It is an idea that came to me recently. It is a merge of the two following facts :
1) Many NES games are more or less ports of arcade games (the most well known are Contra series, Gradius series, Donkey Kong, Double Dragon series). Some of them are among the most influential and popular NES games ever, despite the fact they were originally mere "ports".
2) It is possible to write pseudo-NES games for the PC that actually respect the graphics, sound and input limitations of the real console, but that do not require programing for the 6502. This solution has been evoquated quite a few times already on NESDev for people who do not plan to run their games on real hardware, or even for the sake of prototyping a game before porting it on the 6502.
By merging the two concept together, it means it is just as sensible (or nonsensible) to make a pseudo-Arcade game for the PC. Instead of runing a game that uses a virtual NES hardware and no 6502, it would run a game on a virtual arcade hardware. It makes even more sense in my opinion to have a pseudo-Arcade game than a pseudo-NES game, because the limitations of Arcade games really depend on the chosen graphics/audio chips for every particular game. The CPU is different in each arcade game, then breaking the CPU limitation is less an technical rape than breaking the CPU limitations of the NES console.
So do you guys think what I say makes sense, or am I completely insane ?
In addition, it would always be possible to make a real arcade cabinet from a rasberry pi or something similar out of the PC program, and as such "make it run on real hardware" is a trivial step on the software side (however it could be possibly more difficult on the hardware side).
This only makes sense for "arcade games", respecting the philosophy mentioned in another topic, meaning: Few levels, either no or very simplistic story scenes, no saves or passwords, high difficulty, beatable in less than one hour.
The problem is that I know squat about what is the common denominator in 80's arade games hardware. I guess by the time of the peak of the NES populatiry (1986-1990) the aracde games were already closer to the Mega Drive in terms of technical possibilities which means 4BP graphics and FM sound. But what kind of graphic and sound chips were usually used ? Are there implementation of existing graphics and sound chips on the PC usable in a PC program ?
1) Many NES games are more or less ports of arcade games (the most well known are Contra series, Gradius series, Donkey Kong, Double Dragon series). Some of them are among the most influential and popular NES games ever, despite the fact they were originally mere "ports".
2) It is possible to write pseudo-NES games for the PC that actually respect the graphics, sound and input limitations of the real console, but that do not require programing for the 6502. This solution has been evoquated quite a few times already on NESDev for people who do not plan to run their games on real hardware, or even for the sake of prototyping a game before porting it on the 6502.
By merging the two concept together, it means it is just as sensible (or nonsensible) to make a pseudo-Arcade game for the PC. Instead of runing a game that uses a virtual NES hardware and no 6502, it would run a game on a virtual arcade hardware. It makes even more sense in my opinion to have a pseudo-Arcade game than a pseudo-NES game, because the limitations of Arcade games really depend on the chosen graphics/audio chips for every particular game. The CPU is different in each arcade game, then breaking the CPU limitation is less an technical rape than breaking the CPU limitations of the NES console.
So do you guys think what I say makes sense, or am I completely insane ?
In addition, it would always be possible to make a real arcade cabinet from a rasberry pi or something similar out of the PC program, and as such "make it run on real hardware" is a trivial step on the software side (however it could be possibly more difficult on the hardware side).
This only makes sense for "arcade games", respecting the philosophy mentioned in another topic, meaning: Few levels, either no or very simplistic story scenes, no saves or passwords, high difficulty, beatable in less than one hour.
The problem is that I know squat about what is the common denominator in 80's arade games hardware. I guess by the time of the peak of the NES populatiry (1986-1990) the aracde games were already closer to the Mega Drive in terms of technical possibilities which means 4BP graphics and FM sound. But what kind of graphic and sound chips were usually used ? Are there implementation of existing graphics and sound chips on the PC usable in a PC program ?