Street Fighter 2 Arcade card project

[TurboXray]

Update: I'm looking for tracer, CDL, and logging support for any PCE emulator that supports the SF2 mapper. The video/sound emulation doesn't even need to be that accurate. FCEUX is open source and could be used as an example (it's what makes hacking NES stuff, and disassembling - pretty awesome). I know of no PCE that supports these features. Mednafen has simple logging, but nothing close to this.

 If you can code in C/C++, but no PCE related stuffs/code, take a look at to see if you can help out in this department (for an open source emulator). Or maybe get some emulator authors to support this. This would help out tremendously.


I'm curious if there was any desire (any real desire, not just 'yeah, that'd be cool') to hack and reconfigure SF2 to the arcade card. What do you guys think?

 If enough knowledge was researched and recorded, the game could be hacked in many ways. Including adding in additional characters, new moves, etc. As stuff gets known/understood, it can evolve into a pseudo source code project as well (similar to the Sonic decode projects, and some for NES as well). The idea works like this; you include binary parts of the original game to be assemble along side new source code. You eventually work your way towards full source code - but that's not entire needed or required. I use this method for a lot of my hacking (Dracula X would be a good example). Stuff can be relocated without actually fully understanding how it works. Just the basics are need. Most games are divided down into subroutines anyway. It's possible to hack or completely replace them, as long as you know what the input parameters are and what the output is supposed to be. It is actually that simple.

 The problem lies with time. While I have the skill, I don't exactly have a lot of free time on my hands. I have other stuff that I'd like to do (both related to pce and coding, and not related). I swear that it seems like that I'm the only person that does any sort of in-depth hacking for PCE. Especially outside of translation hacking. The only thing that comes to memory, is Ccovell's Rtype hack project for the Supergrafx (not sure how far that went). And recently, cabbage's SF2 translation hack.

 Would anyone be interested in working on this as a public community effort (mostly talking about coders/hackers)? Do fighting games on the PCE actually have that big of a fan base? Once it's hacked/reverse engineered to a certain level, it wouldn't even have to be SF2 specific anymore. It could be ~something~ more along the lines of OpenBOR or Mugen (though that makes me cringe a little). The arcade card CD platform would allow for quite a bit of flexibility for graphics and animation. Even SGX support could be added (that would be fairly easy).

 I already have quite a bit of info about the game structure. And it didn't take that long to get that info, either. I have decent experience with writing hooks and relocating code for hacks (needed for hucard and CD translations). But I am not interested in doing something like this alone. It'd be more something along the lines that I could help with; jumping in and out of the project.

 Let me know your opinions. Be brutally honest. If you like the idea, but not the targeted game - don't be afraid to say so. While I'm looking for coder/hacker opinions, anyone's opinion is welcome. The reason I bring this up, is that it's pretty doable. And I have a bit invested in this. I want to see Fragmare's upgraded backgrounds added to the game. But if that's all the comes of this, then so be it. This would be a project that blurs the line between homebrew and hacking (much like the Sonic recompile hacks).


 PS: If you choose the last option, I have no LSD to give you. You're on your own there.

[lord_cack]

Two votes and I will put in my opinion. I am ALWAYS going to fall on the side of original titles. I wanna see some great NEW ideas on my favorite old school platform. 

[TurboXray]

Just a quick update to show off some stuffs:
Street Fighter 2 Bonk's Revenge stage

[roflmao]

That is so awesome I have no words for its awesomeness.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I'd be more interested in a NEW game coming out of this.

It's fucking Street Fighter 2.  There's already about 49023813095 versions of the game.  Who needs another, lol.

[seieienbu]

I think that it'd be an interesting project to take Champion Edition and make hack it into Hyperfighting.

[Tatsujin]

no shoryuken?

great demo mal

[esteban]

Let the haters hate.

I'm not even a big fan of this genre and I recognize the creative/fun elements this project brings.

This is the sort of project that I fully endorse.

Of course, I want Bonknuts to abandon all of his real-world responsibilities and dedicate his time and energy to PCE. Since that is (slightly) selfish of me, the best I can do is support projects that seem worthwhile AND feasible.

Lots of folks here focus on the first criterion (is it worthwhile?) whilst seriously discounting the second factor (is it feasible?)

I don't know the trü answer, but my gut tells me that a hacked SFII (or Megaman) is much more likely to see the light of day than ________________ (an original game with unproven stage design, mechanics, replayability, etc.)

I am NOT naysaying original projects. When they are unique they are truly wonderful....but there are so many potential obstacles to these projects (is it feasible?) Unique, original projects (that is, NOT simply putting a new skin on an old action-puzzle game) are very rare, even in the commercial world.

ULTERIOR MOTIVE: Now I can hack the sprites from Strip Fighter II  into a superior engine. MY LIFE'S GOAL MAY BE ACHIEVED.

[CrackTiger]

I'm very interested in any kind of hacks or expansions for PCE SFII'. I'm happy to contribute any kind of graphic work, like "porting" graphics from other games, recoloring, doing original artwork, etc.

[shubibiman]

Super Street Fighter 2 would be great as an ACD game.

[TurboXray]

I wanted to make something a little bit more clear. After reading my original post, is wasn't clear where this project could lead. It can lead into an open source engine fighting engine for the PCE/SGX/CD. That engine would be based on SF2, because this would essentially be: dissassembling the game back into Assembly. And most, if not all, the code would be eventually understood. That would be the final phase of this project. But make no mistake, you wouldn't need to fully reach that phase of the project in order to get SF2 running on the ACD or even to hack in new stuffs/chars/moves/etc.

 The final phase would be akin to Sonic retro project for the Genesis. Or SMB on the NES (for those that don't know, that game is now all source code and can be changed/modified). That's what I mean when I say that it would blur the line between hacking and homebrew. It'll start off as a hack, but as it moves through the phases - it'll become more source code than hack. It's hard to describe this process, if you haven't done this. I do have enough information at this point, that I'm going to make an early PCEAS assembly build of this game.

 I'm gonna keep the 'source code' aspect of this, under wraps. I.e. I'll post here since you can't view this forum without an account. I don't want to get a C&D from capcom. Hacking is one thing, reverse engineering their stuff back into usable source code - is something else entirely.

 Couldn't you just write your own fighting game engine? Sure. But it's not exactly that easy. The proof of the pudding, is in the eating. This would give you a pretty good starting point. Even if you didn't use the code, it would give you a damn good reference of how it's done.

 But back to my original point: Any phase of this project has potential. Whether just want to see SF2 CE with some more colors, running on the ACD, or if you wanted to play SSF2 on ACD. Or you wanted to see a completely new game for the ACD (or hucard) come of this (be it hack or homebrew, or something in between). Etc.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I changed my mind .  I want to see an entire Bonk fighting game.

Just turn the victory signs into bonk smilies, and then force fragmare to make SF2 sized versions of all the cool enemies from Bonk.

Balrog = Punchy Pedro. 

That's your goal.  Do it.

[Xak]

Cool bonk stage

But i'd rather MUGEN it . lol ...or play mame

[TurboXray]

I'm very interested in any kind of hacks or expansions for PCE SFII'. I'm happy to contribute any kind of graphic work, like "porting" graphics from other games, recoloring, doing original artwork, etc.

Very cool. I didn't want to ask for any artist help, yet. But there is something that I wanted to do in the mean time. I'll be needing to make a few support tools for this project, and as doing - people will be able to change tile/sprite/map/etc graphics without any real knowledge of how to code for the PCE. That's one aspect that can be done early on.

I changed my mind .  I want to see an entire Bonk fighting game.

Just turn the victory signs into bonk smilies, and then force fragmare to make SF2 sized versions of all the cool enemies from Bonk.

Balrog = Punchy Pedro.

That's your goal.  Do it.

LOL. Better get Frag on that ;)

Cool bonk stage

But i'd rather MUGEN it . lol ...or play mame

Yeah, Mugen would be a lot easier. But then, it wouldn't a PCE game running on a PCE system.

[shubibiman]

I changed my mind .  I want to see an entire Bonk fighting game.

Great idea!

[Xak]

I'd rather see an entire Bonk fighter too. Its got enough characters.

Make ZONK like Akuma, or you could Ken/Ryu Bonk/Zonk

[PCEngineHell]

Super Street Fighter II Turbo or go home. End of line.

[whisper2053]

Super Street Fighter II Turbo or go home. End of line.

This. I would kill for this on the PCE. I *know* it can be done w/ an arcade card. And the sheer awesomeness that would be this...holy crap man.

[VestCunt]

I'm not interested in cosmetic hacks or homebrew clones of existing PCE games unless there's a substantial improvement. I AM interested in seeing games hacked that don't already exist on the PCE, like you did with Mega Man. Fixing things that suck is another worthy endeavor (Rover's Golden Axe and Covel's R-Type). Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo would be enough to qualify as a "new" pce game, IMO, as would a Bonk "Tournament Fighters." Anything less would be redundant. The only exception for me would be something that combines Supergrafx and ACD, which I'd love to see a tech demo of someday, no matter how frivolous.

I probably don't have skills to contribute much unless you need audio recording or editing for something.

[PukeSter]

Bonk's Revenge stage made my day.

More important: Will Fragmare ever finish his Fighting Street II hack?

It already looked better the the original.

[CrackTiger]

Bonk's Revenge stage made my day.

More important: Will Fragmare ever finish his Fighting Street II hack?

It already looked better the the original.

He already did. Someone else needs to hack it in.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I too would love to see a Bonk fighting game.  Without revealing a lot, we do have plans on the backburner for some sort of fighter.  I think we were thinking of a mix between King of Fighters(teams) with Smash Bros.  If you did a Bonk fighting game, I might be able to be roped into making new redbook tracks ala Bonk(as you know, I already have some Bonk music experience).  However, I'm not quite at a point where I feel I could tackle that just yet.  I'm still working on JB, & was either going to move on to Dragon Arm right after, or possibly work on a few more tunes for a secret title.

[TurboXray]

Bonk's Revenge stage made my day.

More important: Will Fragmare ever finish his Fighting Street II hack?

It already looked better the the original.

He already did. Someone else needs to hack it in.

It's on its way.

[NightWolve]

This is the sort of project that I fully endorse.

Of course, I want Bonknuts to abandon all of his real-world responsibilities and dedicate his time and energy to PCE. Since that is (slightly) selfish of me, the best I can do is support projects that seem worthwhile AND feasible.
...
ULTERIOR MOTIVE: Now I can hack the sprites from Strip Fighter II  into a superior engine. MY LIFE'S GOAL MAY BE ACHIEVED.

^ Why I like reading your posts.

[Nando]

+1

keep the scene alive.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

I lack the skills to lend a hand, but I'd gladly (in ascending order of awesomeness) play/purchase an improved SFII', a port of SSFII or any other entertaining vs. fighter, or a new game altogether (Godzilla 2!).

[FraGMarE]

I've already done a ton of work on improving a few of the levels.  I'd be down for helping with pixeling more stuff, if needed. 

[touko]

Cool project, but i would prefer a SGX/PCE + AC version ..

[FraGMarE]

Bonk's Revenge stage made my day.

More important: Will Fragmare ever finish his Fighting Street II hack?

It already looked better the the original.

He already did. Someone else needs to hack it in.

It's on its way.

For real???  :O

[TurboXray]

For real???  :O

You mean the backgrounds and the title screen? Yeah.

 Guess I should add an update. I've isolated all the graphics/sprite/maps/tiles in the rom. For the compressed graphics, I even have all the pointers located and the pointer strings figured out. So relocating them is now possible.

 Samples take up about 256kbyte of the rom. The game code itself, is smaller than 256kbyte. A lot of rom (excluding samples and graphics data), is just tables. I found a 12k table that's just used for the speed translation for linescrolls (and the sprites that are part of the BG layer). Anyway, that's good news, in that the code part will easily fit into the base 256k of CDRAM (arcade card ram isn't for direct code use, but everything else).

 The other good thing, is that there is a nice chunk of free space on the vector bank (mapped to last MPR). This is always static, so I can put my hook call code there. Free space on in the rom has the text "NEC HE", so it's easy to find.

[FraGMarE]

For real???  :O

You mean the backgrounds and the title screen? Yeah.

 Guess I should add an update. I've isolated all the graphics/sprite/maps/tiles in the rom. For the compressed graphics, I even have all the pointers located and the pointer strings figured out. So relocating them is now possible.

 Samples take up about 256kbyte of the rom. The game code itself, is smaller than 256kbyte. A lot of rom (excluding samples and graphics data), is just tables. I found a 12k table that's just used for the speed translation for linescrolls (and the sprites that are part of the BG layer). Anyway, that's good news, in that the code part will easily fit into the base 256k of CDRAM (arcade card ram isn't for direct code use, but everything else).

 The other good thing, is that there is a nice chunk of free space on the vector bank (mapped to last MPR). This is always static, so I can put my hook call code there. Free space on in the rom has the text "NEC HE", so it's easy to find.

Will you release it as an expanded ROM with extra bank or in some other format?  Personally, I like the idea of simply expanding the ROM.  If emulators can't handle it, that's their own damn fault lol

[TurboXray]

Mednafen can handle it via expanded rom, but I want it playable on the real hardware. Two versions; both require turbo everdrive (or capable flash card) - one for SGX (uses extra ram for people that don't have a CD addon) and one for the CD addon (can be old CDROM 2.0 or newer units). That is, until I can hack it further along.

[FraGMarE]

Mednafen can handle it via expanded rom, but I want it playable on the real hardware. Two versions; both require turbo everdrive (or capable flash card) - one for SGX (uses extra ram for people that don't have a CD addon) and one for the CD addon (can be old CDROM 2.0 or newer units). That is, until I can hack it further along.

One for SGX???  The regular PCE can't see the extra 4Mbit on an Everdrive?

Can I make independently scrolling bg planes?  can i?  can i??? 

[TurboXray]

One for SGX???  The regular PCE can't see the extra 4Mbit on an Everdrive?

I need the extra ram, because I'm adding a better compression scheme and decompressor to the game. The Everdrive doesn't support more than 4 banks of the SF2 mapper (doesn't support the full 16 or anything in between). Unless there's something special that Krikzz isn't mentioning, unrelated to the SF2 mapper. Other than the fact that the PCE can actually read from the SD card (albeit slow), nope.

Can I make independently scrolling bg planes?  can i?  can i??? 

Not yet, but hopefully soon ;)

[Supremo_Lagarto]

This sounds like an interesting project. As usual, my technical understanding is inadequate to understand anything that Bonknuts is saying.

However, I would think that a project like this would be best done in phases.

As Street Fighter 2 Turbo has very few changes from Champion Edition, might it be a good target before looking at Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (which has new levels and characters)?

[TurboXray]

I updated the main page. I have a request; see the first post for info.

[KnightWarrior]

I would like to see SF2: Hyper Fighting

[spenoza]

Did BizHawk not have adequate debugging support? I know it has some.

https://code.google.com/p/bizhawk/

[TurboXray]

I tried it out and it does have logging. But no CDL IIRC. And for some reason when logging, the emulation crawls along. I looked at my cores and it's barely taxing my cpu. So I don't what the problem is, but it makes it hard to play the game while logging.

 Maybe we can get the team to add most of the features of FCEUX into it (all the logging features and CDL, as well as fun full speed when doing so).

[FraGMarE]

Bonknuts, maybe you could ask Ryphecha to implement it in Mednafen

[TurboXray]

I've asked for the CDL feature before, but maybe it didn't get noticed. Don't remember about about the logging stuff (mednafen has logging, but it's not like fceux or other trace loggers - snes9x, etc). I've asked for stuff in the past, and donated $50 each time for them. But I'm broke nowadays. $50 won't cover the time it takes to actually write the code for this, but it's something (better than nothing). I haven't talked to her in while, so it's kind of a jerk move to say "Hey! Been a while, btw.. please add blah-blah-blah to mednafen for me".

 Bizhawk might be the way to go (it was the fork of mednafen emu for windows, with gui and recording), since it's geared more towards that. Might be able ask/request for FCEUX features for it. I got a couple of features put in - from a request, before the name change.

[PukeSter]

As Street Fighter 2 Turbo has very few changes from Champion Edition

A major change is that Blanka and E. Honda both have a new air stomp move. That would take some work.

[HercTNT]

Im all for a bonk fighter, this looks fantastic. Super Bonker 2: HSE  Hyper Smiley Edition

 

[FraGMarE]

As Street Fighter 2 Turbo has very few changes from Champion Edition

A major change is that Blanka and E. Honda both have a new air stomp move. That would take some work.

True.  Though don't they just use already existing animation frames?

[Bardoly]

+1

keep the scene alive.

Agreed.

I'm all for keeping the scene alive.

[seieienbu]

To the best of my knowledge, the only new animation in SF2 turbo would be Chun Li's fireball.  That being said, I'd wager that it'd be quite challenging to make a faithful/accurate port

[CrackTiger]

As Street Fighter 2 Turbo has very few changes from Champion Edition

A major change is that Blanka and E. Honda both have a new air stomp move. That would take some work.

True.  Though don't they just use already existing animation frames?

I don't think there's any new graphics at all in Hyper Fighting.

[FraGMarE]

To the best of my knowledge, the only new animation in SF2 turbo would be Chun Li's fireball.  That being said, I'd wager that it'd be quite challenging to make a faithful/accurate port

I think even that might just be a color swap of Dhalsim's fireball.

[seieienbu]

I think even that might just be a color swap of Dhalsim's fireball.

Just looked  into that.  Chun's fireball definitely looks like it  has a unique sprite in nthe game, however it may be made from stacking 'sim fireballs on top of each  other.  Otherwise, it  can always be removed from the say, CPS1 version or something.

[MotherGunner]

"Super/Street Fighter 2 Turbo:  Special PC-Engine Edition"