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Hi all

I was just wondering about that. What can you do with those? I didn't know they existed until I noticed those weird sprites loosely resembled some maps. Is it just a thing that means you can use that space for either extra sprites or extra maps or does it have some use I'm not seeing?

P#14993 2015-10-05 05:03 ( Edited 2015-10-07 19:36)

the standard use of the banks is the one you discovered. 2 banks for sprites, 2 banks for tilemap or sprites.

P#14996 2015-10-05 05:23 ( Edited 2015-10-05 09:23)

Fair enough :)

P#15013 2015-10-05 17:11 ( Edited 2015-10-05 21:11)

Zep also wrote a little compression library which you can use to copy data to the cart ROM, and use the shared bank for data.
My personal dream for using that is a Pokemon-Like, but I haven't had the time to figure that out yet.

P#15016 2015-10-05 22:35 ( Edited 2015-10-06 02:35)

A silly use of shared memory: making large maps by designing 4x4 tile 'chunks' and then making the map out of chunks instead of sprites.

  • each chunk is 4x4 tiles, drawn in shared space on the map
  • the chunk then shows up in the sprite bank as a single sprite, and can be placed in the main map area
  • typical usage: bottom left half of the map for chunks, top half for placing chunks

You'd get a map which is around 512x128

problem: you can only use the bottom left or bottom right quadrant for designing chunks easily, because the way memory is organised, each sprite contains the data for two different 4x4 chunks, interleaved. You'd design them separately and then write a tool to composite the data.

I think compression will be a better way to get larger or more maps though :) I'll make a demo for 0.1.3, as load() and save() will have relevant functionality: loading or saving sections of the cart rather than the whole thing.

P#15091 2015-10-07 14:03 ( Edited 2015-10-07 18:04)

That's a really cool trick. I might have to try that for this zelda-like "engine" I've been making, after the game it's for is made.

P#15094 2015-10-07 15:36 ( Edited 2015-10-07 19:36)

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