Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Discuss emulation of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom.

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mkwong98
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by mkwong98 »

GGuy wrote:It probably would be better to come up with our own animation system in a traditional sense with multiple images per sheets that it scrolls through.
Yes, I think the best way to do that is to define our own animation data.

I thought about this function before as tepples suggested something similar earlier in this topic.

The minimal implementation is to define the animation as a sequence of replacement sprites and how many frames each sprite lasts. We also need to define how many idle frames the animation can have before the emulator considers the animation as not in use and resets it.

There are some problems which I can think of:
1. All occurrences of the same animation on the screen will display the same sprite. This can be a problem if there are multiple enemies on the screen and their actions do not sync with each other.
2. The animation always run at the same speed even when the game uses slow motion.
3. The animation always run forward, so if the game repeats sprites backward (eg. ABCCBA) to display a swinging motion then the added frames in the animation will not link up correctly(A1A2-B1B2-C1C2-C1C2-B1B2-A1A2 instead of A1A2-B1B2-C1C2-C2C1-B2B1-A2A1).
4. When the same sprite is use at more than one situation, the the same animation will be shown regardless of the situation.

I think this is an important function which addresses one of the 5 main limitations of NES graphics (number of colours we can use, range of colours we can choose from, the screen resolution, number of animation frames we can fit inside a bank and number of sprites we can have on screen) and I may add this to the emulator in the future. But to do this I think I need to redesign the GUI as it is getting cluttered.
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Xenobond
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by Xenobond »

This is really cool guys. I am no programmer by a long shot, but had something like this in mind for some time. I started doing my own mockups a few months ago just to let some of what I had been wanting to do out onto paper/photoshop. My first mockup was from Zelda.
Zelda Test Mockup
Zelda Test Mockup
Following that by Mega Man III. Since MM3 uses a currently supported mapper, I plugged in what I had so far from the Spark Man stage followed by recreating the logo and some text.
Spark Man 00
Spark Man 00
MM3 Logo
MM3 Logo
I look forward to the continued development of hdNES. Keep on rocking!
**things I'd like to see**
- controller support
- cheat codes (help with dumping and testing)
tepples
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by tepples »

Perhaps someone should start a new NES Graphics thread for 32x32 pixel fonts for use with HDNes.
Tygerbug
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by Tygerbug »

Looking good, Xenobond! I'm sure you could do some very good work in HDNes. I like the font you used on the Mega Man 3 title screen as well.

Mega Man is a good one to experiment on, as a full set of sprites for Mega Man himself would obviously be of use in all the games.

That's part of why I was working on Mario. Should get back to that when I can.
mkwong98
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by mkwong98 »

Xenobond wrote: I look forward to the continued development of hdNES. Keep on rocking!
**things I'd like to see**
- controller support
- cheat codes (help with dumping and testing)
Good work, Xenobond!
Controller support is not on my high priority list, so I'm afraid you have to use joytokey for the time being.
What kind of cheat code features are you looking for? The audio pack feature can be used for cheat codes too.

tepples wrote:Perhaps someone should start a new NES Graphics thread for 32x32 pixel fonts for use with HDNes.
That will be very useful. I want one for Japanese too, just in case I need to work on Japanese only games.
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GGuy
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by GGuy »

I've started work on a font pack. It will include all of the default NES colors. Hiragana, Katakana, and English letters. Also special characters such as the copyright symbol and trademark symbol. It should be done within a week.

Edit 1:
Ok here is a quick and dirty 4x font pack for anyone that wants it. I'm thinking of standardizing the layout to match the unicode character table but it's a bit time consuming. Anyways hope this helps!
[Link Removed]


Edit 2: Old link removed.
Last edited by GGuy on Wed Nov 05, 2014 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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GGuy
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by GGuy »

I just noticed a really strange bug today while testing 4x. I'm running Windows Technical Preview so it might be different for others but when you have your mouse over the game window the emulator slows down. When the mouse is not over the window but somewhere else like the desktop the emulator runs without slowdown. It's quite odd.
mkwong98
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by mkwong98 »

GGuy wrote:Ok here is a quick and dirty 4x font pack for anyone that wants it. I'm thinking of standardizing the layout to match the unicode character table but it's a bit time consuming. Anyways hope this helps!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5aZT1 ... sp=sharing
Nice! Are you going make another set with the lower case letters for English games?
GGuy wrote:I just noticed a really strange bug today while testing 4x. I'm running Windows Technical Preview so it might be different for others but when you have your mouse over the game window the emulator slows down. When the mouse is not over the window but somewhere else like the desktop the emulator runs without slowdown. It's quite odd.
Thanks for telling me.
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GGuy
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by GGuy »

mkwong98 wrote:Nice! Are you going make another set with the lower case letters for English games?
Yes I'm working on a "standard" set right now that includes a lot of missing things.
mkwong98 wrote:Thanks for telling me.
No problem. :D

Edit 1: The font pack is done!
It includes all of the standard NES palette colors, English and Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana) sheets at 4x.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5aZT1 ... sp=sharing


Edit 2: New gradient pack!
Blue (Dark).png
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5aZT1 ... sp=sharing


Edit 3: Gold font.
gold-example.png
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5aZT1 ... sp=sharing
Last edited by GGuy on Sat Nov 08, 2014 9:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
mkwong98
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by mkwong98 »

Wow, very good! Thank you very much!
mkwong98
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by mkwong98 »

Update 2014-11-18:
1. Changed the caption of the game window to HDNes.
2. Enabled the window close button.
3. Added an option to change the rate of continuous screen capture.
4. Removed the mouse the cursor from the game window.


GGuy, Please check if the slow down problem still exists. Thanks.
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GGuy
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by GGuy »

mkwong98 wrote:GGuy, Please check if the slow down problem still exists. Thanks.
Yes the problem is still there. Fraps reports an drop of 10-20 FPS when the mouse cursor is over the game window (even though it's no longer being drawn). It dips more when the mouse is moved around within the window. It's easy to see the slowdown in Zelda 1 when the text is scrolling during the title screen opening showing all the items.
Sik
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by Sik »

Probably the problem is handing mouse events, not drawing the mouse.
mkwong98
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by mkwong98 »

26-12-2014
1. Disabled a few events which are not in use.
2. Changed the naming of the screen shots so that sorting by name will list them in chronological order.
evgeny
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Re: Please try my NES emulator HDNes

Post by evgeny »

Graphic pack for "Nuts & Milk (J).nes"
Nuts & Milk (J).zip
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