Megaman 1 on your PC-Engine/TG16
I've had this project for a while now (over a year, but haven't done much since the first few months of work). Figured some of you would get a kick out of this. All the source is there, but I also included a pre-assembled rom "megaman.pce". There's no region protection, so you can play it on PCE or TG16. Have fun...
Download here
whats with the batch file?
It's used to assemble the source files, assuming you have 'pceas' laying around somewhere.Originally Posted by c0ldb33r
I have to say I'm very impressed.I played with it and thought you did a good job of putting together the game (which I assumed was a well-executed remake), but I'm even more impressed by how you did it -- including simulating NES hardware on a PCE! Are you using the actual ROM for this?
Yes. It works like this; it's the original NES rom running on the PCE (minus the header of course). The PCE cpu is backwards compatible with the original NES CPU. So the game rom itself is running the original code. All the video and sound is handled via emulation. It's translated into PCE format on the fly/realtime. The PCE isn't fast enough to monitor ports reads/writes, so *all* the hardware port writes are replace with JSRs. As you can see in the main ASM file. A 3 byte JSR opcode nicely replaces a 3byte STA/STX/STY opcode (or LDA/LDX/LDY for reading ports). So it's about 2% hack and 98% emulation. The source it generalized so it can be reused for other projects. I have a few other NES games running on the PCE with minimal additional code/tweaks to the same source.It's used to assemble the source files, assuming you have 'pceas' laying around somewhere.
I have to say I'm very impressed.
Last edited by tomaitheous; 09-24-2009 at 09:46 PM.
This is pretty awesome! Is this playable on real PC Engine/TG16 hardware?
Reminds me of the Super Mario Bros 1 hack someone made long ago.
That's actually very interesting. I just discovered recently that there were several famicom collections released on PCE. I wonder if those games were ported in a similar fashion to what you've done with Megaman.
I had no idea the PCE CPU was backward compatible with the NES one. Neat.
Could you theoretically enhance a Famicom game with this method? Like, could you redraw the sprites to use more colors, replace the music, etc.?
Yes, you can. That was the second purpose of this project. To do enhanced NES hacks. I provided the source/premission/etc in a thread over at RHDN, but I guess it didn't generate enough interest from the hacking community.
Yes. I test all my code on the real PCE/SGX systems.This is pretty awesome! Is this playable on real PC Engine/TG16 hardware?
You mean the one by that Finland hacking group? They actually did something similar, but much more hacking and less emulation. Those game are also speed rated to run on a 50hz PAL PCE, so when played on a NTSC - the colors are slightly off and runs faster.Reminds me of the Super Mario Bros 1 hack someone made long ago.
Yessir, the HuC6280A is backwards compatible. They're both 6502 CPUs
Now what I want to see tom, is an enhanced Mega Man 3 w/ PSG music. 32 byte the waves!
i played thru, its pretty nice. My only complaint is that it's mega man 1
What made you choose that one?
Well, they're both 65x family CPUs. 6502 itself is pretty basic compared to the revisions, though. /pet_peeve_offYessir, the HuC6280A is backwards compatible. They're both 6502 CPUs
After 5 NES game projects like this, I'm think I'm done with these. But who knows...Now what I want to see tom, is an enhanced Mega Man 3 w/ PSG music. 32 byte the waves!
Because it's classici played thru, its pretty nice. My only complaint is that it's mega man 1
What made you choose that one?
Could a PCE, or TG game be played on an NES in a similar fashion? I'm assuming no, but I have to ask.
65xx / 6502, same difference!You say tomato, I say tomato!
I'd go with no too, since the NES video capabilities aren't up to par with the PCE, and the CPU is not as great in terms of 65xx-ness
Nope. PCE CPU is running at 7.16mhz VS the NES 1.79mhz - not to mention all the extra new instructions it has, additional addressing modes, and DMA like opcodes. Video hardware, besides being much more advance (they are 16bit generation video chips), is *nothing* like the NES video hardware. Audio hardware is *completely* different. PCE audio hardware is similar to Amiga PCM audio - it uses samples, that's why it's able to replicate that NES sound. The setup I have is completely emulating the video and audio hardware in realtime, this takes up the extra resource of the PCE CPU. Not to mention that PCE system allows the CPU to write to VRAM at *any* point in time - no home console does this in the 8 and 16bit generation.
I say 65x like I say x86. I wouldn't say 8086 if I was talking about a 186/286/386 etc65xx / 6502, same difference! You say tomato, I say tomato!
Fuck THAT! Mega Man 2
blah, i want to hear spark mans music though!
I can confirm that it's playable on real tg16 hardware. Great job tom - what's next?
Five? What other ones? This is completely awesome...
Five? What other ones? This is completely awesome...
dragon quest is one of em .
the rest are irrelevant! MORE DRAGON QUEST!
you know that is one series that would have shined like mad on the PC Engine....
Megaman 1, Dragon Warrior 1, Castlevania 1, SMB 1 (this was kinda for the hacker Hamtaro's inquiry in it, but he never replied back. Also for myself as well though), and finally RoboWarrior.Five? What other ones? This is completely awesome...
All are fully playable except robowarrior which has a weird lockup bug if you open your item menu about halfway into the first level. It's because I haven't finished locating all the port writes and mapper calls. This is were I stopped all these projects. Castlevania needs a little more audio work, but else the game is beatable. SMB needs some audio work and I somehow broke the title screen, but otherwise beatable. Dragon Warrior 1 is almost complete, but uses an old audio engine so it might need some tweaks and the last boss tile mode needs emulation (bank selection) - but otherwise it's fine, playable, beatable, and on CD too
I don't know if I'll finish any of these. The proof of concept was the compelling part about doing them, now it's kind of a drag to work on (it's tedious work for R&D and debugging). I can upload Castlevania 1 is anyone is really interested in it (although it's not done, but technically neither is Megaman).
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