LittleLarrySellers
Grand Master
this is really cool! so we could potentially see Narc run in std res on OG hardware?
- Thread starter mypinballs
- Start date
mypinballs
Professional
Yes that is the plan
mypinballs
Professional
Ok some updates
I have now got the full narc build to recompile with the std res settings. The original files and projects available online appear to have have a precompiled diagnostics section included which of course is no good if you are wanting to run at std res. Therefore I needed to spend time on getting all sections to recompile. Which I have now.
The 3 sections are
- Diagnostics
- Narc Game Core
- System
The diagnostics section I have made a few alterations and improvements with layout/text etc and I hope to do more of this soon to.
So with the newly compiled outputs I made a set of roms successfully to.
Now I need to mention a few things about the resolution outputs. In the narc notes doc it mentions 2 outputs being possible, medium and standard resolution. And you change a flag in one of the include files to determine which output you want. However when you actually look at the include file there are actually 3 options!
What seems to included is an interlaced option and then a std res no interlace option. I assume that the interlace option is to run std res on z-unit hardware as the hardware clocks are for medium res. The second option is a bit of a puzzle as it says std res no interlace, so I am thinking that this is actually the one I want for running narc on y unit hardware. Hopefully anyway.
So I have built a set of roms now to with the interlace option to try this in mame, however I ran into a small roadblock.! MAME doesn't seem to have supported the TMS34010 interlace hardware, or they never bothered writing anything to support it.
SO, if anyone has a real set of narc (z-unit) hardware and wants to try out a set of game roms compiled for a std res monitor shoot me a message It will be interesting to see if it runs on the regular res monitor ok.
My next task is to try and get a set of roms compiled at std res no interlace to run on MAME pretending to be smash tv or something.! We will see..
More to come
I have now got the full narc build to recompile with the std res settings. The original files and projects available online appear to have have a precompiled diagnostics section included which of course is no good if you are wanting to run at std res. Therefore I needed to spend time on getting all sections to recompile. Which I have now.
The 3 sections are
- Diagnostics
- Narc Game Core
- System
The diagnostics section I have made a few alterations and improvements with layout/text etc and I hope to do more of this soon to.
So with the newly compiled outputs I made a set of roms successfully to.
Now I need to mention a few things about the resolution outputs. In the narc notes doc it mentions 2 outputs being possible, medium and standard resolution. And you change a flag in one of the include files to determine which output you want. However when you actually look at the include file there are actually 3 options!
What seems to included is an interlaced option and then a std res no interlace option. I assume that the interlace option is to run std res on z-unit hardware as the hardware clocks are for medium res. The second option is a bit of a puzzle as it says std res no interlace, so I am thinking that this is actually the one I want for running narc on y unit hardware. Hopefully anyway.
So I have built a set of roms now to with the interlace option to try this in mame, however I ran into a small roadblock.! MAME doesn't seem to have supported the TMS34010 interlace hardware, or they never bothered writing anything to support it.
SO, if anyone has a real set of narc (z-unit) hardware and wants to try out a set of game roms compiled for a std res monitor shoot me a message
It will be interesting to see if it runs on the regular res monitor ok.My next task is to try and get a set of roms compiled at std res no interlace to run on MAME pretending to be smash tv or something.! We will see..
More to come
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I'd recommend targeting High Impact/Super High Impact if for no other reason than those are the least expensive Y-Unit games and the most likely conversion donors.
mypinballs
Professional
Yes on real hardware high impact footy would be a good donor.
I'm glad I found this! I absolutely love NARC and would like to see it run on Y unit hardware for other people to enjoy....especially since that would make it a JAMMA game. I have an actual working NARC cabinet and would be curious to see the game in standard res!
mypinballs
Professional
Can someone do me a small favour and see if your smash tv has this trace cut (hi-lighted in the pic). I'm not sure if this is intentional or damage. Thanks
mypinballs
Professional
A few things to update on
1) Been working on getting my original smash tv y-unit board running. Its been a bit of pita because I had what looked like a graphics ram issue even though the board insisted everything was fine, lol. It looked like this.
So with the advice of someone else I've been looking into pals on y-unit hardware. I have some info on common pals and unique pals to boards to update on.
2) Narc build, I can make changes to the diag section , although minor right now its pretty nice to see. The builds for standard res are being tried out and there are 2 options, but I haven't seen a decent picture yet.
3) The process to make yunit narc ROMs is proving to be tricky. I had a set that would start on game until the end of the cpu test but they don't run on my board (but my board isn't happy anyway) so more work needed there
4) I have started and am half way though a new build of smash tv. Hope to make some changes to this to, but I am having to write some new files as there are some missing from the upload. Also I have spent awhile working out which version of the spa compiler is the best to use for was stuff. I have info on this now to
5) Should I really split my discussion up into separate threads as I am talking about 3 or 4 separate things on here now!! but they are all z and yunit related..
1) Been working on getting my original smash tv y-unit board running. Its been a bit of pita because I had what looked like a graphics ram issue even though the board insisted everything was fine, lol. It looked like this.
So with the advice of someone else I've been looking into pals on y-unit hardware. I have some info on common pals and unique pals to boards to update on.
2) Narc build, I can make changes to the diag section , although minor right now its pretty nice to see. The builds for standard res are being tried out and there are 2 options, but I haven't seen a decent picture yet.
3) The process to make yunit narc ROMs is proving to be tricky. I had a set that would start on game until the end of the cpu test but they don't run on my board (but my board isn't happy anyway) so more work needed there
4) I have started and am half way though a new build of smash tv. Hope to make some changes to this to, but I am having to write some new files as there are some missing from the upload. Also I have spent awhile working out which version of the spa compiler is the best to use for was stuff. I have info on this now to
5) Should I really split my discussion up into separate threads as I am talking about 3 or 4 separate things on here now!! but they are all z and yunit related..
I surmise I can't Like posts because I'm new here. if you need real hardware beta testing I have many Y-unit boards and a lot of roms available. this project is very intriguing to me.
I have multiple High Impact Football, Super High Impact, and Mortal Kombat boards. I am unwilling to sacrifice Smash TV to the cause.
I have multiple High Impact Football, Super High Impact, and Mortal Kombat boards. I am unwilling to sacrifice Smash TV to the cause.
my Smash TV is in storage unfortunately, but it seems that the schematics are in the manual: https://archive.org/details/ArcadeGameManualSmashtv
mypinballs
Professional
The bodge wires and trace cuts are not covered in the schematics, that’s why I need confirmation from another board. I have fixed my smash tv board now anyway though . Fully working and no annoying lines anymore.
More to update on, the test system doesn’t know everything that can be wrong with these weird multi port rams !!
mypinballs
Professional
Thanks is that the only ones on it,? as some seem to have some others near U52 area to. Can you show a pic of the front to near this U52 U53 pal area thanksMy Smash TV board has these wires, I hope it'll help.
mypinballs
Professional
My Smash TV board is fixed
The problem was this ...
What i realised after much experimentation was removing ram ics U12-U15 made zero difference to the picture output even though the test then started whinging about them being bad. Interesting I thought. So i starting probing about with the logic probe on these chips aswell as reading up on these weird 'multi-port' rams.
What i found was that the SIO section of the rams was not actually doing anything and this is the output side of the rams afaict, with the other port being the side that comms with the cpu and custom etc. I then noticed that the s clock line that control the SIO port was stuck high.
Unbelievable!! So the common tied high pin of the pull up resistor pack was touching the first palette ram pin1(S clk) at U10.
It kind of makes sense now that the output side of the palette ram was 'dead' and not outputting anything meaningful, but the test code only appears to test the main i/o side of these rams, so it is unaware if the SIO ports aren't working!! Useful to know for sure I think. this was what sent me down the wrong path, ie a misleading test report screen.
The problem was this ...
What i realised after much experimentation was removing ram ics U12-U15 made zero difference to the picture output even though the test then started whinging about them being bad. Interesting I thought. So i starting probing about with the logic probe on these chips aswell as reading up on these weird 'multi-port' rams.
What i found was that the SIO section of the rams was not actually doing anything and this is the output side of the rams afaict, with the other port being the side that comms with the cpu and custom etc. I then noticed that the s clock line that control the SIO port was stuck high.
Unbelievable!! So the common tied high pin of the pull up resistor pack was touching the first palette ram pin1(S clk) at U10.
It kind of makes sense now that the output side of the palette ram was 'dead' and not outputting anything meaningful, but the test code only appears to test the main i/o side of these rams, so it is unaware if the SIO ports aren't working!! Useful to know for sure I think. this was what sent me down the wrong path, ie a misleading test report screen.
mypinballs
Professional
Back on the code build side, does anyone have a copy or know where you might find the version 1 LOAD.exe tool because smash tv will not build properly. I don't believe all the files are included, or this image tool is needed to created some .tbl files that are linked for building.
The missing .tbl files appear to be
- mutex.tbl
- mentor.tbl
- flatface.tbl
- galagas.tbl
- cobra.tbl
I think that the LOAD program uses a .LOD file to create these, but I can't find this tool anywhere and the LOAD2 tool I think is for a later processor. Also it whinges about me not having extended ram installed, lol!
The missing .tbl files appear to be
- mutex.tbl
- mentor.tbl
- flatface.tbl
- galagas.tbl
- cobra.tbl
I think that the LOAD program uses a .LOD file to create these, but I can't find this tool anywhere and the LOAD2 tool I think is for a later processor. Also it whinges about me not having extended ram installed, lol!
NBA Hangtime contains a "newload2 folder" here:
https://github.com/historicalsource/nba-hangtime/tree/main/NEWLOAD2
Note the documentation in the HLP file.
This one parsed carn.lod for me using load2 carn /X but complains it cannot find some images in ORCFIN2.IMG which i don't get.
Maybe the LOD is wrong or needs to be adjusted.
LOAD20.exe errors for me
After doing this:
load2.exe carn /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x
load2.exe carn2 /a /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x
load2.exe roboy /a /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x
Output tbl/asm stuff magically appears at c:\tmp
- mutex.tbl
- mentor.tbl
- flatface.tbl
- galagas.tbl
- cobra.tbl
These appear to be empty files with .data and nothing more.
Hope this helps
Edit: Dosbox 0.74 and 64MB set in the conf file, works for me and no extended ram error messages.
https://github.com/historicalsource/nba-hangtime/tree/main/NEWLOAD2
Note the documentation in the HLP file.
This one parsed carn.lod for me using load2 carn /X but complains it cannot find some images in ORCFIN2.IMG which i don't get.
Maybe the LOD is wrong or needs to be adjusted.
LOAD20.exe errors for me
After doing this:
load2.exe carn /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x
load2.exe carn2 /a /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x
load2.exe roboy /a /e /di /fi /t=c:\tmp /x
Output tbl/asm stuff magically appears at c:\tmp
- mutex.tbl
- mentor.tbl
- flatface.tbl
- galagas.tbl
- cobra.tbl
These appear to be empty files with .data and nothing more.
Code:
1xtab .DATAHope this helps
Edit: Dosbox 0.74 and 64MB set in the conf file, works for me and no extended ram error messages.
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I've checked, no other wires on mine, just the ones you see in my (previous) picture.
Same 2 wires here (this is another photo from the web, not mine):
AlxUnderBase
Enlightened
@mypinballs if need help with pictures from smash tv , we can ask help with them brother @NikoletatosG 
Also for those who care, the roms for proto 3.0 seem to be in the archive as well, it might pair up decently with the proto 2.0 loke test recently added to Mame, current gfx roms don't match with the main 'totcarn' driver though.
*edit: GFX roms are in the IMG folder as *.pp files so i need to check that out still.
*edit: GFX roms are in the IMG folder as *.pp files so i need to check that out still.
