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Topic: Could we see the GBA remakes of the DKC games on Wii U?

Posts 21 to 24 of 24

KingMike

And those that didn't emulate it ran StarFox much faster than it should. (the most visible sign is when the opening "Scramble" cutscene just cuts out in the middle)
Of course Nintendo could just release it as a "Turbo" version.

I wonder if Stunt Race FX would also benefit from a higher-frame-rate version as well.

Edited on by KingMike

KingMike

Atariboy

Never have seen the cutscene cut out, but the telltale sign of Super FX emulation running too fast is the opening animation where they're scrambling their ships ending much sooner than it should in comparison to the accompanying audio that's running correctly. All the animation is there, it just finishes quicker than it should.

And those that didn't emulate it ran faster? That doesn't make any sense. The original code either has to run on original hardware (Or a derivative that replicates it such as the Retro Trio) with the original onboard cartridge Super FX coprocessor handling its normal duties, or be emulated such as on homebrew PC emulators or the Retron 5. There isn't a third option.

But it's correct that a lot of early PC Super FX emulation ran too fast such as ZSNES. Not sure if it was out of incomplete modeling of the Super FX coprocessor that caused it to inaccurately run faster than it should, or a misguided deliberate attempt to improve the experience in games like Star Fox that some perceive as running choppy.

There's no reason why Nintendo couldn't properly emulate the Super FX chip. It's done correctly in contemporary homebrew Super Nintendo emulators, such as the Android/Ouya/Retron 5 port of SNES9X. Nintendo surely could do similarly and likely has access to technical documentation in their archives that would allow them to do it far easier.

Edited on by Atariboy

Atariboy

Atariboy

Here's a good example of how the scramble sequence is different.

Original hardware

Typical emulation with the Super FX chip running faster than it's supposed to, resulting in everything except the audio now running quicker than it should.

Notice how the player's ship has almost exited the hangar when the indistinct voicework, running at its correct pace since it doesn't utilize the Super FX chip, finishes.

Luckily, modern SuperNes emulation has accurate Super FX modeling such as BSNES, modern releases of SNES9X, etc.

Edited on by Atariboy

Atariboy

KingMike

GoneFishin wrote:

And those that didn't emulate it ran faster? That doesn't make any sense.

They use high level emulation (this is, say they know function X in the SFX code is an add function a+b=c. When they game calls function x, they just have the PC (or whatever modern device) calculate c, instead of going the more accurate route and emulate each of the original SFX instructions.
Say the original SFX code took five instructions to finish function X but the PC finishes it in 1. Might sound good, but then that means it was processed five times as fast, and the game maybe wasn't expecting to get the answer so soon.
(it's an example on the other end. That is, it wouldn't affect original games but it was actually not as well known earlier that while the SNES can do multiplication, on a real console it was necessary to stall the code a bit, like a couple dummy instructions, before trying to check the result. Older emulators didn't know that or didn't care and would let the correct result be read immediately after requesting a multiplication. I'm sure some homebrew has been broken by that.)

Or they simply emulated the Super FX 2 for all games, even though the Super FX 1 chip ran at half the speed.

Or did they both.

KingMike

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