Vitor Vilela added FastROM support to Super Castlevania 4

[Deleted User]

Snes programmer Vitor Vilela released a patch that adds FastROM support to Super Castlevania 4 for the Super Nintendo.
The patch reduces slowdown in certain areas of the game.
This also increases the enemy spawning rate.

Project FastROM aims into optimizing the SNES games originally designed to run under SlowROM (2.68 MHz) to FastROM (3.58 MHz).
FastROM allows the SNES CPU read data and opcodes from the ROM 33.58% faster compared to SlowROM.
Depending on the game, FastROM will make the game run about 10%-30% faster compared to the original SlowROM version.
This depends on how frequent the game accesses the ROM chip, since the other componenets such as WRAM @ 2.68 MHz, PPU @ 3.58 MHz, DMA @ 2.68 MHz and SRAM @ 2.68 MHz will stay at the same speed.

Source:https://github.com/VitorVilela7/fastrom

 

[RupeeClock]

This is cool, glad to see Vitor Vilela still at it with speeding up SNES games.

I was wondering why FastROM and not a full SA-1 patch. As they explain on their Twitter, FastROM is a stepping stone to SA-1 as the process that requires disassembly, but FastROM is a simpler process that can provide a performance boost in shorter development time and with fewer issues.

I'm particularly keen to see Super Metroid and A Link to the Past get this treatment, as both have notable moments of slowdown.

 

[yuyuyup]

ok thanks I just downloaded Beat and patched the rom and ftpd it to my thing

 

[Pr3tty F1y]

I'm particularly keen to see Super Metroid and A Link to the Past get this treatment, as both have notable moments of slowdown.

Super Metroid already is running on FastROM, but LTTP is SlowROM.

 

[RupeeClock]

Super Metroid already is running on FastROM, but LTTP is SlowROM.

Well if not FastROM, then the full SA-1 treatment for Super Metroid, and also ALttP.
Moments like using power bombs, or firing off silver arrows can be pretty laggy.

It'd be amazing if such work could even be implemented in the randomizers for each game for a smoother randomizer experience, though there'd probably be a ton to re-write, and the crossover randomizer might not even be possible if the ROM banks don't stay separate as a result of the conversion process.