nesdev.com

SMWCentral users think the limits of the SMW engine are the limits of the Super NES because no comparable engine is available to them. No comparable engine has been created because an original engine needs original artwork, level designs, etc. as a demonstration. (These are things that Wizards of the Coast's Open Game License refers to as "Product Identity" and the industry calls "an IP".) And many who are creating engines along with artwork and level designs are more interested in a low-destructibility, hide-the-grid style of background art than the high-destructibility, embrace-the-grid style of classic Super Mario.

So the PCE uses 7MHz RAM? I don't think I'm understanding this correctly...


That's what I was wondering. They'd probably be one of the most powerful chips used in an embedded system, assuming "fast" ram chips are available for this use. (65816's are still being produced, if I'm not mistaken). Then again, I can't think of a single appliance or whatnot that couldn't get by with a 1MHz Z80.


I know I complain about the SNES a lot, but I really don't know what Nintendo was thinking when they decided they needed a whopping 128KB of RAM, but that it could be slower than the CPU. What do you think it would have cost comparatively for Nintendo to have used 64KB of RAM at 3.58MHz?


The majority of 16 bit instructions on the 65816 only use on extra cycle; the ones that use two are basically all bit shift operations. I don't think x or y being 16 bit makes a difference either, unless you're moving data in and out of them, in which case it's one extra cycle. As such, I didn't find any instructions where there is an extra speed penalty for both a 16 bit accumulator and a 16 bit x and y. (I'm of course basing what I've said of this: https://wiki.superfamicom.org/65816-reference) The 68000 is always going to be significantly better at 32 bit operations other than just moving data, unless you push the 65816 to well over half the frequency of the 68000.


Are you sure it's not that they didn't know the difference?


I can think of 100 games on the SNES that couldn't work on that shitty engine without a complete rewrite.

The way forward would require a new engine, but that would require a new Product Identity. This can be prototyped in a retraux styled PC game using SDL, or it can be prototyped as a total conversion of SMW that replaces all graphics. Are the modders at SMWCentral up to the task of using zero SMW graphics?

Nah, keep the graphics the same, but add a bunch of cool new stuff.

Yes it use 120ns SRAM,else it would have needed 60ns .


Of course a 1mhz Z80 would be very slow, but this processor was intended to be used at 3/3.5 minimum i think, but with slow ram .

If by "the same" you mean "the same as SMW", I was trying to avoid the project getting shut down by Nintendo's legal department, as many of these were.

That's something I've been intending to solve. Nova the Squirrel (and its engine) is a very Mario-like game that's completely free from any actual Mario assets or code, with a level editor that intentionally mimics Lunar Magic's interface (though it could be improved a lot). I could port the engine to SNES eventually, add slopes and vertical scrolling, and design some levels.

As far as original artwork goes, there's tons of "16-bit" style freely usable and Creative Commons game art out there, like Eevee's tileset potluck, or on Open Game Art which I've used for some of my own projects. The tileset potluck is especially good for this because all of the graphics use the same 32-color palette, which I think would make constructing the SNES-sized palettes easier.

The main obstacle is probably backgrounds, as most backgrounds out there probably aren't meant to reuse 8x8 tiles on a grid, and you can't really just fit an entire bitmapped background into VRAM.

If SMWCentral is that toxic, why do you keep going there? "Doctor it hurts when I hit myself"

I don't understand what the deal is with SNES ROM speeds. I'm more familiar with 6502 than 65816, but I didn't think it's that much different, or is it? It's said that you need 120ns ROMs for FastROM, but on the 1.79Mhz NES I use 450ns EPROMs all the time. Then why is 220ns not fast enough for 3.58Mhz SNES?

If AVGN hates shitty games, why does AVGN keep playing shitty games?

Memblers- two reasons come to mind:
1- Because for no good reason, on some significant minority of SNES PCBs, they swapped /OE and /CE

2- I think I remember Byuu saying that he hasn't found a single board that didn't read correctly when operated at 3.6MHz

As I understand it, a 65xx CPU operates in half cycles. The address lines change during phase 1 and are stable during phase 2 (memory access), and the CPU expects data to have stabilized by the end of phase 2. Assuming a master clock of 945/44 = 21.47 MHz:

• NTSC NES CPU spends 4.5 master clocks in phase 1 and 7.5 in phase 2, but the decoder on the Control Deck's mainboard adds another (estimated) 33 ns to calculate /PRGSEL = A15 NAND M2. Thus phase 2 lasts about 316 ns.
• S-CPU accessing fast ROM spends 3 master clocks in phase 1 and 3 in phase 2. Thus phase 2 lasts 139 ns.
• S-CPU accessing slow ROM spends 3 master clocks in phase 1 and 5 in phase 2. Thus phase 2 lasts 233 ns.

Even if byuu has had empirical success at what amounts to overclocking games' PRG ROMs, I imagine Nintendo was relying on the ROM manufacturer's guarantee. A slow ROM may return stable data on time but isn't warranted to across the entire range of supported operating voltages and temperatures, where "warranty" means "if it doesn't, you can sue us and win." Nintendo needed this in order to support its own 90-day warranty that it provided on Game Paks.

Because he makes many thousands of dollars from youtube ad revenue.

That's another thing that I just don't get. Why is it that whenever I make a parody video people don't GET IT? On and off I try making a YouTube series, but every time I get called a crybaby, or a whiner. Everybody on YouTube criticizes SOMETHING.

How did we get to "SMW Central is toxic" exactly?

psychopathicteen linked a thread where he, apropos of nothing, declared "SMW hacking is bogging SNES homebrew down" and started about 5 different utterly pointless arguments about why he doesn't like some of the work people are doing there. What kind of response was warranted? Most people in that thread were IMO extraordinarily polite in response to such an antagonistic attack on their hobby.

If you're a troll who was just trying to make people angry, mission accomplished. If, however, you were somehow well meaning about this and you honestly believe that anything you said in that thread was helpful and should have been received with any kind of praise or thanks, maybe try to realize that it was not and you should probably evaluate your own behaviour if you want to have a better time in that community.