Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Discuss emulation of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom.

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Do we need to add Nametable Address Detection for the recent FCEUX or Nintendulator?

Poll ended at Thu May 12, 2016 4:55 am

Yes
2
29%
No
5
71%
 
Total votes: 7

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Hamtaro126
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Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Hamtaro126 »

I'm saying this because there is an old unofficial fork of Nintendulator in rveach's old website... still up to this day,

Here is the special version's source and binary links:

http://rveach.romhack.org/Nintendulator ... or0967.rar
http://rveach.romhack.org/Nintendulator ... 967src.rar

As usual, Use 7Zip to open them.

This version includes a way to detect Nametable addresses in ROM (using the Nametable Viewer), and I think it is useful if used in a updated emulator!

You have 10 days till the tally is final, fellow NES Hackers and Developers, Make it count!
AKA SmilyMZX/AtariHacker.
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Bregalad
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Bregalad »

What's the point of this poll? Adding an useful feature is always good isn't it?

I however do not understand the question at all.
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Zepper
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Zepper »

Bregalad wrote:What's the point of this poll? Adding an useful feature is always good isn't it?

I however do not understand the question at all.
Uh... it's a memory search/scan for the nametable data inside the PRG ROM data.
I could do that, Hamtaro... but too bad you don't look at my emu. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :oops:
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tokumaru
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by tokumaru »

Is this a feature request disguised as a poll? How does this even work, considering the many possible ways name table data can be compressed, and that it may very well go through RAM before being written to VRAM?
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rainwarrior
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by rainwarrior »

Between how often this would be likely to work? Don't most games compress nametables? I've heard about uncompressed ones in FDS games, or ports of FDS games since they could load directly to the PPU.

For the times it would work, this problem doesn't sound any different than searching for any particular string in a hex editor. How much do you need to do this that a specialized tool is useful? O_o
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Hamtaro126
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Hamtaro126 »

Zepper wrote:I could do that, Hamtaro... but too bad you don't look at my emu. :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :oops:
I'll see your emulator RockNES to see if anything like this is intact.

Edit- Nope, But it's a good emulator!
tokumaru wrote:Is this a feature request disguised as a poll?
I was going to ask the people over at FCEUX team's sourceforge page after the poll, if that's what you're asking. Otherwise, It's not actually a request to NESDEV, rather it's a measure of (re)assurance
AKA SmilyMZX/AtariHacker.
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tokumaru
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by tokumaru »

Well, I'm not exactly opposed to the inclusion of such a feature, but I can't say I'd find it useful either. If a name table is stored in the ROM in a straightforward enough way that an emulator can find/track, it shouldn't take a person more than 1 minute to find it using the currently available debugging features. However, I imagine that, most of the time, name tables are NOT stored in a straightforward way, due to compression and all kinds of run time manipulations.
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koitsu
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by koitsu »

FWIW, I have the same questions (and for me: strongly bordering on reservations) that rainwarrior and tokumaru do. And honestly, it sounds painful to implement reliably.
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oRBIT2002
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by oRBIT2002 »

My old "NESExplorer" tool can detect certain Nintendo-compressed nametable-data in PRG-ROM's (well, titlescreens/cutscenes mostly). Works pretty good in many cases:
http://nes.goondocks.se/software.php
Attachments
Screenshot from "NES Explorer"
Screenshot from "NES Explorer"
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Hamtaro126
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Hamtaro126 »

Umm... Orbit2002, I should've told you this, that your method does not implent the function to increment by 32 if bit 7 is enabled in the length part of Nintendo's PPU format!
AKA SmilyMZX/AtariHacker.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by rainwarrior »

Ah, so you're not testing for uncompressed nametables, but instead for a specific proprietary format? I dunno, this seems like a "one time use" kinda feature. If you found all the nametables in that small set of game and just documented their addresses on some romhacking wiki nobody would really need the tool anymore.

Like, you could make some sort of "konami music editor" extension to an emulator, for example, and it'd be perfectly useful for the few people that want to do that, but it seems like a very specific task, not something that would really need to go in the main branch of a project. Easy enough to share the special fork with the couple of people who can use it.
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Hamtaro126
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Hamtaro126 »

That's not what I am talking about rainwarrior, All I was saying to Orbit2002 was that his application does not support something properly, which is actually semi-off topic, and is a bit relevant but not enough to warrant being completely on topic.
AKA SmilyMZX/AtariHacker.
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Zepper
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Zepper »

Hamtaro126 wrote:That's not what I am talking about rainwarrior, All I was saying to Orbit2002 was that his application does not support something properly, which is actually semi-off topic, and is a bit relevant but not enough to warrant being completely on topic.
Please, tell me more. It's becoming interesting... ^_^;; It's not just looking for a nametable buffer inside the PRG ROM data, right? What compression method (or similar) do you want to do?
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Hamtaro126
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Hamtaro126 »

This is not always about compression, This is about detecting the position of the nametable data via emulator so people can debug or romhack nametable graphics easily...

Obviosly people are not staying on topic, so please don't derail!
AKA SmilyMZX/AtariHacker.
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Zepper
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Re: Poll: Adding Nametable-to-ROM Address Detection

Post by Zepper »

Hamtaro126 wrote:This is not always about compression, This is about detecting the position of the nametable data via emulator so people can debug or romhack nametable graphics easily...

Obviosly people are not staying on topic, so please don't derail!
Oh, I though you really had some interest in such implementation in an emulator... Sorry.
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