Hello everyone! My SA-1 ROM hacks are known mostly as performance improvement patches. Games that used to run poorly either with slowdown (Gradius III, Super R-Type) or low frame rate (Race Drivin') are transformed into games that runs with much better performance thanks to the 10.74 MHz base clock.
SA-1, however, is not (only) a performance chip for the SNES. It's an enhancement chip. The base clock, being 3-4x higher than the SNES CPU for sure helps a lot in the performance aspect, bu...
2024-09-25 03:53:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hello everyone! Hope you all are fine.
Writing this post after a long time without activity brings me mixed feelings: mixed because while I'm happy to write once again to Patreon, I feel very sad and awkward for being inactive for a so long period.
Health: some surgeries and the fight against obesity
WARNING: The next section I'll be talking about details of my health. It might make some people uncomfortable, so feel free to skip to the next section (go to...
2024-09-11 04:20:50 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! This is the part 1 of my monography "IMPORTANCE OF EMULATION FOR HARDWARE PRESERVATION", which I used for getting my bachelor degree at computer engineering. This part focuses on the definition of emulation, the difference between emulation and simulation, and the importance of preserving hardware.
This is the english version of the paper, while the original, portuguese version, is available 2023-03-27 13:12:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
After two years, Race Drivin' SA-1 continues to be one of my favorite SA-1 versions. I also made a FastROM version of it, but I believe I never had the change to release it to everyone before.
For who don't remember, Race Drivin' ran at average 4.77 FPS and had a frame buffer capped at 12 FPS (so even if the game ran faster, it wouldn't get past 12 FPS). The SA-1 version not just made the game run much faster but also optimized the NMI routine aggressively to allow to the frame buffer r...
2023-03-19 17:19:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! This is the part 2 of my monography "IMPORTANCE OF EMULATION FOR HARDWARE PRESERVATION", which I used for getting my bachelor degree at computer engineering. This part focuses on reverse engineering techniques, different emulation methodologies and the challenges of system emulation. The part 1 is available here.
This is the original, brazilian portuguese version of the p...
2023-01-14 13:00:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! This is the part 1 of my monography"IMPORTANCE OF EMULATION FOR HARDWARE PRESERVATION", which I used for getting my bachelor degree at computer engineering. This part focuses on the definition of emulation, the difference between emulation and simulation, and the importance of preserving hardware.
This is the original, brazilian portuguese version of the paper. The paper also had the orientation of Prof. Guilherme Guindani, Ph.D and was evaluated by Prof. Laercio Ca...
2023-01-08 16:26:37 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! First of all, I hope you all had excellent holidays. 2023 is finally here and I personally I'm excited for this year. For who wasn't aware, 2022 I was very busy for several reasons, with the main reason being the final activities of my computer engineering bachelor degree. Thankfully, everything went right, my final paper and my last subjects were approved and I graduated at the middle of December.
With the course done, in 2023 the focus will be working on the major projects that re...
2023-01-03 13:13:43 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi. More good news! After fixing Gradius III and Super R-Type, which you can download the pre-release here, Contra III - The Alien Wars - with SA-1 chip support has been updated to work with real hardware too.
I remember that unlike Gradius and Super R-Type, which some people successfully managed to run on a SA-1 cartridge, nobody (as far I kn...
2022-09-10 17:05:12 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi everyone! Hope everything is okay.
As some might be aware, some of my SA-1 patches doesn't seem to work with specific SA-1 cartridges. The reason seemed unknown so far, but recently Jonas Quinn caught my attention to the fact that apparently my patches attempts writing to I-RAM before it's "allowed" to use.
As an experiment, I changed part of my SA-1 boot code on Gradius III and Super R-Type patches to enable I-RAM write before using the SA-1 stack -- apparently this might be t...
2022-09-06 13:23:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! For sharing more information about the SA-1 enhancement chip, what are the expectations for the following years and the possibilities of the co-processor, I'm making a small series of articles talking about the current state of the SA-1 ROM hacking. If you have any suggestions about this series, the comments section is open for everyone!
The Super Accelerator One ("SA-1") chip is one of the enhancement chips included in some SNES games. It's a chip being currently used for a lot of ...
2022-06-05 21:13:43 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! It's been a while since I wrote the last post here - for the past months I'm been more busy than usual on my university and in addition, I was having some difficulty in adapting Super Metroid to the SA-1 memory map - which not just I had to remap the RAM memory, but also the ROM and SRAM memory areas. And finally I got them working in a way that I can boot up the game and play the first stages without apparently any issue.
Disabling FastROM and converting the game to SA-1 ROM forma...
2022-05-08 18:11:30 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! 2021 was a great year... and challenging too. I think the first semester was completely amazing. We got Super R-Type & Race Drivin' SA-1 patches which shown what amazing things you can do with the SA-1 chip. We also got many FastROM patches, with the ones made by me being Axelay, F-Zero and U.N. Squadron (Area 88)! And finally, the first SNES widescreen mod game, Super Mario World wit...
2021-12-25 00:26:39 +0000 UTC
View Post
Finally after a long time investing hours disassembling each block, sorting out what's code and what's data and figuring out the processor modes I'm happy to announce that the Super Metroid is now fully disassembled and ready to be processed.
This took much more time than I thought. The disassembly process started in 2019 (July 16) after receiving some gameplay trace logs. Due of the game complexity and size, specially with the 3 MB of contents, I knew it would take long so since then I...
2021-11-21 22:41:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! I'm aware you all have noticed an activity decline over my Patreon and this has a direct correlation of the current on-going projects: Super Metroid SA-1 (currently focused) and Super Mario World Widescreen.
As reported on my last progress update, Super Metroid is still being a huge project and a reverse engineering challenge. I figured out that the reverse engineering tools I used for the previous projects, such as Super R-Type and Race Drivin', is barely effective against a game l...
2021-10-28 05:51:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! I have not been able to share much updates lately - I often forget that most of my work is programming and reverse engineering based and sometimes even if you are doing a lot of work you usually don't have anything to share since you are building new projects from scratch. That's the situation for Super Metroid SA-1 in particular.
For that reason, I'm been out of social media since I'm been busy with my 'real life' work too - as a Software Engineering; for not having to stop t...
2021-08-26 07:31:38 +0000 UTC
View Post
For who missed, I recently released a test version of U.N. Squadron with FastROM support. It increases the game internal speed from 2.68 MHz to 3.58 MHz. I have received some positive feedback from the work so far and I would like to know your thoughts about the patch.
Is FastROM sufficient for U.N. Squadron, so I can go look into optimizing the next game or does it need SA-1?
This poll ...
2021-07-25 22:05:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! I'm happy to share the beta version of the FastROM (3.58 MHz) patch for U.N. Squadron. This patch is part of the SA-1 Root conversion of the game for understanding how the game works and to validate if the disassembly is correct. This patch will make the game up to 33% faster compared to the 2.68 MHz SlowROM version.
You can download the BPS patch under the attachments section of this post. You must patch it against...
2021-07-24 22:50:21 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! I'm happy to share with you all the release candidate version of SMW Widescreen v1.10. This version adds support for 2:1 screens (with PAR enabled - SMW Extrawide), 16:9 screens (with PAR disabled - SMW Extrawide and enabled - SMW Widescreen) and 16:10 (with PAR disabled - SMW Widescreen).
This version also fixes two bugs: 1) koopa shells appearing on the middle of the screen when they're offscreen and 2) sprites not facing Mario when entering a level (for example the Dry Bones from...
2021-07-19 17:46:26 +0000 UTC
View Post
This publication was originally planned to be done around 10 days ago, but it had to be postponed by personal reasons and because of the recent events. Apologies for anyone who was waiting for the Roadmap post.
This roadmap normally contains projects which can be released on July, August or September, depending on how each one evolves. Every month I'll update it with progress updates and eventual changes.
Finished projects
- Super Mario World with SA-1 Pack
2021-07-08 20:31:29 +0000 UTC
View Post
Now that Super Mario World Widescreen was released I would like to hear what are your current interests for the next months.
This is important for having an idea about the expectations of all patrons. If possible, please pick at least one option. If none of the options interests you, please send a comment or message me.
The more votes, the more I will know about all patrons. You can...
2021-06-22 01:53:31 +0000 UTC
View Post
As promised on the first beta thread, today I'm releasing the 2nd beta patch of SMW Widescreen.
Thank you everyone who played and tested the first beta version. I got a lot of feedback and some issues were improved or fixed compared to the previous version. Here is a summary of changes compared to the previous version:
- FIXED: Fixed some invisible tiles flashing on the screen while...
2021-06-17 08:28:32 +0000 UTC
View Post
Finally after a long time, almost 5,000 lines of code, 100 KB of ASM files and many days improving the game I'm happy to bring the first beta version of the game.
This is an exclusive download for patrons. Thank you all for the support! Hope you all enjoy.
A few important notes:
- This version is made for 16:9 or 16:10 screens. The ultrawide version is work in progress.
- This version uses the SA-1 chip (10.74 MHz) as the main SNES processor. This version requires...
2021-06-14 06:50:35 +0000 UTC
View Post
The rare SA-1 cartridge which was dumped and made available for everyone and sent to me - for further researchment about the SA-1 chip - just reached Brazil. However, unlike the Super FX cartridge which I just had to pay the shipment fee - R$ 15 - this time they figured out the object is worth U...
2021-06-10 23:48:25 +0000 UTC
View Post
I'm been reflecting myself about what I'm been doing and working lately. The more I think about the currently work in progress SNES projects, the more confident I feel about my future. I really love what I do and everything we have achieved together so far.
Before the pandemic started, I barely had any free time to do anything SNES related. I got a job and several freelancer works to keep sustaining myself and my family (which includes my mom, dad, girl...
2021-06-05 13:02:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Good news! As everyone might know, while I'm doing Super Mario World Widescreen (which is very nearby completion, by the way! -- I wanna the final version out before my birthday, which is June 9); I'm also looking for potential candidates for getting a SA-1 or FastROM conversion. U.N. Squadron is one of them.
I recently got some trace log and after accumulating them and analyzing them I got around 92.57% completion, whi...
2021-06-02 14:07:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! I know some people are pretty excited for SMW Widescreen, either for playing it or for looking for the next SA-1 related projects once SMW is done.
I have initially planned to finish everything on May 31 (around 4 days from this post). I will work intensively for getting this within May 31, but I might postpone in a few days in case I see things are not going smooth as expected. After all, we don't have a Cyperpunk 2077-like release 😁
Basically, the overworld map is done. T...
2021-05-28 02:40:09 +0000 UTC
View Post
This took a bit more time than I wanted since I was focused on the current projects, but I have commented every single comment on Brainstorm Time, so take a look if you haven't already :D -- I took notes about all games commented and I made a compilation list of games mentioned on the posts (you can see at end of this post), with the amount of times it was mentioned + amount of times it received a l...
2021-05-25 02:59:52 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! Thank you for everyone who provided feedback to me, either directly or though the comments on the last feedback thread. I've annotated the mentioned points, which I will later make a post pointing some of the valid concerns I received though the process.
Today I would like to hear from you what game are you the most interested to me eventually work on. Unlike other times where I added a poll with a list of games, this time I would like to every ...
2021-05-12 02:42:16 +0000 UTC
View Post
On March, Forest of Illusion, a Twitter account designed for "Preserving Nintendo's History", posted a tweet about a SA-1 demonstration cartridge being available on eBay for acquiring. The cartridge was undumped at that time and shown two mysterious demos, which the first demo suggested a comparison between S-CPU (SNES CPU) and C-CPU (SA-1 CPU) and another demo that suggested a software SA-1 graphics rotation system.
2021-05-09 21:07:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
Hi! If you are reading this post, it means you are one of my patrons. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for supporting Vitor's Laboratory. Your support is always welcome and important for keeping up with more SNES related projects.
Every three months, I would like to hear from each patron a more detailed feedback: what's been going positive; what's been going negative and your expectations for the future.
...
2021-05-07 01:03:29 +0000 UTC
View Post
