Assembler advice

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casprog
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Joined: Fri Oct 28, 2016 12:37 pm

Assembler advice

Post by casprog »

Hi all,

I'm looking to start creating more complex projects now that I've completed two NROM games.

I started out like many others following the Nerdy Nights tutorial, which is amazing!, and thus started with NESASM 3. My fear is that if I move on to more complex constructs such as bank switching, I may find syntax weird or have more difficulties when help is needed? (irrational?) So I started playing around with ASM6.

Tonight I created a basic program using ASM6 and honestly didn't find the transition difficult. Is ASM6 still very popular in this scene or have most moved on to other assemblers? What is generally recommended for someone moving on from basics and started late in the game?

Thanks,
Last edited by casprog on Sat Oct 06, 2018 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
zzo38
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Re: Assembler advice

Post by zzo38 »

As far as I know the assemblers commonly used are NESASM, ASM6, and ca65. (There is also my enhanced version of NESASM, although it is probably more confusing than the original and other assemblers when doing advanced stuff, but it is believed to be compatible with NESASM.)
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Banshaku
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Re: Assembler advice

Post by Banshaku »

yes, asm6 is still in use today. As for cc65, if you are someone that is used with tools with makefile and ready to learn how to set the cfg file then it worth it. As a bonus, you can write some part in C too once you know enough about the compiler and remove the unnecessary parts. Didn't want 10 years ago but now I'm more than happy to know how to use it. Very useful for menu and intro parts.
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koitsu
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Re: Assembler advice

Post by koitsu »

asm6 is still heavily used. The fork asm6f may interest you (see their readme.txt for changes). Otherwise refer to the wiki for alternate assemblers.
casprog
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Re: Assembler advice

Post by casprog »

Sounds good, think I'll stick with asm6 for my next project.
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samophlange
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Re: Assembler advice

Post by samophlange »

As somebody who is also very new to this hobby, I found the example project for ca65 very helpful. In addition to being a good tour of ca65 basics, it also demonstrates a good method for separating game logic from PPU update code outlined in this wiki article. I was actually able to take my "nerdy nights" pong game and move it into this assembler with minimal effort (ok my old code is still messy but I can fix that!). It's worth a look if you're at the beginning of a new project.
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