Homebrew Suggestion: R-Type

[termis]

Man, that's pretty awesome - not only the flicker reduction, but the full-res mode.  Sharp stuff.

[Keranu]

Incredible!

By the way... when this is completed, will it be safe to post the download link on the forum? Or would that be considered ROM sharing? Or maybe there will just be a patch?

[nat]

Looking great, Chris! Keep it up! My only concern with the full-screen modification.... Will this make the image appear squished vertically when played on a TV with the real hardware?

Publicly posting a link to the hacked ROM on the forum would be against forum rules, but I don't see any reason why sharing via PMs wouldn't be allowed. Publicly posting just a patch link, on the other hand, would be fine.

[termis]

Looking great, Chris! Keep it up! My only concern with the full-screen modification.... Will this make the image appear squished vertically when played on a TV with the real hardware?

I'm by no means an expert on this, but this made me curious too -- I got some screen captures of R-Type off MAME -- and then squashed all the images to 4:3 to emulate what it'd look like on an actual TV, and I think the results actualy looks better with Chris's hack.  It seems like the original Turbo/PCE version is the one that's a bit streched out vertically compared to the original (i.e. take a look at the neck curvature of the boss between the three shots -- the SGX full-res and MAME shots seem to be more true to each other)

Unhacked Turbo vs Hacked SGX vs MAME (all rendered to 4:3 at 320x240)

[nat]

Wow, you're right. That's.... unexpected. I like what I'm seeing here.

[shubibiman]

Wow! If it turns out to work perfectly, you'll have to do that with every single PCE game that flickers 

[termis]

Man, I'm super excited about the potential of this project.  Considering the pics above, it's as if the developers initially started with the intention of displaying the full-res for the whole screen, but then decided to chop off a bit off the vertical borders to limit some of the flickering.  Maybe this worked, but as a side-effect, it brought about the *slightly* stretched look (which I couldn't even really tell until I put 'em up side-by-side to arcade pics), and the rather annoying and unnecessary vertical scroll in the game (I actually find this vertical scroll to be the bigger annoyance).  Either way, what Chris is doing finally seems to do justice to the way R-Type was meant to be on the PCE. 

While asking for possibilities, would it also be relatively easy to apply the same patch to the CD version of the game?  The monster setup of SGX + SCD-ROM would finally have reason to specifically be together, rather than just for compatibility convenience with other PCE setups (that is, there's no SGX CD game so far).  I know your time is not unlimited Chris, so I certainly appreciate what you've done, even if all this doesn't come to fruition any time soon.   

...And BTW, Ninja Spirit immediately pops to mind as being able to benefit from this treatment as well -- an awesome game, and flicker's the only thing that detracts from the experience just so slightly.  (Now I'm just pestering you -  )

[ccovell]

Thanks for your comments.  I wanted to make the full vertical resolution of the game visible, the same way as the Playstation compilation does.  Adding extra lines to the display, or extra columns to the sides of the display, does not squish the image, however.  The number of scanlines is fixed on a TV set or monitor, so adding these extra graphics just expands the playfield even more to the edges of the screen.  Therefore, shrinking both the TG and SGX images to the same size (320x240) doesn't accurately reflect how they'll look on a real system.

Anyway, the original TG/PCE version is very letterboxed, for whatever reason the designers chose.  I don't think it's necessarily to eliminate flicker; perhaps it's to keep the wider aspect of the arcade version, or something.

First I'll finish up the TG conversion and then try to apply the hack to the PCE/CD ones.  One major obstacle is that I can't find the RAM variable for the stage you're on (for cheating purposes.)  Would anybody happen to know it?

[esteban]

Dude, you rock. Absolutely splendid.

OK, this hack is coming along nicely.  Many routines had to be changed, from VRAM tile writing, to sprite positioning, and even scrolling and screen setup.  I've also begun hacking the vertical res, scrolling code & logic to make the game completely full-screen, as the arcade version was.  Let me know if you like it.

A flicker comparison between R-Type (U) on the left and the SG hack on the right.

[ceti alpha]

Holy crap! This is amazing! Seriously, great work covell.

So, would this hack of R-Type also allow for parallax?

[SignOfZeta]

It sounds odd, but I always thought it would be "neat" to use Red Book to provide an ambient soundscape that would play alongside a traditional  PSG chiptune soundtrack. The PSG and Red Book would not be synchronized and would loop at different times. I know this sounds retrograde and backward-thinking (since it isn't the most efficient use of Red Book), but do you know of any early CD-ROM game (on any platform) that did this?

Battlefield '94 in Tokyo Dome...or whatever its called. That shite Arcade Card wrestling game. It doesn't do chiptune music over the top, but in some stages there is no music and it just has redbook crowd noises. It has, IMO, some of the best crowd noises because of this. Other than that, this game is lame. I have no idea what justifies it being an AC game.

When i first played it I thought similar things. A large percentage of PC Engine redbook music is total garbage. Bad jazz and shitty Yamaha PCM synths. They could do much cooler stuff.

[nat]

Holy crap! This is amazing! Seriously, great work covell.

So, would this hack of R-Type also allow for parallax?

I can't imagine parallax beyond what's already in the game (ie, stage 5) would be possible without heavy, heavy modification.

[ceti alpha]

Holy crap! This is amazing! Seriously, great work covell.

So, would this hack of R-Type also allow for parallax?

I can't imagine parallax beyond what's already in the game (ie, stage 5) would be possible without heavy, heavy modification.

Oh for sure. I was really only thinking about the parallax in stages 2 and 5.

[esteban]

It sounds odd, but I always thought it would be "neat" to use Red Book to provide an ambient soundscape that would play alongside a traditional  PSG chiptune soundtrack. The PSG and Red Book would not be synchronized and would loop at different times. I know this sounds retrograde and backward-thinking (since it isn't the most efficient use of Red Book), but do you know of any early CD-ROM game (on any platform) that did this?

Battlefield '94 in Tokyo Dome...or whatever its called. That shite Arcade Card wrestling game. It doesn't do chiptune music over the top, but in some stages there is no music and it just has redbook crowd noises. It has, IMO, some of the best crowd noises because of this. Other than that, this game is lame. I have no idea what justifies it being an AC game.

When i first played it I thought similar things. A large percentage of PC Engine redbook music is total garbage. Bad jazz and shitty Yamaha PCM synths. They could do much cooler stuff.

Thanks for that example! I was hoping someone would be able to identify a game that used this technique.

Ambient crowd noise...the one thing that Battlefield '94 did well.

[ccovell]

Parallax in stages 1 or 2 would take a lot more work, as well as a ROM expansion to 6M, probably...  Anyway, the parallax in stages 3, 5, etc can be restored or else I fail.

Another game with atmospheric sound effects on CD mixed in with the game audio is Sol-Feace.  It has a few annoying sound effects at certain events played overtop of the CD music.