Good news! After around 25 days without updates, I just receive a message from Correios (the brazilian USPS equivalent delivery service) that my package just arrived my country and I won't have to pay any import taxes, only the mandatory international shipping fee which is R$ 15 (about US$ 3).
The Super FX development cartridge is a modified Winter Gold (SNES) cartridge with a custom ROM socket that let...
2021-04-27 20:02:32 +0000 UTC
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How are Vitor Vilela's projects going? This post is a summary of which projects are work in progress, which projects has updates planned and which projects are on the initial phrase (which means they will be worked on soon!)
The roadmap will be monthly updated for keeping track of everything on Vitor's projects and how they are progressing.
Finished projects
- Super Mario World with SA-1 Pack - status: stable
2021-04-25 19:17:32 +0000 UTC
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Hi! I'm glad to share with you all the FastROM patch of F-Zero! Although F-Zero does not have many slowdown occurrences compared to other games, there's a few spots where slowdown can occur, in particular intensive tracks where you can end up seeing more than 4 vehicles at the same time.
The patch will be useful specially for ROM hacks. The F-Zero ROM hacking community is advancing quickly and a lot of cool things will be coming, specially with a complete and reliable FastROM patch dire...
2021-04-23 13:09:06 +0000 UTC
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I recently published an article explaining the throughput problem, a limitation where it's directly attached to the amount of operations per second the SNES CPU can do per second and how many pixels you must draw to achieve a certain resolution + frame rate.
But what about Star Fox? How many frames is it possible to get given its current configuration?
Currently, the game runs at about
2021-04-13 17:01:02 +0000 UTC
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The Super Nintendo master clock is 21.48 MHz (derived from 21.477272727272...). Normally, everything you do from the SNES derives from the clock speed. Super FX speed is 21.48 MHz. SA-1 speed is 10.74 MHz, which is 21.48 MHz / 2. FastROM speed is 3.58 MHz, which is 21.48 MHz / 6, etc.
Let's say I would like to make my own 3D game or a special 2D rendered game, via a frame buffer. In other words, instead of using the SNES PPU core, I'm gonna render the game using the SNES, SA-1 or Super ...
2021-04-09 03:28:09 +0000 UTC
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One concern regarding my improvement patches is that sometimes they make the enhanced games run too fast. Although some people defend that it's the way that the game was originally intended to play, other people argue that it ruins part of the gameplay, by making it excessively too hard and the devs probably would have made them slight slower if they were made with the SA-1 chip in mind.
Regardless of your viewpoint, today part of this issue will be solved with SA-1 Root Addons<...
2021-04-05 00:49:08 +0000 UTC
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Good news! The FastROM version of Axelay proved to reduce a good amount of slowdown and it's stable. This means that I'm releasing the beta patch for all patrons! Keep in mind this is not the final version, so there can still be some bugs and slowdown around.
You can download the patch under the attachments of this post. This is a BPS patch, so you need the original USA Axelay ROM before applying it. If you don't know how to apply BPS patches, make sure to read my SnesLab article for mo...
2021-03-27 23:11:21 +0000 UTC
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How are Vitor Vilela's projects going? This post is a summary of which projects are work in progress, which projects has updates planned and which projects are on the initial phrase (which means they will be worked on soon!)
The roadmap will be monthly updated for keeping track of everything on Vitor's projects and how they are progressing.
For the patrons, stay tuned that in the following days I'm going to make the monthly
2021-03-19 04:55:45 +0000 UTC
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On my last post, I asked which project should I work now. If you view the poll results, Star Fox won with 31 votes, followed by Axelay with 18 votes. Widescreen Super Mario World was the least voted option, with 3 votes only.
If you saw the pictures about and my2021-03-14 04:03:03 +0000 UTC
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Hi! We just reached an awesome milestone - over 100 patrons! Thank you so much everyone that is supporting me! You have no idea how that makes me happy and how it's helping me real life. As a commemoration for this milestone, instead of going on the monthly "Requests Center", this time I would like to you pick the game you would like to me work on.
Exactly, my next conversion will be based on the opinions of my patrons!
Not necessarily the winner will be the next conversion, I alw...
2021-02-23 00:30:55 +0000 UTC
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Hi! If you are not aware yet, I just released Race Drivin' SA-1 Root patch. You can download the patch and instructions at https://github.com/VitorVilela7/SA1-Root
It has a new feature called "Delta-Based Frame Correction". It's the game changer that will let me optimize, for example, Star Fox without speeding the game up. What if Race Drivin' didn't use the frame rat...
2021-02-21 04:27:02 +0000 UTC
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Hi! I have released a new Patreon exclusive work in progress patch of Race Drivin'. This patch contains several improvements and fixes compared to the first beta version and it's very likely to be a release candidate, with future changes being related to performance and bug fixes.
The download link is available under the attachments of this post. If you don't know how to apply BPS patches, check out 2021-02-20 00:18:44 +0000 UTC
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Hey! Thank you all for the participation in the previous feedback post! I have read each one carefully and I've took key notes about every point.
By the way, the happiness rate also was a great surprise for me, with 97% of the voters being pretty happy.
I should have mentioned on the previous post, but in case you would like to make a more personal feedback, please send me a private message! Feedback is always important to improve...
2021-02-18 00:52:28 +0000 UTC
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Hi! I would like to hear your opinion about Vitor Vilela's Laboratory. I made a small poll and I would like to your vote about how happy or not are you currently with this Patreon and my work overall.
If possible, consider also taking a few minutes and send a comment on this post with your thoughts about my patreon: - what you like, - what you don't like, and - suggestions.
Your feedback is very important for me!
2021-02-15 15:39:25 +0000 UTC
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If you are curious how Race Drivin is currently running on the SA-1 chip, this is your chance! The file download is available under attachments of this post. Make sure to apply the patch over the USA version of Race Drivin.
Currently, the game plays really well and it's much better compared to the SNES version. However, there is still some work to be done before releasing to the public, which includes:
- Fixing the title screen (the demo play currently is broken)
- Upda...
2021-02-11 13:37:25 +0000 UTC
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When I initially analyzed Race Drivin, I said on Twitter that it was impossible to convert the game to SA-1, because the game would simply skip frames and make them so fast that it would be unplayable.
However, after hearing the game had different ports and each one ran at different frame rates (the original Arcade version is super cool, by the way!) and given that the game runs on average at 4.77 FPS, ...
2021-02-03 16:40:57 +0000 UTC
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Hi! It's now time for the monthly "Request Center" post, where we talk about the current projects and you can comment or suggest new works under the comments section.
For who missed the first requests center (you can view the previous post here), this monthly post has the purpose of discussing the current requests and it's also an opportunity to anyone make requests
2021-01-21 17:57:37 +0000 UTC
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Hi! I have written before that SA-1 is not just the only SNES co-processor I may use to optimize games. Super FX is not just possible but also a reality for games that heavily uses graphics processing, frames buffers but suffers with slowdown or lag spikes.
This includes games that already uses Super FX, like Star Fox or Stunt Race FX. Any Super FX game can be made to run up to 30 FPS by adjusting frame...
2021-01-15 00:22:37 +0000 UTC
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The latest SA-1 Pack version with MaxTile is available here: https://github.com/VitorVilela7/SA1-Pack
If you have been looking on my Twitter, you probably saw the many things that SA-1 MaxTile made it possible to the Super Mario World ROM hacking scene, mostly the possibility of putting multiple 2021-01-10 20:47:43 +0000 UTC
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Hi, happy 2021! Hope you are having a great holidays time!
Hope you are all also enjoying Super R-Type with SA-1 Root. For who missed, I recently released version 1.1 and also I have finished hardware verification which confirmed that Super R-Type works fine with a real SA-1 cart and SNES console. You can take a look on Twitter post here and you can download the lastest version 2021-01-02 23:13:38 +0000 UTC
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Finally got all glitches fixed and Super R-Type for SA-1 Root is now done!
The download link is available under the attachments.
A few fun facts:
- It took about 60-70 hours of work to finish it.
- It uses SA-1 parallelism to ensure maximum performance.
- Unlike other SA-1 releases that required 128 KB of SRAM, Super R-Type requires only 32 KB. That should make SA-1 repro carts easier to make.
- I had to fix a few programming errors on the game that ...
2020-12-31 06:10:14 +0000 UTC
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Good news! Super R-Type for SA-1 Root is almost done. After a long time working on the RAM remaps and adapting the SA-1 -> SNES -> SPC700 communication, the game no longer crashes and I recently made the screen start rendering as it should. The game appears to work fluidly, without a hint of slowdown. The issues right now involves mostly visual glitches at the bosses.
The patch will feature asynchronous parallel communication between SA-1...
2020-12-30 23:48:41 +0000 UTC
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Hello! If you have some free time though this week and you are the Super R-Type hero, this post is for you!
I need two or more beta testers to actively test Super R-Type SA-1, possibly several test ROMs, against bsnes-plus v05. It's important to you know most of the details from Super R-Type, since premature SA-1 Root bugs include unexpected palette changes, lack of some projectiles, details missing, crashes on the credits at Hard difficulty only (hi, Gradius 3 SA-1!) ...
2020-12-28 13:00:58 +0000 UTC
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Hello! I hope you are all having a great xmas / holidays. Today I'm happy to release an exclusive FastROM patch for Super R-Type to all my patrons. The download link of the patch is available under the attachments of this post.
If you are not familiar with BPS patches and would like to know how to apply them, make sure to read my article on how to apply BPS patches on SnesLab: 2020-12-26 22:10:10 +0000 UTC
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Hey guys! Just an idea I recently had for keeping track of possible projects and personal requests.
Every month I'll create a post called "Requests Center" where we will be able to discuss the current requests and you all will also be able to make requests directly on this post -- it can be anything, within my skills.
How it works:
- I'll post current requests, the status of them (if it's planned, if it's work in progres...
2020-12-23 00:33:44 +0000 UTC
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SURPRISE: Download now Super Castlevania with FastROM, under the attachments of this post! Use a BPS patcher (check https://sneslab.net/wiki/How_to_apply_ROM_patches if you don't have one) and apply against the USA version of Super Castlevania 4.
I just made a patch that makes Super Castlevania 4 run at 3.58 MHz instead of the conventional 2.68 MHz CPU clock from the SNES.
Th...
2020-12-14 14:21:05 +0000 UTC
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Hello y'all! After a long hiatus on releases, I'm glad for releasing a new version of SA-1 Pack for Super Mario World.
As you know, the SA-1 Pack aims both for SNES players interested in playing an optimized gameplay and ROM hackers interested in using SA-1 on their work.
SA-1 Pack v1.35 bring a few interesting changes. For who wants to play the original Super Mario World with the chip, SA-1 Pack now reconfigures all levels's sprite memory header ...
2020-12-13 01:27:45 +0000 UTC
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You can give it a try now! While there is no noteworthy progress on my other SA-1 works, you can check it out one of my initial experiments with Gradius III. The BPS patch is attached on this post.
Initially I was having a lot of trouble for getting SA-1 Root working on Gradius III and in hope to have at least a little idea on how the game would run on the chip, I coded a FastROM patch for it t...
2020-05-31 23:59:48 +0000 UTC
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It happened: I'm back! After months of hiatus, I have decided to return into the ROM hacking community, now exclusively focused on SA-1 Pack/Root content.
The COVID-19 screwed up São Paulo, my city which I live (it just registered 1,000 deaths today and over 20,000 cases) and I'm been into home office on both the company I work at and on my university which I'm still doing my Computer Engineering bachelor's degree for a few weeks.
<...
2020-04-20 06:10:02 +0000 UTC
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Hi! You all might have noticed that I'm been gone from all social networks lately, including Discord, Twitter, GitHub and here. I'm sorry for not publishing about that earlier, the reason for my hiatus are the following:
1) I have recently lost motivation on the SNES ROM hacking scene because of some toxicity behind some users and attempts at sabotaging my name and my projects (in particular, SnesLab). That has led me some huge amount of stress that made me decide to leave ROM hacking f...
2020-02-15 20:46:45 +0000 UTC
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