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I've found a bug in 240p v.0.08.2:
If you run test on Dendy mode, it detects as "Dendy" (right bottom) until you exit "CPU clock speed test".
Dendy detects as "PAL" after exit this test.

You can repeat this bug on punes\nintendulator\nestopia etc

Thanks. I reproduced the problem in FCEUX SVN, which has support for the Dendy region. The fix is to open src/overclock.s and change all instances of tvSystem to oc_tvSystem if they aren't already. I'll include this fix in the next version.

I downloaded version 1.03 of the test suite for Super NES and plan to incorporate some of its new features.

• When audio is on, manual lag test beeps when A is pressed and flashes when reticles align
  Fixed in forthcoming 0.09.
• New "Audio sync test" designed to be readable on a scope: Black screen with an 8 pixel tall white floor. A 2x2 pixel square travels up from the floor for 60 frames then down, and at 40, 60, 80, and 100 frames, 24x24 pixel squares close in from the sides; the bottom of these is about 20px above the peak of the square's travel. At 120, the screen turns white and a 1000 Hz tone plays for 2 frames. A pauses the sprite or starts the test from the beginning.
  Fixed in forthcoming 0.09.
• Vertical counterpart to "Hill zone scroll test", using kiki.bmp that's sort of reminiscent of Sgt. Helmet Training Day by The Mojon Twins
  First off, where does this image come from?

The vertical scroll test would require size-optimizing a bunch of things to free ROM space if I want to keep it under 48K for BNROM/UNROM dual compatibility. Currently the ROM is using 47475 of 49152 bytes.

0.09 (2016-06-26)

• CPU clock speed no longer changes "Dendy" in main menu to "PAL" (reported by Eugene.S)
• Manual lag: Audio on by default, and when enabled, beeps for A Button presses and flashes when reticles align (parity with SNES test 1.03)
• Added Audio sync test: Press A to make the dot bounce and beep when it hits the floor (parity with SNES test 1.03)
• There's another change. Blink and you'll miss it.

Egg on face.

0.10 (2016-07-13)

• Fixed Gray ramp, which was inadvertently broken during rearrangement to fit Audio sync test (reported by Artemio)
• Linearity: Help mentions PAL PAR
• Stills: Refactored check for help page to save code size
• IRE: Treats Up as Right and Down as Left for convenience

There's about 1.5K of usable free space left in the 48K of the ROM that I'm using (UNROM banks 0, 1, and 3). In order to add the vertical scroll test, I'd need to break into the 16K that I've so far been intentionally leaving blank. This means either dropping BNROM support or adding trampolines to get in and out of bank 0. I've done trampolines before (Haunted: Halloween '85 and Action 53); I just need to get my head in the right direction.

I'd also need a new tile set. Artemio made the current vertical scroll background by arranging tiles from one of the Pocky and Rocky games in a map editor.


kiki.bmp (Super NES) (256x512)

The 240p test suite for NES uses vertical mirroring. I plan to make it appear as 256x480 by using sprite 0 to trigger a switch to the other nametable. So to add this test, I'll need to remove a couple rows of tiles from the path. I also need different tiles that look good on NES and don't resemble Pocky and Rocky too closely.

Unless you know of someone who really needs BNROM support, I'd just drop it. UNROM is like 25% of the NES library(?), and BNROM is maybe like 0.015% (one game). If someone can afford a 64kB ROM but not a 128kB one with duplicate banks for a test cart, they've probably got bigger things to worry about (yeah I know BNROM is 28-pin socket, but any newer boards are 32-pin).

Really cool test ROM!

I think the idea of BNROM is that it's one wire different from AxROM, to allow use of common Rare games (oxymoron?) as donors.

So I drew some similar tiles and arranged them similarly to Artemio's map. Does this look any good?

After some fairly straightforward size optimizations, I found just enough free space to add an 80% complete version of the vertical scroll test. The lanterns/TVs aren't in, but I'm not sure how critical they are.

0.11 (2016-07-16)

• Refactored OAM upload and scrolling to top left to save code size
• CPU clock speed: Rearranged alignment-sensitive code to save size
• Stopwatch: Uses metasprite drawing routine from Shadow sprite
• Hill zone scroll test: Left and Right both toggle direction
• Added vertical scrolling test (parity with SNES test 1.03)

This palette is jarring. I don't think the luminosity of the orange and green are far enough apart to deliver good contrast.

The original 240p test suite for Sega Genesis / Mega Drive prominently features borrowed artwork - almost exclusively. Including art from KiKi KaiKai is not going to introduce an actual problem.

How could the palette be improved given the lack of desaturated oranges in the NES palette?


Again, I don't want to be the one they make an example of. This goes double if I want this to qualify for the third compo, as NESHomebrew suggested. After Square bought up Enix and Taito, it started to go full Disney on amateur derivatives, especially of a Chrono Trigger homage. It suddenly pulled the Kiki Kaikai license from the developer of Heavenly Guardian/Legend of Sayuki, and the game suffered for it.

In version 0.11, getting too many "exact" hits in the manual lag test causes it to freeze with a white screen (though I can still press B to exit it).

_________________
Quietust, QMT Productions
P.S. If you don't get this note, let me know and I'll write you another.

Reproduced: result screen wasn't resetting the background color since 0.09. Will be fixed next version. Thank you for the problem report.

Note to self: retrorgb requested support for a Nintendo on a black-and-white TV. I just checked, and the only ones that might be hard to read in B&W are Stopwatch and Hill zone scroll test.

Through private messages, retrorgb and I figured out what was going on.

When a Hi-Def NES board is active, the composite output of the PPU is white for sprite pixels and black for background pixels. (This is combined with the 4-bit "slave" pixel output to form a 5-bit index into CGRAM.) The lag from composite to HDMI output is 2 ms or less, as the Hi-Def NES board's 32-line circular buffer can't hold more than 2 ms of pixels. We can exploit this to measure the whole system's lag down to the millisecond: connect the HDMI out to the TV being tested and the composite out to a dumb composite CRT SDTV, count scanlines of difference, and divide by 15.7.

I can break this into three feature requests for Stopwatch:

• Draw both digits of "frame" with sprites instead of background tiles, so they show up in white on the composite output. The ones place of frames already shows up on the composite output as the "clock hand" at the bottom, but the tens place doesn't. I was worried about a scaler adding exactly 10 fields of lag.
• Draw a castellated (notched) strip of sprites down the right side of the screen to allow counting scanlines by inspection.
• Ensure that the shades of blue and red for the clock face appear distinct even in grayscale, to allow use of an NTSC NES with PAL TVs that can view a 262-line (PAL60 or PAL-M) signal.

I'll keep you posted on whether I can squeeze them in, or whether I have to go jump on a trampoline.

Here's a video demonstrating the issue. I usually prefer to use a DSLR to get a clearer picture, but this should be decent: https://youtu.be/E525KsUh_VQ