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 clo...
2024-09-25 03:53:00 +0000 UTC View PostHello 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.
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 ...
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 F...
2023-03-19 17:19:42 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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 em...
2023-01-14 13:00:02 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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 o...
2023-01-08 16:26:37 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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, everyth...
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 bee...
2022-09-10 17:05:12 +0000 UTC View PostHi 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...
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 seri...
2022-06-05 21:13:43 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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 memo...
2022-05-08 18:11:30 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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...
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 dis...
2021-11-21 22:41:10 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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 pro...
2021-10-28 05:51:01 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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 situatio...
2021-08-26 07:31:38 +0000 UTC View PostFor 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 ...
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...
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). 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...
2021-07-08 20:31:29 +0000 UTC View PostNow 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...
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 i...
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:
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 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 pande...
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 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...
2021-05-28 02:40:09 +0000 UTC View PostThis 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 note...
2021-05-25 02:59:52 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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 l...
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 mysteri...
2021-05-09 21:07:10 +0000 UTC View PostHi! 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 lik...
2021-05-07 01:03:29 +0000 UTC View Post