Let's talk the "Famicom" Gaplus by M2...

[Turrican]

... there's no chance in hell that thing can run on a real famicom, is there?

[Steven]

Cutting Room Floor says it runs fine on real hardware. I don't have a real Famicom, so I can't test it on one.

[Sumez]

Maybe share some sort of context

I googled my way to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yzQ8-Dt04Q
Is that the game you're talking about?

Now my immediate naive assumption would be that it's being played on an emulator which removes the sprite limit to display more than 8 sprites (which would be only 4 enemies at 16x16px) on a horizontal line.

But I'd expect M2 go beyond that. Since the game has no backgrounds aside from the scrolling stars, I think it's safe to assume that the moment the enemies form up in the main formation which moves together, they become a part of the background layer, which frees up a ton of hardware sprites for the individually moving enemies, stars, and projectiles. At least that's how I would have done it.

Since the player object and bugs lined up with it never intersect with this formation either, it's very likely also using the background layer, but with timed code changing the scroll offset of the background somewhere between the two (I know that sounds tricky, but it's actually extremely common in NES games, and how every static status bar in a scrolling game works)


Is there anything else that appears out of spec for a Famicom? Nothing stands out to me.

[Turrican]

Is there anything else that appears out of spec for a Famicom? Nothing stands out to me.

Nothing in particular, It just seems too fluid and fast. There's Recca of course but this Is entirely without flicker as you said.

If they say It runs on real Famicom, have they released the ROM perhaps? I probably got myself in confusion since this was released along with a Pac-Man CE FC remake, and there's not a chance in hell that can run on real hardware. So I just assumed the same level of trickery was at play with Gaplus...

...except TCRF says that one too can run on real famicom! https://tcrf.net/Gaplus_(NES)

I'd really love to see someone putting these on their everdrives and record a video of It. It would be stunning.

[Lemnear]

Did u know that the audio of NES and the Famicom got different Square Waves Pulse Width?
NES 12,5%, 25%, 50% e 75%
Famicom 6,25%, 18,75%, 31,25%, 37,5%, 43,75%.

Only for "OST Accuracy" for who wants to make ones

[Fudoh]

I've been playing the FC Pac-Man CE on real hardware a lot. It's fantastic. The roms for both Pac-Man CE and Gaplus have been available "out there" for a while. They had been extracted from the Switch release only days after the release.

[velo]

Gaplus runs on my NES without a trace of flicker or slowdown (speaking only for the first couple levels. I am no good at Gaplus.)

[Sumez]

Is there anything else that appears out of spec for a Famicom? Nothing stands out to me.

Nothing in particular, It just seems too fluid and fast. There's Recca of course but this Is entirely without flicker as you said.

I think you're just massively underestimating the Famicom
There is no reason games shouldn't always be super fluid and fast on one.

Especially not a really simple game such as Gaplus

[Koa Zo]

Am I remembering correctly that there were repro carts of Gaplus and Pac Man CE but there was no BGM or maybe just problems with the audio?

[BrianC]

Am I remembering correctly that there were repro carts of Gaplus and Pac Man CE but there was no BGM or maybe just problems with the audio?

Pac-Man CE uses expansion audio, the same chip, N163, that JP Rolling Thunder uses. A system supporting expansion audio like the JP Famicom is needed to hear the extra audio channels. Gaplus shouldn't have audio issues since it uses a standard NES mapper with no expansion audio. Both games work on real hardware and FPGA devices.

I have played these games on multiple devices. Stock NES is a no go for Pac-Man CE NES, unless you can tolerate missing audio channels, but it works great AV Famicom, MiSTer, and RetroUSB AVS. Support for the N163 chip is a must (Everdrives and MiSTer support it). Gaplus plays great on stock NES, AV Famicom, MiSTer, etc.

[Turrican]

Hey great to know! I'm really glad to be mistaken about this.

[Sumez]

Stock NES is a no go for Pac-Man CE NES, unless you can tolerate missing audio channels, but it works great AV Famicom, MiSTer, and RetroUSB AVS.

A front-loading stock NES actually does support expansion audio mixing, it's just connected to the expansion port on the bottom instead of the cartridge port. You can get a small dongle to plug in there if you want to play expansion audio on an unmodified western NES - or make it yourself, it's very basic. Or you can just wire it up inside the NES - but even on an NES without expansion audio support (the top loader), this is actually very easy to mod, too, you just need a couple of extra basic components.

This of course assumes that the expansion audio from the cartridge goes into pin 54 on the connector, which has become the aftermarket community standard for expansion audion on a non-Japanese NES. You can get (or easily modify) Famicom adapters that map to that pin, and I think pretty much every flash cartridge (Everdrive, PowerPak, ...) abides by that standard as well

In short, you can totally get expansion audio on your NES with probably minimal effort.

[BrianC]

Stock NES is a no go for Pac-Man CE NES, unless you can tolerate missing audio channels, but it works great AV Famicom, MiSTer, and RetroUSB AVS.

A front-loading stock NES actually does support expansion audio mixing, it's just connected to the expansion port on the bottom instead of the cartridge port. You can get a small dongle to plug in there if you want to play expansion audio on an unmodified western NES - or make it yourself, it's very basic. Or you can just wire it up inside the NES - but even on an NES without expansion audio support (the top loader), this is actually very easy to mod, too, you just need a couple of extra basic components.

This of course assumes that the expansion audio from the cartridge goes into pin 54 on the connector, which has become the aftermarket community standard for expansion audion on a non-Japanese NES. You can get (or easily modify) Famicom adapters that map to that pin, and I think pretty much every flash cartridge (Everdrive, PowerPak, ...) abides by that standard as well

In short, you can totally get expansion audio on your NES with probably minimal effort.

Stock means stock with no add-ons. I'm aware it can be mod, especially with the front loader with the expansion port.

[Sumez]

So no cartridges either?

[BrianC]

So no cartridges either?

My point is that an add-on or mod is needed for the expansion sound and "stock" is a lot easier to type than "unmodded NES without dongle in expansion port".