Programming Discussion Thread

[Shonumi]

So... updates. Lots of progress, mostly speed optimizations and graphical fixes, with a few additions to game compatibility (at least out of the games I've tested, I might have fixed more than I know). Megaman Battle Network 1 and 2 now run almost flawlessly (missing features of LCD emulation like Mosiac effects, various transparencies, etc). I played both games for hundreds of hours way back when. Kingdom Hearts: COM works pretty well, except the intro movie freezes and battles (the crux of the game) take advantage of BG Mode 2, which I've not implemented yet. I actually dug up an old, 10-year old game save from VBA on one of my old USB HDDs and it worked as-is in GBE+ (which is how I got around the movie freeze).

The big win for me over the weekend was EEPROM emulation. This was necessary to boot Super Mario Advance (and theoretically a ton of other Nintendo games). Some sprites are a little weird, since scaling and rotation is not finished by any means, but for the most part the game is completely playable (except the Mario Bros Classic mode, that crashes ) Also managed to fix a glaring address issue with 8-bit palettes for sprite rendering, which prevented the dialog portraits in Riviera from displaying (as well as special portraits used during Overdrive attacks). Both contribute a lot to the mood of the game, so I'm glad I'm one step closer to fully reliving this game. Also, built-in screenshot and pause functionality added.

NSFW: (Show Spoiler)

Dug up my old Riviera game save (also 10 years-old from VBA, 1.7 baby) but I found another one, a backup called RivieraBath.sav. I kinda scratched my head for a bit until I loaded it up and found out why.