GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[radorn]

@zoinkity:
From the function reference manual:

Quote:

osTvType (variable) Format #include <ultra64> s32 osTvType; What This Variable Holds The osTvType variable indicates whether the Nintendo 64 system is configured for PAL video timing (0), NTSC (1), or MPAL (2).

I guess the content of this variable is read from the PIF ROM or something so the game can decide how to run.
I know that simply changing video table would not be enough, since the game is heavily optimized for the intended video mode.

@others:
There's no "PAL CPU" or "NTSC CPU" in the N64, Trevor.
Given that you provide of the correct CIC and/or boot emulation, the only thing that will prevent an N64 rom on a backup unit from running on the "wrong" region console are software based region/copy protections. Not all games have these, not all games have the same kind of "protection" and there are ways to defeat most of them.
Luckily GE has none of those. NTSC GE ROM will run in PAL console just fine. Look at my youtube profile and you'll see video proof.

About NTSC and PAL, you should keep in mind that 60hz is not NTSC and 50hz is not PAL.
PAL and NTSC are analog video COLOR SYSTEMS that were added to the old black and white TV systems in order for the first color broadcasts being still compatible with older BW TV sets showing a grayscale image. It adds an additional "subsignal" to the original one that carries the color information, to be decoded where possible.
In the USA, the TV system was 60hz (or more like 59.97...) and 525 lines interlaced. In Europe, it was 50hz 625lines interlaced (note that "visible lines are less in both systems).
The combination of NTSC color @60hz/525lines is commonly called NTSC and the combination of PAL color @50hz/625 lines is commonly called PAL. But this is technically incorrect and most importantly... OTHER COMBINATIONS ARE POSSIBLE. I'm not even going to talk about French SECAM and other obscurer variations of NTSC and PAL...

I talked about all this so you can understand what I'm going to say now.
All Nintendo TV consoles that I know of will only ever output ONE color sytem. In the case of N64, american consoles will output NTSC color and european consoles will only output PAL color.... REGARDLESS OF VIDEO MODE.
This means that NTSC GE running on PAL console won't output NTSC but a 60hz video signal with PAL color (commonly called PAL60).

It's common for decent European TV sets from the mid-to-late 90's to support 60hz video, BUT NOT SO COMMON for them to support NTSC color. In my old TV, the american N64 that I have, only gave out a grayscale image, because the TV could not decode the NTSC color signal. I now have a newer one that can, luckily.

For those that don't know what MPAL is, it's the Brazilian TV system, which consists of a variation of the American TV system (Sytem M) and some variant of PAL color. It's refresh rate is slighty different from USA's NTSC, as it does exactly 60hz instead of 59.97.

RGB analog video goes more or less straight to the electron cannons inside your TV's cathode ray tube. It's a simple analog signal that transmits each color component in a separate wire. NTSC and PAL are lower quality derivates of that RGB signal that were engineered to be transmittable through the air at long distances by reducing the bandwith usage. Since RGB is just the raw color channels, there's not PAL RGB or NTSC RGB. RGB is just RGB and is format agnostic.
Think of RGB as a BMP picture and NTSC and PAL as a medium quality JPG made from that BMP.

[zoinkity]

Where the heck did you get a function reference manual!?

I've only personally hacked one Eurocom game that grabs that value and uses it to set up it's video output, and that's the (beta) 40 Winks. The existing beta is PAL and needs a small crack to run on an NTSC system. The video is fine, but the audio still pops. Normally, PAL video will appear scattered on NTSC TVs, which really is just the line lengths being fed in wrong. Nice to know it is a generic value that can be harnessed.

My TV is old enough R.O.B. still works with it, so it isn't something I can test. There's enough other lines of data to go through as well. For instance, all the watch time references. Non-NGEE is float, NGEE long.
_________________
(\_/) Beware
(O.o) ze
(> <) Hoppentruppen!

Last edited by zoinkity on Sat Sep 25, 2010 8:14 am; edited 1 time in total

[radorn]

I have found so far several games that change video mode depending on the kind of console they are run on and show no apparent glitches, either video or sound. Some show a compressed look with black bars when ran in PAL system, but others have proper fullscreen PAL mode.
An example of such a game is NTSC ExtremeG 2 (haven't tried PAL).
It runs in proper full screen in PAL and NTSC modes with no sound or video glitches.

I'll PM you about the other thing

[GE MASTER]

Hey, here is a Noob question regarding this code!

Can you say in simple terms, what this does to the mines? What I'm wondering is does this improve or lessen the remote mine "duds"?

I'm a little confused as to the tweaks this provides. I can't say I noticed issues with the way mines behaved which is why I'm curious about this. Thanks.

[radorn]

play PAL rom and try mines (you can use cheats or just let it use the same save from NTSC to get them easily) and see how mines behave.