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DeveloperX
202192397


Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 1626
Location: Decatur, IL, USA

PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:01 am    Post subject: [quote]

LordGalbalan wrote:
Were you able to get that interaction system I wrote translated?

honestly dont have a clue what you are referring to. sorry, life has been a bitch lately.
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DeveloperX
202192397


Joined: 04 May 2003
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Location: Decatur, IL, USA

PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:10 am    Post subject: [quote]

RuneLancer wrote:
Out of curiousity, what do you mean by "work with" these systems? I highly doubt you've done any serious assembly code without being able to use bit operations, because they constitute the near entirety of a game's code. ;)

The only processors I can lay claim to knowing are the 65816 and its predecessor. While I've touched briefly on the others, I wouldn't know enough to write my own interpretor for any of them (which is the point where I consider knowing a system well enough to lay claim to, well, knowing it. :P) Aside from knowing what the mnemonics stand for, the key to understanding these chipsets is to understanding how the processor flags are affected by operations. Then the rest is pretty easy to deal with. Your newfound knowhow with bitwise operations will most certainly help there.

Most games on these platforms use bitwise operations to pack data into as little space as possible. FF3, for instance, stores its configuration menu settings in just a few bytes. The battle speed is packed in 4 bits along with a few other settings (such as wether the battle is active or wait), all in just one byte. Good luck figuring out what certain ram offsets contain when you're confronted with a dozen bitshifts and ORs. :)

Colors are where you have to play the most with bits. The SNES runs in 15bpp. Extracting the RGB components can be pretty hairy. If you have access to a dump of FF3's code, check the routines at C1:FC99 and C1:FD00. They add and subtract from the individual R, G, and B components of the color set in the accumulator. Best example I've ever seen of manipulating colors on an SNES.

Good luck. There's no better way to program than with low, low, low-level code. :D


"working with" as in, I am finding as much information, and tutorials that I can on each platform, and I am attempting to port a concept across each of them as a learning experience.
I have done some serious assembly coding before, however I am quite out of practice, and I have forgotten alot of things.
Bit operations were not something that I messed with much, other than blindly copying code in my younger years (7-11 years old)
I did not know how the code I used worked, I just knew THAT it worked, and what I had to do to get it to work. :D

So far I have found the GBA to be the easiest to dev for,
however, the NES is coming up as a close second.
Anyone notice that NESticle emulator has an abundance of tools for modifying/extracting data in nes roms?
I did. :D
I modified my rom of Metal Gear....you wouldnt recognize the game now.
all new sprites, new palette, new maps..only thing that is the same is the events ( no clue where to mod those) and the menu system...
anyway...
I have found a way to pack my entire level data into a single 16bit variable. :)
I can now have an array of 16bit integers to define every level of my game.

the game is a 100-level prison-based puzzle game....
more on that another time,
its 4am.
and I'm having trouble seeing the screen now.,
goodnight.
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RuneLancer
Mage


Joined: 17 Jun 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:03 pm    Post subject: [quote]

Hehe, believe me, I know all about ROM hacking. If you need ANY kind of information on the SNES's processor and hardware, I'm your bible. ;) I've recently gotten a site up for ROM hacking, focusing on FF3 and a hack I'm producing (http://www.geocities.com/thefirstsaga/) I haven't gotten a chance to test it with Firefox yet and forgot to include a doctype (I was internetless at home and don't use firefox) so that might cause some problems, but now that I'm back online I should have no problems fixing them within the coming days. Still not a whole lot of stuff as I only started the site recently.

I'd say the SNES is funnest to dev for, but I'm heavily biased (the above should be good enough proof ;) ) It's basically an NES (which you should be familiar with) but better: more addressing modes, new instructions, the ability to work with 16 bit values... VERY sweet stuff. There's even an NES emulation mode that almost perfectly mimics the NES's chipset (6508 I think?) though not its hardware.

Low-level languages and cartridge-based console programming, that's just heavenly. :D Glad to see someone else doing it.
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DeveloperX
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Joined: 04 May 2003
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Location: Decatur, IL, USA

PostPosted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:13 pm    Post subject: [quote]

RuneLancer wrote:
Hehe, believe me, I know all about ROM hacking. If you need ANY kind of information on the SNES's processor and hardware, I'm your bible. ;) I've recently gotten a site up for ROM hacking, focusing on FF3 and a hack I'm producing (http://www.geocities.com/thefirstsaga/) I haven't gotten a chance to test it with Firefox yet and forgot to include a doctype (I was internetless at home and don't use firefox) so that might cause some problems, but now that I'm back online I should have no problems fixing them within the coming days. Still not a whole lot of stuff as I only started the site recently.

I'd say the SNES is funnest to dev for, but I'm heavily biased (the above should be good enough proof ;) ) It's basically an NES (which you should be familiar with) but better: more addressing modes, new instructions, the ability to work with 16 bit values... VERY sweet stuff. There's even an NES emulation mode that almost perfectly mimics the NES's chipset (6508 I think?) though not its hardware.

Low-level languages and cartridge-based console programming, that's just heavenly. :D Glad to see someone else doing it.


interesting lil site you have.
it works in opera just fine. (I use Opera v8.0..and dont flame me for that. its my choice..I hate firefox and dont get me started on msie)

I may be contacting you about various things regarding SNES dev in the future. :)
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DrunkenCoder
Demon Hunter


Joined: 29 May 2002
Posts: 559

PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 11:43 am    Post subject: [quote]

Quote:

interesting lil site you have.
it works in opera just fine. (I use Opera v8.0..and dont flame me for that. its my choice..I hate firefox and dont get me started on msie)

Opera 8.5 is banner free now... and I love it!
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DeveloperX
202192397


Joined: 04 May 2003
Posts: 1626
Location: Decatur, IL, USA

PostPosted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 2:51 pm    Post subject: [quote]

DrunkenCoder wrote:

Opera 8.5 is banner free now... and I love it!

I registered back when I get version 6.0, so I have no banners anyway. :D

I _would_ upgrade opera...but I've heavily customized this version, and moving these changes to the new version would take waaay too long.
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