How complex could you make an NES game assuming there are no limits to how many extra chips you could add to the cartridge itself. I don’t mean doing stuff like adding a raspberry pi and just using the cart to use the console’s video out. I’ve seen games that add WiFi multiplayer what more could be done?
>>12014682With limitless memory, the NES would become a Turing machine. It could run every video game.
>>12014682>I don’t mean doing stuff like adding a raspberry pi and just using the cart to use the console’s video out.So you can't use the best technique for increasing complexity? What can you do then? Your challenge is unclear. If Wi-Fi is allowed then other computing devices are allowed, so why not a supercomputer acting as a server that does most of the work of running the game while the NES spends all its computing power just generating/arranging graphics and sound?
>any extra chips you want>no not those ones!you're giving conflicting directives here, anon, can you or can you not have extra processors? you could fit an entire pc into a cartridge even without an rpibasically you could do whatever the fuck you want with the only real limitations being color palette, sprite count, and how much data you can DMA into vram every frame
>>12014682this reminds me of a really old smash homebrew for the psp a long time ago when the psp was still new.
>>12014901>how much data you can DMA into vram every frameBasically you would simulate the entire game on modern chips in the cartridge, render it out to a 256x240 image, break that up into background tiles, then DMA all of that into VRAM every frame. You'd have to run the game at 30fps because you can't transfer that much data during a single vblank, but you could literally be running full on modern 3D games at 240p 30fps with the NES color palette.
>>12014901>>12014965The bulk of the data for the graphics is in the CHR ROM, which these RasPi in a cart things are simulating with RAM that they render into. The NES PPU thinks its rendering a static screen but the data it's pulling is changing every frame for "free" 60fps.However you'd be limited to just 4 colors like that so you DO however need to DMA the tile index data so you can have different palettes per tile, also might as well use the sprites too so you can add more colors in places you need to. The amount of data to DMA is very small in that instance. Not to mention the fact that the NES PPU basically requires a full DMA of the sprite table every frame due to not having an auto-refresh circuit on its registers so it's something every game is doing anyway. And the NES CPU will have very little to do and a whole frame to adjust whatever you want.It's why without some kind of restriction like only hardware that would be manufacturable for $10 in 1990, or only math co-processors or something then it becomes pointless as with no restrictions you're just going down the path of using the NES as a crappy display engine for a machine with its own far more capable output.
>>12014682You could add an NPU and enough RAM to run LLM models to generate content on the fly. Add wifi so you can use an external device to enter parameters and get the LLM to generate graphics and level layouts as you play. Would it be better than your average roguelite with randomly generated maps? Dunno, but you could do it is the point.
>>12014859>so why not a supercomputer acting as a server that does most of the work of running the game while the NES spends all its computing power just generating/arranging graphics and sound?So could a MUD client work on the nes using the famicom keyboard?
>>12014965I saw a youtube video of something similar. I don't know what it was called, maybe I have it bookmarked somewhere but basically someone wrote a program or something that generates a live render of whatever input you give it through letters and numbers. He was either watching a video in real time or playing a game in real time, but it was basically real time ASCII art of the input. It was really interesting and your post reminded me of it.
>>12015283That sounds neat. I don’t know what keywords to search for though.
>>12014682It might be able to run Pong 2. Maybe 3, but that's pushing it.
>>12014948I played that for like 3 months and expected it to be the big thing and get updates forever, and then it never got updates and I don't think I ever played it on a firmware newer than 1.50 once we got good backup loaders. PSP homebrew scene was so vibrant back when you couldn't load backups, DS had no cheap flash cart and iPhone wasn't out yet.I don't even remember what it was called. I do remember Beats of Rage, which was a Streets of Rage clone.
>>12014682Depends on how much your willing to sacrifice colors, you only have 4 palletes so you could probably have 8 objects with different looking colours. Something like GTA 1 would be a bit too much, you would have to limit the colors on the cars and because you can usually only have 256 tiles you might only be able to have 2 different cars on screen but the smaller you make them the more you can have on screen. Something like Command and Conquer you could have decent simple backgrounds but the unit animation would have to be pretty limited. Most Snes games would convert ok if you removed the additional background layers. I think Super Metroid would be possible but the Earthworm Jim pirate looks pretty bad so I'd say that is the limit.Or you can just make it turn based and have something like Civilization 3 with an onboard cpu calculating everything.>>12015069Possible but a pi auto conversion would be very ugly, it was cringe when they did it with Doom.
>>12014682>no limits>I don’t mean doing stuff like adding a raspberry piBut, you said no limits?
I assume OP means games which still largely rely on the actual NES hardware itself to actually run the game, and not just using the console as a glorified video output processor.
Here's something you will find interesting. The blog has some articles about the possibilities. https://somethingnerdy.com/
>>12014682It's been a thing with the homebrew community to call anything that isn't original hardware "cheating".>no limits to how many extra chips you could add to the cartridge itself.The answer would be none. You could put an new CPU (ala Star Fox) and a metric ton of memory to run pretty much any game. But that ends up back at the > adding a raspberry pi and just using the cart to use the console’s video out.situation. So most homebrew devs either go for the extra chips and get criticized for it or go with all original hardware specs.During the time of the NES the maximum amount of memory I've seen is 1MB on the MMC5https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/MMC5What does that look like? My theory is that every console can be pushed roughly 1 generation further with the best hardware optimization. So 16 bit SNES titles would be as far as the NES could realistically go with original hardware. (PCM sampling plus pre-rendered 3D plus roto-zooming backgrounds etc)
I think a good theoretical limit would be only expansions that would be financially viable on the consolelike sure you could put a MiSTER or whatever on a cartridge but it would end up costing more than the console itself. Meanwhile an expanded cartridge with affordable expansion chips could be a cool project if there's potential to turn it commercial. like the new SNES Doom. They were "cheating" but tried to keep it affordable and now the game cart is being sold for not insane prices
>>12015283This?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa0u1CjGtEQIncidentally, >>12010231 is also about a project by the same person.
>>12016649That Former Dawn game itself seems like it's going to be a pretty good illustration of what OP is wanting to see.
>>12016705The guy who was making BBStudio was making a custom mapper who can go up to 4 MB, and has features from MMC3 & 5, but doesn't look like he is finishing it anytime soon......
>>12016858That's just an FPGA
>>12015686>PSP homebrew scene was so vibrant back when you couldn't load backupsyea no kidding. it was so exciting hacking it back then. I was in middle school so being able to take it to school and show everyone I have a snes emulator on it, made a few of my friends want one too. it was always interesting seeing all the stuff being made. I remember my dumbass updated from 1.5 to 2.0 cause it said there was a web browser and I updated it without realizing I needed wifi so I had to buy a cheap wireless wifi router cause it was still a pretty new thing so ISP's weren't providing them by default yet.>>12015315>>12016816It wasn't that video. Let me see if I can find it.
>>12016816>>12015315Here we go. https://youtu.be/x2CgemU_bmQ?si=ZRdJhJOrdtmNip_-
>>12018016Oh wow I guess he made the art lol. I thought it was some filter he coded that processed video in real time, my bad.
>>12016705>My theory is that every console can be pushed roughly 1 generation further with the best hardware optimization.Doubtful that the SNES could without cart chips.
>>12014682>How complex could you make an NES game assuming there are no limits to how many extra chips you could add to the cartridge itself.Even without the Pi stuff you can still do some ridiculous things if there is no limit to how advanced/modern the tech is.If we're talking period-accurate, or close to it, probably Former Dawn.>I’ve seen games that add WiFi multiplayer what more could be done?Well, that's just extras. There is effectively no limit to those as long as everything doesn't draw more power than the NES can supply. There were Atari 2600 games with lights on them, N64 games with modems on them. You could put WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, a camera, USB, whatever on there. Though you would need other chips to handle the data, the NES sure as fuck isn't going to be able to handle most of that hardware on it's own. These have nothing to do with the complexity of the game itself though.>>12017010It's a FPGA because it would not be feasible to actually fabricate the custom chip. The chip was designed with limitations to be something that would have been both technologically feasible and affordable to make in the 90s had it been a real chip back then. They aren't using the FPGA to give it the power of a Raspberry Pi.
>>12019453I know this game uses a mapper that didn't exist when the NES was current, but is its mapper at least primitive enough that it could've been produced affordably in the 1980s?
>>12019453>>12019947Never mind, I didn't read the whole post. But instead of that FPGA shit, could this mapper be replicated using discrete logic on a large PCB at least, just as a proof of concept?
>>12019374Check out these SNES demoshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOqxLBZiBRAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC9hjhiJ1DINo Super FX chip
>>12019986We really need a 60 fps star fox 1+2 cart with custom hardware.
