xdaniel

Don't have any record-breaking things to show... uh, I guess my first run through Super Metroid was alright with 7:18 and 77% items...? Well, for a first run anyway... the world records are under one hour IIRC, one with 100% items even... or maybe not, that's actually rather slow But I guess I am rather quick in Zelda LA if I sit down and play it, considering that 15 year history or whatever that I have with it... I've never measured the time or anything, but I'd say I could probably do it in a few hours.

Purchased two games on eBay earlier today, and especially one of them is something very nice indeed... nothing special or rare or anything, just something cool to have. Will post photos and such (and say what they are) once they've arrived

I could argue that what culminated in SayakaGL's Ucode interpreter was a long time in the making as well, from the first OZMAV, over OZMAV2, into libbadRDP, to Sayaka. But yeah, the single project I stuck with the longest probably is SharpBoy, disregarding the GUI rewrite. I dunno, I guess I just love the old GBs, and even moreso than the N64?

SharpBoy v0.6 Debug build: http://magicstone.de...UG-29052012.rar - do NOT redistribute, kthx! This is a debug build featuring SharpBoy's current state. It is NOT finished, it is NOT meant for public distribution, it is NOT a regular release build. It IS meant for everyone here who might be interested in testing it and I would really like to hear some feedback. Throw whatever ROMs you have at it, mess around with the debugger, memory editor, etc, etc. then tell me about it! What works, what doesn't (hopefully nothing), anything you like, anything that's weird. Notes: This build is far slower than a release build would be, we're talking about ex. 65 FPS here vs 165 FPS usually here, so do not judge the speed. Also, there's a console window that might spit out some error messages or warning or somesuch (say, ex. "unknown RAM size 0x##"), please report any messages it prints. Also, the complete changelog since the last released version: Some fixes to External RAM handling in MBC emulation; Game Boy Wars 3 doesn't crash anymore and is now playable Fixed incorrect writes to certain I/O registers; Taiyou no Tenshi Marlowe isn't crashing anymore as well and is playable Minor improvements to timer emulation Improved FPS limiter; now less prone to ridiculous slowdown and similar glitches rewritten GUI, still missing features new disassembler, memory editor, tile & palette viewers improved GBC palette access during diff LCD modes (fixed Lego Racers palette glitch, certain PD ROMs) fixed input I/O register handling (Glocal Hexcite, fixed completely broken input) improved GBC palette conversion (moderate speedup in GBC games) fixed 64kb external RAM handling (Pokemon Crystal JPN, fixed missing town map gfx & non-working saves) fixed MBC3 RAM bank select (Pokemon Crystal JPN, fixed access of wrong banks after above fix) changed CPU core opcode execution (moderate speedup) optimized sprite evaluation and drawing (slight speedup) changed HALT opcode behavior (fixes blargg cpu_instrs test, -shouldn't- break anything) partial Super Game Boy emulation (borders and coloring) changed RETI opcode behavior (Megaman V, fixed game hanging after selecting stage)

Too bad most other SGB-compatible games now either don't show anything, or outright crash at some point... definitely still some more work to do. Not over the weekend, tho, as I likely won't be around much. Some freshly implemented commands, a default palette and fixes for stupid bugs later... But that shall be it for the moment, I'll pick this up again on Monday or so.

Palette is junk, rendering currently has the GB-side screen disabled, the screen dimensions are incorrect: Getting closer... And some two to three hours later... Do note that the one important thing about the SGB - screen coloration - isn't yet emulated. Also note that what is already there, namely the SGB borders, still have some glitches as well, like a few wrong colors here and there (see Pokemon Gold). Still some more work to do, I guess... Also note that system auto-detection goes GBC -> SGB -> DMG. So if a game is GBC compatible, like Pokemon G/S or Zelda 4 DX, that takes priority over the SGB and any borders the games might have. If you want borders in those games, you've got to manually set the emulator to SGB/SGB2, which will disable GBC emulation. Having both works for some games, but others really don't like it at all and appear to hang after loading the border.

I made a brief shout about this yesterday already, but 1UP's "What If?: Gaming's Alternate Realities" series of articles this week is very interesting. One of today's articles, for example, deals with an alternate outcome of the North American video game crash of 1983, where Atari and the rest of the "old guard" lived on and the Japanese console makers - especially Nintendo - never gained much ground. Two quotes from the article: "With Game Boy's blurry monochrome screen, the only advantage it offered over the Atari Lynx was better battery life and a slightly lower price; it never stood a chance in the U.S. market." "Imagine if games like Super Mario Bros. were global hits and not niche favorites available only from import specialists listed in the seedy back page ads of game magazines." Those are scary thoughts, especially if you've got an original Game Boy right next to you on the table, and you just played Super Mario Galaxy 2 a few days ago. Some of the other articles online so far ask questions like the ever-present "What if Square never left Nintendo?", but also, say, "What if third-party development didn't exist?" or "What if video games never came home?". There's some interesting ideas and scenarios already available, and more to come until the end of the week.

No. I should say it more often. pixiv or deviantART?

It's likely either that or updating the listbox, still have to check that, then (if possible) optimize the thing... Besides that, changed HALT opcode behavior (fixes blargg cpu_instrs test, -shouldn't- break anything) ...at least none of my 37 frequently tested ROMs broke, four of which - Stunt Race FX Demo, Zerd no Densetsu, Waverace and X - usually died in some way or another whenever I messed with HALT and the associated logic. So I'm counting the current behavior to be correct, unless I find yet another game or demo that craps out on me. By the way, said 37 games/demos are: Alright, damn it. No matter what I do, what seems to be a combination of string generation and updating the listbox causes the heavy slowdown when having a big disassembly window. Since this post, I had spent several hours trying to speed things up - looked up possible optimizations for C#/.NET's string manipulations, tried different ways to update the listbox (including bloody direct WinAPI calls), nothing helped. So, last thing I'm gonna try before I give up, is to write a custom control that mimics the look of a listbox, but is only capable of doing what it needs to and as fast as possible. We'll see how that goes... Muuuuuch better. No interaction at all currently, just the bare opcode disassembly output, but I'll get to it. Hmm, I'd say mostly done now: Opcode at PC gets highlighted (might still change the colors/style a bit), the gray column on the left side is planned to show symbols representing breakpoints and the like - say, red circles for BPs, a filled one for the last BP triggered - once I get to reimplementing them. Note that there is still a small performance hit when the disassembler is open, and another bit more when tracing is enabled, but it's far smaller and far more consistent than what happened previously.

Hoping for less Kinect at Microsoft and other Xbox 360 developers, and less focus on dashboard changes/improvements at MS... I don't really believe that'll happen, tho, sadly. Hoping for Nintendo to revisit some other dormant franchises (I'll say it again and again: where's F-Zero?), show us some actual games for Wii U, preferably with 1) realtime footage at the press conference and 2) playable versions on the show floor, as well as announce the release details for the system and make some more 3DS announcements - maybe a redesign with an integrated Circle Pad Pro, and more games supporting it, maybe (going back to dormant franchises) another N64 port, namely F-Zero X with the Expansion Kit included. Also hoping for Nintendo and/or other publishers to bring out some final Wii and DS games in the West, for example Earth Seeker on Wii, although I don't count on this either, seeing how both systems are nearly dead in the water, after the Rainfall games are out and/or the hype is dying out, and after Pokemon B/W 2 are out. And I'm generally hoping for some more niche releases, like shoot'em ups or 2D fighters, to be announced for the West for whatever system - I bet there's some more games like that on the Xbox 360 -, but that's probably not going to be done at E3, or at least not beyond some press release or something. I'd also wish for Capcom to have a new Mega Man game announced, but... well, I've kinda lost hope there. You know, with two cancelled games and stuff. And them apparently recycling one of them for something unrelated.

I guess I'm annoyed by that general - or at least very vocal - sentiment online, that Nintendo's (among) the only one(s) who constantly milk their franchises, this IGN post and the comments are one manifestation of that. I agree with some of the complaints in Nintendo's direction (maybe the Wii Something stuff, and in turn - unrelated to milking - the shift towards casual games), but overall there's far worse developers and publishers out there.

http://www.ign.com/a...est-possible-e3 Riiiiight. I do like my Xbox 360 and all, but MS winning E3? Really? It's just gonna be Kinect, Halo 4, Kinect, Kinect, CoD Black Ops 2 (or whatever), Kinect, Kinect and Kinect. Again. And did I mention Kinect? And not to mention: 64% want to see coverage of better graphics above all else. Ahhh, the old graphics debate. Not gonna go there. Also - which ties in to my horrible mistake of reading some of the comments under the article - the most anticipated titles according to that poll are GTA5 and Assassin's Creed 3. And here you have people in those comments saying Nintendo's producing rehash after rehash and sequel after sequel. Really? Can't say anything about the games' quality as I've never played them (I hear they're good!), but according to Wikipedia, there's been four Assassin's Creed main series games in four years. As well as a bunch of spin-offs. I wish Nintendo would've made four Metroid or Zelda or F-Zero games in four years, all of which - or at least most of which - would've likely been very good games as well, considering their track record! And GTA5? I sure as hell can't be the only one for whom all the 3D GTAs appear like one and the same, right? What was that about Nintendo and franchise milking? Yeah, right, of course Nintendo is the big offender here! Not Rockstar with GTA, not Activision with CoD, not Microsoft with Halo! Obviously Nintendo and their related developers with Xenoblade The Last Story Pandora's Tower Pikmin the "dead for 20 years" Kid Icarus the "dead for 8 years" F-Zero Mario! ...but damn it, even those are more innovative than GTACoDHalo...! Curse you, Nintendo! (...and yes, the last few sentences of this post are dripping with sarcasm, just in case it wasn't obvious already)

Overall? Mario. Recently? Sonic. Yeah, sorry, but Generations is soo good, I can't leave it unmentioned Mega Man Zero or Mega Man Battle Network?

NINTENDO SIXTY-FOOOOUUUUURRR!!! And the obligatory detail shots here, as well as the updated list here. Favorite items? Probably Sin and Punishment, aka Tsumi to Batsu: Hoshi no Keishousha complete in box, as well as the Korean "Comboy 64" Diddy Kong Racing complete in box. Also currently not having the box to Pokemon Stadium on hand, so it's not in the picture.

Everything refreshing constantly, the disassembler tracing code execution, etc., and never below 100 FPS unless you make the disassembly window much larger (redrawing that takes time, not sure how to make it faster):

First of, don't edit the ISO directly, rather look into correctly extracting and rebuilding it. I can imagine that'll save you headaches in the long run, ex. when you want/need to expand some files. Second, you'll need to figure out how the game stores its text, not just where it is but also in what format it is. If you're lucky, it's a standard like Shift-JIS or EUC or something, otherwise you'll need to figure out the format first - look up relative searching for that. Next, there's probably a whole lot of text in the game, and not just some puny menus, so (like with the extracting/rebuilding) you'll be better off with dumping the script and later reinserting it into the game, as opposed to directly edit the file(s) using a hex editor. Also makes it way easier for any potential translator to read and go through, assuming you're not going to do it all alone. That's all hints or whatever I can think of right now. You may find some more help ex. at RHDN's forums - http://www.romhacking.net/forum/ -, tho I'm not sure how many people there have experience with hacking PS2 games (that's PS2 right?).

I've been a bit out of the loop with the BS Zelda's, but I assume you'd want to get the newest available patches/ROMs, preferably those that also work on real hardware even if you'll just play them on an emulator (because they mean accuracy and potentially less glitches/crashes on modern emulators). If the site you're talking about is the BS Zelda Homepage, I'd likely get the "MottZilla Project" for BS Zelda and the "Offical Version" ROMs for Ancient Stone Tablets. Also, it's the "Satellaview", "Stellaview" sounds kinda like halfway between that and the anime "Stellvia"

Shadow. But only if you just consider his SA2 appearance. Steak or sausage?

PHP. Flexibility vs. static pages! Gainax or Kyoto Animation?

From the notes: improved GBC palette conversion (moderate speedup in GBC games) fixed 64kb external RAM handling (Pokemon Crystal JPN, fixed missing town map gfx & non-working saves) fixed MBC3 RAM bank select (Pokemon Crystal JPN, fixed access of wrong banks after above fix) ...and from the source: /* A wee bit faster than going through a Color, then using ToArgb on it... * Some casual testing (Tetris DX title) gives a speed diff of ~30-40FPS w/o FPS limit * (~180 with Color, ~220 without) */ Really need to go through the source and identify other wasteful operations, like the above color conversion. Why create a Color object when, most of the time, a long containing the ARGB data is all I want? Why not create that long directly? And for the few times where a Color is needed for drawing, mainly in the palette and tile viewers, I can just make one on the spot using Color.FromArgb! ...and how come I never even noticed Pokemon Crystal JPN not working correctly? Also makes me wonder if there's any other games that have 64 KB of external RAM... EDIT: Another core change: changed CPU core opcode execution (moderate speedup) ...which, together with the previous color-related speedup means: GB: Kirby's Dream Land 2 (world 1 map): ~160 FPS vs. ~205 FPS (+45) GBC: Pokemon Crystal (system menu): ~170 FPS vs. ~250 FPS (+80) GB: Super Mario Land 2 (map): ~170 FPS vs. ~200 FPS (+30) GBC: Tetris DX (file select screen): ~140 FPS vs. ~215 FPS (+75) GBC: Zelda Link's Awakening DX (intro): ~65 FPS vs. ~170 FPS (+105) That's the released SharpBoy v0.4 vs. my current v0.6 WIP, with FPS limit disabled, the FPS numbers are rough averages. I also tried some of the games with both emulators running side-by-side, and the difference in FPS really shows with ex. Zelda LA: in v0.6 the title screen logo appears when v0.4 is just starting to scroll the camera up to the egg. optimized sprite evaluation and drawing (slight speedup) ...the slight speedup really being slight, around 5-10 FPS in Zelda LA DX. Removed some superfluous memory read calls, as sprite data can only come from OAM (0xFE00 to 0xFEA0) - there's no need for the memory read function to evaluate each address, then always fetch the data from OAM anyway, when I can just directly read from my OAM array. Less speeding stuff up, more features getting implemented: (And of course I forgot to change "Tile Viewer" into "Map Viewer" before taking this screenshot...) http://i.imgur.com/Twq5n.png Scratch the above, this is better:

Wanna show off how many consoles and games and accessories you have? Do so right here! Post photos, post lists if you have them, feel free to brag I'll start... with the only part of my collection I actually have some current stats about, as I just typed it up over the last 30 minutes, my SNES/SFC games The exact list can be found here - hope I haven't forgotten anything - plus here's some pseudo artistic detail shots. And, for comparison, according to an old list of mine that's still lurking somewhere in the depths of my webspace, in January 2008 I had a whopping 4 - four - SNES games, all of which were PAL releases.

Depends on the genres you like, but on top of my head... - Sin and Punishment - the Mystical Ninja / Ganbare Goemon games - seconding F-Zero X, Mischief Makers, Pokemon Snap and Super Smash Bros. Some of those might be a bit short unless you're going for high scores and such (S&P, Snap, SSB) but I'd still recommend them.

Results of a rainy flea market day: S.O.S: Sink or Swim (SNES, PAL, loose) Super Adventure Island (SNES, PAL, loose) Duke Nukem 64 (N64, US, loose)

Yeah, the collision model room model group matching is junk and a shitty workaround for oversights I made during coding, also see this note in the source here. I realize what crap this is and intend to fix it, but not in the current SO because it would mean throwing part of it out, rewriting that, while leaving all the other, unrelated crap in. The planning stages for the total rewrite, with the design doc and all, are in progress and this group name crap is one thing ruled out, or verboten if you want, from the start.

Freely Grinding Hills In June