7 ms·

SNES – Super Mario World Widescreen

431 points by gtonioli 5y ago

geofft 5y ago
https://www.resetera.com/threads/you-can-now-play-snes-games-in-widescreen.117351/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/you-can-now-play-snes-games... has a bunch of screenshots of unmodified SNES games in widescreen (though they don't work perfectly) https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/hd-emulation-mod-makes-mode-7-snes-games-look-like-new/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/hd-emulation-mod-make... talks about "HD Mode 7" support, which relies on the fact that perspective backgrounds ("Mode 7") are scaled for TV display, but they don't inhenently have to be downsampled to TV pixels, and on a emulator outputting to a higher-resolution display, it can preserve the resolution instead of trying to get pixel-perfect accuracy. I think the widescreen stuff works on the same principle: the data is there and being scrolled, so you may as well render it.
gxqoz 5y ago
Is there a YouTube video of this somewhere? Didn't see one linked from the github page.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/status/1405972177225191427 https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/status/1405972177225191427
- gtonioli 5y ago
  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286
  - ant6n 5y ago
    Was the creator live-streaming his progress, or am I fundamentally misunderstanding twitch.
    - gtonioli 5y ago
      No. It was a famous SMW speedrunner testing the wildscreen ROM
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  Several. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=super+mario+world+widescreen https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=super+mario+wor...
crazygringo 5y ago
This is nuts. I didn't even know this would be possible. I can't remember -- does Super Mario World have any "single-room" fixed-width gameplay areas? I mean, it must, right? I'm wondering how they addressed those, since making any room wider would change gameplay. I also can't help but wonder if being able to see a little bit further to the right would ever make anything easier? Or is the distance forward (to the right) fixed to the same value, so you're mostly just getting more visibility into where you've already passed? The video and GitHub repo don't seem to explain it. But I'm now super curious...
- goalieca 5y ago
  > does Super Mario World have any "single-room" fixed-width gameplay areas? I mean, it must, right? Yes. The have the bonus room after you get 100 endpoint stars. They also have vertical segments like a bonus room and a special world map.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Most obvious of all would be the Top Secret Area, or Yoshi's House.
- gtonioli 5y ago
  Take a look on this vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286
- stochaztic 5y ago
  Look through the past couple hundred or so of Vitor's tweets; he's been one-by-one reprogramming all the troublesome rooms and screens for a couple weeks. https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/ https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/
  - 29athrowaway 5y ago
    That guy is certifiably insane. He patched Contra III, Gradius III, Super Mario World, Super R-Type and Race Drivin' to use the SA-1 chip. Which means now those games have a higher/consistent framerate. Kudos to that guy. Hopefully Nintendo learns to appreciate these contributions and doesn't try to seek legal action against him.
jakemauer 5y ago
I've been a very happy patron of Vitor for months. I'm elated that this project is finally out in the world. He has a framerate improvement patch for Starfox in the works that I am beyond excited about.
- prvc 5y ago
  Now that's exciting. It's already quite fun to play with emulated overclocking, btw.
  - flatiron 5y ago
    I personally can’t stand it due to frame rate!
    - Netcob 5y ago
      I always liked the flat-shaded look, the gameplay and world, but when I revisited it as an adult I just couldn't play it due to the frame rate. I'm so used to playing at 90-144fps that anything below 60 literally looks like a slideshow. And 20fps is just crazy. Can't wait to try it at a higher one!
    - Keyframe 5y ago
      I have an overclocked cartridge. Completely different game, feel to it.
  - jakemauer 5y ago
    If you want to get an idea of his approach look at the _astounding_ patch he made for Race Driving. He re-wrote the engine to essentially tween between frames because the original was more or less stuck at 5fps and certain things, like the position of your car and viewport when doing a loop-de-loop, were _hard coded_ into the game.
nohr 5y ago
Oh this is Vitor! They made a series of patches that allow games to utilize one of the SNES enhancement chips on various games. A fun example was using it in Super Mario World (notoriously minimal slowdown), where the enhancement reduced the slowdown from the end of level where the black circle encloses on Mario. That's actually a bit of slowdown rather than an effect.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
xtracto 5y ago
Mhmm, this is great! someone should do something like this to create a "Mario 35" clone: Create the game based in the original ROM and then setup a page with a "diff" file that people can use to recreate it if they have the original ROM and game.
- chapium 5y ago
  Someone did prior to its release and enjoyed a C&D takedown. https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzmykz/the-creator-of-mario-royale-wants-you-to-play-his-game-before-it-gets-banned https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzmykz/the-creator-of-mario-...
  - jyrkesh 5y ago
    IANAL, but I think the difference there is that game was standalone and playable without a ROM file. Theoretically, a ROM patch and a bunch of netcode would be legal (though most people would still illegally obtain the ROM to patch). E.g. see Project Slippi[1], a patch for playing Melee online with rollback netcode. Interestingly, a tournament using was Slippi was issued a C&D[2], but Nintendo has issued C&Ds to Melee tournaments in the past just for using their graphics and making money and stuff. [1]: https://slippi.gg/ https://slippi.gg/ [2]: https://twitter.com/TheBigHouseSSB/status/1329521081577857036 https://twitter.com/TheBigHouseSSB/status/132952108157785703...
SixDouble5321 5y ago
Very cool, but the performance of that core isn't good enough for my nvidia shield. :(
resoluteteeth 5y ago
I loved pilotwings when it first came out, but didn't think I would be able to stand the graphics now. With this I actually think it will look good enough to enjoy again.
- belthesar 5y ago
  Pilotwings is a huge exercise in Mode7 graphics. With some of the more recent builds of bsnes, it supports doing upscaling of Mode7, and it makes playing games like Pilotwings and Super Mario Kart a brand new experience. What's shown here won't do a whole lot for you, but this might be the trick.
alphabet9000 5y ago
As a technical novelty, it is interesting, but I personally don't like the spirit of such a project. I opened up a demo video of the gameplay, and started to 'see' things in the distance that wouldn't normally be seen - things that are meant to be hidden at first, and then 'stumbled' into as you advance a little bit, adding to the sense of mystery and adventure.
- jader201 5y ago
  Was thinking the same thing. The Nintendo designers were always so meticulous about the design of the levels, especially what’s visible to a player at any given point. To get a sense for this, watch this video [1] (from 7 years ago) walking through the design of level 1-1 of SMB. It’s crazy what (likely) went into planning the design of each level of the various Mario platformer games. But like OP, this is strictly looking at it from a gameplay perspective, ignoring the impressive technical feet that this is. [1] https://youtu.be/ZH2wGpEZVgE https://youtu.be/ZH2wGpEZVgE
- flatiron 5y ago
  I agree. I love that we have the ability to use an emulator or mister to play the stock rom but I love people thinking what could have been with old tech in a new world. Personally it’s fascinating. I wish my retro wasn’t confined to a mister to try it. I may figure out a non work pc I could use to try it.
- lancefisher 5y ago
  I don’t mind it so much for Super Mario World. In the original, you could press the L or R shoulder buttons to scroll the view forward or back. This essentially brings both into view for wide screen.
- megablast 5y ago
  What video?
14 5y ago
30 years later and people are actively working on these games. Amazing. What will come of future games? With all the server backend code I guess we will lose most games once the company in charge no longer wants to pay server costs due to dying player levels.
- drusepth 5y ago
  I think we'll see a lot of private servers, luckily. Most popular online-only games seem to have at least one PS alternative.
- nrdvana 5y ago
  Most games have all the assets loaded onto every client, and they just synchronize over the server like a glorified IRC channel. People reverse-engineered WoW servers, and then ran their own WoW communities for a decade until Blizzard finally decided to get back into the game. (but then Blizzard re-implemented the old content into the new engine, rather than starting up the old server code, so ended up being a lot more effort for them than just flipping a switch)

431 points by gtonioli 5y ago

https://www.resetera.com/threads/you-can-now-play-snes-games-in-widescreen.117351/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/you-can-now-play-snes-games... has a bunch of screenshots of unmodified SNES games in widescreen (though they don't work perfectly) https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/hd-emulation-mod-makes-mode-7-snes-games-look-like-new/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/hd-emulation-mod-make... talks about "HD Mode 7" support, which relies on the fact that perspective backgrounds ("Mode 7") are scaled for TV display, but they don't inhenently have to be downsampled to TV pixels, and on a emulator outputting to a higher-resolution display, it can preserve the resolution instead of trying to get pixel-perfect accuracy. I think the widescreen stuff works on the same principle: the data is there and being scrolled, so you may as well render it.

gxqoz 5y ago

Is there a YouTube video of this somewhere? Didn't see one linked from the github page.

maxerickson 5y ago
https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/status/1405972177225191427 https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/status/1405972177225191427
gtonioli 5y ago
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286
- ant6n 5y ago
  Was the creator live-streaming his progress, or am I fundamentally misunderstanding twitch.
  - gtonioli 5y ago
    No. It was a famous SMW speedrunner testing the wildscreen ROM
hypertele-Xii 5y ago
Several. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=super+mario+world+widescreen https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=super+mario+wor...

crazygringo 5y ago

This is nuts. I didn't even know this would be possible. I can't remember -- does Super Mario World have any "single-room" fixed-width gameplay areas? I mean, it must, right? I'm wondering how they addressed those, since making any room wider would change gameplay. I also can't help but wonder if being able to see a little bit further to the right would ever make anything easier? Or is the distance forward (to the right) fixed to the same value, so you're mostly just getting more visibility into where you've already passed? The video and GitHub repo don't seem to explain it. But I'm now super curious...

goalieca 5y ago
> does Super Mario World have any "single-room" fixed-width gameplay areas? I mean, it must, right? Yes. The have the bonus room after you get 100 endpoint stars. They also have vertical segments like a bonus room and a special world map.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  Most obvious of all would be the Top Secret Area, or Yoshi's House.
gtonioli 5y ago
Take a look on this vod: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286
stochaztic 5y ago
Look through the past couple hundred or so of Vitor's tweets; he's been one-by-one reprogramming all the troublesome rooms and screens for a couple weeks. https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/ https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/
- 29athrowaway 5y ago
  That guy is certifiably insane. He patched Contra III, Gradius III, Super Mario World, Super R-Type and Race Drivin' to use the SA-1 chip. Which means now those games have a higher/consistent framerate. Kudos to that guy. Hopefully Nintendo learns to appreciate these contributions and doesn't try to seek legal action against him.

jakemauer 5y ago

I've been a very happy patron of Vitor for months. I'm elated that this project is finally out in the world. He has a framerate improvement patch for Starfox in the works that I am beyond excited about.

prvc 5y ago
Now that's exciting. It's already quite fun to play with emulated overclocking, btw.
- flatiron 5y ago
  I personally can’t stand it due to frame rate!
  - Netcob 5y ago
    I always liked the flat-shaded look, the gameplay and world, but when I revisited it as an adult I just couldn't play it due to the frame rate. I'm so used to playing at 90-144fps that anything below 60 literally looks like a slideshow. And 20fps is just crazy. Can't wait to try it at a higher one!
  - Keyframe 5y ago
    I have an overclocked cartridge. Completely different game, feel to it.
- jakemauer 5y ago
  If you want to get an idea of his approach look at the _astounding_ patch he made for Race Driving. He re-wrote the engine to essentially tween between frames because the original was more or less stuck at 5fps and certain things, like the position of your car and viewport when doing a loop-de-loop, were _hard coded_ into the game.

nohr 5y ago

Oh this is Vitor! They made a series of patches that allow games to utilize one of the SNES enhancement chips on various games. A fun example was using it in Super Mario World (notoriously minimal slowdown), where the enhancement reduced the slowdown from the end of level where the black circle encloses on Mario. That's actually a bit of slowdown rather than an effect.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

xtracto 5y ago

Mhmm, this is great! someone should do something like this to create a "Mario 35" clone: Create the game based in the original ROM and then setup a page with a "diff" file that people can use to recreate it if they have the original ROM and game.

chapium 5y ago
Someone did prior to its release and enjoyed a C&D takedown. https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzmykz/the-creator-of-mario-royale-wants-you-to-play-his-game-before-it-gets-banned https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzmykz/the-creator-of-mario-...
- jyrkesh 5y ago
  IANAL, but I think the difference there is that game was standalone and playable without a ROM file. Theoretically, a ROM patch and a bunch of netcode would be legal (though most people would still illegally obtain the ROM to patch). E.g. see Project Slippi[1], a patch for playing Melee online with rollback netcode. Interestingly, a tournament using was Slippi was issued a C&D[2], but Nintendo has issued C&Ds to Melee tournaments in the past just for using their graphics and making money and stuff. [1]: https://slippi.gg/ https://slippi.gg/ [2]: https://twitter.com/TheBigHouseSSB/status/1329521081577857036 https://twitter.com/TheBigHouseSSB/status/132952108157785703...

SixDouble5321 5y ago

Very cool, but the performance of that core isn't good enough for my nvidia shield. :(

resoluteteeth 5y ago

I loved pilotwings when it first came out, but didn't think I would be able to stand the graphics now. With this I actually think it will look good enough to enjoy again.

belthesar 5y ago
Pilotwings is a huge exercise in Mode7 graphics. With some of the more recent builds of bsnes, it supports doing upscaling of Mode7, and it makes playing games like Pilotwings and Super Mario Kart a brand new experience. What's shown here won't do a whole lot for you, but this might be the trick.

alphabet9000 5y ago

As a technical novelty, it is interesting, but I personally don't like the spirit of such a project. I opened up a demo video of the gameplay, and started to 'see' things in the distance that wouldn't normally be seen - things that are meant to be hidden at first, and then 'stumbled' into as you advance a little bit, adding to the sense of mystery and adventure.

jader201 5y ago
Was thinking the same thing. The Nintendo designers were always so meticulous about the design of the levels, especially what’s visible to a player at any given point. To get a sense for this, watch this video [1] (from 7 years ago) walking through the design of level 1-1 of SMB. It’s crazy what (likely) went into planning the design of each level of the various Mario platformer games. But like OP, this is strictly looking at it from a gameplay perspective, ignoring the impressive technical feet that this is. [1] https://youtu.be/ZH2wGpEZVgE https://youtu.be/ZH2wGpEZVgE
flatiron 5y ago
I agree. I love that we have the ability to use an emulator or mister to play the stock rom but I love people thinking what could have been with old tech in a new world. Personally it’s fascinating. I wish my retro wasn’t confined to a mister to try it. I may figure out a non work pc I could use to try it.
lancefisher 5y ago
I don’t mind it so much for Super Mario World. In the original, you could press the L or R shoulder buttons to scroll the view forward or back. This essentially brings both into view for wide screen.
megablast 5y ago
What video?

14 5y ago

30 years later and people are actively working on these games. Amazing. What will come of future games? With all the server backend code I guess we will lose most games once the company in charge no longer wants to pay server costs due to dying player levels.

drusepth 5y ago
I think we'll see a lot of private servers, luckily. Most popular online-only games seem to have at least one PS alternative.
nrdvana 5y ago
Most games have all the assets loaded onto every client, and they just synchronize over the server like a glorified IRC channel. People reverse-engineered WoW servers, and then ran their own WoW communities for a decade until Blizzard finally decided to get back into the game. (but then Blizzard re-implemented the old content into the new engine, rather than starting up the old server code, so ended up being a lot more effort for them than just flipping a switch)