Author Topic: Megaman PCE thread  (Read 14489 times)

Bonknuts

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Megaman PCE thread
« on: February 27, 2012, 03:09:38 PM »
This'll be the official thread for discussion on the game/port/hack - whatever you want to call it  :wink:

 I'll post updates here as to upgrades and such to the game as well. Also, I'm the only one currently hacking this game (which is completely different than the process I did to get the game running on the PCE) and I only have a partial resource disassembly document to go by - so it would be great to get some veteran Megaman/Rockman hackers involved this - even if minimal. People that know their way around the game structure. I'll handle the upgrade code myself since that requires specific PCE knowledge.

 

nat

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #1 on: February 27, 2012, 03:13:20 PM »
What's the ultimate goal with this?

I just downloaded the 0.98 version and burned it and gave it a spin the other day. Impressive! Very clean, smooth, and faithful. Seems even better than actually playing the real game on an NES since there's virtually none of the trademark NES flicker/visual artifacts.

That said, I can get the same experience playing the game from the MegaMan collection on the GameCube.

If the ultimate goal is updated graphics, etc, this could become a really cool project.

Bonknuts

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #2 on: February 27, 2012, 03:59:27 PM »
Yeah, the goal is to upgrade the graphics. Like I stated in the other thread, PCE sprite ability is already hacked into the emulation code in a WIP build. Allows one to upgrade sprites as they go, yet leave other sprites as is until they're ready. A mixture of NES sprites and PCE sprites (sounds simple, but is has to handled via video emulation and the original game engine). The tiles will be upgraded in a similar way. It won't have the full power of the PCE, but it'll be more than the NES emulation as is. CDDA track code is in the WIP build as well. ADPCM code is next. And probably a simple but new PCE sound engine (I have a few lying around), if you can find someone to redo the tracks in a more PCE PSG spec'd format.

ParanoiaDragon

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2012, 05:33:52 PM »
Do you intend to have brand new chiptunes, or do you mean redbook with a PCE sound to the tracks?  Also, since this is emulated(& not using the full PCE power), I assume paralax is out of the window on this one, correct?

nodtveidt

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #4 on: February 27, 2012, 09:52:32 PM »
If there's a post from PD, I expect it to be asking about parallax. :) Oh look... :)

grahf

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2012, 12:10:07 AM »
It would be awesome to hear the Megaman tunes in PCE format. Has anyone done this yet?

ccovell

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #6 on: February 28, 2012, 01:40:23 AM »
My NSF player was not as advanced as Tom's full NES emulator, but check out some of the MM2 variations in this archive:

http://www.chrismcovell.com/data/PCE_NES_Player.zip

Bonknuts

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2012, 01:48:23 AM »
PD: Yes both audio options: chiptunes (chip generated) and red book. As far as parallax, I would say it's out of the question. Even though I'm giving the game engine access to PCE features, it's still done via emulation. As if this were running on a "Famicom SuperGrafx". The initial video hardware structure and design is not changed, so you still have cpu resource over head. That and this method only slightly breaks and replaces things. For parallax, you would need to break major functions of the game. That's not my goal. I have working game already, so I want to do as minimal change as possible to the game *engine* to get these upgrades in there. So while a ton of hacking could result in that freedom, that's isn't my goal specifically because the time required to learn the deeper inner workings of the game (I mean, you really have to learn it as if you wrote the whole thing) and all that sort of junk.

 The enhanced PSG driver/player would still need to be on the lite side. Not taking any more cpu resource than the original one. But that's fairly easy.

 Chris: Love the saw version :D
« Last Edit: February 28, 2012, 01:58:59 AM by Bonknuts »

Arkhan

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #8 on: February 28, 2012, 01:50:47 AM »
The enhanced PSG driver/player would still need to be on the lite side. Not taking any more cpu resource than the original one. But that's fairly easy.

Why don't you just use Squirrel, lol.   It's a CD build.  You can just take advantage of the stuff already in the BIOS.
[Fri 19:34]<nectarsis> been wanting to try that one for awhile now Ope
[Fri 19:33]<Opethian> l;ol huge dong

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touko

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #9 on: February 28, 2012, 02:15:59 AM »
My NSF player was not as advanced as Tom's full NES emulator, but check out some of the MM2 variations in this archive:

http://www.chrismcovell.com/data/PCE_NES_Player.zip

Your player seems very simple to implement ..
How do you generate .bin files from nes musics ??

Bonknuts

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2012, 02:53:29 AM »
The enhanced PSG driver/player would still need to be on the lite side. Not taking any more cpu resource than the original one. But that's fairly easy.

Why don't you just use Squirrel, lol.   It's a CD build.  You can just take advantage of the stuff already in the BIOS.

 That's not a bad idea, but I've have to sort out some issues first. I don't have the game setup to map the bios bank to MPR7 ('cause the game bank needs to be there). Only in the red book WIP version and it temporarily maps it in to do the initial call for the CD PLAY routine - but that halts the game completely when it does that. If I did resolve the bank swapping issue (i.e. make sure timing isn't an issue or any other conflicts), I'm still cautious about about cpu resource. And there's the fact that I'm no stranger to writing music engines so If need be, I already have a few sound engines that I can easily chop away at to fit the game requirements. 'Could use Squirrel to prototype the music first though, even if I don't end up using the sound engine side if it.

Arkhan

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #11 on: February 28, 2012, 02:59:59 AM »
I dunno, the BIOS is pretty low-impact.  Writing a sound engine would sort of be recreating what the BIOS can already do for you..

You just compile the music, include the data, and call a function. ;)
[Fri 19:34]<nectarsis> been wanting to try that one for awhile now Ope
[Fri 19:33]<Opethian> l;ol huge dong

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Bonknuts

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #12 on: February 28, 2012, 10:00:04 AM »
Yeah, I'll have to see where it's at. Any chance Squirrel 3.0 will have DDA support? I'm not bothered specifically about modifying a sound engine for use with this, even if it kind of redundant to the PSG routine of the sys card. But I'd also like to give some support to something that's pre-existing if I can.

Arkhan

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #13 on: February 28, 2012, 10:23:48 AM »
Yeah, I'll have to see where it's at. Any chance Squirrel 3.0 will have DDA support? I'm not bothered specifically about modifying a sound engine for use with this, even if it kind of redundant to the PSG routine of the sys card. But I'd also like to give some support to something that's pre-existing if I can.

You can trick Squirrel into using samples the manual way, that is, creating waves and cycling them quickly...

but no actual DDA support.  It throws things off.
[Fri 19:34]<nectarsis> been wanting to try that one for awhile now Ope
[Fri 19:33]<Opethian> l;ol huge dong

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If you're not ready to defend your claims, don't post em.

ccovell

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Re: Megaman PCE thread
« Reply #14 on: February 28, 2012, 12:04:19 PM »
My NSF player was not as advanced as Tom's full NES emulator, but check out some of the MM2 variations in this archive:

http://www.chrismcovell.com/data/PCE_NES_Player.zip

Your player seems very simple to implement ..
How do you generate .bin files from nes musics ??


Those are just regular .NSF files without their headers.  The player is simple enough, but DPCM and short-period noise settings (the "dit"s in Quickman's stage) are not emulated.