NES core on MiST

[vebxenon]

Yes, I'll get the headers

[Newsdee]

What I've found so far from the A folder:

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8-In-1 Little Mermaid, The (U) [p1][!]	        4e 45 53 1a 08 00 21 00 00 00 00
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Hillsfar (U) [!]	4e 45 53 1a 10 00 12 00 00 00 00
Ai Senshi Nicol [p1]	                          4e 45 53 1a 08 10 a1 20 00 00 00
Amagon (U) [!]	                                4e 45 53 1a 08 00 21 00 00 00 00
American Gladiators (U) [!]	                   4e 45 53 1a 08 10 10 00 00 00 00
Athena (U) [!]	                                4e 45 53 1a 08 00 21 00 00 00 00
Athletic World (U) [!]	                        4e 45 53 1a 02 04 31 00 00 00 00

[sebdel]

So, these are not working ones, right ?

I found what is wrong with the MMC3 mapper (Karnov, Family pinball). Working on a fix

[Newsdee]

Yes, it's the ones that do not work.

I figured something out: the 08 00 21 ones only work if I choose them as the first ROM after turning on the MiST. Maybe the mapper has a bug in initialization?

[Newsdee]

Alright, here's A to K (official games only for now):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Some games need a fresh start of the MiST to work (they're noted as "Issues", others are unplayable completely.
I put headers for all the problematic ones.

[sebdel]

Thanks that helps a lot. I'm afraid that will be a battle on a title by title basis.

[Newsdee]

Thanks that helps a lot. I'm afraid that will be a battle on a title by title basis.

Looking at the results up to K it looks like there are many MMC1 (mapper 1) games that have problems.
These ones all have a blank screen on startup, or bad GFX for a couple. Maybe the Mapper 1 implementation has a bug?

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King Neptune's Adventure (Color Dreams) [!]          4E 45 53 1A 02 04 10 00 00 00 00
Chessmaster, The (U) (PRG0) [!]                      4E 45 53 1A 08 04 10 00 00 00 00
Bigfoot (U) [!]                                      4E 45 53 1A 08 10 10 00 00 00 00
Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure (U) [!]  4E 45 53 1A 08 10 10 00 00 00 00
BreakThru (U) [!]                                    4E 45 53 1A 08 10 10 00 00 00 00
Ikari III - The Rescue (U) [!]                       4E 45 53 1A 08 10 10 00 00 00 00
Battle Chess (U) [!]                                 4E 45 53 1A 10 00 10 00 00 00 00
Defender of the Crown (U) [!]                        4E 45 53 1A 10 00 10 00 00 00 00
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Hillsfar (U) [!]       4E 45 53 1A 10 00 12 00 00 00 00
Dragon Warrior III (U) [!]                           4E 45 53 1A 20 00 12 00 00 00 00
Dragon Warrior IV (U) [!]                            4E 45 53 1A 20 00 12 00 00 00 00

[jotego]

Thanks that helps a lot. I'm afraid that will be a battle on a title by title basis.

I'd just like to say how much I would appreciate it if you can fix it. My children play a lot to the NES on MIST and they come across broken titles too often. Of course, they do not understand why they don't work and there is nothing they can do about it so it is frustrating to them.

Thank you for working on this!

[Newsdee]

there is nothing they can do about it so it is frustrating to them.

I've figured something out. Many games won't work when switching from another game, but you can try to load the same ROM again and it often fixes it. If that doesn't work, another thing to try is to reset the MiST and reload the ROM.

Of course, there are many games with mappers that aren't yet supported so this won't work all the time. But it does help.
(in my list above it's all games where these tricks won't work)

[sebdel]

there is nothing they can do about it so it is frustrating to them.

I've figured something out. Many games won't work when switching from another game, but you can try to load the same ROM again and it often fixes it. If that doesn't work, another thing to try is to reset the MiST and reload the ROM.

Of course, there are many games with mappers that aren't yet supported so this won't work all the time. But it does help.
(in my list above it's all games where these tricks won't work)

I figured the opposite... Some games only work if loaded after others. I fought with that all day today but I still don't know what causes it. I also found a bug in the mmc3 init, at least some new games work. Mmc1 doesn't support games above 256kb, so I know what I have to do here. And I also found the same problem you had where the core becomes completely unusable with strange snowy artifacts. I think I fixed it by changing some SRAM timings. I'll push some of this tomorrow.

[Atmosfear]

there is nothing they can do about it so it is frustrating to them.

I've figured something out. Many games won't work when switching from another game, but you can try to load the same ROM again and it often fixes it. If that doesn't work, another thing to try is to reset the MiST and reload the ROM.

Of course, there are many games with mappers that aren't yet supported so this won't work all the time. But it does help.
(in my list above it's all games where these tricks won't work)

I figured the opposite... Some games only work if loaded after others. I fought with that all day today but I still don't know what causes it. I also found a bug in the mmc3 init, at least some new games work. Mmc1 doesn't support games above 256kb, so I know what I have to do here. And I also found the same problem you had where the core becomes completely unusable with strange snowy artifacts. I think I fixed it by changing some SRAM timings. I'll push some of this tomorrow.

Those Games who work if loaded after others usualy work if the Mist is powered down for approx 10 Seconds. Sometimes it remeber me of the C64 core where some Garbage was left in memory after a Reset. I had a few NES Roms that loaded after another ROM and did display garbage but played the music of the Rom which was loaded before.

[sebdel]

I've figured something out. Many games won't work when switching from another game, but you can try to load the same ROM again and it often fixes it. If that doesn't work, another thing to try is to reset the MiST and reload the ROM.

Of course, there are many games with mappers that aren't yet supported so this won't work all the time. But it does help.
(in my list above it's all games where these tricks won't work)

I figured the opposite... Some games only work if loaded after others. I fought with that all day today but I still don't know what causes it. I also found a bug in the mmc3 init, at least some new games work. Mmc1 doesn't support games above 256kb, so I know what I have to do here. And I also found the same problem you had where the core becomes completely unusable with strange snowy artifacts. I think I fixed it by changing some SRAM timings. I'll push some of this tomorrow.

Those Games who work if loaded after others usualy work if the Mist is powered down for approx 10 Seconds. Sometimes it remeber me of the C64 core where some Garbage was left in memory after a Reset. I had a few NES Roms that loaded after another ROM and did display garbage but played the music of the Rom which was loaded before.

yeah I know this one. It happens when we fail to parse the header or when we don't have the mapper implemented. We start the NES anyway, and since we don't have the proper mapper, the memory is a patchwork of random bits and pieces. I plan to fail properly with the LED blinking in this case. At least the user will be able to make the difference between "doesn't start" and "doesn't work".

[vebxenon]

(Repeated entry)

[vebxenon]

Here are the headers of non-working games I've tested

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Bionic Commando PAL  4E 45 53 1A 10 00 10 00 00 00 00
Fantasy Zone JAPAN  4E 45 53 1A 08 00 D0 50 00 00 00
Fantasy Zone II - Opa-Opa no Namida  JAPAN 4E 45 53 1A 08 10 31 40 00 00 00
Hard Drivin' PROTO 4E 45 53 1A 08 20 01 40 00 00 00 (Download here: http://www.retrocollect.com/News/unreleased-prototype-rom-of-hard-drivin-for-nintendo-nes-released-online.html or https://tcrf.net/Hard_Drivin'_(NES))
Karnov JAPAN  4E 45 53 1A 08 08 40 00 00 00 00
Klax USA 4E 45 53 1A 04 08 00 40 00 00 00
Xybots PROTO 4E 45 53 1A 08 08 01 40 00 00 00

Regards,

Salva

[sebdel]

New release:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByKxe ... zhjbGRfbTA

- Fixed instabilities to the core ("snow" effect after recompiling)
- Fixed MMC1 and MMC3 a bit.

New games working (from the 'not working' lists posted above):

Code: Select all

8-In-1 Little Mermaid, The (U) [p1][!]
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons - Hillsfar (U) [!]
Amagon (U) [!]
American Gladiators (U) [!]
Athena (U) [!]
Chessmaster, The (U) (PRG0) [!]
Bigfoot (U) [!]
Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure (U) [!]
BreakThru (U) [!]
Battle Chess (U) [!]
Defender of the Crown (U) [!]
Bionic Commando PAL
Karnov JAPAN
Xybots PROTO

probably others I didn't test.

Enjoy
Seb

[Newsdee]

I tested a handful and you seem to have fixed most of the "cold boot" ones... well done!
I'll go through the rest as soon as I can before continuing testing more games.

By the way I gave you access to the spreadsheet, but let me update the main data as I keep a master record offline with some other notes. That said, feel free to add any notes to the right and I'll copy them to my record.

[sebdel]

I tested a handful and you seem to have fixed most of the "cold boot" ones... well done!
I'll go through the rest as soon as I can before continuing testing more games.

By the way I gave you access to the spreadsheet, but let me update the main data as I keep a master record offline with some other notes. That said, feel free to add any notes to the right and I'll copy them to my record.

Yes, I'll just add a column to track my progress. It would be a good idea to do some regression testing if you have some time. I mostly tests those that don't work in the first place.
About cold boot, some are fixed but some others are not. One thing I noticed is that the nes seems to receive a select/start event on startup. Some games are actually stuck right before the title screen, so sometime pressing start is enough to resume the game start. I saw it on chessmaster for example.

[Newsdee]

I mostly tests those that don't work in the first place.

Me too. We have a column to flag which version was tested, so that in case of regression users can go back to a previous binary. There's also many games left to check (only looked at 1/3 of licenced carts so far) so any regression issues are likely to pop up!

I should probably put the whole list in Git as CSV file as I dont think Google docs has version control (?).

[sebdel]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByKxe ... W1IZUo1V0E

+ Ai Senshi Nicol. cool game.

I also gave up trying to understand the mirroring bit of the MMC3 mapper and added an option to the OSD to invert the mirroring logic. It fixes Family Pinball and Karnov. If you have a game that seems to run but with garbage on screen, try the "Invert mirroring" option. That might help.

Enjoy
Seb

[Atmosfear]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByKxe ... W1IZUo1V0E

+ Ai Senshi Nicol. cool game.

I also gave up trying to understand the mirroring bit of the MMC3 mapper and added an option to the OSD to invert the mirroring logic. It fixes Family Pinball and Karnov. If you have a game that seems to run but with garbage on screen, try the "Invert mirroring" option. That might help.

Enjoy
Seb

My Version of Family Pinball (CRC32 0DA8A7B2) from the latest No-Intro Set did work already on the nes_160920 Core.
Same for Karnov (CRC32 103F0755). I try now the 160921 Core and see if there is a Difference.

Edit: The Problem must be the 160921 Core. I checked only Karnov without Invert Mirroring and the Ingame Screen has Garbage- If i activate Invert Mirroring and reset, the game is playable but this is all not needed in the previous Version 160920.

[sebdel]

The Problem must be the 160921 Core. I checked only Karnov without Invert Mirroring and the Ingame Screen has Garbage

160920 core is pretty much 160921 with "invert mirroring" hardwired at true. So yes, those games worked out of the box, but some others didn't. It's a trade off and I'd rather follow the spec of the mirroring bit by default.

In other news, I added Powerpad support. Dance Aerobics with the keyboard is not quite The Way It's Meant To Be Played (TM), but hey, the game works.
(tested: Athletic World and Dance Aerobics).

The 12 buttons of the Powerpad are mapped to the keyboard with the following layout:

Side A

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   R T   
 D F G H
   V B   

Side B

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E R T Y
D F G H
C V B N

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByKxe ... TJQNGFLS0k

[Atmosfear]

The Problem must be the 160921 Core. I checked only Karnov without Invert Mirroring and the Ingame Screen has Garbage

160920 core is pretty much 160921 with "invert mirroring" hardwired at true. So yes, those games worked out of the box, but some others didn't. It's a trade off and I'd rather follow the spec of the mirroring bit by default.

In other news, I added Powerpad support. Dance Aerobics with the keyboard is not quite The Way It's Meant To Be Played (TM), but hey, the game works.
(tested: Athletic World and Dance Aerobics).

The 12 buttons of the Powerpad are mapped to the keyboard with the following layout:

Side A

Code: Select all

   R T   
 D F G H
   V B   

Side B

Code: Select all

E R T Y
D F G H
C V B N

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByKxe ... TJQNGFLS0k

I understand, so the new default setting is Invert Mirroring off. That means for me that all Games that i did check to build a New Romvault Dat must be checked again because of the Possibility that some Games now work while others no longer work in default. Thanks for Clarification.

[sebdel]

That means for me that all Games that i did check to build a New Romvault Dat

More clarification
Those games didn't work in the first place, up until 160920. So you should only retest games that you tested in that 24h time frame between the 20th and 21st of september.

[Atmosfear]

That means for me that all Games that i did check to build a New Romvault Dat

More clarification
Those games didn't work in the first place, up until 160920. So you should only retest games that you tested in that 24h time frame between the 20th and 21st of september.

I did retest with 160920 only the nonworking Games from A-N and moved it from the Nonworking Folder in their own Working Folder. Windows did not alter the Timestamp so finding those is to much Work. Its not like all was for Nothing, Dupes are sorted out and Roms are renamed. And there are still Dupes slipped in like the Asia/Japanese Roms which will now be sorted out. So this is not a Problem to test it again.

Edit: While retesting the Roms i found that Airwolf (U) no longer works with Core 160920/21 but work with Core 160909. Airwolf (JAP) is a complete Different Game.

[sebdel]

Wow, that's exactly the kind of feedback I need. Airwolf is broken because of the fix to Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure. At least the way I fixed it. I'll look into it tomorrow. Thanks!