Introducing the VeriSNES (FPGA-based SNES)

jwdonal · Post by **jwdonal** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 4:04 pm

Steddyman wrote:This looks fantastic. I too have the DE-115. Would you be willing to share the binary image for testing?

Possibly. I will likely need play testers to find bugs for me. There are just way too many games to test and play through every single one of them. But that wouldn't be until after I finished the entire design and done my own final bug testing - which is still a ways out. At a minimum I'm going to do 100% play-throughs of SMW, SM, and LoZ. I'll probably throw a few others in there as well. My standard regression testing will be MUCH easier once I add Game Genie support, but I promised myself I wouldn't work on any other accessories/peripherals until the core system is done - I tend to fall down rabbit holes when I start working on miscellaneous feature additions. XD

Steddyman · Post by **Steddyman** » Mon Jun 05, 2017 10:11 pm

Ok great. Just let me know when you are ready.

syboxez · Post by **syboxez** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 1:47 pm

jwdonal wrote:Possibly. I will likely need play testers to find bugs for me. There are just way too many games to test and play through every single one of them. But that wouldn't be until after I finished the entire design and done my own final bug testing - which is still a ways out. At a minimum I'm going to do 100% play-throughs of SMW, SM, and LoZ. I'll probably throw a few others in there as well. My standard regression testing will be MUCH easier once I add Game Genie support, but I promised myself I wouldn't work on any other accessories/peripherals until the core system is done - I tend to fall down rabbit holes when I start working on miscellaneous feature additions. XD

Could you not add a cartridge port and use a real Game Genie/Pro Action Replay/SD2SNES?

MottZilla · Post by **MottZilla** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:27 pm

Or just apply the Game Genie codes to the ROM images.

jwdonal · Post by **jwdonal** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:33 pm

syboxez wrote:Could you not add a cartridge port and use a real Game Genie/Pro Action Replay/SD2SNES?

Sure, but that would require my making a custom board first. Right now I'm developing on a COTS board.

MottZilla wrote:Or just apply the Game Genie codes to the ROM images.

Yes, I did that once. It was a little annoying/tedious to do by hand (especially if you want several codes enabled) so I stopped doing it. It would be cool if there was a utility that did it for you.

UPDATE: I just checked and it seems like these utilities already exist.

I'll look into this more...not sure if there is a standard (i.e. most popular) one that most people use for patching SNES ROMs?

Optiroc · Post by **Optiroc** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 1:34 am

jwdonal wrote:UPDATE: I just checked and it seems like these utilities already exist. I'll look into this more...not sure if there is a standard (i.e. most popular) one that most people use for patching SNES ROMs?

Historically IPS was the dominant format and I'm sure there's still new translations/hacks released as IPS only.

XDelta and BPS have certainly gained traction in the last decade or so, and I'm sure you can find patches in UPS and PPF format if you dig around enough...

thefox · Post by **thefox** » Wed Jun 07, 2017 5:43 am

jwdonal wrote:UPDATE: I just checked and it seems like these utilities already exist. I'll look into this more...not sure if there is a standard (i.e. most popular) one that most people use for patching SNES ROMs?

Dunno about standard, but uCON64 (http://ucon64.sourceforge.net/) did the job for me when I needed to permanently apply a Game Genie code.

jwdonal · Post by **jwdonal** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 2:53 pm

Hello all! I've got another graphics progress update for you! This time I demonstrate windowing and color math!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf54GwhjYkw

Enjoy!

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 5:16 pm

Now you're playing ~~with power~~ the way it's meant to be played™

Here are some things I noticed:
- Demon's Crest has a nice effect here
- F-Zero and SMK show transparent digits
- Turrican 2 has some nice effects (level transition, laser)
- SMW 1 and 2 have nice windowing effects for the keys

jwdonal · Post by **jwdonal** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 2:17 am

Thanks for the tips! I'll write these down for future reference. Here are some thoughts:

creaothceann wrote:- Demon's Crest has a nice effect here

WOW!! O.o The title animation sequence is a beautiful demonstration of color math. I wish I had known about it before I made the video!

creaothceann wrote:- F-Zero and SMK show transparent digits

I can't play SMK yet since it requires DSP-1.

creaothceann wrote:- SMW 1 and 2 have nice windowing effects for the keys

I can't play SMW2 yet because it requires SuperFX.

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 4:17 am

Chrono Trigger also has a nice effect where it seamlessly fades a layer from opaque to transparent.

That game uses a lot of tricks...

jwdonal · Post by **jwdonal** » Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:59 pm

Hello all!

Here's my latest progress video. This one demonstrates the mosaicing feature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHWNQMhp0zM

Enjoy!

AWJ · Post by **AWJ** » Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:11 pm

Here's something I've always wondered about mosaic and meant to write a test program for but never got around to it: does each BG layer have its own mosaic counter, or are they all tied together? IIRC the bsnes 'accuracy' and 'compatibility' PPU implementations disagree with each other on this, and I guess no games depend on it.

Here's what I mean: Set up the clip windows so that BG1 is visible on the left half of the screen and BG2 on the right half of the screen. Using HDMA, disable mosaic at the top of the frame, enable it for BG1 on scanline n, and enable it for BG2 on scanline n+1 (without changing the mosaic size, and leaving BG1 mosaic enabled). Do the two layers' mosaic blocks line up vertically, or are they offset from each other?

MottZilla · Post by **MottZilla** » Wed Jul 05, 2017 2:49 pm

Since apparently SNES consoles are known to have CPU failures, have you considered using your work to use a FPGA as a CPU replacement? Obviously a whole system replacement is great too, but I was just curious if you think a CPU replacement working with the rest of the original hardware is a possibility.

Some info:
http://projectvb.com/nss/logs.htm

Erockbrox · Post by **Erockbrox** » Wed Jul 05, 2017 4:33 pm

Will this have SA-1 support or Super FX support?

nesdev.com

Introducing the VeriSNES (FPGA-based SNES)

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