Megaman PCE thread

[TurboXray]

This'll be the official thread for discussion on the game/port/hack - whatever you want to call it 

I'll post updates here as to upgrades and such to the game as well. Also, I'm the only one currently hacking this game (which is completely different than the process I did to get the game running on the PCE) and I only have a partial resource disassembly document to go by - so it would be great to get some veteran Megaman/Rockman hackers involved this - even if minimal. People that know their way around the game structure. I'll handle the upgrade code myself since that requires specific PCE knowledge.

Downloads (via WayBack 2022 edit)

NES2PCE projects:

- Castlevania 1 ver 0.44 (early beta)
- Contra ver 0.35 (early beta)
- Ducktales 2 ver 0.31 (early beta)
- Robowarrior ver 0.27 (early beta)
- SMB 1 ver 0.21 (early beta)

Note: The above nes2pce stuff have older audio emulation, and will sound off. They haven't been updated with the newer AUP core yet. Once I get sweep emulation working, I'll update all of the above roms.

- Megaman 1 hucard ver 1.01 (Options/Title screen/Etc)

- Megaman 1 on SCD ver 1.01a: Music Pack
- Megaman 1 on SCD ver 1.01a: Cue/ISO Pack

- Megaman 2 for hucard ver 0.87 (game only)
- Megaman 2 for hucard ver 0.87a stereo (game only)

- Jackal Beta 0.31 (game only) (early beta)

Demos:

- R-Type2

[nat]

What's the ultimate goal with this?

I just downloaded the 0.98 version and burned it and gave it a spin the other day. Impressive! Very clean, smooth, and faithful. Seems even better than actually playing the real game on an NES since there's virtually none of the trademark NES flicker/visual artifacts.

That said, I can get the same experience playing the game from the MegaMan collection on the GameCube.

If the ultimate goal is updated graphics, etc, this could become a really cool project.

[TurboXray]

Yeah, the goal is to upgrade the graphics. Like I stated in the other thread, PCE sprite ability is already hacked into the emulation code in a WIP build. Allows one to upgrade sprites as they go, yet leave other sprites as is until they're ready. A mixture of NES sprites and PCE sprites (sounds simple, but is has to handled via video emulation and the original game engine). The tiles will be upgraded in a similar way. It won't have the full power of the PCE, but it'll be more than the NES emulation as is. CDDA track code is in the WIP build as well. ADPCM code is next. And probably a simple but new PCE sound engine (I have a few lying around), if you can find someone to redo the tracks in a more PCE PSG spec'd format.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Do you intend to have brand new chiptunes, or do you mean redbook with a PCE sound to the tracks?  Also, since this is emulated(& not using the full PCE power), I assume paralax is out of the window on this one, correct?

[OldRover]

If there's a post from PD, I expect it to be asking about parallax. Oh look...

[grahf]

It would be awesome to hear the Megaman tunes in PCE format. Has anyone done this yet?

[ccovell]

My NSF player was not as advanced as Tom's full NES emulator, but check out some of the MM2 variations in this archive:

chrismcovell.com/data/PCE_NES_Player.zip

[TurboXray]

PD: Yes both audio options: chiptunes (chip generated) and red book. As far as parallax, I would say it's out of the question. Even though I'm giving the game engine access to PCE features, it's still done via emulation. As if this were running on a "Famicom SuperGrafx". The initial video hardware structure and design is not changed, so you still have cpu resource over head. That and this method only slightly breaks and replaces things. For parallax, you would need to break major functions of the game. That's not my goal. I have working game already, so I want to do as minimal change as possible to the game *engine* to get these upgrades in there. So while a ton of hacking could result in that freedom, that's isn't my goal specifically because the time required to learn the deeper inner workings of the game (I mean, you really have to learn it as if you wrote the whole thing) and all that sort of junk.

 The enhanced PSG driver/player would still need to be on the lite side. Not taking any more cpu resource than the original one. But that's fairly easy.

 Chris: Love the saw version

[Arkhan Asylum]

The enhanced PSG driver/player would still need to be on the lite side. Not taking any more cpu resource than the original one. But that's fairly easy.

Why don't you just use Squirrel, lol.   It's a CD build.  You can just take advantage of the stuff already in the BIOS.

[touko]

My NSF player was not as advanced as Tom's full NES emulator, but check out some of the MM2 variations in this archive:

https://www.chrismcovell.com/data/PCE_NES_Player.zip

Your player seems very simple to implement ..
How do you generate .bin files from nes musics ??

[TurboXray]

The enhanced PSG driver/player would still need to be on the lite side. Not taking any more cpu resource than the original one. But that's fairly easy.

Why don't you just use Squirrel, lol.   It's a CD build.  You can just take advantage of the stuff already in the BIOS.

That's not a bad idea, but I've have to sort out some issues first. I don't have the game setup to map the bios bank to MPR7 ('cause the game bank needs to be there). Only in the red book WIP version and it temporarily maps it in to do the initial call for the CD PLAY routine - but that halts the game completely when it does that. If I did resolve the bank swapping issue (i.e. make sure timing isn't an issue or any other conflicts), I'm still cautious about about cpu resource. And there's the fact that I'm no stranger to writing music engines so If need be, I already have a few sound engines that I can easily chop away at to fit the game requirements. 'Could use Squirrel to prototype the music first though, even if I don't end up using the sound engine side if it.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I dunno, the BIOS is pretty low-impact.  Writing a sound engine would sort of be recreating what the BIOS can already do for you..

You just compile the music, include the data, and call a function. ;)

[TurboXray]

Yeah, I'll have to see where it's at. Any chance Squirrel 3.0 will have DDA support? I'm not bothered specifically about modifying a sound engine for use with this, even if it kind of redundant to the PSG routine of the sys card. But I'd also like to give some support to something that's pre-existing if I can.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Yeah, I'll have to see where it's at. Any chance Squirrel 3.0 will have DDA support? I'm not bothered specifically about modifying a sound engine for use with this, even if it kind of redundant to the PSG routine of the sys card. But I'd also like to give some support to something that's pre-existing if I can.

You can trick Squirrel into using samples the manual way, that is, creating waves and cycling them quickly...

but no actual DDA support.  It throws things off.

[ccovell]

My NSF player was not as advanced as Tom's full NES emulator, but check out some of the MM2 variations in this archive:

https://www.chrismcovell.com/data/PCE_NES_Player.zip

Your player seems very simple to implement ..
How do you generate .bin files from nes musics ??

Those are just regular .NSF files without their headers.  The player is simple enough, but DPCM and short-period noise settings (the "dit"s in Quickman's stage) are not emulated.

[Keith Courage]

I was wondering. Does this have a save option or do you have to use passwords like the NES?

[ccovell]

MM1 had no passwords.  You had to play it all in one go.

[spenoza]

It IS the NES version.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Ok, besides paralax, let's add a save system, energy refills, & 2...count em', 2 new levels lifted from the PSP's Mega Man Powered Up!  Oilman & Timeman for the winnnnnnnnnn!   J/K

[touko]

Those are just regular .NSF files without their headers.  The player is simple enough, but DPCM and short-period noise settings (the "dit"s in Quickman's stage) are not emulated.

Ok, thanks for explanations .

I think trying your player and squirrel for my next project, and see which one is most accessible for me.
Tom has a good ones too, but too complicated for my skills .

[ccovell]

OK, if you're going to use them in your productions, remember that you can't use cut-up / bankswitched NSFs (unless you hack them to do the PCE bankswitching for you.) 
Also, since my code maps PCE RAM into $0000 and $4000 to emulate the NES audio regs, you have to find an NSF that doesn't use ZP $00-$17 as scratch RAM.  Since NSFs can write to anywhere in $000-$7FF, the first $800 bytes of PCE RAM are unusable unless you know beforehand what ranges a particular NSF will use.

[touko]

Rah ok, i'll try with your .bin first.
And thank you for tips ..

[esteban]

This thread brought tears to my eyes.

Bonknuts, thanks for deciding to push this project further along. I (we) greatly appreciate it.

[SamIAm]

I just thought I'd let you know - I burned myself a copy of 0.98, and putting it in my Duo, I played MegaMan 1 for the first time in my life and beat Cutman. I had a lot of fun, and I plan on trying it again soon. Excellent work!

[TurboXray]

OK, if you're going to use them in your productions, remember that you can't use cut-up / bankswitched NSFs (unless you hack them to do the PCE bankswitching for you.) 
Also, since my code maps PCE RAM into $0000 and $4000 to emulate the NES audio regs, you have to find an NSF that doesn't use ZP $00-$17 as scratch RAM.  Since NSFs can write to anywhere in $000-$7FF, the first $800 bytes of PCE RAM are unusable unless you know beforehand what ranges a particular NSF will use.

I still need to add/fix the sweep emulation in my audio core. I take it that you have that working in your build?

I just thought I'd let you know - I burned myself a copy of 0.98, and putting it in my Duo, I played MegaMan 1 for the first time in my life and beat Cutman. I had a lot of fun, and I plan on trying it again soon. Excellent work!

Glad you liked it Hopefully most people will like the upgraded version. I've thought about including the popular Megaman hack as a well, but none of the completed/finish ones seem to interest me. And some are just too difficult for my tastes.

 

Ok, besides paralax, let's add a save system, energy refills, & 2...count em', 2 new levels lifted from the PSP's Mega Man Powered Up!  Oilman & Timeman for the winnnnnnnnnn! Very Happy  J/K

Just for you PD, I *will* always keep in mind the possibility of parallax via dynamic tiles when doing the upgrade. And if it's not a lot of work, I'll put it in the game. As for the other two guys, yeah... no. Unless you find me a veteran MM1 hacker that's willing to create the bosses and levels, then we'll add it in. Hacking graphics is one thing, hacking major game engine logic is something else entirely.

 But on that note, what about an 'easy' mode? I can make Megaman's weapons more powerful and could probably make his life have more points (or the enemy's attacks be weaker) for such a mode. Saving *might* be a possibility. I did have plans to look into that at one time. I could also make a password system for it too, but is that really needed?

 Anyway, keep an eye out for Megaman hackers on the net and redirect them here. I'd love to add some new functionality or areas to the game (even bosses).

[ParanoiaDragon]

Aw man, I was kidding about all that.  All of it would be awesome, but, especially adding in the other 2 robot masters would be a chore, no doubt.  That'd be cool if we found someone that could look at the levels from the PSP game & pixel them up & such!  Paralax, I had no hope of seeing it, mainly with it being an emulation rather then built from scratch, but, if it's doable, awesome!

An easy mode would be great, though I'm sure some people would moan that the game already had the perfect amount of challenge.  Honestly, I appreciated the easy mode in Mega Man 10, though, I sometimes wonder if it was too easy.  I still haven't beat MM9 yet though, I've had a hard time with Wily's castle.

[TurboXray]

Aw man, I was kidding about all that.

I know, but I put some thought into it. I mean, I'm not gonna go out of my way to do dynamic tiles in every level. But some levels could benefit from them or are dynamic tile friendly. Like Elecman's level for instance, in some areas. There are other effects possible too. Hsync BG color 0 and sparse sprites as clouds or such in the open BG areas. Because I'm redoing the sprite meta table in the game to use PCE sprites, that means the sprite table and scanline bandwidth will be more freed up for such sprite effect handling. Though, I'm think simple stuff. Nothing fancy by any means.

 

All of it would be awesome, but, especially adding in the other 2 robot masters would be a chore, no doubt.

Oh, I know it would be a lot of work. But it also be pretty damn cool to have two extra bosses/levels even if the weapons obtained from them don't amount to much. All the other Megaman games on the NES have 8 levels to choose from; upgrading MM1 to that would be nice IMO. That old adage "if you gonna do something, do it right". Within reason of course. It's something I'd like to do, but it would pretty low on the list of things to do - obviously. But just imagine, two bosses that are unique to the PCE version (screw copying them from the PSP version). The idea is just so tempting that it's hard not imagining me at least trying to do it myself if needed.

An easy mode would be great, though I'm sure some people would moan that the game already had the perfect amount of challenge.  Honestly, I appreciated the easy mode in Mega Man 10, though, I sometimes wonder if it was too easy.  I still haven't beat MM9 yet though, I've had a hard time with Wily's castle.

As much as I find the difficulty as just average for the game, I know others aren't used to it. I don't think there's anything wrong with an easy mode. I mean, if that means more people can enjoy the game then so be it. It doesn't do anything to hurt the game on normal difficulty, being selectable and all.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I just had a thought, one other thing that all the other MM's have that MM1 doesn't have, is closeup's of the robot masters.  I was thinking of a way to have it both ways.  Maybe have a close up of each bot, & when you press Run, there's some kind of animation to make it look like the bot is jumping up & back so that he's the regular sprite size ...if that makes sense?

[TurboXray]

I did a quick sprite holder update:

I'm gonna need to change my method for hacking the sprite meta table and just hook it completely for the main character frames (I need more control on the X/Y offset as seen by the jump firing - the frame is too high up).

[grahf]

That's great! 

BTW, why not change the title screen so that it clearly says it's your hack? It might keep some of the scumbags from scamming people.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Just put a "if you paid more then the cost of a CD-R for this game, you've been fucked up the ass by some scamming douchecunt" screen before the title.

[TurboXray]

Just put a "if you paid more then the cost of a CD-R for this game, you've been fucked up the ass by some scamming douchecunt" screen before the title.

BTW, why not change the title screen so that it clearly says it's your hack? It might keep some of the scumbags from scamming people.

It's gonna get a new intro (B_T was looking into some assets for this), which will be part of the boot menu (you select original mode and new mode, plus some other options). I'll put a disclaimer in there that it's a free for community project and such.

[esteban]

If you have different versions of the game (with extra stages and/or difficulty settings), it would be neat to make references to Dr. Wright (as he was originally called):

"Dr. Wright's Easy Mode", "Dr. Wright's DeeLux Remix (8 stages!)" or whatever...

[Keith Courage]

I was curious if this is still being worked on. I found this video on youtube that had this game being played with CDDA tracks. It sounds awesome. Is this what you are working on or does that project belong to someone else?

[Bernie]

Damn, that is sweet!!!!  Me want.

[T2KFreeker]

Damn, that is sweet!!!!  Me want.

Me too. Megaman Rocks!

[Tatsujin]

Rockman's Mega!

[Kaijuboy]

So, is this the same one that was released by the "anime4ever" guy on SuperCD, or is this a completely different Megaman1 on PCE?   

[OldMan]

So, is this the same one that was released by the "anime4ever" guy on SuperCD, or is this a completely different Megaman1 on PCE?

Bonknauts did the cd version, complete with audio. anime4ever downloaded it and <illegally> started selling it. Bonknauts took down the cd download link because of anime4ever.

I'm sure other peeps around here still have it. Try asking nicely. Maybe you'll get lucky.

Bonknauts has been busy with school, so he hasn't been doing much around here lately. Real shame too...He's one talented guy.

[Arkhan Asylum]

He's been busy with more than just school, lol.

kinda blows.

[Bernie]

hmm..  The one I have does not have the CD audio.  I believe when I ripped it and uploaded it for Tom, he said it was an early version.  I dont think anime4ever was able to get a hold of the CD version.

[Keith Courage]

Yeah, I really like the version with CD audio. Sounds awesome. Hopefully he will release it for the community here at some point.

I had no urge to want to play it on my pce before since the game was well...just the same as the nes version. However the CD audio just makes it a pce exclusive now so it gives me a reason to want to play megaman again.

[KnightWarrior]

Can Mega Man X be possible??

HuCard Only

[CrackTiger]

Can Mega Man X be possible??

HuCard Only

No, the PC Engine isn't powerful enough.

[Kaijuboy]

So was the version with CD audio ever released?  Or is the download that was available/anime4ever version just the NES version running on PCE?   

[RegalSin]

Can Mega Man X be possible??

HuCard Only

No, the PC Engine isn't powerful enough.

The PCE can do RMX-X5. Their is nothing it can not do, that was done on the SFC.

[CrackTiger]

Can Mega Man X be possible??

HuCard Only

No, the PC Engine isn't powerful enough.

The PCE can do RMX-X5. Their is nothing it can not do, that was done on the SFC.

He said HuCard-only.

[RegalSin]

The PCE Hu-card limitation is probably 256MB limit, if done correctly. If we compared the SNES carts, to the PCE HU, and was released simutameously, they would match up. I mean all the post MMX games after the first one, up till, X5.

We are thinking about limitation, but most of the effects in 2d videogames are programmed effects, not just sprite, or background overlapping. The voice, and audio waves could be stored as with TOPSNES, and video data could run as well, but most likely will be shorter.

Lets not think about the limitations of the past, however, lets think about the abundance, ( and cheapness ) of the future.

[CrackTiger]

The PCE Hu-card limitation is probably 256MB limit, if done correctly. If we compared the SNES carts, to the PCE HU, and was released simutameously, they would match up. I mean all the post MMX games after the first one, up till, X5.

We are thinking about limitation, but most of the effects in 2d videogames are programmed effects, not just sprite, or background overlapping. The voice, and audio waves could be stored as with TOPSNES, and video data could run as well, but most likely will be shorter.

Lets not think about the limitations of the past, however, lets think about the abundance, ( and cheapness ) of the future.

Even with a large HuCard and no extra hardware, how can the PCE match the action and parallax of Megaman X, let alone do the music justice the way that only the SNES can?

[Keranu]

...let alone do the music justice the way that only the SNES can?

LOL!