Support and General Use > Plugins/Viewers

NES plugin - a proposal

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Multimedia Mike:

--- Quote from: LambdaCalculus379 on August 06, 2007, 01:39:59 PM ---I actually have noticed that some of the mapper info/data is a bit outdated. For example, the game Fire Emblem is said to be using a mapper known as MMC4, and from what I have gleamed from my research, is about the only known game to use this mapper. It's listed as MMC2 on this list.
--- End quote ---

There was only one game to use MMC2-- (Mike Tyson's) Punch-Out!!. I remember that the programming specs for MMC4 were practically identical to MMC2. According to the TuxNES feature list ( http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/features.php ), another game called Family War also used MMC4. Perusing the TuxNES source, it looks like the same code handled both MMC2 and MMC4.

There is precedent for this type of hardware redundancy. Look up Startropics 1 & 2. They are both listed as MMC3 games. As you can see from the actual hardware ( http://multimedia.cx/nesgallery/hkrom.jpg ), it is actually MMC6B, which seems to function, for all intents and purposes, as MMC3.


--- Quote from: LambdaCalculus379 on August 06, 2007, 01:39:59 PM ---Also, there's one other game that'll be a major pain in the keister: Konami's Lagrange Point, since it contains Konami's VRC7 chip, as well as a Yamaha YM2413 FM chip onboard for enhanced music. A problem, to be sure.

Other than that, it's a very good starting point for mapper information, but we'll all need to keep hunting down those last few games that aren't listed on here.
--- End quote ---

I urge you to keep your eyes on the prize here. If you want to impress people with the ability to play NES games on an iPod, stick to the biggies: SMB1/2/3, Mega Man 1..6, Ninja Gaiden 1/2/3, Castlevania 1 & 2 (leave 3 for later), and those types of games. Japan-only NES games are famous for using all manner of odd mappers. Focus on those later. Much later.

But for the technically curious, check out the mapper database ( http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/mappers/mappers.html ) at Kevtris' site (arguably the hardest of the hardcore NES hackers).

LambdaCalculus:
Very good insight, Mike. Back to the books I go...  :)

And I'm bookmarking Kevtris' site as well. This guy's got a LOT of serious info on hand!

ComposerDude:
GodEater on Rockboy:
--- Quote from: GodEater on July 08, 2007, 02:34:18 PM ---Most of the current devs wish we'd never implemented it in the first place to be honest, and those that like it in a "it makes Rockbox look cool" kind of way still have no plans to work on it's code. So the only way it's going to get changed is if the people who actually use it make those changes themselves.
--- End quote ---

Since I'm attempting porting another emulator to Rockbox, and I DO use Rockboy on a regular basis, I have a couple of questions:

MultimediaMike: Seeing some similarity betwixt the NES and the Gameboy, might it be good practice for me to attempt some work patching Rockboy before writing a full-scale port?

Llorean or other devs: Is there any one person regularly commiting to Rockboy? Would the devs appreciate some more time spent on it on by someone with interest?

Another small announcement is that I have school starting in about 2 weeks. It's a Computer and Information Systems major, so time could get scarce for me. Thankfully, I haven't committed to any dates as to WHEN the NES plugin will be ready. Like I like to say, that's kind of a 'once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away' for me. Slowly, but surely, fellow travelers :).

ComposerDude

Llorean:
The devs always love anyone willing to spend time working on any part of the code. Rockboy is a thorn more or less because "nobody is interested in maintaining it, as the core functionality is often both more interesting and more important, but users are more interested in games as often as not" so it generates a high support load that often must be answered with "Nobody is working on it right now." So, yeah, if someone did any work, it'd be great. I believe kkurbjun (Karl Kurbjun) is the developer who's done the most work on it in the semi-recent past, but I wouldn't qualify it as regularly committing necessarily.

midgey:

--- Quote from: ComposerDude ---MultimediaMike: Seeing some similarity betwixt the NES and the Gameboy, might it be good practice for me to attempt some work patching Rockboy before writing a full-scale port?
--- End quote ---

If you've never writing any code using the Rockbox API, it will probably be helpful to take a look at other plugins. You may want to see how Rockboy implements its own malloc and how it uses the audio buffer to store the ROM. A lot of Rockboy is very similar to gnuboy, hence it being a port. Give a look to rockboy.c, sys_rockbox.c, and rbsound.c to see the custom rewritten code for Rockbox.

In regards to submitting patches for Rockboy, it's always welcome! I think the only ones that have done any work on Rockboy in the past year or so have been Karl Kurbjun and myself. I believe Karl understands the core emulation a bit better than me; I've only done things like custom palettes, RTC support, and adapting the scaling code to work on smaller screened targets (e.g. H10, Nano). Recently I've rewritten the LCD code to be more unified between color and greyscale targets and added greyscale iPod support (FS#7546, testers are needed!)

If you're looking to work on Rockboy, you could attempt to port iBoy's COP support or their custom dynamic translator and assembler cpu core. Additionally, any speed optimizations would be nice and I'm sure there are plenty of useful options and features that we are missing.

I'm glad to see someone is taking a serious interest in porting an NES emulator to Rockbox! I believe I'd be willing to help out where I can assuming I find time away from my current project (shh... it's a secret ;) ) Good luck with porting and feel free to visit in IRC.

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