Looking for advice on where to start

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Looking for advice on where to start
by paperweight on 2011-04-10 (#76429)
Hey, I'm a non-programmer looking for a good place to start to get on the right track for NES programming.

I've dabbled in Atari 2600 programming before, but I wasn't able to do much that actually worked and the limitations of the system were frustrating, so I ended up giving up on it. But I do have some (very minimal) experience with ASM.

After reading a bit, I downloaded ASM6, and after reading some more I'm having a bit of trouble finding tutorials relevant to ASM6. Either that or I missed something (I looked in the Getting Started sticky in this forum).

Any advice is welcome. :D

On a side-note, just asking before I get the wrong idea later on and break something...is there a way to sort of "stack" two sprites to create a larger player sprite?

Oh, and what are the limitations on ROM size? Once I've gotten into programming for the NES and actually created something, would there be a way to put it on a cartridge and test it on live hardware?

Thanks in advance!

by MottZilla on 2011-04-10 (#76431)
You should learn general programming concepts, particularly related to programming for the 6502 family of CPU. Also you need to learn about game programming concepts.

About sprites. Yes, games use multiple hardware "sprites" to create large game characters.

The limits on ROM size are determined by the memory mapping hardware you use. With UNROM you have 128 Kilobytes, UOROM 256K. With MMC1 it's possible to have 512K or even I think 1 Megabyte. MMC3 maxes out at 512K Program ROM and 256K Graphics ROM. In theory you could have 4 Megabytes of storage by using a UxROM board with enough latch bits.

But without resorting to custom boards you should figure on having between 128K and 512K of space.

Yes you can easily get your own game put on real carts.

You could use the PowerPAK to test your game on real hardware as well.

by paperweight on 2011-04-10 (#76434)
Alright, thanks for the response. I'll do what I can to find some guides on the concepts. Otherwise, most of it is buried somewhere in the guides linked to in the Getting Started thread, right?

by tepples on 2011-04-10 (#76435)
Super Mario in Super Mario Bros. is eight sprites. Mega Man's body is six; his face is an overlay.

I second others' recommendation of the Nerdy Nights tutorials on NintendoAge.

by paperweight on 2011-04-10 (#76437)
Okay, thanks. I'll start there.

And neat! I didn't realize they were made of that many sprites.