep it from taking over the entire list of active topics?
Erm, sub forum maybe? "Hacks and translation requests"?
It looks like a workaround for forum software that does not support subforums.
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