NES (on PCE) emulator

[Bernie]

Got the game today.  Uploaded the ISO for ya Bonknuts and PMd ya the link.  Gonna be sending the artwork to Sparky for scanning.  Fired it up and played level 1 a little bit.  The title screen does say MegaMan...  The disc and art look REALLY nice.  One thing I found weird, and dont quite understand, is that the game consists of two ISO files...  

[CrackTiger]

Got the game today.  Uploaded the ISO for ya Bonknuts and PMd ya the link.  Gonna be sending the artwork to Sparky for scanning.  Fired it up and played level 1 a little bit.  The title screen does say MegaMan...  The disc and art look REALLY nice.  One thing I found weird, and dont quite understand, is that the game consists of two ISO files...   

If you're planning on physically mailing your game to Sparky, I can save you the trouble as the game is already on its way to me and I plan on completely scanning in both Mega Man and SFZ at 300dpi and hosting the files on my webspace for everyone.

[TurboXray]

Got the game today.  Uploaded the ISO for ya Bonknuts and PMd ya the link.  Gonna be sending the artwork to Sparky for scanning.  Fired it up and played level 1 a little bit.  The title screen does say MegaMan...  The disc and art look REALLY nice.  One thing I found weird, and dont quite understand, is that the game consists of two ISO files...   

Awesome and much thanks

  I checked it out and it's 0.97 CD build from Feb 2011 (did a binary compare to my different builds). I forgot that I made it two tracks. There's a function in system card where you can setup a redundant track in case the first track fails to read (it's supposed to be automatic process from what I understand. That's why you see CD games with a duplicate data track at the end for two data track setups), but I actually never setup it up in the boot code, so it's kind of useless having two tracks.

[JapanTokei]

Berns, is the CD disc actual professional quality press or was it a CDR? 

Got the game today.  Uploaded the ISO for ya Bonknuts and PMd ya the link.  Gonna be sending the artwork to Sparky for scanning.  Fired it up and played level 1 a little bit.  The title screen does say MegaMan...  The disc and art look REALLY nice.  One thing I found weird, and dont quite understand, is that the game consists of two ISO files...   

[Bernie]

Its a CDR, however you cannot really tell.  Ive never seen CDRs like this.  It literally looks like a pressed disc.  The disc art is fantastic, and actually part of the disc, not some sticker overlay. The underside of the disc looks JUST like a pressed disc.  Its really nice, very nice actually.  These were certainly not  home burnt discs, and done in a professional manner.

[TurboXray]

Yeah, they are supposedly Sony DADC cd-rs. They're specially made and there are places that will professionally burn stuff on them for you, for compatibility with old(er) embedded CDrom systems and such (basically like the old turbo CD and such). There's not just a regular old CDr. Good for very small production runs where you don't want to spend $1000+ on a minimum press order.

[esteban]

You know, Megaman and other NES games that I've done aren't exactly a secret. I've posted about it on multiple forums over the years and it really didn't generate much interest from what I could tell outside of small handful of people. But I continued to work on tweaking the emulation such on Megaman... because that's my baby. I did it for myself. I play and have played the crap out of MM on my PCE/SGX/Duo system. I mean, all this originally started out as 'hey, look what you can do on the PCE' sort of thing. But it turned into something for myself. I.e. it became a real project instead of just a 'demo' per se. Megaman 1 holds a special place in my memories because besides SMB, it was the first game I had when I bought the NES for myself. I spent that whole summer non stop playing MM, SMB, and Zelda 1.

 Anyway, so this MM 'project' has been around for a couple of years. I don't know why it's getting more attention now. Is it because people thought it was a real unreleased beta for the SCD (my blog is getting a lot of traffic for it. Forums, google, etc)? I have Megaman 2 in the works, all prep'd up, and could probably have it up and running within a week (with probably some minor glitches that would have to be worked out in the emulation core. It always works that way. A new game, more emulation support on the back end). I guess I'm subconsciously holding it for ransom or whatever >_>. I dunno. It does irritate me that a lot of the past responses about MM 1 have been, 'mm1 is ok, but mm2 would be great' - etc. I actually do want to upgrade Megaman 1. If I did do Megaman 2, I don't think it needs any upgrading. And, like nat said, other than novelty - what's the point of playing it on the PCE when you can just play it on NES or the Megaman collection for whatever system? I think that holds true for a lot of people (myself excluded though).

I think there are a bunch of factors that determine the extent to which a project gains an audience. I will admit that, until recently, I generally did not spend much time examining emulation/homebrew topics. I read about "NES on PCE", but I never did anything beyond reading/commenting. Simply put, due to limited time, I prioritized the games immediately (physically) in front of me and I didn't have time to consider anything else. I said to myself, "Later, in the future, I'll check out the NES on PCE stuff."

Without sustained support (folks playing and commenting and actively promoting), I can see awareness of a project fade away into the ether.

Next, we have the general lack of love for Mega Man (relative to, say, MM2). Sad, but true. I say, "Do not release MM2 until later!" because you (we) need to foster and nurture some love for MM1.

For the record, the prospect of "upgrading" MM1 with enhanced graphics and music is thrilling.

[BigusSchmuck]

You know, Megaman and other NES games that I've done aren't exactly a secret. I've posted about it on multiple forums over the years and it really didn't generate much interest from what I could tell outside of small handful of people. But I continued to work on tweaking the emulation such on Megaman... because that's my baby. I did it for myself. I play and have played the crap out of MM on my PCE/SGX/Duo system. I mean, all this originally started out as 'hey, look what you can do on the PCE' sort of thing. But it turned into something for myself. I.e. it became a real project instead of just a 'demo' per se. Megaman 1 holds a special place in my memories because besides SMB, it was the first game I had when I bought the NES for myself. I spent that whole summer non stop playing MM, SMB, and Zelda 1.

 Anyway, so this MM 'project' has been around for a couple of years. I don't know why it's getting more attention now. Is it because people thought it was a real unreleased beta for the SCD (my blog is getting a lot of traffic for it. Forums, google, etc)? I have Megaman 2 in the works, all prep'd up, and could probably have it up and running within a week (with probably some minor glitches that would have to be worked out in the emulation core. It always works that way. A new game, more emulation support on the back end). I guess I'm subconsciously holding it for ransom or whatever >_>. I dunno. It does irritate me that a lot of the past responses about MM 1 have been, 'mm1 is ok, but mm2 would be great' - etc. I actually do want to upgrade Megaman 1. If I did do Megaman 2, I don't think it needs any upgrading. And, like nat said, other than novelty - what's the point of playing it on the PCE when you can just play it on NES or the Megaman collection for whatever system? I think that holds true for a lot of people (myself excluded though).

I think there are a bunch of factors that determine the extent to which a project gains an audience. I will admit that, until recently, I generally did not spend much time examining emulation/homebrew topics. I read about "NES on PCE", but I never did anything beyond reading/commenting. Simply put, due to limited time, I prioritized the games immediately (physically) in front of me and I didn't have time to consider anything else. I said to myself, "Later, in the future, I'll check out the NES on PCE stuff."

Without sustained support (folks playing and commenting and actively promoting), I can see awareness of a project fade away into the ether.

Next, we have the general lack of love for Mega Man (relative to, say, MM2). Sad, but true. I say, "Do not release MM2 until later!" because you (we) need to foster and nurture some love for MM1.

For the record, the prospect of "upgrading" MM1 with enhanced graphics and music is thrilling.

I agree, the psp remake didn't do it enough justice, we really need something like this to get the pce/tg16 homebrewn scene kicking. I for one, would love to see a remake of 1-3 like they did for the megadrive, but super cd style with cutscenes for the robot intros oh my! Or wackier yet, do a Punchout! clone featuring the characters from the bonk series and call it Bonked!

[ccovell]

Onto another topic, have you thought of ways to add extra colours to tiles in a natural way?

For example, for BGs you have an additional 12 colours available to be used.  You could fill them with a preset palette that you choose so all tiles can use the extra colours at any time.  However, for re-used tiles (think SMB1 clouds are also bushes), re-touching tiles with preset colours doesn't work when they're used multiple times with different palettes.

Another option is to interpolate the extra 12 colours from each 4-entry NES palette.

ex:


A routine to mix the extra colours from the base 4 shouldn't be too tough...
Also, when the game changes palettes, the relationships between all the colours stays logical:


Just an idea...  never mind the gaudy over-colouring of my sprite example.

[esteban]

I wouldn't say "gaudy", Chris, I'd say "enthusiastic"  .

Everything you present is tasteful* and extremely polished, but of course you know that already.




* excepting the Tongueman plushie. 

[KnightWarrior]

Here I would like on the Turbo

3 Castlevania Games
3 Ninja Gaiden Games
3 Double Dragon Game

[Arkhan Asylum]

so you only need 2 more of each.

[esteban]

so you only need 2 more of each.

Ha!

Here I would like on the Turbo

3 Castlevania Games
3 Ninja Gaiden Games
3 Double Dragon Game

May I humbly suggest that you...

[CrackTiger]

Here I would like on the Turbo

3 Castlevania Games
3 Ninja Gaiden Games
3 Double Dragon Game

You can download Castlevania 1 NES for TG-16 here-

http://pcedev.wordpress.com/downloads-and-links/