[HN Gopher] SNES - Super Mario World Widescreen
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       SNES - Super Mario World Widescreen
        
       Author : gtonioli
       Score  : 147 points
       Date   : 2021-06-18 20:38 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | xtracto wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | crazygringo wrote:
       | 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 wrote:
         | > 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 wrote:
           | Most obvious of all would be the Top Secret Area, or Yoshi's
           | House.
        
         | SwiftyBug wrote:
         | The final boss room (Bowser in that weird balloon) is something
         | I would love to see in a wide-screen arrangement. Part of the
         | challenge of that room is to deal with many enemies in a very
         | tight space.
        
         | gtonioli wrote:
         | Take a look on this vod:
         | https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286
        
         | stochaztic wrote:
         | 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/
        
         | kevinventullo wrote:
         | Looking at the sibling vod, it appears as though they must have
         | "extended" the fixed-width rooms, either with walls or more
         | lava or whatever.
         | 
         | Looking at the second room of the first castle, widescreen
         | seems to give you more actual room to move around in auto-
         | scrolling levels, which offers a significant advantage beyond
         | just information on what's coming ahead.
        
       | enoughistough wrote:
       | Amazon has leaked the new LEGO Super Mario set
       | 
       | https://nintendosmash.com/amazon-has-leaked-the-new-lego-sup...
        
       | jakemauer wrote:
       | 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 wrote:
         | Now that's exciting. It's already quite fun to play with
         | emulated overclocking, btw.
        
       | geofft wrote:
       | 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-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 wrote:
       | Is there a YouTube video of this somewhere? Didn't see one linked
       | from the github page.
        
         | gtonioli wrote:
         | https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1059403286
        
           | ant6n wrote:
           | Was the creator live-streaming his progress, or am I
           | fundamentally misunderstanding twitch.
        
             | gtonioli wrote:
             | No. It was a famous SMW speedrunner testing the wildscreen
             | ROM
        
         | maxerickson wrote:
         | https://twitter.com/HackerVilela/status/1405972177225191427
        
       | nohr wrote:
       | 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.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-06-18 23:00 UTC)