Secret of Mana Map Palette(?) Bug

[Dmog]

Concerning the discussion on NGemu:


Like the user Talbain on Ngemu I'd also like to apologize.
Both Pagefault and Byuu made excellent points. Falling into the trap of comparing different emulators is pointless.

[byuu]

Back on topic. SoM is now working properly, I am looking at Sim Earth now.

Excellent! You work so fast, it truly impresses me. By the way, did you add direct color support to modes 3 and 4 only? It can also be used by mode 7. However, it only works on BG1, not EXTBG2. That's because there are only 128 colors on EXTBG2 (the top bit of course being a priority bit). If you enable EXTBG+Direct Color, you end up with BG1 using direct color, and BG2 using palette-indexed colors. I can send you a test ROM that clearly demonstrates this by using the mosaic trick to show both BG1 and BG2 at the same time with the same tilemap+tiledata.

Like the user Talbain on Ngemu I'd also like to apologize.

It's ok, you're both still friends of mine :D
Unless you can't dance, and if you can't dance, then you're ... no friends of mine :/

[FitzRoy]

but I think as human beings we can use reason just as well depending on the bug

Enter the false bug reports. Ex: There's slighly garbled graphics in X game, we "reason" it obviously shouldn't be there (nor do we recall it was ever there) yet sometimes it was indeed there in the original console all along.

If you're going to refute something, please give an example of this because I have no idea what you're talking about or how it refutes my post.

[Dmog]

but I think as human beings we can use reason just as well depending on the bug

Enter the false bug reports. Ex: There's slighly garbled graphics in X game, we "reason" it obviously shouldn't be there (nor do we recall it was ever there) yet sometimes it was indeed there in the original console all along.

If you're going to refute something, please give an example of this because I have no idea what you're talking about or how it refutes my post.

I'm not really "refuting" just simply giving an example of how human memory shouldn't be taken for the absolute truth either. People have often reported emulation "bugs" when it was in fact an actual game bug. I've seen it with Nes,Snes,Gameboy,Megadrive and Arcade emulation. Mametesters probably have tons of examples.

Unless you can't dance, and if you can't dance, then you're ... no friends of mine :/

Nope, 'fraid I can't
Is that a quote from a movie?

[byuu]

It's a quote from an extremely popular song from the 80's.</offtopic>

[FitzRoy]

I'm not really "refuting" just simply giving an example of how human memory shouldn't be taken for the absolute truth either.

Never said it was absolute, I said I would place it above an emulator comparison. Even though it's farther removed than an immediate test, it's still coming from real hardware.

People have often reported emulation "bugs" when it was in fact an actual game bug.

Which is why my post wasn't one sentence but an entire paragraph.

The ocean being brown and not blue is obvious. Speed problems, infrequent crashes, audio glitches, and graphic glitches are a little less clear cut. Games like Lufia 2 are the reason for that.

Now go listen to Men Without Hats.

[Dmog]

but an entire paragraph.

The ocean being brown and not blue is obvious. Speed problems, infrequent crashes, audio glitches, and graphic glitches are a little less clear cut. Games like Lufia 2 are the reason for that.

Now go listen to Men Without Hats.

Who the heck is "Men without hats" and why would I want to listen to it?
edit: nevermind

(And not every ocean is blue in video games (ff4 underworld for example) nor does that exclude the possibility of a game bug)

[byuu]

Who the heck is "Men without hats" and why would I want to listen to it?
I think I don't need you to tell me what I should listen to anyway.

Hahahah, man. Family Guy must piss you the hell off with all the obscure references from the 80's. That, or be a lot less funny to you :P

[Dmog]

Who the heck is "Men without hats" and why would I want to listen to it?
I think I don't need you to tell me what I should listen to anyway.

Hahahah, man. Family Guy must piss you the hell off with all the obscure references from the 80's. That, or be a lot less funny to you

Nah actually, I love Familly Guy (Well I loved the first three seasons anyway. Haven't seen the others.) It's one of few comedy show on TV I actually found funny (sometimes downright hilarous).




edit: Yeah ok, I got that one kind of late...

"Cause your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance
Well they’re are no friends of mine" = Men without Hats. Fitzroy lost me with there his response.

[pagefault]

Excellent! You work so fast, it truly impresses me. By the way, did you add direct color support to modes 3 and 4 only? It can also be used by mode 7.

I have not added support for mode 7 because I have no way to test it right now and since I can't find a game that uses it, I am not going to worry about it for now.

[byuu]

Yeah, I was even surprised SoM used it and nobody ever realized it before. It's really only useful for freeing up the top 128 colors for sprites, as otherwise you could just turn the palette into an RGB332 table and be done with it. And you lose the ability to do palette fades and such.

Well, if you're ever bored I'll make you a decent test ROM for it, but yeah, probably not worth the effort if nothing uses it I guess.

[Overload]

Excellent! You work so fast, it truly impresses me. By the way, did you add direct color support to modes 3 and 4 only? It can also be used by mode 7.

I have not added support for mode 7 because I have no way to test it right now and since I can't find a game that uses it, I am not going to worry about it for now.

From my lists these games uses Direct Color Mode

ActRaiser 2, Romance of the 3 Kingdoms 2, Aerobiz, Aerobiz SuperSonic, Secret of Mana

[byuu]

Oooooh, you must share your lists with us :D

Know of any games that use mode7 EXTBG, mode7 mosaic, mode6 offset-per-tile, OAM interlace (other than Blues' Brothers), mid-frame OAM address writes (other than Uniracers or Goemon 2), pseudo-hires (other than Jurassic Park and Kirby's Dreamland 3. There's a few rumored ones like the baseball game, Silva Saga 2, etc, but are any confirmed to not just be standard hires?), or firstsprite+y priority mode?

And offtopic real quick while you're reading this thread, do you know anything about OAM address invalidation during the active frame? I've heard that Super Sleuth works with Uniracers 2p mode, but also that the exact formula for OAM adress updates mid-frame is unknown... '9x just has an HDMA hack for the game, lame.

[Overload]

Oooooh, you must share your lists with us

Know of any games that use mode7 EXTBG, mode7 mosaic, mode6 offset-per-tile, OAM interlace (other than Blues' Brothers), mid-frame OAM address writes (other than Uniracers or Goemon 2), pseudo-hires (other than Jurassic Park and Kirby's Dreamland 3. There's a few rumored ones like the baseball game, Silva Saga 2, etc, but are any confirmed to not just be standard hires?), or firstsprite+y priority mode?

There are probably quite a few games missing. My lists aren't that conclusive.

mode7 EXTBG

F-1 Grand Prix Part 3 (J)
Mohawk and Headphone Jack

mode7 Mosaic

Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II Turbo

mode6 offset-per tile

None that I know of.

pseudo-hires

Jurassic Park
Kirby's Dreamland 3
Super Bases Loaded
Silva Saga 2

firstsprite+y priority mode?

no idea but the title screen for Super Conflict has always baffled me. The 'S' in particular.

And offtopic real quick while you're reading this thread, do you know anything about OAM address invalidation during the active frame? I've heard that Super Sleuth works with Uniracers 2p mode, but also that the exact formula for OAM adress updates mid-frame is unknown... '9x just has an HDMA hack for the game, lame.

I really don't know the exact formula, I've never written any programs to test OAM. I can't remember the exact sequence of events that happens during the Uniracers 2p mode. If you remind me I could explain what happens better, it's been a while. I don't use any elaborate hacks but Sleuth considers writing xxxx0000B to $2100 as force blank.

[creaothceann]

mode7 EXTBG

F-1 Grand Prix Part 3 (J)
Mohawk and Headphone Jack

And also Contra II, in that stage with the crumbling streets (pic). Maybe the following scene too.

EDIT: And the title screen of "Tiny Toon Adventures - Buster Busts Loose".

mode7 Mosaic

Street Fighter II
Street Fighter II Turbo

Turrican 2 has some Mode7 levels and uses the mosaic effect for screen fades.

[byuu]

firstsprite+y priority mode?
no idea but the title screen for Super Conflict has always baffled me. The 'S' in particular.

It's the mode where when your OAM address is on the last byte of a dword sprite entry, it causes the currently scanline position to affect the priority. anomie describes it in his registers.txt file.

I wish I could tell you if that 's' worked for me. For whatever reason, bsnes just skips right over the intro for Super Conflict. It does that in a lot of games, in fact. Probably an input bug somewhere, god knows I haven't fixed enough of those already.

I really don't know the exact formula, I've never written any programs to test OAM. I can't remember the exact sequence of events that happens during the Uniracers 2p mode. If you remind me I could explain what happens better, it's been a while. I don't use any elaborate hacks but Sleuth considers writing xxxx0000B to $2100 as force blank.

It's something like it writes to OAM mid-frame with force blank on and expects the writes to go to $10c ($218 byte index).

Hmm, so you're saying that $00 is considered force blank as well as $8f? Very interesting... I'll give it a try, thanks.

[creaothceann]

*bump*

If I recall correctly... the world map also changes its palette as well when the game changes the overworld's color.. but I'll have to get far enough to expose that.

Nope, looks the same here (using http://www.zophar.net/srm/som1-3.zip).

EDIT: ...well, one of of those ZIPs.