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Main - ROM Hacking - Why infidelity uses the MMC5 mapper ines 005 New thread | New reply


infidelity
Posted on 08-08-15 12:50 AM (rev. 6 of 08-10-15 01:40 PM) Link | Quote | ID: 160592


Fuzz Ball
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I hope that this gets spread around the internet like wildfire. So that other sites, and forums read this, and understand my actions. So if there are non Acmlm users here that are reading this, by all means share this post, link this post, etc, however it can get across, the more that see it/read it, the better.

I've been out of the scene for a few months now, my personal life is more busy than ever. I've been sort of enjoying the fruits of my labor, over my latest two projects, "Zelda - The Legend of Link" & "Super Mario All-Stars NES"

The consensus I've come across time and time again on the internet, is the issues people have with my projects on specific emulators, or retropaks/everdrives, etc.

So what I am about to do, is name off some things I've read (paraphrasing if you will) and answer them as best I can. But first....

Why I use the MMC5 mapper

The MMC5 mapper, is the most impressive & powerful mapper ever created by Nintendo. Some will talk about the Konami mappers being just as powerful, specifically due towards it's audio power, but that's not what I'm after. The MMC5 allows the user to max out the PRG-ROM & CHR-ROM chips to 1024kb's/1mb each, making that game a full 2mb's! That is an exuberant amount of space for a Nintendo game. A vast majority of retail Nintendo games, range from the sizes of 513kb's/769kb's. With 2mb's of size, you have so much freedom in the PRG/CHR department.

Speaking purely on the PRG-ROM, take my project "Zelda - The Legend of Link" for example. Without the PRG-ROM being maxed to 1024kb, there would be no Dark World, hell the Light World wouldn't be as big. There would be no advanced sound engine, no additional space for added assembly for enemies, or other various actions such as writing massive amounts of tile tables to the vram engine. Now take my other project "Super Mario All-Stars NES" for example. Without the PRG-ROM being maxed at 1024kb, there is NO WAY, that I would've been able to cram in those 4 games into 1.

Speaking purely on the CHR-ROM, again, take ZTLOL for example. Without the CHR-ROM maxed at 1024kb, there would be no fancy CHR Swapping. By now everyone has seen my story introduction, with the Windwaker Link & Ocarina of Time Link. That is all performed by CHR Swapping. Have you ever seen or created a flipbook, using stick figures on each individual page, and on those individual pages, you have the stick figure in a different position each time you flip a page? That's basically what CHR Swapping is, the MMC5 allows you to swap out different CHR pages, to give the appearance of animation taking place. Without that 1024kb's of CHR-ROM space, that introduction would've never seen the light of day.

Those two giant paragraphs pretty much sum up why I use the MMC5. It allows for so much creativity for the user to accomplish things, code wise & graphic wise.

On top of those things, the MMC5 can allow the user to have 4 individual save pages of $6000-$7FFF! The user can either use that area for actual saving features, or, the user can use it as additional PRG-RAM, or even PRG-ROM! The MMC5 also has very advanced graphical features, making it so instead of a 16x16 block having an individual palette, you can now set all individual 8x8 tiles (like in Super Nintendo) to have their own individual palette! Me personally, I have not utilized that feature, if you want an amazing example of that in action, I highly suggest you look at kuja killer's "Megaman Odyssey."

Answers To Some Remarks I've Seen

His game doesn't work, it just shows up as garbage
Answer: This is the #1 remark I've come across time and time again. There is nothing wrong with my game. The problem is with the emulator the player is using. The emulator obviously lacks the proper emulation of the MMC5 mapper. What is happening, is that the MMC5 reads pages 00-FF for the CHR tiles. But in my game(s), i have 4 individual 00-FF pages. So the emulator does not have that setup properly, causing garbage gfx to appear. Players sometimes like to stick to what they've been using for years & years, and don't like to update, or are just casual rom hack explorers, and find the easiest emulator on the internet they can obtain. In order to play MMC5 games properly, especially enhanced ones, it's recommended to update or obtain, the latest PC versions of FCEUX, Nintendulator, or Nestopia. PC emulators ported over to video game consoles, such as Xbox, PS3, Wii, various handhelds or smartphones, the porter needs to make sure the emulator he/she is porting, has MMC5 capabilities.

Why Doesn't He Use MMC3? It's The Most Popular, They Work On Everything.
Answer: MMC3 lacks the free space I require for additional PRG-ROM & CHR-ROM. There's no huge explanation for this one. :-/

I Tried This On The N8 Everdrive. It Doesn't Work
Answer: The N8 Everdrive (and I believe the Retro PowerPak) uses two 512kb SRAM chips for PRG-ROM & CHR-ROM. I've contacted krikzz, the creator of the Everdrive devices, and he has no desire to revise his device, to incorporate 1024kb PRG/CHR-ROM chips. I even suggested I purchase the same style chips, only 1024kb's each in size, but he said there is more to it than the chips themselves. So enhanced MMC5 games will never work on those devices. It is up to the respected creators. The only way you will ever see these games on actual Nintendo hardware, is by people sacrificing crappy MMC5 games that have the required size, and destroying them so that these enhanced games can replace them.

That Mario All-Stars Game. Why Didn't He Insert The Mario World Pirate As Well?
Answer: That game alone is 769kb's in size. The 4 Mario games I had inserted into the PRG-ROM, made it impossible for that game to be alongside the others. There also would be no room for any kind of introduction screen, controller function, etc.



That's all I pretty much have to say on all of that. I don't have the freedom to rom hack like I used to anymore. I'm not saying that I'm done forever, but I have zero clue as to when i'll ever get back to it. Anyways thanks for letting me get all of this out. :-)

mrrichard999
Posted on 08-11-15 08:39 AM Link | Quote | ID: 160623


Shyguy
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I think you should put MMC5 to use with Metroid and collaborate with Grimlock, Snarfblam, & ThanatosZero to create the ultimate hack of Metroid turning it into the Metroid II from Game Boy that players deserve Im sure with this talent pooled together something awesome of that nature could be made!

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Main - ROM Hacking - Why infidelity uses the MMC5 mapper ines 005 New thread | New reply

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