No More NES Slowdown/Flickering! - ADG Filler #91

Need extra time to get the planned ADG Mod video ready, so here's a quick filler talking about one of the reasons why I tend to prefer emulation over real hardware: Being able to ENHANCE old games so you can play them on your own terms in your own way! :D

Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with playing them on real hardware or with their intended limits in place, but being able to play old games in new ways helps revitalize them and make them interesting again, much like when you apply mods to a game! ;)

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Additional Information and Corrections:

Here's a link to the original Mesen homepage in case you don't have this emulator and want to try it for yourself! (Note that you'll need to procure your own ROM files due to legal reasons.) https://www.mesen.ca/

It should be noted too that even though the original Mesen is still very viable to use, it's also no longer being updated by its original author, Sour. The current branch which is being kept up to date by NovaSquirrel is Mesen-X and can be found over on Github: https://github.com/NovaSquirrel/Mesen...

So what's happening with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II is actually different than what I thought, as I wasn't paying attention to exactly what was going on while I was testing this out. This game DOES indeed flicker its sprites while paused, it's just the algorithm being used to flicker the sprites isn't perfect and can result in some sprites never getting a turn in the queue because they never reach the front. Whoops. :P

Just to clarify: In the context of the NES, a hardware sprite is ONLY 8x8 pixels big, or 8x16 pixels big in a tall sprite mode. This is why the limits can be hit as quickly as they are, since in computer terms we usually refer to a sprite as an entire object, not just pieces of a bigger object, thus a single "sprite" in an NES game is often multiple sprites stitched together. :P

So... turns out I calculated the odds during the stinger somewhat wrong. Would've been right if the order of the resulting selections mattered, but they don't and thus I failed to take that into account, thus the actual odds of getting 5 in a row during that bonus game are closer to 1 in 500... which is still pretty bad odds but not nearly as egregious. :P

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