Super Nintendo/Famicom

[tribal thunder]

It helped me with some rom patch creations.

And they worked!

[slow pumice]

Like I said, can be hit or miss

[void dove]

It's first mistake is going to Reddit

[tough patrol]

chatgpt is just another way to find information. at the end gotta use brain to go through what you just read no matter what the source is.

[lost maple]

it seems to have a funny way of getting things wrong at least half of the time

[tough patrol]

Depends on what you ask, how you ask, who you ask etc.

Fundamentally it’s no different from back in the days people said books were better and dismissed internet sources.

[spiral sigil]

The problem is people take ChatGPT etc at face value without checking sources/references etc.

It's not particularly good for niche hobbies or topics that have a lot of misinformation surrounding them.

[mighty flicker]

Or you know learning actual real life research skills

[woeful mortar]

But I have all these horses

[shadow turtle]

Can someone test this demo on real hardware ?
https://fxtwitter.com/MaxwelOlinda1/status/1743058864356942286

the screenshot of the last unstable core

Maxel (@MaxwelOlinda1)

Isso que vocês estão vendo está rodando no SNES!
︀︀Fiz uma nova demo utilizando o modo de ALTA RESOLUÇÃO do console (512x448 pixels).
︀︀Fiz usando o único modo de background que nenhum jogo oficial usou, o Mode 6!
︀︀Link da demo:
︀︀www.mediafire.com/file/9y6z7mrseqcusxt/Peixe.smc/file

**💬 23 🔁 50 ❤️ 274 👁️ 13.7K **

▶ Play video

FxTwitter · Jan 4, 2024, 11:56 PM

[shadow turtle]

it renders correctly on Ares emulator

[fickle quiver]

Oh, mode 6 with offset-per-tile. Not used by any game, so an understandable oversight.

[slow pumice]

I remember one time I gave it a image I had seen used in memes often and asked it what the source was, it replied that it cannot tell me what the source is or who the characters in it are, but it can describe it to me. I told it to go ahead and describe it... and it described what the source is and who the characters in the image are...

[tribal thunder]

You are so right about the hallucinations.

This conversation started with me showing a couple photos I took in 1994 on July 4th, playing a SF2 game (weeks before Super Street Fighter 2 came out).

Not only did the AI know this, but the convo led the AI down a weird rabbit hole.

To where it finally decided I was playing Super Street Fighter 2 before it came out.

The convo went on like this for quite some time

The AI totally confused

Finally I had to tell it the stage and the game

That it was Sagat's stage in SF2 Turbo

I also once asked it how much a glass desk of mine would hold, and gave it the dimensions

It came up with a ridiculously large number

Which was over the weight of an elephant

Pretty sure the table wouldn't hold over 500 pounds.

[mighty flicker]

Yeah This is a tool built to serve no purpose other than to sell itself to people. It is not actually capable of parsing anything. It is an aggregator that assembles sentences scraped from other people's data based on "likelihood of *sounding * like a relevant answer"
It doesnt actually know anything. It can't actually analyze anything. It just aggregate and builds sentences based on averages

Its why it uses people pleaser language.
Why it is constantly apologizing

[tribal thunder]

Yeah, that's crazy. Seems like it's marketed wrongly. There is nothing intelligent about it. Just mechanical. More an automaton than a droid.

[mighty flicker]

It is designed and programmed to ingratiate itself with you

[mighty flicker]

Its literally just... How do I explain this without sounding like a total crank.
These are just more advanced forms of the customer chatbots you used to see on every website

But they've been marketed as this world changing thing because of a massive multi level marketing scheme being run by Open AI, Microsoft and Nvidia

Basically OpenAi cons people into investing in it by making extremely wild claims

Like Microsoft and Oracle

and Now AMD

The flurry of buzz causes stock to rise

The Investment in OpenAI is then funneled back into Microsoft and Oracle because OpenAI rents compute space from them

Who then invest heavily in NVidia who sell their GPUs to their data centers while also propping up the AI mythos

Nvidia keeps promising AI changes the world
Mega corps invest in AI companies
AI companies buy compute time from MegaCorps
Megacorps buy more NVidia Gpus

But its not stable

40 percent of the US economy is now tied up in this scheme

No AI companies generate any actual revenue, the numbers they claim to need for investment is impossible

The Power needed to run their promised compute space is too large and will take too long to actually produce in time to meet profitability

And the prospected space and power needed will be more than NYC and San Diego combined
When this pops it will plunge the global economy into a massive recession

But then theres the other scarier aspect, which is how many Silicon Valley types are investing in this because of their accelerationist beliefs in Roko's Basilisk, an idiotic concept.

A good portion of silicon valley literally want to invent AI to just... create a god to worship that will free them of responsibility and thought

This is the part that can make me sound like a crank

but I've observed it and its pretty bad

Okay rant done. Apologies @tribal thunder

[upbeat canopy]

matt levine's column today did a good job explaining how ridiculous the market is getting

[mighty flicker]

Yeah

Ed Zitron is also good for tracking this

But yeah

AI video
AI chat

its all a dumb gamble that will basically blow up so bad it will crash entire companies

[slow pumice]

I get it, you hate AI.

I always see people fighting about AI back and fourth everywhere else, just getting tired of the discourse by this point.

[mighty flicker]

Yeah well, someone posted about AI in here, I warned them about the hallucinations. They did tests and was proven right. And I explained as best to my knowledge why this is the way it is, and why its a dangerous gamble that isnt worth it.
shrug

[slow pumice]

Again, seen these arguments everywhere, from both sides. People acting like it's "a god" like you put it, and people that act like it will literally be the worst thing humanity has ever done and raze the lands and send locusts upon villages. Tired of seeing it everywhere any time AI is so much as sneezed about.

People fight over it like heavy sports fans fight over their favorite teams, both have gotten to the point of just hating or loving it for the sake of picking a side at this point.

[woeful mortar]

right but the SNES

it was like the nintendo

but super

in japan they called it doki doki panic

[slow pumice]

No no no, in Japan it was called Mega Drive

I am pretty sure

[woeful mortar]

no one would name something that foolishly

[slow pumice]

They had a system called the Wonderswan

[lost maple]

casio loopy and fm towns marty would like to have a word with you

[slow pumice]

The marty always confused me with it's name

So they had Famicom and we had NES, then they had Super Famicom and we had Super NES.... but then everyone had N64, they never had a Famicom64....

[vast oak]

hot take - the SNES isn’t good

[clever tusk]

https://tenor.com/view/its-really-good-sharon-marsh-south-park-s14e2-scrotie-mcboogerballs-gif-22863666

[woeful mortar]

https://tenor.com/uQbZ.gif

[vast oak]

IT’S AMAZING!!!!

https://tenor.com/view/kermit-windstorm-hellsyeah-crazy-gif-13586104

[last umbra]

||but not as good as the Mega Drive ||

[woeful mortar]

||*Genesis||

[trim lichen]

They took "Ultra" from everyone.

[tribal thunder]

“Ultra 64” such a cooler name

[tawny garden]

the Super Famicom had an extra 2 years in the oven compared to Mega Drive and i don’t see much difference in the gaming output.

and any gap in magic tricks the hardware could pull off has all but vanished due to modern dev tools

[proper quail]

it's more complicated than that

[tawny garden]

i find the hardware bizarre and unimpressive

[proper quail]

SNES having actually samples based audio hardware helps a lot for writing music

[tawny garden]

westerners sure did suck at fm sound programming

[proper quail]

FM synthesis takes a lot of wizardry

Just to make the instruments

[tawny garden]

which means the best part of the SFC, was the sony contribution

which was the gaming equivalent of opening a portal to hell thru which the playstation emerged

[proper quail]

I'm not sure Sony did anything for the SNES audio hardware besides develop the CPU

which they based on the 6502 anyway

[tawny garden]

Ken Kutaragi made the entire sound chip

[proper quail]

oh okay

[tawny garden]

Sony nearly fired him for it

[proper quail]

huh

[tawny garden]

like why you working for free for another company without talking to us first

an odd moment in history

guy just developed a hyperfixation with NES sound and inadvertently conquered the industry

[slow pumice]

https://tenor.com/view/shallow-pedandic-pedantry-pedant-family-guy-gif-26075926

[slate hawk]

Sounds like someone is jealous their cool friends all had SUPAH NINTENDOOOO

Guys we have uh toe jam and earl. And football. - poor Genesis kids, probably

[somber field]

The SNES will always be my favorite game console. I just love the way the games look and sound on the hardware, plus it has some of my favorite games of all time on it. That said, I've also always loved the Genesis/Mega Drive. Not a huge fan of its limited color pallet, but when developers made good use of it and its FM sound, it is pure

[last umbra]

I had a mega drive growing up and not a SNES. Nowadays I find there’s more on the SNES that interests me, and tend to prefer its library. Maybe it’s because I was too young or because we didn’t have that many mega drive games (but loads of master system games), so I don’t have a lot of nostalgia/ties to the mega drive

[spiral sigil]

I think they're both great! It depends on the genre of game you prefer but I think both consoles have fantastic libraries.

The 320px width on the Megadrive is definitely a bonus for platformers and shooters. And despite the limited colour palette, games like Ristar, Dynamite Headdy, Gunstar Heroes etc are some of the most colourful games I've seen for the generation.

[last umbra]

I tend to struggle to know what the heavy hitters are on the Mega Drive tbh. It feels like mega drive games tend to be less discussed nowadays than SNES games - but maybe that’s just my perception

[spiral sigil]

It really depends on what genre you prefer. If you're an RPG fan, that's where the SNES shines but games like Shining Force are fantastic. Thunder Force IV is an incredible shmup with, in my opinion, one of the best sounding soundtracks on the system.

Gunstar Heroes and Contra Hard Corps were great run n guns. I'd recommend a hack or the Japanese version of the latter as they made the western release hard AF.

[lost maple]

i think the JP version of that game came out after the US release no? so if anything it seems like they purposely made the JP version easier

not that i'm complaining, the US version is way too hard for me lol

[spiral sigil]

Oh I'm not even sure about that but, yeah, same I'm terrible at the us version

[lost maple]

i usually enjoy punishing games but having limited continues is a real turn-off for me

[spiral sigil]

I don't understand them with console games

It's even goofier with games that use passwords or save systems

[lost maple]

they did that with castlevania bloodlines. made no sense there either

[spiral sigil]

Yeah I remember streaming it, running out of continues and then needing to watch back a bit of my stream to get the last password.

I think it actually auto fills in the most recent password come to think of it.

Oh but that's also an absolute belter of a game, one of the best Castlevania games imo

[lost maple]

for sure. i usually play the japanese version, vampire killer, since it's more lenient with the continues

it's also a bit easier overall, and you can see the full ending without having to play on expert

[sharp pond]

SNES core when output to OSSC via rgb gave me shit at Line5x, wonder if it's like the dejitter stuff like on og hardware

constant signal loss unless I mess a bit with hlen and shift image to the right

[fierce glade]

build

[shadow turtle]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/commit/6b431c997dcbc30db7eb03769ba29ebd601d2631

[sharp pond]

20250605

[gusty atlas]

Anyone had success playing an English translated Fire Emblem: Archanea Saga (Satellaview)? I can actually get into the Satellaview town and start the game but it will crash fairly early, turn 1 or 2 so far.

I had no idea what Satellaview was before today, blew my mind there was some town gameplay lol.

[gusty atlas]

I think I will update all and try again tomorrow

[cloud stirrup]

can confirm it doesn't crash on bsnes. it does boot you back into the town after the alotted time is over though (like 30-40 minutes?)

[gusty atlas]

For me it crashes as quick as I can end my first turn on mister, even after I ran update all earlier today

[trim thicket]

Can confirm, it crashes on the second turn.

[shadow turtle]

Is this happening with different boises (DRM or not ?)

[trim thicket]

I have only tested with the EN translated BS-X Bios.

[cloud stirrup]

i used the EN translated bios on bsnes too

[shadow turtle]

I will check tomorrow with Japanese drm bios and untranslated bs ROM to see if the issue also happens.

[gusty atlas]

Thanks!

[shadow turtle]

The no-intro Set have two version of 1st week of BS Fire Emblem - Akaneia Senki Hen - Dai-1-wa - Palace Kanraku (Japan) (9-29) (SoundLink) and BS Fire Emblem - Akaneia Senki Hen - Dai-1-wa - Palace Kanraku (Japan) (4-4) (SoundLink), with japanese bios with DRM or NOT, both returns to the town after the message saying it is loading the datas.
So I couldn't test it ...
The 2nd week goes in game but maybe this one doesn't hang with translated version ...
The Satellaview may need some fixes but not sure SRG320 have the device to test it ...

[gusty atlas]

I can get into the actual game on both versions, but it may take more than one attempt. Usually not more than 3 or 4.

[shadow turtle]

I will try again !

is it the same with the translated version ?

I confirmed the issue happens after the 2nd turn player, the game hangs

[gusty atlas]

I've only tried the translated ones

[shadow turtle]

Ok. I have tested both DRM bios jp and none DRM bios jp with JP game and it hangs on each cases

We could opened an issue ticket !

[gusty atlas]

in github? I don't really even know how to do that

[shadow turtle]

I will do it with all informations.

[gusty atlas]

awesome thanks

[shadow turtle]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/433

[cloud stirrup]

if necessary i can test how the translated .bs behaves on hardware (i can flash satellaview memory packs, previously dumped obviously)

[shadow turtle]

yes if you can !

[cloud stirrup]

no problem, i'll try it later today

[reef widget]

Srg320 has a Satellaview?

[last umbra]

If not he can just create one

[shadow turtle]

I don't know

[reef widget]

I wonder how useful him having one could be if he doesn't, or the BIOS is enough

[shadow turtle]

For checking the behaviour on hardware 👍

[reef widget]

I have one but you can't do much more with it than go about the town, not sure if there is a way to load up the dumps raw from a flash cart, I don't think this is but I may be wrong

[cloud stirrup]

you can load .bs files on a FXPAK only

or a real BS-X cart with the memory pack without the need for the satellaview

okay so i was able to play through the unpatched BS Fire Emblem - Akaneia Senki Hen - Dai-1-wa on hardware, didn't crash or anything

i flashed the English patched one several times but BS-X won't see it. i don't if that's a problem with the header or something, or if it's related to the problem on MiSTer.

it displays the memory pack as empty, which i think could happen if the game was corrupted. gonna try adding another game to the same memory pack and see what happens

oh never mind, the Fire Emblem game takes up all 8 blocks, can't add anything else

[shadow turtle]

On Mister the unpatched version hangs also like English patch on 2nd turn of player

[cloud stirrup]

i played the full hour, way more than two turns

[shadow turtle]

Thanks for the check

[cloud stirrup]

no problem, i'll try to see if i can find a way to play the translation there

[shadow turtle]

I have adapted the description of the issue

I have another game that hangs. It is the 1st week of fzero grand prix 2. Could please test on real hardware if you have time ?
On Mister it doesn't pass the screen showing a photo with people (maybe the dev team)

[cloud stirrup]

sure, i'll try it out

[cloud stirrup]

before that, i tried the BS Fire Emblem translation again but this time i used BS Flash Managet to disable "Skip St.GIGA intro" here, just in case, and it actually worked. i guess skipping the intro made BS-X see the game as corrupted? i doubt this is causing the trouble in MiSTer, but it's worth trying i think, if someone wants to give it a shot https://github.com/devinacker/BSFlashManager

can confirm the Fire Emblem translation doesn't crash on hardware either

[shadow turtle]

What does the option mute soundlink radio ? I thought soundlink contents are lost.

[cloud stirrup]

i think that's for muting regular game audio to let soundlink play, if soundlink for that game exists

[shadow turtle]

Is there any SoundLink available ? Because i thought only YouTube video from VHS records existed.
Or maybe just reproduction.

[cloud stirrup]

true, i guess all that "exist" are really reproductions. there are a ton of magazine audios (so regular radio programs) that have been saved but i imagine those were recorded off the air.

i know the people in satellaview+ mute game audio in some games when converting them to .bs, so maybe this option has something to do with that? not really sure. i doubt muting a retail game's background music is as easy as clicking something there.

[shadow turtle]

Ok 👍

[cloud stirrup]

trying F-Zero now. it does get past the photo of the devs but you have to wait a while

it's one of those games timed to soundlink so you have to wait a whole bunch. there's also another screen after that and a demo you can't control

[shadow turtle]

You mean on MiSter?

[cloud stirrup]

i'm trying it on SNES

[shadow turtle]

I waited 30 minutes on Mister but it is not that long

[cloud stirrup]

oh, definitely not that long

[shadow turtle]

So maybe a hangs happens

[cloud stirrup]

worth noting i had to make another change in BS Flash Manager to make my BS-X cartridge see it: i changed "Plays remaining" from 0 to unlimited

come to think of it i also i did that in BS Fire Emblem but didn't think it made a difference

maybe it does make a difference, or maybe putting the rom through BS Flash Manager causes some other change that isn't obvious, i don't know

[shadow turtle]

Thanks for checking fzero 👍

[cloud stirrup]

no problem, let me know if there are any others you wanna check

[shadow turtle]

I wonder if the hangs are linked during the process of soundlink 🤔

[cloud stirrup]

i wish there was a flash cart for satellaview memory packs... reflashing these things feels kinda profane and the preservation people understandably don't like it, since packs that appear empty might actually have data in them

but i dumped this one like 10 times before i started reflashing it just to make sure it was totally empty

[shadow turtle]

@gusty atlas and @cloud stirrup for the issue on BS FireEmblem, Paulb-nl informs what is the root cause of the issue
Those two signals are part of BSX chip

[shadow turtle]

Super Road Blaster MSU1 works again @delicate rivet

[radiant stump]

https://www.reddit.com/r/snes/s/g6oP4W0avd

[woeful mortar]

Can someone with a more discerning eye take a look at this issue. I took a slow mo video of the screen and....maybe there is a lag frame there?...maybe?

In their comparison, the animation seems to end on the same frame. But - again, my eye is not great for things like this

[shadow turtle]

It needs to be compare with real hardware like the video posted on the description of the issue.

[woeful mortar]

yeah, I couldn't tell if my video differed from theirs

[shadow turtle]

The commit seems only related of the reset and loading contents (sdram and ram) so not sure things change for this issue

[somber field]

Oh I wonder if the Infidelity MSU1 ports will work now.

[woeful mortar]

no, i finally just got around to looking at it. I did the testing right before the new unstable

[cloud stirrup]

oh, i wonder if any game that uses PSRAM crashes sooner or later

[somber field]

Tried Infidelity's MSU1 Punch-Out port and has worked so far without issue. Tried booting it up a few times. Booting up other cores then going back to unstable SNES and still worked. Doesn't mean it's fixed yet though since I've had it work before and then bug out again later on. But a solid start with testing it at least.

[delicate rivet]

Saw it!! So does Contra MSU-1!! 😄

[delicate rivet]

They do! 😄

If you haven't tried Contra MSU-1, please do. It's hilarious how Infidelity mixed it with Predator and Rambo film intros... 😄

[somber field]

Contra always worked on my end. But I hadn't tested it in awhile either.

Punch-Out is the only one I ever had bug out on me.

But only sometimes, so I'll have to test it out on and off and see how it goes long term.

[slow pumice]

Seems like Infedelity just updated all of their hacks in the last 24 hours?

[somber field]

Well he just released his TMNT port. Are you sure all of the others were updated along with it?

He didn't make any announcement beyond TMNT.

[slow pumice]

They all have a date of today except for one that was listed as updated yesterday. and when comparing them to teh ones I had from a few months ago so far all of them are of a newer revision

[somber field]

Weird

[slow pumice]

A new one was just updated as I was typing that actually

Ninja Gaiden Triology, I had REV A, it's now at REV B

Some of them jumped from like REV F to REV H

[somber field]

I always wished the version of Ninja Gaiden III on that port wasn't based on the US version. That thing was massacred to combat the rental market.

[slow pumice]

Lots of games were, Castlevania 3 and Contra Hard Corps were also hit hard with that

[last umbra]

Is there a list of games where they butchered the game to prevent people beating it during the rental period?

I’ve heard of a fair few, but it would be good to have it all on one list so I can adjust my collection accordingly

[radiant stump]

Everything Konami made

[slow pumice]

Problem is it would be hard to get confirmation that was the reason

[rain sorrel]

He identified and resolved an incompatibility with all his ports and 3rd party SNES controllers, including BlueRetro. See https://x.com/infidelity_nes/status/1977539157846065182?s=61

infidelity (@infidelity_nes)

Hello everyone! I have a major announcement regarding my ports to the Super Nintendo.

As of 10-12-2025, I've went back and updated ALL 16 of my ports so that 3rd party controllers can function properly with them.

I figured out the Krusty Krab secret formula, to getting all 3rd

X · Oct 13, 2025, 12:57 AM

[elder pewter]

correct, the lag frames in mmx2 is not sdram related, it is cx4 timing. if there is no timing diagram documented then someone needs to capture one with a logic analyzer. doesnt help that there are only 2 games that use it

[shadow turtle]

yes or test rom that could help to show the behaviour

[elder pewter]

indeed

[lost maple]

surprised cx4 timings still aren't known in 2025, though i guess it's only used sparingly in both x2 and x3

is there any software emulator that has correct cx4 timings?

[shadow turtle]

@gusty atlas
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/commit/964fc600f3d04115bad33282a8e0db425f8fde21

[vast oak]

pins updated

[elder pewter]

is that other BSX issue now also solved? chances are root cause was the same

[shadow turtle]

It fixed only BS Fire Emblem.

[shadow turtle]

I redo the test for BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 - Dai-1-shuu (Japan) (SoundLink) and it is fixed I have a counter going down and we can go in game 🙂

[shadow turtle]

Also those two screens are not visible during the loading process, i mention it on the issue ticket

[cloud stirrup]

i do remember seeing those on hardware

[shadow turtle]

i couldn't make it work again soundlink contents are not quite stable ...

[cloud stirrup]

i wonder if checking "mute soundlink audio" would help. as i said i'm not sure what that does so it might be worth trying.

[shadow turtle]

i will try tomorrow 🙂

[gusty atlas]

Thanks for the heads up! Been busy recently.

This is awesome, gonna try it out tonight.

[gusty atlas]

how do I install this one file? not seeing the folder

[elder pewter]

check the unstable nightlies channel here on discord and download the unstable

[gusty atlas]

oh I see the rbf is the core file, thanks

[vast oak]

the pins also always point to the laest unstable

[gusty atlas]

cool and fire emblem working perfectly so far on this new build as far as I can tell

[cloud stirrup]

i'm trying this now on MiSTer with the unstable SNES core. did the counter go down instantly? it seems stuck to me

also, do i need unstable MiSTer too?

unfortunate that BS-X asks you for your name with every different .bs file

[slow pumice]

That's kinda bs

[cloud stirrup]

beyond bs. bs-x

[slow pumice]

Ohh, seems some more SNES games got rumble hacks since last time I cheked

Wonder if it would be possible to adjust the strength of the rumble in the core since it's a bit weak, or if that would break compatibility with SNAC controllers with rumble or is a hard-coded value from the snes or something

[cloud stirrup]

can't find any mention here of the fact that Infidelity's Super Mario Bros. Maker works on MiSTer as of last month: https://x.com/infidelity_nes/status/1834277312084541477

infidelity (@infidelity_nes)

Hello everyone! Looks like my Super Mario Bros. Maker project now works on MiSTer!

Thanks to all involved with that update to the MiSTer, enjoy!

X · Sep 12, 2024, 5:06 PM

i just tested it and now it actually saves levels

theoritically, custom levels could be shared as .srm files (as with custom RPG Maker games)

[radiant stump]

september of 2024?

[cloud stirrup]

oh, d'oh. it wasn't working for me last time i tried it, can't believe it's been that long

[shadow turtle]

It only works two times with last unstable.
When it works the counter tooks time to appear and it decrements

In case of the issue it appears quickly with only 0 and stalls

[cloud stirrup]

unstable SNES or unstable MiSTer? or both?

[shadow turtle]

Just snes unstable

[cloud stirrup]

i tried it a few times and the counter never moved. maybe it needs to be at a specific time

[shadow turtle]

Ok I will try around 6pm CEST (time zone) when it works.

[shadow turtle]

Try again at 6:20 pm CEST and it works so you are right it could available for a period.
I will check if I could find anything regarding period.

[shadow turtle]

yeah after 4 new tests of loading bs file I could have those two screens (1st time 😅 )

[left burrow]

are we getting some more Satellaview functionality on the MiSTer or is this just some game specific testing?

[shadow turtle]

We have on fixed yesterday for BS Fire Emblem and I opened a ticket for BS F-Zero GP 2 week 1 and details things I have on my side.
It may helps to have more consistency.

[shadow turtle]

@elder pewter thank you for the fix 239 => Torneko aspect ratio is fixed on atrac mode 🙂

[velvet steeple]

I've heard recently the NES core has achieved 100% accuracy. How accurate to date is the SNES core and how does it compare with the Analogue Super NT?

[elder pewter]

my pleasure 😄 in hindsight surprised it was already reported a year ago

[slow pumice]

Well, real SNESes are starting to have the clock generator for the sound chip drift slightly out of spec, so that means the SNES core is now 110% accurate.

[gleaming cipher]

Super NT is far from being accurate. Also, the firmware is not being worked on anymore.

[rain sorrel]

Sadly true of all Analogue consoles

[woeful mortar]

I feel like the 3D has been delayed so much that they have already EOLed it

[clever ore]

I love how Analogue allowed custom cores for around one of their consoles and then gave up on the idea

They also basically started the whole FPGA = 100% accurate myth

[somber field]

But I thought FPGA stood for Friggin Perfect Gaming Accuracy. Was I wrong all along!?

[slate hawk]

Analogue cores can never be better than mister cores because even if one is initially eventually it will fall behind since people actually work on mister

[lost maple]

how can you expect analogue to update their older hardware? they're too busy delaying the 3D

[clever ore]

Maybe hire more than one FPGA developer :P

[lost maple]

that would be a good start yes

[cloud stirrup]

an argument for adding satdata support to this core, from Satellaview+ (spoilered because this might be too frightening for some)

[foggy storm]

i think pocky n rocky is still broke on the super NT

[left burrow]

would be nice to have BSX working more like the original.

Also would it be possible to connect a service like Satellaview+?

[cloud stirrup]

satellaview+ works by downloading satdata to a specific folder. as long as you can get those files in the MiSTer, it'd work

[left burrow]

well, the Mister can handle all sorts of folders, is always online if you like. It should work. Honestly, I know that Satellaview+ thingy for a while now. I am just not interested in that on a PC/Emulator. On Mister however it would make absolutely sense. It could even be maintained. It could get MiSTer specific programs and transmissions. We maybe could even run some competitions on it or so.

[cloud stirrup]

it's fairly easy to put together your own satdata with satellawave https://github.com/LuigiBlood/sat_wave this includes games/other programs, NPC dialogue, stores, items, event plazas (meaning a custom building), etc. it's a TON of files but they're pretty small (today's last satellaview+ block was 869 satdata files, for a total of 10 MB).

the big limitation is games can't be over 1MB or have special chips

[left burrow]

This could or should encourage more Dezaemon SFC games 🙂

[cloud stirrup]

i'd love to see that. it's also relatively easy to convert a Dezaemon user save into a standalone satellaview .bs file https://tcrf.net/Notes:Kaite_Tsukutte_Asoberu_Dezaemon

same with RPG Maker Super Dante games (not so with RPG Maker 2 games, which were downloaded via Satellaview but had to played on the actual RPG Maker cart)

[queen nest]

Tough to know for real as far as their SNES core sources are not public 🤔

[shadow turtle]

For Satellaview+, the network could be a blocker. For other computer, the network speed is very low.

[cloud stirrup]

what do you mean by blocker?

[shadow turtle]

For exemple Minimig support 230400 baud for PPP

I don't know what are the requirement for Satellaview+

[cloud stirrup]

it doesn't need to be constantly connected, it just downloads the files containing the current block of games. then when you access a game, you get the "downloading" animation, but the files are actually already downloaded.

[vapid fractal]

Super NT still does things that I have not seen other SNES emulators do, I believe related to PPU timings. Can't believe it's 7 years since I reported this stuff already. https://github.com/SmokeMonsterPacks/Super-NT-Jailbreak/issues/126 https://github.com/SmokeMonsterPacks/Super-NT-Jailbreak/issues/128

[cloud stirrup]

to be clear, this doesn't happen within the SNES emulator, satellaview+ is an external program. it just places the files where the emu will pick them up. if MiSTer supported satdata, i would personally just move the files to the appropriate folder in my network.

[shadow turtle]

I see. Maybe it worth to open an issue (request) ticket with all informations

[vapid fractal]

Checking Pocky and Rocky again noticed a difference from hardware capture on the title screen. The flickering bar of pixles is black on the MiSTer core, white on real hardware capture footage. Would anyone with real hardware be kind enough to confirm?

[shadow turtle]

also there is white sprites around the Y

[vapid fractal]

I don't see anything around the Y on better quality footage which I just found, probably just an old capture being worse quality to what we have now.

Will raise a ticket for the flickering pixels in the games I reported in the Super NT jailbreak github as that stuff doesn't show on the core.

[gleaming cipher]

Don’t even bother. Nobody will fix it. 😌

MiSTer wins again!

Oh wait, you mean the snes core is not showing real hardware behavior? 🤔

[shadow turtle]

The 10/09/2025 09/28/2025, there are some fixes for PPU @vapid fractal maybe it worth to check if somes are fixed.

[vapid fractal]

ok, will give the unstable core a go later.

[vapid fractal]

Checked and no change with the unstable core.

[shadow turtle]

thank you 🙂

[left burrow]

to download and move the files, a script like the update all script could be used.

[gleaming cipher]

Let’s make the snes core accurate again!

[elder pewter]

this glitching behavior is there on latest unstable: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/44230562/47652158-20a6d700-db7d-11e8-8289-4c31cf276078.jpg

[vapid fractal]

I had to take a video and go frame by frame to see the pixel very subtly flickering and yes it is there. But it doesn't look the same as real hardware footage where it's over 3-4 pixels like in the screenshot above and much more obvious to the naked eye.

[elder pewter]

I can't confirm. it looks like only one row of pixels is glitching so looks accurate to me. if you disagree I recommend to complement your bug report with clear details that are easy to understand and validate

that includes real hw captures for comparison

[spiral sigil]

I've got some video from real hardware over RGB

[elder pewter]

please add it if it helps 🙂

[spiral sigil]

Just editing it out now 🙂

[vapid fractal]

More obvious flickering and over more pixles on hardware, thanks for the capture.

[spiral sigil]

I noticed the flicker changes depending on whether you're highlighting start or options

No worries!

I'll upload the uncut thing to an unlisted youtube video

https://youtu.be/fb3dTYzYy5s

[shadow turtle]

Pocky and Rocky japanese version doesn't have any glitch on characters selection screen using the core.

[elder pewter]

I tried the USA version, that one does, albeit very subtle

fun game too btw

[vapid fractal]

I was looking more at the one on the character select compared to core but great to have footage of the title screen and how that changes too, thanks again.

[elder pewter]

@spiral sigil would you like to add the videos to the github ticket or want me to do it?

[spiral sigil]

Feel free to add it, not sure if I remember any of my github details sorry!

I noticed setting the CPU speed to Turbo makes the flicker go away

I don't think that's at all helpful but I thought I'd mention it

[elder pewter]

no prob, can you also share youtube links of the other ones?

[spiral sigil]

The other clips are all from the same video

[vapid fractal]

It does, but again it's such a faint change of pixel colour that you won't see it if you don't film close up then check frame by frame.

Kinda feel guilty for sitting on these issues for so long now, sorry all 🙂

[shadow turtle]

Great to report them 🙂

[reef widget]

Could a DB be made that grabs the required files when the update script is ran? Do these files change frequently?

[elder pewter]

right now this is the progress that is left on the core, glitch replication

for the main components at least, there are some details left open on SA1 and CX4

[shadow turtle]

and better support for Satellaview and bs memories 🙂

[elder pewter]

ah yes plenty of bs left

for those who can understand japanese 😄

[shadow turtle]

I think the core missing save record of satellaview game using bs files.
We can't save record of Super Mario USA - Power Challenge for example. It could explain the issue I opened regarding score page going crazy.
Ares (BSNES) create 3 files (a whole save of the bs file, a bsx file (from the bios : 524.3 kB) and ram file from the bios (32.8 kB) and we can save record of Super Mario USA - Power Challenge.
The core just generate only a sav file sized (32.8 kB) so it is the ram file of ARES (BSNES).

[cloud stirrup]

yeah, I think so. the files change five times a day (which i personally think is overkill... i'd be cool with one daily block of games, but they want to have 5 blocks like the original satellaview)

i'm no expert but just from observation, the way .bs games save is pretty unusual. some generate a .srm file for the .bs itself, while others actually save to the BS-X .srm. for instance, some games can change the amount of money you have in the BS-X town.

on MiSTer, each .bs seems to create a separate .srm every time, hence the town asking for your name every time and not retaining items or money

it would be great to have this solved too: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/247 aside from bsnes-plus, snes9x can now load .bs files on the other memory pack games that aren't BS-X, too

[slow pumice]

I don't 100% remember, but I think this was discussed before and it has something to do with the revision of the SNES? IIRC older revisions didn't have that part flicker but newer ones did (Or did I get that backwards?)

[gleaming cipher]

I have lots of bs memories and I would like to get rid of them

[slow pumice]

Hey, remember that embarrassing thing that happened years ago?

[vast oak]

Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis. When I was dead broke, man, I couldn't picture this.

[elder pewter]

not aware of something like that. was it this game you remember?

[slow pumice]

Yeah, it was specifically about pocky and rocky IIRC

[spiral sigil]

Technically 3CHIP behaviour would be most accurate

My footage was from a recently recapped 3CHIP SFC

[elder pewter]

I found this thread: https://forum.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?166701-Pocky-and-Rocky-Glitch

seems to be much more serious glitching than this bug report

[gleaming cipher]

So the game glitches out more or less depending on the SNES revision/model? I would say the core is in a good place then! MiSTer wins again!

[elder pewter]

😂

[last umbra]

MiSTer always wins

[tribal thunder]

Haha I got more hallucinations again. I have no idea how it could have hallucinated this so... how to say... confidently.

Chat GPT somehow hallucinated that the FX Pro has some kind of "pass through slot" on the top.

It was like, just plug in your cart into the fx pak pro... and I am like... wtf.

[woeful mortar]

Because it's not trained to answer the question. It's trained to respond to the question with what an answer looks like

[tribal thunder]

Haha well that's silly

It eventually figured out (on its own) after I posted a pic of an FX Pak Pro that it was wrong... but didn't apologize.

[lost maple]

"ai is coming for us all"
the ai:

[cloud stirrup]

the plagiarism machine seems to have thrown some answers about the Super UFO Pro 8 in there

[gleaming cipher]

These are all FX Pack Pros anyway, right?

[radiant stump]

I have a friend who uses chat gpt constantly whenever he has a MiSTer question and I'm like holy shit that's the worst idea ever

I generally use it to get a general idea of what to look for on a real search engine and nothing more 😆

Simply because the natural language aspect is helpful for general outline of what I'm looking for

But I did show it a geometry problem at work and it perfectly came up with an equation for calculating what I wanted

[tribal thunder]

It’s so weird how it gets stuff right then two seconds later so confidently wrong

It’s like talking to a crazy person at times

[fresh ingot]

Any automation will run into that problem. It will never understand what context or nuance is, so it will always have that problem when it just takes anything at face value without understanding if it's right or not.

This is why machine translations are similarly flawed.

[woeful mortar]

I am addicted to Super Metroid Map Randos. I don't know if I need other video games anymore

This shit is kind of bananas. Tons of customizability. It's all done with Machine Learning™. https://maprando.com

(don't worry, robby - you have to provide your own legally backed-up rom)

[fresh ingot]

By the way, will the Super Game Boy core also get the unstable changes too?

[mint current]

wasnt there one mixing Zelda with Super Metroid? did you try it?

[woeful mortar]

I haven’t but i believe you’re right. I think they actually did a run of it at a GDQ?

[delicate fjord]

i bought one of those ages ago. gave it to a friend who never really used it. i tried savestates with it once. jurassic park... got all f'd up.

[cloud stirrup]

yeah, the save state function is pretty iffy. but these are useful for backing up/restoring saves and stuff. it's also what I use to dump and reflash satellaview memory packs.

[clever tusk]

Couldn't agree more, even though I have to use basic challenge settings, as I can't do infinite bomb jumps

[woeful mortar]

yup that's what I'm rolling. I can finally infinite wall jump

[clever tusk]

Yeah I got so much better at wall jumping overall because I have to do it so often 😄

map rando is such a fantastic example of a randomizer

[woeful mortar]

it's addictive. I have one at the ready at all times. Some I don't even finish because I just like sussing out the item progression

[vast oak]

Thank you for clarifying

that wasn’t sarcasm just in-case, I appreciated it

[clever tusk]

Yeah I haven't finished a single one yet.

[regal plover]

Is it just me or does the latest unstable SNES core always just boots to black screen?

[woeful mortar]

nothing comes up if you hit menu?

[regal plover]

menu does work, but after i load any rom it just resets then stays black

the menu is always responsive though

[woeful mortar]

might be a bios issue? does the stable work?

[regal plover]

i have the boot1.rom in place. stable also works

[woeful mortar]

youre missing bsx_bios.rom

and I think you may need to delete and boot1.rom and redownload it

because that's the difference between the stable and unstable

[regal plover]

does that keep the core in reset until it's uploaded to the core? (even if not using bsx hardware)

[woeful mortar]

boot1.rom being bad might since the unstable uses save states

[regal plover]

i just used the boot1.rom from #1096636309679919136 message

[woeful mortar]

delete it and run update_all

[regal plover]

good call, that worked. thank you so much

[woeful mortar]

No sweat. I think the file probably has been updated and that’s what was gumming up the works

[regal plover]

it worked with the old file still in my games/SNES directory. i haven't looked into all the path resolution intricacies of the main mister exe so maybe there is another location that takes precedence, though i can't find another boot1.rom on my sd card. my guess was that the new save state changes require an updated main mister exe

[woeful mortar]

🤷 Computers

[vast oak]

Works fine for me

I haven’t changed my boot1.rom either

[vast oak]

But are the instructions in this post out of date? Does Update_All give you a new Boot1.rom file?

#1096636309679919136 message

[woeful mortar]

Yep!

Happy AWS is down day!

[pine otter]

AWS is getting slashdotted

[slow pumice]

slashdotting is still a thing?

Also does the stable SNES core have rumble support yet? Or is that still unstable only?

[radiant stump]

I think all the cool new stuff is still unstable

[hazy pulsar]

The galaxy is at peace

[shadow turtle]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/commit/3dc50912956251af4c8b7014a22ac304a9d4bd3d

[cloud stirrup]

nice. does that produce the different save files now?

[shadow turtle]

need to check autobuild 🙂

[shadow turtle]

Still only 32Kb for Super Mario USA - Power Challenge and the save works !
I will check if I can reproduce the issue regarding score going crazy

[shadow turtle]

Zelda no Densetsu Map 1 also saved progress 🙂

[vast oak]

pins updated, hopefully someone finds that useful lol

[shadow turtle]

Sorry, today my saves don't work. I have done cold reboot yesterday weird ...

[elder pewter]

maybe it now writes correctly to ram but it doesnt get dumped to SD as SRAM or something?

[shadow turtle]

It may be the normal behaviour after some tests of Paulb-nl

[sturdy canyon]

Hey all, I was literally just logging on to post a message about missing save files, I'm a bit new to this, if I run update-all will that give me the version with the updated fix or is that something I need to apply manually?

[trim thicket]

You need to manually change the core inside your SD card because this is an unstable/beta release, and I don't think you've changed anything in your Update_all settings to download these too.
By default, Update_all only downloads versions from the stable branch.

Remember to enable the AutoSave function in the OSD if you are talking about missing save files in general when using the SNES core.

[gleaming cipher]

I just use this: https://github.com/misteraddons/mister_unstable_updater_scripts

[sturdy canyon]

ah perfect thanks. Just grabbed the latest link here with savestates which is a nice QOL feature.

[spiral sigil]

Oh nice, I hope my video from my super famicom helped a bit.

I don't know anything about FPGAs, very logs, gates or fences but I can record stuff from og hardware.

[vapid fractal]

It was very helpful, thanks again!

Everything looking as expected, have just closed the github issues.

[elder pewter]

that man is a genius

he figured all that stuff out in a couple of days

unbelievable

[last umbra]

srg320 wins again!

[slate hawk]

The winning in mister is endless

[last umbra]

No losers in here 😎

[spiral sigil]

Finally makes pocky and rocky playable

[glossy wigeon]

Last time I asked about this it seemed like it was impossible, but since the snes core seems pretty active atm: I just want to put it out into the ether that de-jitter would be greatly appreciated if it’s ever possible some day
I have one of those CRTs sensitive to it and my top 5-10 lines or so are always slanted. Real hardware and MiSTer.

[lost maple]

wasn't de-jitter also implemented into the nes core? it would be cool to see it here as well

[vast oak]

I hope we get CRT jail bars

[dry cove]

What about a feature that simulates a cold solder joint somewhere in the CRT so you gotta smack it for it to work?

[slow pumice]

For my old Zenith that resulted in diagonal green lines until you smacked it

[pearl loom]

I believe @onyx tulip said dejitter on the nes core doesn't really do anything

[onyx tulip]

it really does do things, or it wouldnt exist

it doesn't change the accuracy of the core

but it fixes the top line of video

if it was implemented in the wrong way though, it would mess up the accuracy of the core

[pearl loom]

Sorry i said that wrong. i meant the toggle. Like there isn't really a need for the toggle to turn it off.

[onyx tulip]

not really but the composite people seem to like the f'd up video

but they are already mentally questionable for liking composite, so who knows

[pearl loom]

I'm the mentally questionable composite ppl. I keep dejitter on.

[onyx tulip]

baby steps

[clever tusk]

RF > Composite

I only say this because I believe the famicom in Japan didn't have composite, so the games were typically designed with RF in mind.

[slow pumice]

I can see the point in composite since many games, especially in the 16 bit era, were designed to take advantage of it's lower fidelity signal for special effects

The waterfalls in Sonic being practically the poster child for that kind of example

[lost maple]

there's definitely an argument to be made for composite video with 8 and 16-bit systems, but most of these games were designed on hi-res rgb monitors first and foremost

even with the genesis i feel like the waterfalls in sonic and the earthworm jim art are exceptions rather than the rule

[slow pumice]

I see that checkerboard trick used in many games from back then, it was even a built-in feature of the Saturn's video hardware

[lost maple]

it was really only used there as a stopgap for when transparencies couldn't be used

[slow pumice]

Which for the Saturn was in most situations, especially for 3D games. It's ability to do transparencies was very limited and conditional

It was used for color blending too, not just transparencies.

The games might have been initially made on higher res CRTs, usually, but they would have been tested on standard tvs

[pearl loom]

Citation needed

@fervent citrus has a bunch of Saturn games he likes that only look correct in composite

[lost maple]

https://vgdensetsu.tumblr.com/post/179656817318/designing-2d-graphics-in-the-japanese-industry this is a good article

[slow pumice]

Though I don't get the point of getting some kind of high-grade PVM and connecting it over RGB to play retro games, just use HDMI on a modern screen at that point, the entire reason people use composite over CRTs is for those effects that would be lost over RGB

[lost maple]

i feel that the clarity provided by rgb outweighs the pseudo-transparencies offered by composite. on most of the tubes i've owned, i never found the blending effect to be very convincing anyway

[slow pumice]

Just simply switching composite blend on the Genesis core in Sonic shows a very convincing effect, and that's just with faking it with a filter

Also that very article mentions that devs did take advantage of CRT effects in games and has examples

[lost maple]

i think that has more to do with the softness and scanlines that you naturally get with a crt

[slow pumice]

People have modded old CRT TVs to accept RGB, and the effect tends to go away IIRC, it's more the low fidelity of the composite signal than the CRT screen itself, though there were designed that took advantage of the CRT's shadow mask to also do effects

[lost maple]

most consumer televisions are blurry enough to retain that blending regardless of input used

[pearl loom]

this is a very cool article. Does it say most games were designed in high res rgb monitors?

[slow pumice]

Personally, I feel the way forward is a good high-refresh modern OLED and a good upscaler that can do those effects than relying on ancient CRTs that are rapidly declining in avability though. To say nothing of how heavy and cumbersome they are, I would be using a CRT with my MiSTer if they weren't so annoying to use these days. I have an old CRT ins torage, not sure if it even works, don't have room to set it up.

Though only a CRT will work with the original lightguns

[lost maple]

an upscaler with an oled is a good alternative, but i don't think it's a replacement for a crt. nothing could ever truly replace a tube given the nature of the technology

[slow pumice]

And good luck replicating Vectrix's look on anything but a Vectrix

[lost maple]

Such was the case with Streets of Rage 2 (1992) whose graphics were designed on a PC-9801
PC-98 outputs at minimum 24khz-31khz over rgb only

[lost maple]

yeah, i've never seen anything come close to matching how a real vectrex looks. very weird specimen

[slow pumice]

Never seen one in person, though it wasn't very prevalent in the US so...

[solid meteor]

I have seen one at a gaming expo and got to play it. Neat system.

[glossy wigeon]

I believe Kitrinx mentioned elsewhere a year or more ago that dejitter on the snes core would take an entire rewrite so I’m not hoping for miracles, just wanted to put the vibes out there.
Ikegami squad for life jitter sensitivity and all

(Late reply)

[solid meteor]

Ikegami? Are those the guys that programmed DK for Nintendo and later made Congo Bongo for SEGA because nintendo used their code without permission?

[glossy wigeon]

I have no idea about that I’m taking about Ikegami Tsushinki they made pro CRTs with slot masks and a bit cheaper than Sony back in the day iirc.

[spiral sigil]

For me, the argument for composite falls apart when you realise that the effects come at the cost of everything else on screen. Whether the developers intended it or not, if it makes everything else looks awful then it's a deal breaker for me.

[lost maple]

yeah that was kinda my point earlier. the pseudo-transparencies aren't worth the tradeoff of overall picture quality

[spiral sigil]

Yup, and they look decent in stills but tend to look weird in motion

[lost maple]

absolutely. rainbow and combing artifacts really break the illusion

[spiral sigil]

Seeing the waterfalls looking transparent did take me back to my childhood RF days but I much prefer being able to see everything else clearly

That's just my take. Play the game in a way that makes it enjoyable for you.

[fervent citrus]

https://tenor.com/view/black-dynamite-who-the-hell-is-interrupting-my-kung-fu-interrupted-rude-pissed-gif-5322491

[static field]

‎ 🎩

🧿👄🧿 ✨
‎ 🫴

[fervent citrus]

Ah, yes. that is correct. Saturn's copious use of meshes that appear as transparencies via composite.

[delicate rivet]

It's not only about transparencies, but colors too.
There are dozens of games where composite is needed for proper gradients instead of stripes/checkered flag patterns.
Cool Spot, Lion King, Aladdin, Tiny Toons...

[fervent citrus]

Earthworm Jim suffers greatly on modern displays/sharper analog.

[woeful mortar]

FTFY

[fervent citrus]

Earthworm Jim is now a cenobite send tweet

[spiral sigil]

In my opinion, those games suffer more in composite

Because the entire picture looks blurred/artifacty

I'm not going to argue that the developers wanted those stripes to be blended via composite, but I still don't enjoy the way it looks.

The blending is more of a consolation prize for the poor composite quality of the mega drive

Unfortunately, composite isn't a magic solution that makes everything look better. Even when it achieves the blended look, it's far from perfect.

SNES actually had pretty decent composite though.

Same for PS1. People say the PS1's composite gets rid of dithering but it definitely doesn't.

People also use the Symphony of the Night Dracula glowing eye effect as an example of developer intent with composite... But you could do the exact same effect with colours readily available in the sprite palette itself. The effect itself isn't even that dramatic in motion. Additionally, Ayami Kojima's artwork didn't have an eye glow.

Anyway, fact remains, if it looks better to your eyeballs, that's all that matters.

I prefer sharper images with dithered meshes like the Saturn because I don't like the effect it has on the overall image or the artifacts that result from the blending effect itself. I still love the Saturn just as much as someone who likes the composite blend!

[somber field]

The first time I ever experienced s-video with a game console (the 3DO!), I never went back to composite video. Bought an s-video cable for my SNES and used that same cable with my N64 and GCN until I got my first HDTV when I switched over to the GCN component cable instead. Had a genuine freakout when the Wii launched with only a composite cable in the box and the Wii component cable would not be sold in stores (GCN component cable was not compatible with the Wii). Luckily I was able to order one directly from Nintendo and barely had it delivered in time for launch.

[clever tusk]

Man I wish I knew about s-video back in the day, we had some nice TVs too

[lost maple]

it's kind of all the same in execution; using tightly-packed alternating color patterns to simulate transparency. more often than not, the effect gets marred by composite rainbowing and dot crawl anyway, and the tradeoff in overall image quality compared to rgb isn't worth it imo

that being said, even when using higher-fidelity inputs, most consumer tubes have a natural blurred/blended look to them, and i think that's what's most vital to the look and feel of 15khz content, not to mention the importance of scanlines

[fervent citrus]

SUFFERING!

I'm glad we all agree composite is not good. Now we can talk about the one true path to glory:

✨ RF ✨

[spiral sigil]

I used to have a TV Boy which was like a plug and play bootleg Atari 2600 which connected via RF. If you didn't hold it in a perfectly stable position, you'd lose signal

[woeful mortar]

I don't want to hear a peep out of you channel 4 people

you're weird

and you should feel bad about yourself

[clever tusk]

it also has to do with color desaturation, hence why the colors are so bright and garish otherwise.

[fair widget]

I heard tell of these people in my youth, but never witnessed it with my own eyes

[pearl loom]

RF is where it all began. Where retro gaming starts and ends.

[last umbra]

RF stands for “really fun”. So if you don’t use an RF connection you won’t have fun

[final oasis]

By using RF/composite, I never had any idea games were pixelated. They look better by looking worse.

[fresh ingot]

Composite works best for assests that were pre-rendered in some way, like drawings, live actors, or silicon graphics.

It helps mask the artifacts and aliasing associated with those things.

[long drum]

it really does compliment games like DKC vs better quality connections. part of what made those look so great back in the day

[solid meteor]

Also something like Vectorman, which didn't look right in upscaled compilations becuase it used both pre-rendered and lots of dithering.

[final oasis]

which is funny because when dkc devs were interviewed about it, they said they didn't really consider composite output as the proper way to display the graphics

[somber field]

I played DKC with s-video back in the day and thought it looked amazing.

[long drum]

i used s-video when playing the game, never composite. looked great to me. i meant older connections in general before component. even component looks great with the game though IMO and is how i have mister hooked up to my crt nowadays, just breaks the illusion of the cgi smoothness a bit more

[spiral sigil]

Sounds like everyone just really prefers Bilinear filtering 🤡

[fervent citrus]

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.

SCART cables hand-soldered from pure hope. XRGB3s arriving DOA and resurrected through sheer willpower.

I watched sync signals stabilize on a PVM after three hours of fiddling and prayer.

All those crisp, razor-sharp pixels… will be lost in time, like composite artifacts through an RF modulator.

Time… to re-cap.

I've been to the mountain top of the "best" signals. Going back to how I played them all originally is the true zen.

[iron tusk]

https://tenor.com/view/blade-runner-movie-gif-9399615048716454057

[spiral sigil]

If I went back to how I played them, I'd be playing Sonic 1 at 50Hz

[fervent citrus]

I'm sorry.

Wait, let me make that PAL accurate: IIIIiiiii'mmmmmm Sssssoooorrrrrryyyyyy

[slate hawk]

Gotta go moderate

[delicate rivet]

Here in Spain we also had that, oh man. I had Sonic on the GameGear and when I saw it on the Master System I thought it should have been called "Lentic el Erizo"

[dusty epoch]

Hi all. TGIF! Have a latency question on the SNES core. I have my Mister going through a RetroTink 4K using DV1. Decided to finally play through Super Mario World. I'm noticing enough latency to realize this isn't like playing an actual SNES (like I remember). Using a bluetooth controller. Question is: Is it normal to feel this latency or is it perhaps the RetroTink 4K, or bluetooth controller, or other causing it. What are some things I can check? Maybe break out the original SNES controller and go through SNAC?

[spiral sigil]

First thing would be the Bluetooth controller

If you're using the RT4K and have it set to Gen Lock, the latency should be virtually nonexistent

You can check how much latency the RT4K is adding by checking the value in the scaling menu.

Last time I checked it was less than 1ms when I was using no filters

Outside of that, it would be either the controller, the TV or a mixture of both.

[dusty epoch]

Can you explain Gen Lock on the RT4K. I can also look it up.

[potent rune]

rt4k defaults to a triple buffered mode that adds some latency to produce an extremely compliant signal, genlock is less compliant but adds basically no latency

[spiral sigil]

You can press the gen lock button on the remote. It essentially puts the RT4K in the lowest latency mode whilst being somewhat friendly to the TV.

Even triple buffer is low lag, it's a rolling amount of lag up to just over a frame but most of the time it's under that.

You can change the sync lock mode in the HDMI Output menu (I think that's what it's called)

[potent rune]

after that there's the tv (make sure its in game mode) and controller (try wiring it that should be much faster)

some controllers are just shockingly slow regardless though

[dusty epoch]

Awesome. Thanks!

[pearl loom]

Yeah and see if the tv has any special "features" turned on besides game mode. If so, try disabling those because most of them just add a lot of latency.

[dusty epoch]

Found the problem. My MSI 272URX OLED was set to Game Mode -> Premium Color

after setting it back to Game Mode -> FPS

all is good

Thanks again.

[trim thicket]

ACLK_FREQ value set to 410496.

If you have the soul of an adventurer/alpha tester here.
Only for internal tests, and I need some people checking if everything goes well on their games.

I followed the discussion between paulb-nl and srg320 regarding the bug on the title screen in Unholy Knight.
The issue seems to stem from the audio clock frequency.
Measurements were taken on consoles, but there are noticeable differences in results between machines.
paulb-nl suggested two potential test values on the issue report.

I adopted his idea, and one seems more stable than the other.
So I compiled a version with the ACLK_FREQ constant set to 410496, which fixes this issue. The DSP clock is then 32070.
I haven't seen any regressions in Earthworm Jim 2 and Rendering Ranger too, as well as in about twenty other games in 4 hours after hours of testing.

[fickle quiver]

Cool! This would probably fix the Bad Apple demo, too

[trim thicket]

Unfortunately, not.
The music tends to stop in the middle of the song.

I need to check Magical Drop too with that change.
EDIT : Magical Drop works OK.

[slow pumice]

Haven't the oscillators that control the audio clock in real SNES been drifting with age?

[trim thicket]

That's the main issue here.
Some homebrew applications were developed with clock values ​​that sometimes deviated significantly.

If you fix Unholy Night, you can break support for several games and the Bad Apple Demo.

[slow pumice]

Is the audio clock something that has to be hard-coded in the core or can it be an adjustable setting?

[vast oak]

what's wrong with unholy night?

[vapid fractal]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/395

[vast oak]

thank you. my bad tho, should have thought to check github

[trim thicket]

At the moment, it's hardcoded.

[last umbra]

First of all, you need to check on official games that depend on sound timings (for example, Earthworm Jim 2, Rendering Range) and on Bad Apple demo. Then, once we find the optimal value, we will add an option to select the type/real frequency value.

So looks like it will be toggle-able eventually

[twin bolt]

Im having an issue that's confusing. I've been trying t play Secret of Mana with the Turbo mod, including MSU-1 music, but MSU-1 seems broken in Mister. The first track plays fine, but when starting a new game, it plays the original SFC music. This does not happen on actual hardware through the sd2snes.

Currently
Prologue: SFC Music plays
Randi falls into the water: MSU-1 plays
Going to Potos Village: Back to SFC Music

this channel seemed more appropriate then the help channel

[slow pumice]

So it would be possible to make it a changable value in the future? That's neat. Wasn't the ocellator used for the audio processor an off the shelf conponent though? Shouldn't we know what value it's suppised to be to have a default? Or did different SNES models use different ones?

[last umbra]

That’s what srg320 said on the issue linked above.

My understanding is that it did, but I think it drifted over time - so it’s different for any SNES you see in the wild

[slow pumice]

Yeah, I know it drifted. That's why I asked if it was an off the shelf part. Are they not still being made to use a new one to test?

[trim thicket]

We need to found the best values.

That's what I've been trying to do on my end for the past two days.

[last umbra]

Problem is that homebrew hackers don’t always code against the original 🙂

Hence Zet’s point

Wrong value will fix some things and break others, sadly

[shadow turtle]

Is it value that could be derived because of snes chips have clock changed in time

[slow pumice]

Feels like making it no longer be hard-coded and making the original the default with an option to change it would be a good way to solve this issue

Woulden't that homebrew then not work properly on real hardware that has not drifted?

[trim thicket]

On my build from yesterday, Bad Apple demo works for 94 seconds constantly.

Just a little test, compared to the 48 seconds from srg320 on his original system.

[slow pumice]

Starting to feel like we are trying to work around software that itself is bugged to remove said bug

[trim thicket]

Yeah, just trying to find a value that could be the most stable for all sensitive commercial games and the longer as possible on some homebrews.

It's more of a personal test aimed at nitpicking.

The better way would be to do the same as for Rendering Ranger and patching the ROMs for making them immune to the SMP <--> S-CPU clock variations.

For Bad Apple Demo, we have the source code here.

https://github.com/Ladida4842/bad-apple-sfc

[elder pewter]

indeed. I am surprised you guys spend that much effort into a game that is pretty much broken shovelware

I dont get the idea that game is a good benchmark for how the core should behave but that is just me

[lost maple]

doesn't RR have issues on real hardware too

1chip systems i think

[elder pewter]

yup. it is broken by design

[twin bolt]

Edit: The forum mentioned using beat to make a new patch with the patches already applied. So I did that with Turbo but patched MSU-1 seperately...it...seems to be working on Mister...but im not sure

[steady solar]

If it breaks on real systems shouldn't doing the same here be acceptable?

[vast oak]

I think those issues were only with flash carts as the original cart was fine

[shadow turtle]

it breaks on some consoles not all

[vast oak]

Oh ok, it only released in Japan so I wonder if the consoles it broke on were for other territories?

Game is way too hard but it’s cool

[trim thicket]

I was simply looking for a value that would fix the title screen without disrupting the rest of the game or causing regressions in other games.

paulb-nl suggested this one (along with another, which I quickly ruled out) in the ticket.

Setting the ACLK_FREQ value to 410496 seems to improve the situation: the Bad Apple Demo runs longer with sound, the Unholy Knight title screen is fixed (the rest is still buggy, but doesn't crash the game), and I haven't noticed any other regressions in other games sensitive to audio synchronization.

[vast oak]

I am one of the silly people who bought Unholy Knight on cart and it’s a buggy slow game lol

[slow pumice]

Doesn't Broken by Design mean that the dev intentionally made it broken on purpose? I thought this was more a case of the dev just being a terrible dev and making a broken game unintentionally?

[elder pewter]

that wasn't what I meant. broken by design, in my book, just says the design is bad, intentional or not does not matter, just that the design is to blame for it being broken

[slow pumice]

Not really how I have seen the term generally used, that's more broken by mistake

[elder pewter]

thx, will keep it in mind

[spiral sigil]

When I think of broken by design, I think Final Fantasy VIII

[slow pumice]

Reminds me of the Unwinnable pages on TvTropes, at least, before they renamed them. IIRC they had "Unwinnable by Design" "Unwinnable by Mistake" and "Unwinnable by Insanity". First one is where the devs intentionally designed the game with 'traps' the player could run into that render their run/save impossible to win cough Sierra cough. Second is where the devs did NOT intend to have the game ever be in a softlocked/unwinnable state but it's possible for the player to accidently do it because the devs overlooked something.... last one is that it's technically possible to softlock the game and the devs might or might not have known about it, but the player would have to intentionally go out of their way to do something extreme in order to make it happen on purpose.

[vast oak]

Anyone have Super Famicom (JP) exclusive game recommendations that are playable for a non-Japanese speaker and hasn't received a translation?

This is what I have on my MiSTer:

• Battle Racers
• Choujikuu Yousai Macross - Scrambled Valkyrie
• Edo no Kiba
• Jaki Cush
• Mario to Wario
• Poko Nyan! - Henpokorin Adventure
• Rendering Ranger R2
• Return of Double Dragon
• Rushing Beat Shura
• Shounen Ashibe - Goma-chan no Yuuenchi Daibouken
• Super Genjin 2
• Undercover Cops
• Wagyan Paradise
• Wakuwaku Ski Wonder Spur

[steady solar]

Caravan shooting collection? Though the games have been released for other systems.

[vast oak]

are those systems playable on MiSTer?

[steady solar]

Yes.

[vast oak]

well thats still a nice recommendation, thank you

[steady solar]

It has Star Soldier, Star Force, and Hector '87.

Also the Sailor Moon fighting games.

Licensed fighting games in general. Dragonball, the first Ranma.

Chatting Parodius

There also seem to be some Nichibutsu collections which I haven't tried.

I found this: http://rvgfanatic.com/wordpress/index.php/top-50/

[slow pumice]

Technically, didn't Ranma come out in the US?

It just got the Magical Hoppers treatment

[steady solar]

True.

[steady solar]

Makeruna Makenso 2 was also not released in the US. First game was Kendo Rage.

[gleaming cipher]

Game translation patches bot wen

[vast oak]

lol I am the bot replacement

[somber field]

Is this the first time ever that a person has replaced a bot and not the other way around!?

[lost maple]

i'll go ahead and add the following:
-Bakukyuu Renpatsu!! Super B-Daman
-Battle Zeque Den
-Coron Land
-Cosmo Gang: The Video
-Fighter's History: Mizoguchi Kikiippatsu!!
-Ganbare! Daiku no Gen-san
-Genocide 2
-GS Mikami: Joreishi wa Nice Body
-GT Racing
-Mazinger Z
-Otoboke Ninja Colosseum
-Spriggan Powered
-Supapoon DX
-Super Gussun Oyoyo
-Super Puyo Puyo Tsuu Remix
all of these are pretty fun, english-friendly games

i'll also say that it's worth playing the japanese versions of:
-BioMetal
-Yokai Buster: Ruka no Daibouken
as the english releases have some very notable differences. the former has an entirely different soundtrack, and the latter was reskinned with completely new graphics

one more thing, the snes version of Undercover Cops got an english translation a while back. the original arcade version is also available on mister 🙂

[vast oak]

Oh shit, thanks for reminding me

Also thanks for those recommendations!!

[solid meteor]

I recommend the JP Undercover Cops or the Alpha Renewal version since the early US and World versions lack polish in comparison.

[craggy merlin]

i have a semi nerdy question.. does the mister snes core save the state of the SPC when doing a savestate?

i think it might.. im not sure.. the fxpak does not.. so its very common for music to stop playing when you restore a savestate.. known issue

but AddMusicK (super mario world music player) famously bugs out sometimes when you pause and unpause.. sometimes the music stops playing, and thats apparently an amk issue

[upbeat canopy]

yes it does

fxpak can't save the state of the SPC because the cartridge has no access to it

but the whole SNES runs inside of MiSTer, so the SPC part of the core can just be modified to add the savestate functionality

[vast oak]

whats SPC

[slate hawk]

Super Packman Cabinet

[vast oak]

oh ok thank u, i love packman

[slate hawk]

Paku Paku!

[lost maple]

spc-700 (aka s-smp) is the main processor in the snes sound hardware. it's coupled with the s-dsp (audio generator), it's own ram, dac and amp to generate all the sound in snes games

[vast oak]

u said a buncha words and i dont know

[lost maple]

you'll learn them in due time little robby

[vast oak]

like qhat the ither guy said more

paku paku!

[slate hawk]

Paku paku

https://tenor.com/view/pacman-fortnite-fortnite-dance-gif-21127411

[slow pumice]

Misread that chip as "(aka s-imp)" ... I should get some sleep

[lost maple]

i'm a simp for the snes sound hardware

[slow pumice]

Sound Is My Passion?

Either that or Squirrel In My Pants

[solid meteor]

Wish I didn't have to wait until next year for more episodes of Phineas and Ferb to come to Disney+. There seems to be at least three different things named Paku Paku. A DOS homebrew, the one line Pac-Man game from ABA games, and that dancing Pac-Man gif.

[mint current]

why does he have a floating pancake next to his head

[fresh ingot]

It's the discs where his shoulders are. The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate model apparently renders them separately from the main model, so when you force him into different animations, it's prone to detaching.

[shadow turtle]

https://github.com/paulb-nl/SNES_MiSTer/commit/8a1327df03874b91274b2e784dc56c7d2ba9ba2d

[low hamlet]

Has anyone noticed a lot of slow down with Mario paint when playing a song?

[vast oak]

Not sure, are you able to verify against real hardware?

[low hamlet]

Hmm. I will check on YouTube but this slow down was very pronounced. I don’t remember that as a kid but maybe I just forgot

[woeful mortar]

One thing with really established cores (like snes) to keep in mind that it’s almost certainly correct. Doesn’t mean that there won’t be issues, but they are much more rare with cores this old

https://tenor.com/bxZem.gif

[low hamlet]

Hhhm. I watched some videos. Didnt see the slow down. I’ll take a video. Is there a GitHub or something to add any issues one may find?

[lost maple]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer

[elder pewter]

you should add a video to that issue you raised

[low hamlet]

Let me try and do this later

[tough patrol]

looping whatever the built-in songs: no slowdown here.

[radiant stump]

Pretty happy with how this turned out

[vast oak]

I hate to break it to you but the text at the top is upside down

[radiant stump]

Your screen is upside down

[delicate rivet]

I don't know what I like more about this server, the cores / dev conversation or the twisted humor 😄

[gleaming cipher]

Lots of great people with great sense of humor here for sure. Love it! 😄

[radiant stump]

Literally twisted in the case of Robby's screen

[woeful mortar]

My mister(s) basically only play Super Metroid map randos now. Dedicated rando hardware

[radiant stump]

Rando of blood

[trail geyser]

How many have you done?

[woeful mortar]

plus 4 more on my pocket

[trail geyser]

Used to do some on the pocket, mainly I just use the MiSTer

[woeful mortar]

i think it is so cool

its a new game every time...working out the logic of the radomizer. pleases my brain worms

[trail geyser]

Still wished the tracker would work on it though

[woeful mortar]

Yeah. I was thinking about contacting oats and goats to see if I could send him a mister since I think it would make his setup easier (and I’m genuinely curious how he would feel about it). But the fact you can’t use the tracker with it….

[upbeat canopy]

i'm working on it :)

i have a working test build of the SNES core with support for SNI access to ROM and RAM

still needs SRAM support, more testing, and some cleanup

here's details if you're interested in learning more or trying it out ^

[trim thicket]

Some of my test cores from these last days, if someone else wants to test/use them.

• unstable changes from srg320 on 2025-11-18 (PPU: fix sprite evaluation during Force Blank)
• PPU: Fixes for 16x32 & 32x64 sprites and tile count/flip commit from paulb-nl
• ACLK_FREQ to 410496 (fixes the title screen on Unholy Night) - DSP_PKG.vhd

TLDR; All the bleeding-edge PPU changes on the SNES side since last year for both cores.

[slow pumice]

Wanted to ask, is rumble support still only in test cores or has it been integrated into main?

[woeful mortar]

Only test cores

*unstable cores, I should say

[slow pumice]

Thanks, so do these test cores have it then?

[woeful mortar]

Oh, zet’s? I assume so, but don’t know for sure

[slow pumice]

Ok', I'll be able to test the out soon for it

Looks like it works

[trim thicket]

Yes, the ioport.sv file with the rumble declaration is there too.

[shadow turtle]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/442

[trim thicket]

So, we have fresh news from srg320.

[woeful mortar]

3DNO

[slow pumice]

Don't worry, I'm sure after SNES srg will get started in that 3D-Oh look, inaccuracies in the Vectrix core

[low hamlet]

Let me try it again tomorrow. I was using SNAC snes mouse as well.

[leaden bobcat]

what does it mean? Is it an attempt to rewrite the PPU1?

[trim thicket]

I think they need to document some obscure behaviors and timings on the PPU to improve aspects of the core.

These are currently either undocumented or poorly documented.

[clever tusk]

New documentation is good

[magic barn]

hi friends, where do I find the latest ss core?

[marble violet]

save states are merged into the main core, but have not been released as stable. there is no separate core anymore. Any recent unstable since july or august works, also #1096636309679919136 message

[magic barn]

oh, nice! so soon then on main?

I think I have an older ss rbf core somewhere..

[marble violet]

Don't know about soon, but the next stable release version will have save states.

[magic barn]

cool thanks

[shadow turtle]

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/447

[low hamlet]

Let me try it again. Where you connected to snac mouse by any chance?

[tough patrol]

USB mouse not SNAC.

[pseudo tangle]

Greetings everyone! I’m new to this group and I’d like to make a great contribution with 4 SNES games: the competition games Nintendo Campus Challenge ’92 and Powerfest ’94.

How can I make it so that people can play these games on MiSTer FPGA?

[gleaming cipher]

Welcome! What do you mean by “contribution”?

[lost maple]

aren't the cartridges for those games built differently than normal ones

it's some kinda weird multicart thing

[pseudo tangle]

May I share images of what I’m referring to?

[woeful mortar]

New versions of them got dumped

Hey have a special chip that needs to be recreated

https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/444

[pseudo tangle]

I have all the games as separate .sfc files, and they work perfectly in Higan, Ares, and RetroArch.

[woeful mortar]

Yeah. I suspect support will come as soon as SRG32 (the developer of the core) has time to recreate the chip in fpga. Like superfx and sa-1, it needs to be recreated before it can be used.

The new sfc dumps are brand new. Less than a month old I think

[pseudo tangle]

I was the one who uploaded the games to Internet Archive and shared them in the Ares and Gaming Alexandria groups. In fact, I spoke with the person who made that post.

[woeful mortar]

Thank you :). I'm sure srg32 has seen it. It's just a matter of when he has time

appreciate you dumping those carts, though - the previous dumps were impossible to work with (from what I understand)

[pseudo tangle]

So, just to understand correctly—these games still don’t work yet? Maybe I can figure out how they work and get them running…
Is there a MiSTer FPGA .exe for Windows so I can test it?

[slow pumice]

Mister's cores run off a FPGA, not a CPU, you can't just compile an exe version of the cores. It's also a collection of dozens of cores so there is not just one single binary. I think there is a way to simulate the FPGA on a PC for testing purposes but, you would literally get like 0.01FPS on that, it's not meant to atually be usable.

[marble violet]

To get them working would require FPGA development experience, FPGA cores require specific hardware.

[reef widget]

I don't understand what is going on here. Are these new SNES games that don't run on original hardware?

[woeful mortar]

no they do. they have special chips on the cartridge (like superfx) that SRG will need to create

[reef widget]

Ah OK. Are these silly modern chips?

[slow pumice]

I think they were like the nintendo world championship carts

[woeful mortar]

no, I don't believe so. I think the problem was that, until this last month, the dumps of these games were like...xml files?

so I'm not sure folks could recreate the chips if they wanted? I dunno, I'm hazy on it - it's pretty new

[slow pumice]

XML? How do you dump a binary rom into xml?

[woeful mortar]

it wasn't xml, but something equally silly

it was a series of files

[marble violet]

From the names alone they sound like extremely rare carts used at very specific events only, not commercial releases

[slow pumice]

Yeah, one of them has 94 in the title so pretty safe to assume it's not some homebrew using a modern super powered arm chip or whatever

[reef widget]

Hmm, if they are just unique mappers then if they are documented then may not be too hard to support them in emulators

[woeful mortar]

maybe @pseudo tangle can tell us more about them

[slow pumice]

Mappers? Or expansion chips?

I would assume that without having the actual chips to study it would be very hard to recreate them, especially if no good dumps existed until recently, but apparently some software emulators already can run them?

[reef widget]

If they are just set to run a set period or time it be used at a tournament it may just be mappers rather than some enhancement chip

[woeful mortar]

https://bsky.app/profile/bro3256.com/post/3m5fl5yqiak2k

Brenden (@bro3256.com)

This went under the radar but new ROMs have surfaced for Nintendo Champus Challenge 1992 and PowerFest '94. These were provided by user Yaderize and are currently playable via the Ares and Higan emulators. See the alt text for each title screen screenshot.

Bluesky · Nov 12, 2025, 2:11 AM

[reef widget]

It seems like it would be really wasteful to design a game on a fancy, expensive chip and only use it for a handful of obscure timed, or tournament carts. I have no idea though.

[woeful mortar]

they do a high level emulation of the NEC uPD78P214GC MCU that the board has, not only it doesn't emulate the MCU, the firmware has no dumps.
it is possible to replicate it in HDL based off the ares code, it's mainly dealing with bank switching to select one of the 3 games along with counters for the software countdown and score display```

[pseudo tangle]

If you’re able to get these games working on MiSTer FPGA, could you make a YouTube video mentioning my name? My username is Yaderize, but my name is Yader Antón. I asked for permission from Rick Bruns, the person who owns the original 1-million-point Powerfest ’94 cartridge, and he agreed that I could share it. I’ve actually had these games for 4 years— I even have videos about them on my YouTube channel.

[slow pumice]

I mean, tell that to those two Shogi games 🤣

[reef widget]

It sounds like they may need to be sent to someone who can properly dump them

[slow pumice]

Or Virtua Racing

I doubt my Sanni cart reader would do the trick XD

[reef widget]

Those games were big in Japan, and needed the extra chips for the AI

[slow pumice]

So were just the game roms dumped or are there dumps of the chip firmwares too now?

[woeful mortar]

good question, I'm not sure

[pseudo tangle]

One day I was playing Campus Challenge ’92 and Powerfest ’94 on the Higan v106 emulator, but it was running very slowly — it was running at 30fps. So I set out to look for another emulator that could run these games. That’s when I found the Ares emulator, but I ran into a problem: the games wouldn’t load the same way they did on Higan.

So what I had to do was reverse engineer them. I had to look at how they were structured inside the Super Famicom.bml file, and then merge the 4 game files using PowerShell, turning them into a single .sfc file. Once I did that, I saved the data inside the Super Famicom.bml file, and it worked perfectly.

I’m going to share the video I made for the Ares group where I got them working with the Winlator emulator, tested on a Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+.

https://youtu.be/ev4NaEqIbVc?si=0PWTsvvChu5sqYHc

[lost maple]

if they've been compiled into a normal .sfc file, shouldn't they just run on the mister already?

[reef widget]

Someone will need to try and report back on that

[somber field]

I won a copy of Lawnmower Man for SNES by winning a competition with the Powerfest '94 cart back in the day. It felt like a punishment!

[pearl loom]

#mister-debug message

This guy wants to let you relive powerfest 94

[cloud stirrup]

tried them, you get a black screen or this

[reef widget]

Maybe worth raising an issue on the GitHub page to see if they can be supported if the ROMs are in the wild, although sounds like maybe they aren't fully dumped

[woeful mortar]

#1096636309679919136 message

we just have to wait on SRG to implement whatever the chip is that is on the cart

[cloud stirrup]

higan files mention dsp1

[woeful mortar]

We support that (stealing moondandy's image)

[reef widget]

Ah, so what do we know about this chip? How complex is it?

Oh, so we have a version already?

Same one as Pilotwings that everyone supports?

[woeful mortar]

I don't think it's dsp 1. there is something else on the board, something undumped, that ares and higan emulate at a high level. the chip doesn't do much, I guess

all it doing is managing game timing, ROM banking, and scoring functionality - from another discord

[pseudo tangle]

Ares or Higan?

[woeful mortar]

I believe they were using the mister

[cloud stirrup]

yeah, the Ares .sfc files on MiSTer

[pseudo tangle]

They work perfectly in both Ares and Higan. For the RetroUsb repro version, you need to have the second controller configured to start the game.

If you like, I can send you the games with the integrated chips in the .sfc files… It’s up to you.

[cloud stirrup]

are those the same .sfc files that are on archive.org?

[pseudo tangle]

Yes, I am the person who uploaded the files to Internet Archive.

[cloud stirrup]

oh, then those have been tested on MiSTer and don't work yet, unfortunately

[vast oak]

I actually attended Powerfest ‘94

I won my regional competition, got a shirt and hat lol

[pseudo tangle]

Friend, was the version you played the 10k points or the 1 million points one?

[vast oak]

It’s been over 30 years, I’m not going to remember haha

I don’t even remember the games I played, I just remember the shirt because it was sweet

[pseudo tangle]

I want to achieve another milestone. Does anyone here have a Super Everdrive, FXPAK PRO, or SD2SNES? I want to get these games working and preserved for future generations.

[pseudo tangle]

Do you still have the shirt?

[vast oak]

Nah, those two are long gone.

[pseudo tangle]

Alright, whenever you can, let me know if I should send you the games with the DSP1 chip integrated.

[vast oak]

This was the shirt - https://ebay.us/m/tNwOb1

this was the hat - https://ebay.us/m/BFxbUb

I don’t think it was anything special, seems like a lot of people got it

[pseudo tangle]

Look on the bright side—you can play these games again using the Retroarch emulator for Android, either on your phone or tablet. You just need to have the games from the Ares emulator, and you’re all set.

[vast oak]

That’s awesome

You kick ass

[pseudo tangle]

Here are some screenshots from the Retroarch emulator. In fact, I also know the person from Retroarch who helped integrate it for both PC and Android.

[vast oak]

I think I played the baseball one. Or is that from the same game?

[pseudo tangle]

It’s the same game. Here’s a video of me playing the 1 million points version for the first time four years ago: https://youtu.be/F-OYjvS0nmg?si=Czb-H_gInqAe6yD0

[cloud stirrup]

do the versions on archive.org not have the DSP1 chip integrated?

[pseudo tangle]

No, they are only merged without the chips.

[cloud stirrup]

oh, I'll send you a DM

these versions still don't work on MiSTer

[pseudo tangle]

Wait, let me redo those games with the integrated chips—maybe I made a mistake with the files.

One question… do you use the same Ares manifest on MiSTer?

[cloud stirrup]

@pseudo tangle is asking me how he can contact srg

[pseudo tangle]

Can any of you help me contact srg?

[gleaming cipher]

You should be able to post here and tag him: https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/444

You’ll need a GitHub account

[pseudo tangle]

Alright, I hope he can reply to me.

[shadow turtle]

for information SNES core doesn't use manifest like emulator, for example sufami games we need to concat them with bios on a certain way that it is detected by SNES core and playable on MiSTer

[elder pewter]

who's quote is this?

I looked at the ares code too and reached the same conclusion, dont replicate the full mcu but just the bank switching and the time keeping should do the trick. should not require that many logic if you do it like that

not sure how to make the dsp1 fit into it for pilot wings yet but I could give it a shot when I got time, provided the feature is considered acceptable ofc

and nobody else picked it up ofc

[shadow turtle]

Is the MCU dumped ?

[slow pumice]

Nah, Disney is still making Marvel Cinematic Universe stuff

Joking aside, are there any pictures of these cart's PCBs? Maybe seeing the markings on the chips, and what chips are in them, could help, assuming they are not propitery chips with no information about them anywhere on the public internet

[elder pewter]

yes Ive seen pictures but no schematics

[woeful mortar]

Someone on another discord

[elder pewter]

ah, sounded like somebody already picked it up or something

[woeful mortar]

Nah, I wish. Like us, they just wanted to see what was happening under the hood.

[elder pewter]

you wish? you think its valuable enough? still debating if it is worth the effort and the logic

[gleaming cipher]

It's definitely worth it. It's a piece of history that MiSTer should really support!

[woeful mortar]

In terms of preservation, yeah I think it’s worth it. It runs on a snes, but not the core.

I’ll never play it, but that’s a terrible judge because I only play Metroid map randos now

[slow pumice]

Yeah, unlike the two Shogi games I think it's worthwhile devoting time to working on making these compatible

IIRC the only games that don't run on the snes core are these and the two shogi games right?

[woeful mortar]

yeah, I believe that is correct (for actual snes games - there are romhacks that have trouble obv)

[slow pumice]

I assume those romhacks are ones that would not work properly on real hardware too and were made with zsnes in mind long ago?

[woeful mortar]

I don't recall to be honest. Teddy would know better than I would. I think they were SA-1 romhacks iirc

[slow pumice]

Oh, those have trouble?

So far I have been messing with several MSU romhacks, some of which have SA-1 and other patches, and have not had issues.

But I have not played any extensively yet

[elder pewter]

they would not work on a real cart, but unless you fit an eeprom on the pcb, you would never get it on a cart to begin with. it works fine on fxpak (and thus everybody says it works on real hw)

[slow pumice]

Well, except for some of the NES ports by a certain dev, but apparently those have issues on anything except the specific snes emulator they were made for

What do you mean by "you would never get it on a cart to begin with"?

And is it using eeprom instead of SRAM for saving the only thign stopping those?

[elder pewter]

nonono

if you take an original sa1 cart, remove the rom and replace it with eeprom

[slow pumice]

You mean the maskrom?

[elder pewter]

so using an original sa1 chip basically

yes

but its practically impossible to run a game on an original sa1 chip

[slow pumice]

Huh, that's weird. The romhack acts as if the maskrom was replaced with eeprom? Why?

And I assume it can't work because the SA1 can't access an eeprom chip? I have no idea how differently they are accessed over maskrom but I assume it's quite different

[elder pewter]

my point is not getting through at all

[slow pumice]

Sorry

[elder pewter]

same 😄

[slow pumice]

Just trying to understand this, I am not super knowledgable about the more low level stuff like this

[elder pewter]

lets just say removing the maskrom for another one with the rom hack (I used eeprom since I think this is what ppl typically use to run their own code on a cart)

[slow pumice]

Most hacks of real carts I have seen seem to either just use another maskrom or flashrom, but those are modern hacks, no idea if eeprom was used in the past

I remember I was looking into trying to make my own Star Fox 2 cart

[elder pewter]

yeah precisely that

if you were to do that with these sa1 hacks, it wouldnt work on a real sa1 chip. but nobody uses real sa1 chips to play these hacks on hw

[slow pumice]

Most of the methods I saw though involved burning your own maskrom in place of the rom of whatever doner cart you was using

[elder pewter]

that was the point i was trying to make

[slow pumice]

So these hacks would not work even if you burned them on a maskrom?

[elder pewter]

not with a real sa1 chip no. but an fxpak would run it

[slow pumice]

Huh, is it because of the hack itself breaking things, or is it just not possible to load a different rom on a Sa-1 cart?

[elder pewter]

the hack is using the snes cpu to write to sa1 registries, which it does not have access to. it should instruct the sa1 chip to write that stuff to its internal registries. thats the big mistake

[slow pumice]

Ah, so the hacks are trying to make the harware do something it can't.

[elder pewter]

but emulators and fxpak allow it, sa1 addresses are unused in snes address mapping so it can't really conflict with anything

[slow pumice]

So the fxpak is basically allowing things real harware can't do to make these hacks work?

[elder pewter]

so all these hacks are developing on inaccurate platforms basically

[slow pumice]

(Or is it more that the FXPAK just simply allows for this an dthe hacks were designed with it in mind)

[elder pewter]

yes

[slow pumice]

I see

[elder pewter]

yes again

[slow pumice]

Sounds like the zsnes-specific hacks all over again, when they were developed with that emulator in mind

Except developing with that inaccuracy with the FXPAK in mind in this case

Are all the SA-1 hacks like this?

[elder pewter]

basically mister is the only platform where these hacks wont run, by choice

all the older ones are

a lot of sa1 stuff was discovered recently, like 3 years ago or something like that

[slow pumice]

Would the game just not work at all? Or would it still run? Like I said, I messed with some MSU-1 hacks that also had SA-1 patches and they worked, but I dind't try them estensively

[elder pewter]

depends on implementation

VLDC8 has a broken overworld, VLDC9 crashes spectacularly on the titlescreen

those are smw hacks

[slow pumice]

So far nothing I tried standed out as clearly broken, but I have no idea if a hack could have something subtle, but I also haven't tried every hack I wanted to load on it so far

Aside from those NES ports I mentioned known to be broken on anything other than the emulator they were made for

[elder pewter]

there also is no real nice overview of all the homebrew that is out there. I found some outdated list and it said 100s of those hacks exist, scattered

[slow pumice]

Ouch, was about to ask if there was a list but yeah, sounds like it's too messy to list them all

Guess I will just have to continue to see if any games are clearly broken

Is there any way to tell what expansion chips a rom will use?

[elder pewter]

I am on bazzite, I can just right click on a rom and view rom properties 😄

[slow pumice]

I was JUST reading about that when I was looking up linux distros a few minutes ago XD

Had never heard of it, but it has built in rom propterty viewing? That's nuts

[elder pewter]

yeah that is some kde extension for rom properties that bazzite has included by default

[slow pumice]

nice

I am just a windows pheasant 🤣

And when I use Linux it's normally Mint with Cinnamon

[elder pewter]

linux really does run better than win11, I got pissed off at the performance hit

[static field]

‎ 🎩

🧿👄🧿 ✨
‎ 🫴

[slow pumice]

Now I am really curious if those Pokemon MSU-1 ports would work, orignally I was not going to bother with them because CD level music on a Gameboy game felt too off to me... and they are stupidly huge, like 1GB

Oof, I am still on 10 extended updates for now but that won't last long

My CPU isn't exactly state of the art either, just ordered a GPU upgrade though... not sure if it will fit between all my other cards though XD

GPUs are such behemots these days that don't seem to even consider that you might have other cards above or below them in your system

[elder pewter]

makes sense since most machines either dont have extra slots or dont use them

the times where you needed separate network and audio cards are over 😄

[slow pumice]

Yeah, and how many have a PCIEx1 slot ABOVE the main X16 slot?

... and how many would be stupid enough to use it? XD

Yeah, ha ha ha, who would still use a sound card in 2025, ha ha ha...

https://tenor.com/view/uncomfortable-wtf-nervous-what-are-gif-25480298

[elder pewter]

I do, but it's usb 😄

[slow pumice]

Heh, mine is said PCIEx1 card XD

The other is a raid card

[elder pewter]

you must use that thing intensively then I guess 😄

[slow pumice]

Yeah, it's a frankenstein ATM that I have been trying to resurrect for a while now ever since it died on my a few years ago

It's my "main" pc but I have been bouncing from temp pc to temp pc while trying to get it exactly how I want XD

ATM I am wrtin this on it on a "temp" windows install while remoted into it from another temp pc.... what is my life?

🤣

https://i.imgur.com/nKQFvxc.jpg <--- The aformented mess

Going to replace that 2080 with a 4070 super, hope it will fit with that sound card above it, the 2080S does not have a backplate... the 4070S does...

Also upgraded the HDDs on the raid from RAID5 to RAID6.... despite being my setup from like 2013 with 3TB drives that a single drive could be bigger than these days XD

Like I said, a Frankenstein that I am trying to ressurect that's a mix of old and new parts... at least the CPU is a 11700K now instead of my old 3770K XD

Even ran out of SATA ports after using up all three NVME ports... with "temporary" drives... I need to finish this thing already

(Motherboard SATA ports, not SATA on the RAID card)

Sorry, got off on a bit of a tangent XD

[elder pewter]

we have an expression for that in dutch

doesnt sound as catchy when you translate it, something like "that which fills the heart will overflow through the mouth" 😄

[slow pumice]

I get the meaning behind it 🤣

I guess I am the opposite of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

I am more "If it ain't broke, tweak it until it is"

[pseudo tangle]

The games I’m sharing with you are not ROM hacks — they are historical pieces of the Super Nintendo, because these games are special. They were part of a competition that very few people ever got to play at the time. One of those people is my friend Rick Bruns, who actually played Powerfest ’94 that same year, 1994.

Here is his page, where he explains how the Powerfest competition worked and how he obtained the only real Powerfest ’94 1-million-points cartridge. He is the only person in the world who owns all five original Super Nintendo competition games in real cartridges:
https://snesmaps.com/maps/NintendoPowerFest94/NintendoPowerFest94.html

Rick is the one with the blue arrow.

[elder pewter]

yes I know the background of these carts, I did some studying

the issue with these on fpga is that supporting these will permanently claim resources, and right now about 90% is claimed by the core

[slate hawk]

Neato bonito. So are you proposing your friend send his carts to srg320 or someone who can reverse engineer whatever the customs are?

[slow pumice]

Yeah, we understand that. These are like that Nintendo World Championships cart on NES

[pseudo tangle]

I’m already talking with Mr. srg320. We’re going to make this work so all of you can play it.

[elder pewter]

srg is already on this?

in that case I am not going to bother 😄

[slate hawk]

Nice, it’s not something I’m personally interested in but I’m glad it’s going to be preserved and available for those who are

[gleaming cipher]

So at the end of the day MiSTer should be able to run those .sfc separately or do we still need some sort of "join-the-sfc-files-into-one" magic?

[pseudo tangle]

Those games already work in their .sfc files—try playing them in the Ares emulator and you’ll see what I mean.

[slow pumice]

https://tenor.com/view/dragon-ball-z-fusion-dbz-goten-trunks-gif-8263700045051414172

[gleaming cipher]

I am allergic to software emulators but I do trust you! 😌

[pseudo tangle]

Here’s my video where I’m testing it on my Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+, using the Winlator emulator and the Ares emulator. I hope you enjoy the video: https://youtu.be/ev4NaEqIbVc?si=TVWKxQgeFOKe8Lf6

[vast oak]

@pseudo tangle so how did you hear about the MiSTer and why do you want it to support those new carts? I think it’s very nice of you and we’re happy to have you here, I’m just curious

[gleaming cipher]

MiSTer should support everything (aside of those crappy games with a uC inside them)!!

I’m also curious to run these on my MiSTer so really looking forward to it

[vast oak]

what’s a uC

[gleaming cipher]

Sorry. A microcontroller

[pseudo tangle]

I realized that from this comment, so I wanted it to be compatible with all possible emulators or hardware, which is why I joined this Discord group.

[vast oak]

What that’s wonderful of you to take the initiative

[vast oak]

Oh dude no problem, I’m a dunce when it comes to this stuff so thank you for explaining it.

[gleaming cipher]

And I think those carts can go for $12k right @pseudo tangle ?

Like super rare stuff?

[vast oak]

I just push buttons and go “hee hee” while the fat Italian man jumps

[pseudo tangle]

Yes, that’s right—they are currently valued at $25,000.

[vast oak]

So there were previous versions out there but they were wrong? Or this was never dumped before?

[gleaming cipher]

My MiSTer would love to be able to run a $25k rom

[woeful mortar]

they were dumped weirdly if i understood correctly

[vast oak]

if you think about it, adding that to your MiSTer increases the value

[gleaming cipher]

Cha chin

[vast oak]

It’s like you got paid to have a MiSTer!

[woeful mortar]

this is better than crypto

[vast oak]

I know I’m goofing but could you imagine. People trying to sell their emulation boxes based on the collective value of all the roms on it lol

[woeful mortar]

like ps4s with PT on them