Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
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Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
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Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#2> The author of DOOM for SNES, Randy Linden, did not have access to any documentation about the GSU chip or even DOOM source code. He reverse engineered all of it
Technically this is impressive, but why was it necessary?
Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#3I do really like how cartridges on the old systems were essentially equivalent to a PCI Expansion Card in a PC. It was directly connected to the Bus and could do essentially anything. Sadly, that practice ended after the GameBoy Advance, and everything since the Nintendo DS has been purely data storage.
This leads to crazy modern enhancements like a Raytracing chip[1], or the MSU1 enhancement chip that is AFAIK not available as an actual physical chip, but only in software emulators. But it would be theoretically possible to manufacture, so you could have an actual physical SNES Cartridge of Road Blaster[2].
On the article itself, I noticed that his list has "Street Fighter Zero 2" as a USA ROM - that should be incorrect, since Street Fighter Zero is what Street Fighter Alpha was called in Japan. So Zero 2 should just be the Japanese version of Alpha 2. (Also, thanks for linking to the MVG video that debunks the myth that the delay before each round is caused by decompression)
Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#4> The author of DOOM for SNES, Randy Linden, did not have access to any documentation about the GSU chip or even DOOM source code. He reverse engineered all of it Technically this is impressive, but why was it necessary?
Some Details on the Doom Wiki (https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Super_NES):
Randy Linden, the port's sole programmer, initiated the port of Doom for the Super NES on his own initially, as he was fascinated by the game.
Since Doom's source code was not yet released at the time, Linden referred to the Unofficial Doom Specs as a means of understanding the game's lump layout in detail. The resources were extracted from the IWAD, with some (notably sprites such as the player's sprites and the original status bar face sprites) unused due to technical limitations.
According to an interview, due to lack of development systems for the Super FX, Linden wrote a set of tools consisting of an assembler, linker, debugger, dubbed the ACCESS, on his own Amiga before beginning development of the port proper. For the hardware kit, he utilized a hacked Star Fox cartridge and a pair of modified Super NES controllers plugged into the console and connected to the Amiga's parallel port. A serial protocol was used to further link the two devices.
After developing a full prototype, he later showcased it to his employer, Sculptured Software, which helped him finish the development. In the interview, Linden expressed a wish that he could have added the missing levels; however, the game, already the largest possible size for a Super FX 2 game at 16 megabits (approximately 2 megabytes), only has roughly 16 bytes of free space. Linden also added support for the Super Scope light gun device, the Super NES mouse, and the XBAND modem for multiplayer. Fellow programmer John Coffey, himself a fan of the Doom series, made modifications to the levels, but some of those modifications were rejected by id Software.
Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#5I hope developers still love to blog details with article mode like this, rather than vlogging it on YouTube. A lot of detail packed into a few kilobytes only.
"Super Mario World" is still the masterpiece game ever. It has amazing characters, sprites, and stages packed into only 360 KB.
Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#6It’s impressive that developers could afford to make custom ICs for only one or two games. I wouldn’t have thought the revenue would be enough to justify that.
Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#7I do really like how cartridges on the old systems were essentially equivalent to a PCI Expansion Card in a PC. It was directly connected to the Bus and could do essentially anything. Sadly, that practice ended after the GameBoy Advance, and everything since the Nintendo DS has been purely data storage. This leads to crazy modern enhancements like a Raytracing chip[1], or the MSU1 enhancement chip that is AFAIK not a…
Now I am curious to know how some games could have an IR transmsmitter inside the cartridge like Pokemon Soulsilver, did they plan this specific usecase or a whole channel for limited cartridge expansion components ?
Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#8Where do the byte counts for the various games come from? The games came on ROM chips that were, as ROM chip are wont to, sized to powers-of-two. For instance, Super Mario World was shipped on a 512kb ROM - where does 346,330 bytes come from? Are these compressed sizes?
Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#9I'm wondering why the console CPU wasn't running at 4x the clock rate to begin with, if the cartridges could easily and cheaply include one so much better. I guess that's just how fast CPUs were improving back then. A CPU from just a few years prior was that obsolete. Crazy!
Re: Inside the Super Nintendo cartridges
#10Where do the byte counts for the various games come from? The games came on ROM chips that were, as ROM chip are wont to, sized to powers-of-two. For instance, Super Mario World was shipped on a 512kb ROM - where does 346,330 bytes come from? Are these compressed sizes?
Data padding.