Not everything needs SA-1
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.
This is an experiment of a new FastROM conversion method using my conventional SA-1 tools (TheLastRemapper and DistinGUIsh) that allows converting games from SlowROM to FastROM with pretty good efficiency and much higher stability compared to a SA-1 Root release.
3.58 MHz FastROM is still far from SA-1 clock, 10.74 MHz. But for some cases it can be effective.
I saw that Super Castlevania 4 has some slowdown issues but they are not that heavy compared to other games, so I gave it a shot for FastROM and I wanted your feedback on how much did the game improve in terms of speed/performance.
As you might already know, please don't share the patch with anyone! This is an exclusive early-access gift for you all! 🎉
In case it reduces considerably we can take a look on the spots that still have slowdown and consider applying some manual code optimization in hope that it will remove slowdown from the remaining places definitely.
Hope you all like and I'm counting with your feedback.
Comments (22)
Sorry I'm late to the conversation, but will this patch work on the Japanese ROM? I don't care for the censorship of the American ROM
Hi Aaron, I would need to make the patch from scratch for japanese version support. However, the restored patch works with the FastROM patch fine. https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2928/ patch it over the fastrom version
Just tested Super Castlevania 4 with old Super Famicom model with SD2SNES. Played to the Catacombs level (level 8). Works perfectly, not a hint of slowdown anywhere to be seen! Truly not all slowing games need SA-1 to be perfect! Awesome work Vitor! PS. Does there exist a list of SlowROM games that could be converted? This one probably is not it: https://www.reddit.com/r/miniSNESmods/comments/79j5ic/potentially_useful_list_of_all_us_ntsc_games_that/
Jurger, that's pretty nice to hear! Thank you for testing it. I'm aware of the list, it's fairly accurate with the exception of the enhancement chips games that has the SlowROM mark but they are powered with a co-processor. I'm looking forward for more FastROM conversions, it's pretty easier to convert compared to SA-1 and the effectiveness is quite good.
You're very welcome! Thank you for your incredible work!!!❤
you're welcome!!
Ok... i used different emulator now for gradius iii ... and on that i could not notice any slowdown at all. Tomorrow i will test castlevania again. Maybe it was the emulators fault.
FastROM is more known by other emulators, so I believe you will end up getting the same result. But for SA-1, I really recommend using bsnes for most cases... anyways, once again thank you for the testing! I'll keep castlevania sa-1 in my to do list for the future.
Yes!! I wouldn't lie🤷🏻♂️ It's my favourite game. But it's really just for short time in some sections. But it is noticable. But i allways play it on arcade difficulty ...and there is a llloot going on. I just watched some youtube videos where there where no slowdowns at all. So maybe it's not a good emulator. Maybe you should put your hack for castlevania in public... so that you have more people to test it. I can tell you just my experience.
Although I tried fixing Snes9x internal speed, the SA-1 CPU still does not run at *full speed* with the emulator, specially versions older than 1.60... but you can give it a try on bsnes or higan, I have hopes that it will never ever get slowdown on Gradius III as SA-1 is (almost) properly emulated.
I am on stage 3-3 and there is a section with slowdown. I cannot recall if it is less as in the original.
Emulator
So, did someone play this? Was there some noteworthy improvement or are the slowdown spots still bad?
Playing it now!
thanks for responding back. Makes me wonder if that could be generalized to all slowroms...
Yep, it can be generalized for all slowroms... I think with the method I developed and counting with the tracelog submissions I received from some games (https://vilela.sneslab.net/2019/06/15/the-sa-1-collection-project/ ), in around 20-30 hours of work I can convert any SlowROM game to FastROM with a quite good efficiency and safety.
was it a cost reason that it didn’t use fastrom in the first place ?
Either for saving costs -- since it required a 120ns ROM instead of 200ns, or lack of knowledge at that era from the Konami devs.
Any chance you will work on super r-type in future?🐨
Super R-Type is under my plans for SA-1 Root, it will likely be my next project already after SA-1 MaxTile for Super Mario World.
Cool! I'll give it a shot and let you know.
I know what I’m doing after work today :)