[HN Gopher] The Hearts of the Super Nintendo
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The Hearts of the Super Nintendo
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 191 points
Date : 2024-04-01 06:10 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fabiensanglard.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (fabiensanglard.net)
| max_likelihood wrote:
| I think the link to "nocash" is broken. It should go to:
| https://problemkaputt.de/fullsnes.htm#snestimingoscillators
| Keyframe wrote:
| one of the proudest accomplishments I've done is that over the
| years I've managed to collect all of SNES PAL games, what is
| considered a full set. (I augmented it with some select NTSC and
| SFC games as well). What's interesting is the world in those
| cartridges and how they extend the main console. We don't get to
| see that in gaming hardware anymore.
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| That is impressive, any chance you've documented your journey
| and collection anywhere? I'd love to learn more.
| masklinn wrote:
| I believe it was also done for higan (bsnes) in order to
| support enhancement chipped games: the enhancement chips had
| to be collected, decapped, and decoded in order to correctly
| (= fully accurately, rather than approximately via hacks to
| try and fit observations) run the game dumps. I think at
| least part of the process was documented at the time.
|
| I don't know if _all_ the enhancement chips were collected
| and decoded, as IIRC a pair of them are literally used for a
| single japanese-only game.
|
| Although for IP reasons the enhancement chip firmwares can't
| be distributed with higan, so you have to "dump them
| yourself".
| thristian wrote:
| bsnes' creator collected all the NTSC cartridges, I believe
| (USA and Japan, even the rare ones that were Japan-only
| special editions) but I don't think they managed to get a
| full PAL set.
|
| All the enhancement chips used in officially licensed games
| were collected, decapped, and dumped via an electron
| microscope. Yes, even the ones only used by a single Shougi
| game each. :)
| Keyframe wrote:
| _bsnes ' creator..._
|
| I still can't get over the tragedy of what happened to
| them. That shouldn't have happened under any
| circumstance.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| If it makes you feel better, Byuu faked his death at
| least once before and there's still no hard evidence he's
| dead.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > Wayne Beckett, founder of Hong-Kong-based Datapower
| Development, said Near, whose full name was David Kirk
| Ginder, was an employee and confirmed Ginder's death to
| USA TODAY.
|
| from https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/07/23/how-
| toxic-onli...
|
| That's hard enough for me to think it's legit, though I'd
| agree that it's not conclusive.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| there are so many holes in even THAT story it's not even
| funny.
| Keyframe wrote:
| I sincerely hope there's hope for it. Even so, such
| behavior towards an individual who brought nothing but
| joy to a common shared passion of many is beyond sad and
| evil.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Byuu tried to extort the owner of kiwifarms and "killed"
| himself when the owner refused. I encourage you to read
| Byuu's thread yourself instead of news articles that
| drastically misrepresent what happened.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Hmm, not to pollute thread anymore, I'll see what I can
| find and read. I remember marcan of Asahi confirmed it as
| well?
| crq-yml wrote:
| Thanks for calling yourself out as a perpetrator. The
| blood on your hands here is quite visible.
| bdw5204 wrote:
| One of those shogi chips was actually a 32 bit ARM
| processor:
|
| https://snescentral.com/chips.php?chiptype=ST018
| Keyframe wrote:
| not documentation you'd like.. I can only had a sheet, at
| first excel and then google sheets, which I made to make it
| easy for me to track it all. I did travel a lot due to
| business etc and over time it all fell into place. Here's
| what they look like stored now, waiting for a move soon and
| for a more permanent setting: https://twitter.com/Keyframe/st
| atus/1550975562742644736?t=0N...
|
| I'm also close to finishing N64 and maybe halfway there for
| NES (which I have no illusions on completing ever).
| sunnybeetroot wrote:
| That's amazing! Thank you for sharing it, good luck on
| completing the other collections.
| bena wrote:
| That was the neat thing about cartridge based game consoles,
| each game was essentially a new piece of hardware.
|
| I think the Game Boy Advance was the last mainstream PCB
| cartridge game console. The GameCube had moved to discs, Sony
| and Microsoft never made a cartridge based system, and Sega was
| on their third such system with the Dreamcast.
|
| But I don't think the GBA or N64 really did things like the
| SNES or NES did with regards to cartridge hardware. I think by
| that time, the core hardware was way more powerful than
| anything that could be attached.
| Keyframe wrote:
| what we have today on switch is essentially memory card,
| before it was an interface to the bus. You could do anything.
| It doesn't even have to be performance oriented (or features
| like sound chips). One example is Boktai for GBA which had a
| light sensor on it so that actual daylight played into the
| gameplay, etc.
|
| I know hardware homogeneity across platforms brought peace
| upon gamedevs who are stressed out as-is, but I think we lost
| something major along the way.
| philistine wrote:
| Neat fact about GBA cartridges. At its start, cartridges used
| watch batteries to keep save games, but by the end of the
| console, they had moved to Flash memory.
| krajzeg wrote:
| The GBA still had some cartridges with enhancement hardware,
| though a lot less focused on overcoming CPU/memory
| limitations than on the previous consoles.
|
| My favorite is WarioWare: Twisted [1] including a gyro sensor
| (+ a rumble pack) to enable gameplay based on turning the
| whole GBA around. But there were also add-on real time clocks
| (Pokemon), light sensors, and other things.
|
| It also had the Nintendo e-Reader [2], which technically
| connected to the cartridge port and loaded like a cartridge,
| but was its own unique piece of weirdness.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarioWare:_Twisted!
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_e-Reader
| bombcar wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/21/16339122/
| e...
|
| GBA medical device.
| Keyframe wrote:
| GameBoy vehicle diagnostics tool
| https://www.motor1.com/news/701772/game-boy-diagnostic-
| cartr...
| bena wrote:
| I had forgotten about the eReader. I had gotten Excitebike
| on the eReader card because I was curious. I was planning
| on getting an eReader at some point, but never got around
| to it.
| ThatPlayer wrote:
| I remember there being a DS flashcart that had an additional
| CPU. Probably more towards the end of the DS's life.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| It's surprising how much could be done with the SNES, considering
| how ancient it is by today's standards. The only downside of it
| was that the cartridges developed some small problems as time
| went on.
| Gracana wrote:
| The Starfox PCB has a bunch of traces going off the board, I'm
| guessing that's for a program & test harness used during
| manufacturing? I've never seen that done before. Was that a
| common practice back in the day? Nowadays we would put pads on
| the board and use a bed of nails to do that.
| bluedino wrote:
| A Starfox cartridge was used to make a homebrew devkit for SNES
| Doom
|
| _The development was challenging for a few reasons, notably
| there were no development systems for the SuperFX chip at the
| time. I wrote a complete set of tools - assembler, linker and
| debugger - before I could even start on the game itself.
|
| The development hardware was a hacked-up Star Fox cartridge
| (because it included the SuperFX chip) and a modified pair of
| game controllers that were plugged into both SNES ports and
| connected to the Amiga's parllel port. A serial protocol was
| used to communicate between the two for downloading code,
| setting breakpoints, inspecting memory, etc_
|
| https://fabiensanglard.net/gebbdoom/
| rightbyte wrote:
| It is really asstonishing how dev hostile those game consoles
| were. Like, "we know how to do it but invent it yourself".
|
| Nintendo could have released sane sdk:s and not make every
| dev studio figure out what works. Like, maybe share a toy
| version of the source of Super Mario and Zelda or whatever to
| show how an engine is made.
|
| The games would surely have been prettier as a result.
| tadfisher wrote:
| They did have SDKs (well, an assembler and linker) as well
| as devkits and extensive documentation. The problem was you
| had to enter an extensive agreement and pay a hefty amount
| for the privilege of using them. It made sense in that era,
| as you had to have the cash on hand to order a minimum of
| 10,000 cartridges (also manufactured by Nintendo) anyway.
| bluedino wrote:
| Nintendo was dev hostile as well.
|
| In Argonaut's case, Starfox 2 was canceled (but still
| completed) because they didn't want SNES 3D games competing
| with the soon-to-be-released N64
|
| And then they shot down Argonauts 3D platformer demo,
| saying they would make their own, causing them to create
| Croc instead.
|
| In a way it made sense because you didn't want to end up
| with Sega where they kept trying to extend the old
| platforms. But they weren't looking to create a new in-
| between or add-on system like the Sega CD or 32X
| wk_end wrote:
| TBF you can't exactly begrudge Nintendo for wanting to
| end up with SM64 instead of Croc.
| philistine wrote:
| That version of history is in contention. The devs of
| Croc are adamant they basically invented 3D platformers
| and Nintendo stole their ideas, but the timelines with
| the first builds of Super Mario 64 rule in favour of
| Nintendo.
| MBCook wrote:
| Oh I didn't realize they made Croc. That was a good game.
| Karliss wrote:
| You can sometimes see a similar approach in somewhat recent
| (~last 10 years) microcontroller devboards. Many of Nucleo
| devboards for STM32 microcontrollers, and some Cypress PSoC
| devboards (CY8CKIT) consist of two halves. One containing the
| main MCU (the one devboard demonstrates), and other half
| containing programmer/debugger. Idea is that you can use it as
| is out of the box for running basic example programs, or you
| can break it in half thus obtaining a cheap programmer +
| devboard which has a slightly more convenient format for
| embedding in product prototype.
|
| Similar thing but reversed roles with ChipWhisperer-lite
| (platform for experimenting with side channel power analysis
| and glitching attacks). There you have the main board which
| connects to PC and performs the IO for attack and example
| target (victim) board.
|
| But all of that is for R&D purpose only, not for use in
| manufacturing of final products.
|
| I looked up the images for Starfox PCB it looks weird. Can't
| imagine it ever being practical in production just for
| programming. Did they just shipped devboards to customers? In
| the images I saw the area near PCB edge where traces stop
| looked very smooth and somewhat recessed compared to broken
| tabs that were connecting PCB to bigger panel. As if that area
| was cut by router instead of being broken off. Maybe they just
| kept the production PCB design (almost) identical to devboards,
| to save the work designing two different PCBs and reduce the
| chance of any issues caused by differences between devboards
| and production PCBs.
| hbn wrote:
| Nitpicking but it's rare I get to use my trove of useless
| knowledge about Mega Man -- I'm guessing the games being
| referenced at the end and final PCB image are actually Mega Man
| X2 and X3. I tried to follow the snescentral link cited as the
| image source but the page isn't working for me (edit: the site is
| up, it was a me issue)
|
| I was confused at first because Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3 are NES
| games, not SNES!
| epiccoleman wrote:
| Mega Man X2 is one of my favorite games of all time. We had a
| local video store where you could rent a game for a buck a
| night, and we would always rent them on Saturdays (since the
| store was closed on Sunday, you got a free day!).
|
| X2 was probably the most frequently rented game, and when that
| video store finally closed, they sold off all the games for $5
| a piece. That X2 cartridge is a prized possession that my
| brother now has in a little display case with a bunch of other
| retro gaming memorabilia.
|
| I actually just did a playthrough of the Mega Man X series
| (well, 1-3, I didn't bother with the post-SNES ones) and I
| think X2 holds up really well, definitely in contention for the
| best in the series.
| hbn wrote:
| I also happened to play through some of the X games recently!
| I went up to X4.
|
| X1 was my first Mega Man game ever and got me into the
| series. My childhood friend owned a copy and we weren't able
| to get very far as kids but we liked to play it anyway. It's
| still my favorite of the X series! I didn't play the other X
| games until years later. Back in 2015 a guy in my city was
| selling a complete collection of all the SNES Mega Man
| releases, albeit in Japanese (so, the SFC versions). A North
| American SNES can play Japanese games if you rip a couple of
| plastic tabs out of the cartridge slot, and Mega Man games
| aren't too dialogue heavy so I was fine playing them in
| Japanese.
|
| If you haven't played beyond the SNES games, I'd recommend
| giving X4 a shot. I didn't play it until Mega Man X Legacy
| Collection released, but it's actually very good. Beyond
| that... X5 the quality drops off quite a bit, X6 is straight
| up bad, X7 is also very bad and features a horrible attempt
| at transitioning the series to 3D. X8 I only played through
| once but was a bit of a return to form. But yeah, the X
| series isn't known for consistent quality.
| drittich wrote:
| I just got interested in Mega Man recently - do you
| recommend a playthrough in order, or is there a best
| version to play for a good initial experience?
| scns wrote:
| I'd recommend starting with 2 & 3 for the NES. The
| soundtrack might be my favourite of all video games. It
| has been played by rockers [0] and orchestras [1].
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-WIBmzETBo
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9__sJWMXjE0
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdVpJfXXoFI
| hbn wrote:
| That's a good question on where to start. I usually enjoy
| playing games from the classic series because they're
| simple, but some of the earlier ones can be a bit janky
| and punishing. The first 6 games are on NES, and they're
| all pretty good. Mega Man 2 is a lot of people's
| favorite, and I personally like it a lot but it's not
| without flaws and some unfair difficulty. 7 was for SNES
| and I don't care for it much but I wouldn't say it's bad.
| Same with 8 which was on PlayStation and Dreamcast. 9 and
| 10 were a throwback to the classic series with an 8-bit
| art style and can be difficult but they have more modern
| design sensibilities and I'd say are more "fair". 10 has
| an easy mode if you're wanting to ease yourself in too.
| 11 is pretty good too, but has some new mechanics that
| complicate things a bit.
|
| The X series has some good games, but focuses more on
| collectibles and upgrades, so you'll likely end up
| looking up a guide to find where all the upgrades are. It
| can be very difficult without them. I think X1 is the
| best in the series, and is also more streamlined than the
| other games. You can't go too wrong with the first 4 X
| games. They can be played on the Legacy Collection, but
| I've heard complaints about the emulation, and I know on
| the PC version I couldn't watch any of the cutscenes in
| X4 because they froze. Might be better off just
| emulating.
|
| Order doesn't matter too much, the plots are mostly
| disjointed and/or nonsense until the Zero series for
| GameBoy Advance which are again pretty good but upgrade-
| focused like the X series, and are less of traditional
| Mega Man games.
|
| I'd probably just not start with Mega Man 1. Come back to
| it if you like the series, but it's pretty primitive
| compared to later stuff.
| wk_end wrote:
| IMO the 8-bit ones - while fun - are somewhat primitive
| and often a little too "NES hard". So I'd say start with
| Mega Man X - it's timeless; still one of the most perfect
| games ever made.
| driscoll42 wrote:
| Yup, the SHVC-2DCON-01 was only used by Mega Man X2, the direct
| link worked for me:
| https://snescentral.com/pcbboards.php?chip=SHVC-2DC0N-01 ,
| though X3 used a different board, the SHVC-1DC0N-01
| (https://snescentral.com/pcbboards.php?chip=SHVC-1DC0N-01
| hbn wrote:
| Ah, I figured maybe the site was down but just checked on
| another device and it worked. Must be the corporate firewall
| fabiensanglard wrote:
| Thank you for pointing out the mistake, I have fixed it now :)
| !
| belthesar wrote:
| The ceramic resonator described in this post has been a source of
| much consternation with the tool-assisted speedrun community. One
| of the goals of that community has been console-verification of
| TAS movies, to validate that the runs aren't taking advantage of
| emulator quirks. If you've ever seen TASbot perform at a
| GamesDoneQuick event, that's exactly what console verification is
| doing.
|
| The ceramic resonators degrade in accuracy over time (as cited in
| the article), which leads to non-deterministic performance of the
| APU, and since the entire console's timings are all linked
| together, this leads to non-deterministic execution of game code.
|
| As a tool-assisted speedrun is essentially a timeline of inputs,
| there's no logic to account for system execution, and as such,
| hardware determinism is a requirement. Since an accurate
| emulator, barring hiccups in the underlying runtime environment,
| gives us a deterministic runtime environment, this works great.
| However, it's lead to some weird and awkward behavior when trying
| to console verify TAS movies on these >30 year old SNES consoles.
|
| Replacing these ceramic resonators to repair these consoles has
| had mixed success, but there are folks that are successfully
| doing it, thus keeping these legendary consoles alive, and
| bringing their timings back into spec.
| NobodyNada wrote:
| > it's lead to some weird and awkward behavior when trying to
| console verify TAS movies on these >30 year old SNES consoles.
|
| For an example of this, look at this Super Metroid run from
| SGDQ 2018: https://youtu.be/T_oDcRKzoHI?t=3m17s
|
| This particular game pauses and waits for the sound engine to
| "catch up" during door transitions, and the amount of time this
| takes is nondeterministic due to ceramic oscillators. But the
| game's pseudo-RNG continues to cycle in the background during
| this waiting period, so the nondeterminism impacts gameplay
| elements such as the steam jets in the timestamped room. That
| meant that to play back the TAS on a real console, the authors
| (sniq and total) had to come up with a "polyglot" sequence of
| inputs that could make it through the room with any possible
| steam pattern.
| achr2 wrote:
| Later SNES games also used a timing check for region locking to
| identify PAL vs NTSC clock frequencies. The mod I did, nearly
| three decades ago, was to add a toggle switch with a second
| crystal that would change the clock frequency and allow the PAL
| game to be played on an NTSC system. Wait a few seconds while the
| game booted up and then switch back and enjoy the unreleased in
| North America "Terranigma".
| fabiensanglard wrote:
| Maybe a silly question but why enforce region lock at the
| developers/publisher level?
|
| Wouldn't allowing the game to run on more machines result in
| more sales? Or would the import market and currency exchange
| rate too much of a hazard?
| porkbeer wrote:
| Different regions had different pricing. This prevents a game
| being resold in another market. It also tends to cut down on
| counterfieting.
| progbits wrote:
| Getting DVD players without region locks used to be a thing
| to get cheaper movies imported from abroad. (Briefly, from
| what I recall. Bootleg discs got much cheaper and easily
| available)
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