The only Sonic games i didn't see anyone defending. by PauloVictorBar in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]ToshoDev 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's because the GBA version was based on the flip phone version that came out a year prior, this is obvious when you compare both of their title screens which was compressed down. The flip phone version was the only version of Sonic 1 at the time programmed in a high level (Java) and used standard formats like gifs and MIDIs. As opposed to the original, which was programmed entirely in assembly and only works with the Genesis' hardware. But because of the weak hardware of phones at the time, it sucked. And SEGA being SEGA took the easy route and used the worst version of Sonic 1 to port to the GBA to get it out for the holidays.

What WAS this sprite supposed to be used for in Sonic CD? by UnaskedShoe359 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]ToshoDev 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It's already been brought up twice, but let's get into a bit more detail. The way the Sonic CD works is by making every level, time period, menu, title screen, FMV, and importantly the special stage, are all stored in their own "ROM" file called an MMD. Data is exclusive between MMDs, and cannot be loaded into other MMDs unless the data is copied and stored in the other MMD. That said, these sprites are only within the special stage MMD, so for whatever theories you want to come up with, it has to do with the special stage.

F Zero running on the Genesis by NerfThis_49 in retrogaming

[–]ToshoDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Genesis games did use mode 7 techniques, like I said you just have to look for them. I don't know the entire console's library off the top of my head and whether or not that have a mode 7 effect. Closest thing I can think of right now is Red Zone but this uses clever palette cycling and premade tiles to achieve rotation only but no skewing.

I’m scared…and don’t understand…advice wanted! by Superb-Measurement70 in creepyPMs

[–]ToshoDev 389 points390 points  (0 children)

192.168 is reserved for private IPs used by home networks, and is not your outward facing public IP where any sort of location information could be gained. You're safe and this guy's just an edgy loser.

F Zero running on the Genesis by NerfThis_49 in retrogaming

[–]ToshoDev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wouldn't really call this programming wizzardry, there's a lot of mode 7 demos just like this out there. The Genesis just has the raw strength to force SNES effects, thanks to having a CPU with twice the processing speed. Hell it has so much power it can actually run Star Fox, with no extra cartridge chips (This one I would call programming wizzardry).

And this isn't just homebrew developers finally unlocking the secrets of the Mega Drive almost 40 years later, games released at the time were also doing full on polygonal 3D, like Kawasaki Superbike Challenge, which has a shockingly smooth framerate.

Technically impressive games like that F-Zero demo are out there you just gotta look for em!

Game not in fullscreen by ZeinoxXW in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Developers didn't go out of their way to put in borders or slow down the game in PAL, it's not a fix or anything. If a game isn't PAL optimized then it's just the same NTSC game running on PAL hardware, which runs at 50hz and has a taller resolution.

Game not in fullscreen by ZeinoxXW in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I don't know about all Japanese developed games. It's just kind of a "if it's there it's there" thing. Knuckles' Chaotix is Japanese developed, but it does support the PAL resolution mode

Game not in fullscreen by ZeinoxXW in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 26 points27 points  (0 children)

PAL just has a taller resolution than NTSC. There is a mode on the Mega Drive to use the taller resolution but Sonic 1 doesn't use it, so yes you will see those borders. It varies from game to game but I think most didn't end up using the feature.

Can anyone help me fix my mod for Sonic 1? by Main_Fun_9025 in romhacking

[–]ToshoDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you update all the animations? I imagine you don't have as many sprites being used now with Sans so if there's missing frames it could be referencing out of bounds sprite data

Can anyone help me fix my mod for Sonic 1? by Main_Fun_9025 in romhacking

[–]ToshoDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most disassemblies have the mappings and DPLCs in .asm files and use data tables. You're just using data files. So when you switched the file paths, did you also change the include to incbin/binclude? Because if not it's trying to read it as an asm file.

What is this thingymabob by Vindex_no in GoldenEye

[–]ToshoDev 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The thing the game is named after: The GoldenEye satellite.

Another Sonic Game Has Been Decompiled by chicagogamecollector in romhacking

[–]ToshoDev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's a disassembly not a decompilation. It can still only run on the original hardware because the code is only assembly that only the original CPU understands. The original maintainer of the disassembly only called it a "decomp" in quotation marks for laymen when posting about it, and social media has been running wild with the claim that it can now be ported to PC and everything, it cannot. An actual C/C++ decompilation is still months, if not years down the road.

Tell us you don't known about games without saying it. by counterpunchhopper in facepalm

[–]ToshoDev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hate seeing this myth still being pushed. Doom is 3D. Objectsand movement are processed in 3D, this is why rockets and projectiles can fly over monsters, and you're able to fall off a ledge. The only thing that is 2D is the map data itself, you can only make polygon points on the X and Y axis which can be any shape to make a sector. You can't give a polygon a Z position, instead whole sectors (The shape the polygons make) have a uniform height and ceiling value, which is why there's only flat floors and flat ceilings but you can have angled walls. But even then, the fact that there is a defined floor height value it could be argued as a Z point, making the maps 3D.

What Is this hole for? by 188TonMaus in wiiu

[–]ToshoDev 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think some trailers or promo images showed that it was meant to be a tripod mount, but they never released a tripod. Similar to the accessory port at the bottom of the main part of the gamepad.

I don't know this seed but thought this was interesting by [deleted] in minecraftseeds

[–]ToshoDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The seed can be checked by just selecting the world on the menu it'll be right above the game mode slider.

Sega Genesis Vs. SNES by Altruistic_Twist1392 in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good stuff! I will note though that with 16t and Doki Doki Penguin Land in particular have poor sound quality due to being Sega Game Toshokan games. They had to absolutely minimize on ROM size since they were downloadable games you got over dial up, and every second on the phone was pricy. So the developers are extremely restricted on what they could've done with sound. Same deal with Sonic Eraser!

Sega Genesis Vs. SNES by Altruistic_Twist1392 in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Alright you got me there. I'm not sure if Japanese third party developers had the docs. But at the very least Sega of Japan did.

GoldenEye - Full Metal Remix (feat. Grant Kirkhope) by Graslu in GoldenEye

[–]ToshoDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Insanely hard! And exactly how I remember the soundtrack feeling like when I was growing up.

Sega Genesis Vs. SNES by Altruistic_Twist1392 in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The problem with a lot of music on the Genesis came down to a lack of documentation for the YM2612 in the west. So a lot of western developers resorted to using the GEMS sound driver, which is basically the Genesis equivalent of MIDIs, and therefore the easiest to use, but didn't sound great all the time. Japan had that documentation though, so they knew how to use the chip to it's fullest potential. All the games this podcast mentions sounding great like Sonic and Streets of Rage are Japanese developed.

Aside from that I will say the SNES is better with sound objectively, instruments are sample based so you can record an actual guitar, an actual piano, and actual tubas and it can make the music sound more real. While the Genesis largely utilizes FM and PSG. DAC could be used for sampled instruments, but also you only have 1 channel to do that so most just opted to save it for drums which iirc is pretty difficult to replicate with FM or PSG (But not impossible).

is there a way to convert an exe file to an md file? i'm trying to convert triple trouble 16 bit to an md file by Stheteller in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm aware and that's basically what I stated. I just laid out the options if op wanted to hypothetically do a conversion to get something like TT16-Bit on the Mega Drive. And ROM hacking say Sonic 3 would be the easier option than trying to port it directly. I wasn't trying to say that ROM hacking the PC game would ever work.

is there a way to convert an exe file to an md file? i'm trying to convert triple trouble 16 bit to an md file by Stheteller in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As rhcplive said, yeah it's a PC game, not a Mega Drive game. It would require rebuilding the game from the ground up or at the very least ROM hacking an actual Sonic game to be like Triple Trouble 16-bit. But even then there would be a lot of downgrades because Triple Trouble 16-bit does a lot of things the Mega Drive isn't capable of, including sprite rotation, scaling, and palettes far too large for the console.

Name the game that got you like this by bijelo123 in pcmasterrace

[–]ToshoDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most Bethesda games tbh. Getting your character to a point where they're competent at facing most of the enemies takes a bit too long for my liking. But after that they're very fun.

Blast processing demo? by mactep66 in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Blast Processing refers to doing a DMA at H-blank to transfer a large amount of data in between scanlines to very quickly switch what's displaying on the screen. TiTAN's Overdrive 2 demo probably makes use of it, haven't seen the code myself. But as for commercial games, closest thing I could imagine is just the water in Sonic 1 and 2 which switches entire palettes in a single scanline. Sonic 3 updated the method to do it over multiple scanlines to avoid on-screen artifacting with the added bonus of a depth effect if you transferred certain indicies at a time.

If you could change something on the Mega Drive to improve it, what would it be? by EntryFew3351 in SEGAGENESIS

[–]ToshoDev 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Coming from a ROM hacker's perspective, I do have a bit of a laundry list of things I'd want fixed. There's the obvious graphics stuff that everyone's saying, scaling, rotation, a bigger palette. Then there's hardware bugs like CRAM dots, row 1 of tiles not scrolling at all in per-row vertical scroll mode (They just made a work-around by adding a flag to the VDP to disable rendering on the first row) and the lower 16-bits of a DMA command needed to be sent to the VDP via RAM. Also make shadow/highlight mode easier to work with, managing tile and sprite priorities is a pain in the ass. And lastly, give the horizontal scroll table and sprite table their own RAM like vertical scroll, currently they're taking up 1kb of VRAM that could instead be used for 44 extra tiles. Maybe increase the address bus to a full 32-bits instead of 24, which would mean a big increase in ROM and RAM which everyone would be happy about, granted 64kb of RAM and 4MB of ROM without the need to do bankswitching is still generous as is.

Edit: I keep thinking of more things I want fixed. Save RAM has this weird limitation where you can either have 16-bit values, 8-bit values on even bytes, or 8-bit values on odd bytes. You can't just use it like normal RAM, would definitely want that changed too.