Forums

Sega Master System / Mark III / Game Gear
SG-1000 / SC-3000 / SF-7000 / OMV
Home - Forums - Games - Scans - Maps - Cheats - Credits
Music - Videos - Development - Hacks - Translations - Homebrew

View topic - Off-topic inspiring technical stuff

Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7  Next
Author Message
  • Joined: 09 Sep 2001
  • Posts: 236
  • Location: Umeå, Sweden
Reply with quote
Doom clone for unexpanded Amigas
Post Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2020 11:29 pm
Here's a guy working on a FPS game similiar to Doom but that will run on an Amiga 500 or similairly specced Amiga.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvRxpxVRdEg
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:43 pm
This is a quite interesting effect, considering the hardware:



I imagine a similar-looking effect could be implemented on the SMS using a fixed 6 colors background image (one for each lane, plus the background), and using raster interrupts plus midscreen palette changes for faking the scrolling effect (that is, supposing the SMS VDP could change 5 palette entries per scanline).

Nope, I won't try implementing the idea. :P
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Jan 09, 2021 10:24 am
This is a work in progress racing game that uses real-time rotation and FMV on the NES:
https://nlab.itmedia.co.jp/nl/amp/2008/05/news043.html?__twitter_impression=true
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2021 10:09 pm
A fighting game for the MSX, with C source.

https://github.com/arcadenea/msxfighter
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 16 May 2002
  • Posts: 1355
  • Location: italy
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2021 4:58 pm
This guy built a working video card only using OTS parts.

Make sure to check the follow-up videos as well, in the third one he actually hooks up that video card with a computer he also built out of breadboards and stuff.

And there went my whole afternoon. My girlfriend is hating me right now, I wonder if I should tell her what I actually did, or if it's better if she thinks I'm cheating on her 😁

Being interested in niche things is weird.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 05 Sep 2013
  • Posts: 3757
  • Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2021 5:09 pm
I remember seeing (some of) those videos about the VGA a few months ago - they're amazing!
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14682
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
RE3 game engine from GTA3 disassembly
Post Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2021 6:13 pm
https://github.com/GTAmodding/re3

Quote
In this repository you'll find the fully reversed source code for GTA III (master branch) and GTA VC (miami branch).

It has been tested and works on Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, on x86, amd64, arm and arm64.
Rendering is handled either by original RenderWare (D3D8) or the reimplementation librw (D3D9, OpenGL 2.1 or above, OpenGL ES 2.0 or above).
Audio is done with MSS (using dlls from original GTA) or OpenAL.

The project has also been ported to the Ni****do Switch, Playstation Vita and Ni****do Wii U.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2021 9:24 am
There will be a game programming contest for retro hardware from march 13th to March 29th:

https://itch.io/jam/retro-hardware-jam?fbclid=IwAR12fFl_RWOHjqctzoBjI9IU-YLoowDK...
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2021 6:13 pm
Genius weird synth:


Quote
Sassy is an audio spreadsheet. Or, as it stands, it's THE audio spreadsheet.

It's a spreadsheet. You can add values to cells, ask it to average a range.

It's a synthesizer. You can ask it to generate a sine wave based on time, and output it through your speakers. Add an ADSR envelope, modulate the frequency based on MIDI input note, put in some filters and hey, it's an actual instrument.

Sassy includes over 100 functions, including some that largely make sense in a spreadsheet way (like finding maximum value out of a range) and others that largely make sense in a synthesizer way (like high pass filter, various waveform generators, delays etc) as well as a whole lot that make sense in both (like trigonometry).
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14682
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Uppestcase and lowestcase letters
Post Posted: Fri Apr 02, 2021 1:35 pm


Absolute genius, I am totally in awe. Also completely useless, so I am doubly impressed.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 19 Oct 1999
  • Posts: 14682
  • Location: London
Reply with quote
Project Binky
Post Posted: Sat May 08, 2021 7:38 pm
Very off topic but also impressive and technical.



Spoiler alert: 7 years in and it’s not quite finished yet.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Site Admin
  • Joined: 08 Jul 2001
  • Posts: 8644
  • Location: Paris, France
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2021 12:17 pm
A c64 demo running on the floppy disk drive (which emits the video signal directly + audio using motors)
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 05 Sep 2013
  • Posts: 3757
  • Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2021 3:33 pm
the cables cutting hurt me physically
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Jul 05, 2021 8:23 pm
I see... they're taking advantage of the fact that the C64 disk drive has its own microprocessor in order to bit-bang a video signal. Pretty creative, out-of-the-box solution.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 23 Jan 2010
  • Posts: 411
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2021 12:29 pm
Genesis/Megadrive´s SOTN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8WcbBsZSjg
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Sep 26, 2021 6:35 pm
"Elk is a tiny embeddable JavaScript engine that implements a small but usable subset of ES6. It is designed for microcontroller development. Instead of writing firmware code in C/C++, Elk allows to develop in JavaScript. Another use case is providing customers with a secure, protected scripting environment for product customisation.

Elk features include:

- Cross platform. Works anywhere from 8-bit microcontrollers to 64-bit servers
- Zero dependencies. Builds cleanly by ISO C or ISO C++ compilers
- Easy to embed: just copy elk.c and elk.h to your source tree
- Very small and simple embedding API
- Can call native C/C++ functions from JavaScript and vice versa
- Does not use malloc. Operates with a given memory buffer only
- Small footprint: about 20KB on flash/disk, about 100 bytes RAM for core VM
- No bytecode. Interprets JS code directly"

https://github.com/cesanta/elk

I guess it could be made to run on the SMS via SDCC, specially due to the low ROM/RAM requirements, plus the fact that it does not use malloc().
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 10:19 pm
An impressive Sega Genesis demo using graphics from Street Fighter V:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Nov 27, 2021 7:18 pm
The part explaining how the tank can move around a platform is pretty interesting.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2021 11:27 am
Pretty interesting that they managed to perform 4 channel wavetable synthesis at 23 KHz on the ZX Spectrum beeper:



I wonder if a similar technique could be adapted to the SMS PSG?
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:51 pm
A pretty interesting WIP port:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 23 Jan 2010
  • Posts: 411
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2021 5:52 pm
Why C64 need 256 kb of expansion for run this game. Not is much ram memory for a simple game?
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 16 May 2002
  • Posts: 1355
  • Location: italy
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2021 6:39 pm
Let me quote someone who knows more than me:
LocalH on Sonic Retro wrote
A stock C64 doesn't have the bandwidth to move color RAM around the way this game does. It doesn't really need the whole expansion RAM so much, as it does the 1-cycle-per-byte REU DMA chip (whereas moving data via pure 6502 would eat all of the available cycle time just for moving the data, over 19k cycles versus 2k via REU)
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 05 Sep 2013
  • Posts: 3757
  • Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2021 3:15 pm
yeah like Sam's Journey does with NTSC, but any REU size would do in that case...
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 09 Dec 2013
  • Posts: 228
  • Location: detroit
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Dec 28, 2021 10:54 pm
A very interesting digital phone dialer from the '80s that uses core rope memory. From the Soviet Union.



Tear down, how it works, testing, etc
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Dec 29, 2021 12:20 am
An interesting tool that generates an entire tileset from a single tile:
https://mokatunprod.itch.io/one-tile-to-tileset
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 23 Jan 2010
  • Posts: 411
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2022 6:39 pm
How Out of this World was developed for Amiga:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iz9PJbs5rE
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2022 11:32 pm
A tool for generating art using AI:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 23 Jan 2010
  • Posts: 411
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Jan 16, 2022 1:52 pm
A small technical test of raster effect capabilities on SMS
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 01 Feb 2014
  • Posts: 844
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:04 am
While certainly off-topic, I'm not sure if this really qualifies as technical or if it wouldn't be better suited to the music subforum, but making a whole new thread for it seems a bit much.

Anyway, there's this YT channel I enjoy very much, called 8-bit music theory. To be honest, only a few of the videos are really about 8-bit stuff, but almost all of them are interesting and explain (sometimes rather complicated) aspects of music theory in the context of games soundtracks and in an easy to understand way.

The video abot Mega Man's music helped, in fact, shape the soundtrack of Flight of Pigarus. I also took some cues from the one about drum arrangements for the music of my current project.

Highly recommended!
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 29 Mar 2012
  • Posts: 879
  • Location: Spain
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:08 am
wow, great channel Kagesan!, thanks for sharing
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2022 9:22 am
While this one is in Unity, it does explain some techniques that can be used to make platforming controls feel tighter:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 23 Jan 2010
  • Posts: 411
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:09 am
Some cool effects in Nes, in special the reflection:
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:15 am
Not really techinically impressive, but still cool.
https://www.neowin.net/news/man-creates-entire-game-of-pong-inside-a-single-spri...
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 5:01 pm
Interesting explanation of various tricks used on SNES games:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 09 Jun 2014
  • Posts: 361
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2022 6:07 pm
Not sure if it was mentioned here before, but Retro Game Mechanics Explained also has a lot of very insightful videos. After some months of silence he has posted 2 new videos.

Here is my favorite effect and video:


The irony is that it's not the beautiful background effect that is causing the slowdown, but the the (too) many sprites in front of it. The platforms are also sprites here.


I'm watching the new video about Castlevania Bloodlines now.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 23 Jan 2010
  • Posts: 411
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2022 9:17 am
A game made for 40 kb! Got my attention the sprite optimization:
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2022 10:28 am
A JS interpreter that consumes from 8 to 16 kB of ROM:

https://github.com/coder-mike/microvium

"Microvium is an ultra-compact, embeddable scripting engine for microcontrollers for executing a useful subset of the JavaScript language, with a focus on small size and ease of use.

Microvium takes the unique approach partially running the JS code at build time and deploying a snapshot, which leads to a number of advantages over other embedded JavaScript engines.

(...)


- Run high-level scripts on an MCU (bare metal or RTOS)- Run the same script code on small microcontrollers and desktop-class machines (ideal for IoT applications with shared logic between device and server) -- the engine is available as a C unit and as a node.js library.
- Runs JavaScript on very small devices, requiring 8-16 kB of ROM depending on the platform and enabled features (for more details, see here).- Script code is completely sand-boxed and isolated for security and safety
- Snapshotting: hibernate the VM to a database or file and restore it later. Check out the Concepts.
- Run the scripts on your custom host API for your particular application
- Execute out of non-addressable ROM (e.g. serial flash)"
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2022 11:53 am
This hardware hack uses a Raspberry Pi to render 3D scenes in real time, communicating through the Atari 800XL's parallel port:

  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2022 10:07 am
Someone managed to run TensorFlow Lite on the C64:
https://github.com/nickbild/tflite_c64?utm_source=pocket_mylist
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 09 Jun 2014
  • Posts: 361
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2022 1:19 am
Ghouls'n Ghosts ARCADE on Megadrive - The (re)making of Stage 2:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2022 10:06 am
A Brazilian ROM magazine (Okay, more like a slideshow) for the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive; interesting for the novelty:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:40 pm
This is a ChoiceScript clone that generates Sega Genesis ROMs. If can be used for visual novels or simple multimedia presentations.

It takes a bunch of scripts and images and, from that, it generates SGDK-compatible .c and .res files. Those are then compiled into a Sega Genesis compatible ROM, which can be run on an emulator or even on real hardware.

The syntax of the scripts is somewhat based on ChoiceScript, but it is not exactly the same.

Please note that this is an early work and progress, and it is not as stable or user-friendly as it is planned to become.

Video for version 0.0.1:

Example code:

* font "damieng.com - Hourglass font.png"
* background "Blue Hedgehog.png"
* choice
   # Play some music
      * music "Actraiser - Fillmore.vgm"
      OK, playing Fillmore, from Actraiser.
   # Show a smiley
      * image "Smiley.png", at(30, 3)
      OK... showing a smiley!
   # Third choice
      You chose the third one
      * choice
         # Yet another choice
            You chose this.
         # One more choice
            You chose that.
This is a test.
Second line.
Third line.


Page on itch.io: https://haroldo-ok.itch.io/choice4genesis
Github repo: https://github.com/haroldo-ok/choice4genesis
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2022 12:41 am
A blazing fast raycaster for the C64:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 8:56 pm
Last edited by haroldoop on Sat Oct 22, 2022 9:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
A very interesting FPS for the NES:
https://mindbleach.itch.io/slaughter
4dk2Xi.png (214.12 KB)
4dk2Xi.png

  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Oct 22, 2022 9:00 pm
A tunnel shooter for the GB:
https://mindbleach.itch.io/stunner

Source code: https://mindbleach.itch.io/stunner-but-with-source-code
i0xSyq.gif (325.55 KB)
i0xSyq.gif

  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 17 Jan 2020
  • Posts: 118
  • Location: Brisbane, AU
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Oct 23, 2022 3:47 am
MSX-Karts or mode 7 for the MSX.



https://github.com/MartinezTorres/msx-karts

Some interesting possibilities for the SMS.
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2022 11:11 pm
An impressive 3D engine for the ZX-Spectrum:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 09 Mar 2021
  • Posts: 11
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sun Oct 30, 2022 10:59 pm
Super Hi res slide show on PCE:



Hi color parallax demo for PCE:
  View user's profile Send private message
  • Joined: 25 Feb 2006
  • Posts: 863
  • Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2022 11:58 am
An interesting sprite scaler for the CPC:
  View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
  • Joined: 23 Jan 2010
  • Posts: 411
Reply with quote
Post Posted: Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:58 am
NES and games with good tricks.

Took my attention Rad Racer and marvelous framerate!
  View user's profile Send private message
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7  Next



Back to the top of this page

Back to SMS Power!