Homebrew SNES9x for Old 3DS

[elBenyo]

I'll test my small collection of SNES games and let you know if anything is broken.

 

[TheGag96]

The idea has been brought up even with blargSNES, but there are issues with doing it. Location and size of the texture cache is one of them. The amount of polygons for a single frame is another. It all amounts to the GPU becoming the bottleneck, imo, enough to where the game may not even run at 60fps. that's not including that not all games could handle 3D very well, as some are designed in a way that could cause "cracks" to form at the seams of tiles.

That's not to say it's impossible. It just requires a lot of work, and a different method to rendering. Based on StapleButter's work, we have a working method to render a luminous texture (typically used for bumpmapping) as if it's a 256-color paletted texture with optional transparency. A thread I made some time ago requested help for anyone that understands bumpmapping to see whether it's possible to "rotate" the palette LUTs in either the vertex/geometry shader. If it could, then that would immensely help in the effort. It would reduce the "cache" by a LOT, allowing this cache to be transferred to VRAM in much less time, and because it would be in a paletted form, changes in the palette would be easier to handle, with no need t

Could you fill me in a little bit more as to how the rendering works? Was it that each tile in each layer was made up of two polygons or something...? If you could separately render each layer to a texture with this new method like you said, wouldn't depth be just a matter of recopying the layer onto each buffer at slightly different points on-screen? Or am I totally off? (thanks lol)

 

[MisterPantsEyes]

Does anyone know how well Kirby's Avalanche runs on the newest version?

 

[tabnk]

Try it on my O3DS, it work pretty well . Better speed than the catSFC on DsTwo card.

Keep up the good work.

 

[bubble2k16]

@KJ1 - I doubt I will add an option to turn off the 3DS from the menu. Doesn't seem like it's absolutely necessary, not at this point.

@TheGag96 - Yes it's pretty much what you said. But other than drawing things twice (which means rendering will end up being slower), there are other problems related to SNES's layers. Tiles in each layer can have two priorities... meaning some tiles in a same layer appear at a lower depth, some higher. And then other layers and sprites interleave in between. I find that it may actually look a little disorienting when some of these tiles from the same layer appear near to you than others.

I don't know, but I think I am just giving excuses, because I don't think this is something I will want to venture into.

But if anyone wants to try, source codes are available!

 

[MisterPantsEyes]

Does anyone know how well Kirby's Avalanche runs on the newest version?

Just tried it myself (USA ver), it works smoothly and without any issues. Though it says 59.8 fps (30 skipped), don't really know what that means.

 

[Clydefrosch]

Just tried it myself (USA ver), it works smoothly and without any issues. Though it says 59.8 fps (30 skipped), don't really know what that means.

it means it has to skip drawing about every other frame to reach a speed of 60fps, making animations look just a little choppy. though that shouldn't be that big a deal for a game like that.

 

[KJ1]

@KJ1 - I doubt I will add an option to turn off the 3DS from the menu. Doesn't seem like it's absolutely necessary, not at this point.

@TheGag96 - Yes it's pretty much what you said. But other than drawing things twice (which means rendering will end up being slower), there are other problems related to SNES's layers. Tiles in each layer can have two priorities... meaning some tiles in a same layer appear at a lower depth, some higher. And then other layers and sprites interleave in between. I find that it may actually look a little disorienting when some of these tiles from the same layer appear near to you than others.

I don't know, but I think I am just giving excuses, because I don't think this is something I will want to venture into.

But if anyone wants to try, source codes are available!

Yup, you are right! Keep up the good work btw!

 

[TheGag96]

@TheGag96 - Yes it's pretty much what you said. But other than drawing things twice (which means rendering will end up being slower), there are other problems related to SNES's layers. Tiles in each layer can have two priorities... meaning some tiles in a same layer appear at a lower depth, some higher. And then other layers and sprites interleave in between. I find that it may actually look a little disorienting when some of these tiles from the same layer appear near to you than others.

I don't know, but I think I am just giving excuses, because I don't think this is something I will want to venture into.

But if anyone wants to try, source codes are available!

Ah, I see. Stuff like this is as never as simple as it seems lol! :S I wonder if this method would work better on something like an NES emulator, though it might have that interleaving stuff too...

 

[astronautlevel]

Ah, I see. Stuff like this is as never as simple as it seems lol! :S I wonder if this method would work better on something like an NES emulator, though it might have that interleaving stuff too...

Someone did that: https://geod.itch.io/3dnes

 

[DiscostewSM]

Someone did that: https://geod.itch.io/3dnes

It's not quite what he was talking about.

 

[ArtemisM]

Someone did that: https://geod.itch.io/3dnes

He meant stereoscopic 3D for snes9x on the 3DS's screen

@bubble2k16 I have an important question. And that is...how have you been doing lately? You're still actively posting and contributing, and I'd hate to see you get burned out.

 

[bubble2k16]

@mqk9999 - Thanks! But I am good, just busy with work that also involves a heavy dose of development too. v0.63b didn't require a lot of coding, so it's still good.

Besides, apart from compatibility issues with patched ROMS and sound problems (which the original Snes9x 1.43 also has issues with), I think there's only 1 issue with high importance left in this port that I have to resolve: sprite layering.

 

[Usl5264]

@bubble2k16, do you know if special chips will be supported on this port? Keep up the amazing work! Thanks

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk

 

[ArtemisM]

@bubble2k16, do you know if special chips will be supported on this port? Keep up the amazing work! Thanks

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk

Answered before: highly unlikely. o3ds doesn't have the processing power.

 

[Usl5264]

Ok. Thanks for the quick response.

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk

 

[CrashMidnick]

@CrashMidnick - You might want to give this version a go to see if you can repro the DKC tile corruption problem. Keep me posted.

I played about half an hour and it seems to be fixed Many thanks Bubble ! I need to check with my Girl Friend's 3DS, it seems that the fix is slowing down DKC1, I will install the 0.62 and check FPS before telling something wrong

 

[bubble2k16]

@CrashMidnick - you can try to set the in frame palette option to disabled style 1 or disabled style 2 to see if it helps with the frame rate problem. Do keep me posted

 

[ArtemisM]

@bubble2k16 Got an odd one for you. Strike Gunner. Has heavy frameskipping (20~30) for no visible reason, even when paused.

 

[GermanTacos]

For whatever reason, around 80 percent of the time I load a game (Have only tested with Earthbound), it won't accept my inputs at all.