NES plugin - a proposal

[LambdaCalculus]

Funny that one would think a game as simple as Super Mario Bros. would be so profoundly complex to emulate.

To everyone who thinks that we can pull an emulator out of our butts: do you see what Multimedia Mike just wrote? There is a LOT of a work that must be put into an emulator to get it to accurately emulate the device in question. Don't go assuming that "oh, it's an NES, that should be easy" is the truth.

ComposerDude, Multimedia Mike, and myself are researching as much as we can and should. This is going to take some time, and I know I said it before, but just to remind the kiddies:

Good cooking takes time. If you are made to wait, it is to serve you better, and to please you. --Menu of Restaurant Antoine, New Orleans

[ComposerDude]

LambdaCalculus379: I found a nice little list of the technical specs for the NES which should be helpful in using keywords in our search for relevant documantation. The hardware specs have been written to the wiki, fellow travellers.

Hope springs from well waters of ... something. anyway.
ComposerDude

[LambdaCalculus]

I just added a direct link to the main page of the NesDevWiki. Maybe a few of the devs would be interested?

Shall I put on a fresh pot of coffee while we continue to research the NES, ComposerDude?  

[ComposerDude]

Oh, yes! Do please, LambdaCalculus379.

[LambdaCalculus]

Some register address information posted to the wiki, along with more CPU information.

And here's a cup of coffee for that long night of research.

While I'm at it, I went over my notes again, and have come to the conclusion that certain periphrials like the NES Zapper and the Power Pad will not be easy to implement on a DAP, so we can let those fall to the bit bucket.

Multimedia Mike brought up a very good point earlier about mapper support. We should start with the more popular ones (MMC1/2/3), before worrying about the more complex ones (MMC5/VRC6/et. al.).

[attachment deleted by admin for age]

[ComposerDude]

Indeed, Mr. Calculus. I was looking over FCEU code, and nofrendo. nofrendo seems to have some mapper support issues that would make it more difficult to implement into our code. I think our best bet would to be to go with porting the mapper support from FCEU. I am still trying to figure out what to do about our 6502 emulation. Both FCEU and nofrendo have their merits and are commented relatively nicely. FCEU has some 'extra' stuff in it's code that may or may not effect how easily we can port it. At this point, here is my road map to success (Self-help books suck :

1. Port 6502 code into TuxNES and fix dependencies until it runs.
2. Remove all unnecessary code/features.
3. Port or add mapper support.
4. Optimise code.
5. Begin porting and optimising for Rockbox.
6. Cosider maybe succombing to the teeming masses with features and more mappers. Maybe (Mua-ha-ha!)

I see at least a year ahead of me. (Imagines grey hairs and shudders)

I think I'll go now.
ComposerDude

[brarei200]

ddi you start porting it yet. Or still talking about porting it. Just wondering. i might know someone you knows this stuff and might help you. i doubt it though. he's really busy latly. thanks

[LambdaCalculus]

brarei200, I posted this request several times during this thread, and I just posted it at the beginning of this page. But since you obviously didn't read it, I'll remind you again:

Please do NOT ask about the porting progress. In case you also haven't read, ComposerDude and I are still students, and we're going to be rather swamped in the coming weeks. We're going to work on this in our SPARE TIME.

Please do not ask again unless you're either a developer, or willing to help us along.

[ComposerDude]

brarei200: For you, and anyone else interested in progress, please check our wiki page. We welcome any technical help and discussion on the forum, and probably positive reinforcement, but as far as progress goes, the wiki is a sure deal. Thanks, brarei200.

LambdaCalculus379: I'm betting our research is over, man. What do you think? I think we should note something on the wiki, or maybe do more C reading...

[brarei200]

Thanks. I am as to a student! I'm just asking if you started. I wanted to know because my cousin wants to help!! Im not telling him the site now cuz of you!! jk he's not interested lol

[stateq2]

I'm also a student, and I'm very interested in this project.  I'm a senior computer science major, and I have a pretty good background in programming (C, Unix, etc).  The more people we have helping w/ the research/implementation, the faster it will develop...and I've been wanting to get into emulation development, so this seem like a good occasion.  I'll be looking into this and helping as much as I can.

[LambdaCalculus]

ComposerDude: Still reading my C books. I have the source for TuxNES, Rockbox, FCE Ultra, and Nofrendo in my laptop, and I'm reading through them when I have some chances during lunch breaks or spare time. It's a bit of a slow process since I haven't done anything C related in nearly 15 years.

If you want to share a little information with me, feel free to PM me.

[stateq2]

I've been looking at the tuxnes source (0.70), and it looks like the biggest tasks are the recompiler (table.x86, x86.S), and definitely the graphics and input parts (x11.c).  This is obviously speculation though.

[Febs]

Thanks. I am as to a student! I'm just asking if you started. I wanted to know because my cousin wants to help!!

How is that not asking for progress?

Im not telling him the site now cuz of you!! jk he's not interested lol

Please follow our posting guidelines, which require the use of proper English.

[ComposerDude]

stateq2: Thanks alot for any help you have! If you've read the whole thread (haha!) you've seen that both LambdaCalculus379 and I are refamiliarizing ourselves with C. Hence, advanced help would be appreciated . It has actually taken me weeks to figure out what we're actually doing, and most of what we've done so far has been posted to the PluginTuxNES wiki. If you could hop on to IRC and ask for write permission to Twiki, we would love to read what you've got!

Again, thanks man.
ComposerDude