Games That Push the Limits of the NES With Extra RAM

#pushingthelimits
See NordPass Business in action now with a 3-month free trial here at
nordpass.com/sharopolisbusiness with the discount code code sharopolisbusiness
It's the NES once again, this time I'm taking a look at the clever hacks that make games possible on this system.
Support me on Patreon:
/ sharopolis
Retro Game Mechanics Explained on the loading seam:
• The Nintendo Entertain...
Games Featured:
00:00 Intro
00:25 Rad Racer
05:30 Rad Racer II
08:19 Gauntlet
12:00 Battletoads
15:55 Solstice
20:05 Pin Bot and High Speed
24:45 Ending Waffle

[@Sharopolis]

See NordPass Business in action now with a 3-month free trial here at nordpass.com/sharopolisbusiness with the discount code code sharopolisbusiness

[@ErdrickHero]

You should be ashamed for accepting this sponsor. Nord is not a safe or reliable company in the first place (read: has not only had a security breach involving users' private information, but attempted to cover it up). On top of that *ENTERING A PASSWORD INTO ANYTHING BUT THE PASSWORD FIELD IT IS INTENDED FOR IS A HORRIBLY INCOMPETENT AND DANGEROUS THING TO DO*.

[@soundspark]

@@ErdrickHero Maybe he downloads his ROMs through their sister service.

[@garyliddon]

8:57 it is possible to have 4 way scrolling and no colour attribute flashing on the edges on the NES. I did it on Krusty’s Fun House. It’s a little bit fiddly but not that tricky :) Great video

[@hatcigarneckbeard7707]

For the pinball games, I'd be really interested to know how the physics was done.

[@Dwedit]

Other fun fact, the status bar is placed much lower in the Snake Pit and Dark Queen Tower levels (compared to all the other levels) to make more draw time available for updating the tiles in CHR-RAM. And if you look at the PAL version of Battletoads, the status bar is moved to the very top of the video frame on all levels because they don't need any extra drawing time.

[@mana_beast_beats1114]

Time to die, boat!

[@JimHawkwind03411]

DYK: Rare received a patent for the split screen feature used in Pin-Bot and High Speed. These games also featured a custom version of the MMC3 chip, dubbed MMC3-TQROM.

[@Caffin8tor]

I can see how many of the hacks made emulation of early consoles so difficult. Even if you emulate the console hardware perfectly, some games still won't work unless you also emulate the additional hardware on the cartridge.

[@fuzzywzhe]

Yeah, but when additional hardware was used on cartridges, that hardware was used for more than just one game. People who wrote the first simulators were often unaware of these hardware additions, but it didn't take long for people to figure it out. There were quite a few tricks people were unaware of too initially. For example, a BUG on the SID chip is why voice samples can be played on the Commodore 64. The way it works, is you turn the chip off, then back on again, I believe. This causes a blip, and if you make enough of them at different voltages, you can get a believable voice sample. All sorts of bugs and crazy tricks were pulled to get things to work. HAM mode on the Amiga was basically a feature they never expected to be used, kind of something they left in for an unfinished project on the video chip. The result was the first still images that were reasonable for images. By far not perfect, but very impressive for the time.

[@Dwedit]

Some Chinese translation hacks added CHR-RAM to a cartridge which otherwise had only CHR-ROM. One of them is a hack of Metal Max. They needed special glue logic in the cartridge to redirect one particular CHR bank to become RAM. With CHR-RAM, they could put a whole bunch of different Chinese characters into the dialog.

[@esotericmissionary]

Your "Pushing The Limits" series is one of the best things on youtube. Also, this video automatically got a Thumbs Up from me for feature one of favorite NES games of all time, (that nobody talks about,) _Pin*Bot,_ a true diamond in the rough.

[@DoomIIMaster]

The Pin-Bot thumbnail brought me here, I loved that game as a child. 5:54AM 11/25

[@Liam3072]

01:05 : Nasir Gebelli is also the lead developper for Secret of Mana. And apparently he had a reputation for being quite the programming genius. Wrote a lot of clever and well-optimized code in record times.

[@oldguy9051]

Gebelli was a 6502 wizard from the old Apple II days (Sirius Software and his own Gebelli Software). His games were usually simple shooters etc. but they often had innovative & efficient graphics routines, often mimicking scrolling on a platform with zero hardware support (Defender-clone "Gorgon" or "Phantoms Five" for example). After a programming hiatus he wanted to get back into "making money" again and his friend and fellow Apple-II-programmer Doug Carlston from Broderbund introduced him to SquareSoft. They basically hired him on the spot and made him the lead programmer on the first three Final Fantasy games (which were essential for Square so survive). Apart from Rad Racer he made two other, smaller Square titles - 3-D WorldRunner & JJ - Tobidase Daisakusen Part 2 - apparently to support the 3D glasses of the Famicom. This info comes mainly from MobyGames. They link to lots of titles he worked on.

[@techsaverscomputerrepairca2127]

Gebelli's earlier Apple // work seems simple now, but when they were new those games pushed the "known" limits of what we thought an Apple could do. Whatever computer/console he touched was better for it.

[@doburu4835]

them RARE Studio lads were code wizards.

[@omegarugal9283]

they did their homework

[@JohnSmith-zw8vp]

Fun Fact: In Jeff Rovin's four How to Win at Nintendo Games books, Rad Racer's graphics are the only NES game subgrade to get an A+, saying "Frisco and LA at night are miracles!"

[@DMMDestroyer]

3:48 This is so basic yet complex at the same time, while looking beautiful. Truly the people who worked with what they had at the time, were innovators overcoming any limitations by thinking way outside of the box.

[@Rubbercookie]

Glitchy loading seams used to be mostly hidden by TV overscan though. Love these behind the curtain looks at old favourites!

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks! I need to get a CRT and test out the loading seam thing. It's been so long since I saw an NES on an old school TV I just can't remember what it was like. Maybe it depended on the TV. I wonder if PAL or NTSC made a difference too. I definitely don't remember noticing it until the HD era though.

[@primus711]

@@Sharopolis all depends on how much overscan your tv has

[@robkrasinski6217]

Graphics look worse on flat LCD tvs. That’s because old games were designed to display in low resolution on CRT TV’s. If you want to play NES and SNES games you should play them on a CRT. You can find them on ebay. Sellers will ship smaller ones like 13”. But the NES and SNES mini have HDMI ports for newer tv’s.

[@SomeGuy712x]

Yeah, I figured the multitudes of enemy legions in Gauntlet were not actually sprites when I played it back in the good old days. It's amazing how many clever tricks they managed to pull off with various NES games back then.

[@buttguy]

Solstice has been one of my all-time favorite NES games since I was a kid, but I rarely see it mentioned. The title track is an absolute masterpiece of NES sound from Tim Follin, and the game is fantastic. Glad to see it actually talked about for once!

[@BokBarber]

You forgot to mention Rad Racer's 3D glasses mode!

[@johneygd]

Just imagine if the ram & rom of the nes weren’t upgradible with bankswitching,then the nes wouldn’t have be able to view such incredible graphics,it’s just incredible how the nes could be expanded trough bankswitching in terms of graphics,dpcm & pcm sound and prg rom😁👍

[@gblargg]

It'd have just had those single-screen games of the early 1980s. One could criticize a system for not having more on-board RAM, but shoving it off to the cartridge allowed so much innovation years later, especially since the cartridge could have both video and program RAM.

[@GeneralBolas]

"Just imagine if the ram & rom of the nes weren’t upgradible with bankswitching" I don't think the NES would be able to forcibly *prevent* bank switching from being a thing. Bank switching is an all-cartridge activity that the NES proper is unaware of. The NES asks for a byte from a particular address of memory, and the cartridge responds. There ain't no rule that says the cartridge must respond with the *same value* each time the NES asks. That's the essence of bank switching: the cartridge is doing something behind the NES's back. Now, there are some things the NES did specifically allow. Cartridges upgrading the nametables with an extra 2K of RAM is something that was deliberately built into the structure of the system. But a lot of this functionality is based purely on the "ain't no rule" principle, not specific NES features.

[@gblargg]

@@GeneralBolas True, though the NES makes it a lot easier. It passes CPU writes to the cartridge, which allows registers for mapping. Without that the CPU would have to read from different locations to signal a particular action. It would also need to overlay this with the ROM, requiring full address decoding or lots of wasted space.

[@merman1974]

Fascinating stuff, particularly how those two excellent pinball conversions work.

[@error4159]

Another great game that uses the Rad Racer engine is 3D World Runner, also published by Square. Programmer Nasir Gebelli was hired by Square because of the games he programmed for the Apple II, a computer that uses the same processor as the NES.

[@hicknopunk]

3d world runner is pretty great

[@DoomIIMaster]

The Pin-Bot thumbnail brought me here, I loved that game as a child. 5:52AM 11/25

[@mirabilis]

What a nerd I am that knew you were going to talk about Gauntlet when you said "there's another game".

[@jwilder2251]

PinBot - absolutely life-altering for anyone who played it. It was like 2001: An NES Odyssey

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Absolutely love these types of vids... much like gamesacks limit pushing series...

[@DickDawsonTheShills]

the Pin Bot machine IRL is an amazing Pinball table. If you ever see it play it. Great video.

[@brutallyhonest123]

The Pinball Arcade console series had the whole trilogy before the license expired and all the good tables were lost forever. So many amazing tables that only a limited number of people still have access to

[@DoomIIMaster]

I had Pin-Bot on the NES as a child, loved it, and ever since I learned it was a physical table I've wanted to play on it.6:03AM 11/25

[@DickDawsonTheShills]

@@DoomIIMaster I was lucky. We had a 7-11 in town that always had 2 pinball machines.

[@DickDawsonTheShills]

@@brutallyhonest123 Shame too as some of them are such amazing games to play.

[@rustyshackleford8456]

​@@DoomIIMaster I too had the nes version, I got to play Bride of Pinbot irl! It was awesome!

[@regi3756]

Impressed with the code design of Rad Racer and Battletoads.

[@chocosmoke0208]

Sharopolis I really enjoy your breakdowns of how these old games work and are drawn :) great job brother. take care and cant wait for the next one.

[@DeathMetalDerf]

Your NES videos are always an informarive walk down memory lane with some of the sweetest games from my childhood. Awesome video man, thanks so much for bringing up the memories.

[@kyleolson8977]

It's important to realize that the advancements were also tied to the mapper chips. Rad Racer had MMC1, Rad Racer II had MMC3, and Gauntlet had either MMC3 or the non-union equivalent. Battletoads and Solstice had Rare's AxROM, and Pin-bot and High Speed were the only games to use the TQROM.

[@Dwedit]

TQROM was mainly a different board layout using existing chips. The MMC3 is the same one as always, but in order to create the Chip Enable signal for the RAM vs the ROM, they needed to add in an OR logic chip to the board. That brings it to CIC, PRG-ROM, CHR-ROM, CHR-RAM, MMC3, and the OR logic chip, for a total of 6 chips on the board.

[@Smaxx]

Finally got around watching. Rad Racer was one of the first NES games I got and I've never been a too big fan. In fact, I always thought it's one of the more simple games (tech wise). Well, except the fact that it was the only NES game I've ever seen that actually came with Red/Blue 3D glasses, which you could enable and disable by hitting the select button. It's been almost 30 years since the last time I've played it I guess, but now I'm curious to see how that plays into the memory pattern. As far as I remember it's only for the road and background, though. Oh, and one more note: I'm kind of surprised this list didn't include the NES port of Elite, which featured 3D space flight long before Starfox/Starwing on the SNES.

[@infinity2z3r07]

Alright you inspired me to play Battletoads again. I usually give up around level 6 or so (the speeder bike through those electro-shock beams)

[@t0xcn253]

That "Hello Mom" got me to hit subscribe. Hello son, your mother loves you.

[@wardrich]

> Concertina If anybody else is wondering... It's basically an accordion 😉

[@WillKeaton]

A concertina is a musical instrument similar to an accordion.

[@noveltyman6723]

The ability for separate background segments to scroll in 8 directions independently is something that only the NES and Gameboy are capable of, while Master System and Game Gear can't do that (for example if a game has a "status bar" on top or bottom, the background can only scroll horizontally), so games for these two consoles use sprites to get around this. Although the Master System, Game Gear and Game Boy Color already have hardware-based support making the select background tiles to appear in front of the sprites, something that requires this "sprite-clipping" trick on the NES.

[@thecunninlynguist]

Love when you do these deep dives

[@hylianarmy0]

Seeing all this stuff about Pin-Bot and High Speed, I have to wonder: Would it be possible to backport 3D Pinball: Space Cadet to the NES using that engine?

[@kayceecheshall2818]

Super interesting deep dive with Solstice. I learned a lot with this video!

[@captainnintendo]

If I'm not mistaken, The Three Stooges of all things also used this tile swap several times during it's title screen draw to render the whole picture with all it's detail. I always really wondered how Solstice were able to deliver it's visuals, especially the sprite masking, and I have to admit that I'm still not entirely sure how. Do you mean that the sprite tile set is stored with every possible overlay masking that ca occour in a level? Also, an interesting masking method that I remember the game "Lizard" utilizing during when it's pause menu crawls up from the bottom of the screen actually uses a limitation of the NES as a feature, as it renders 8 blank sprites at the beginning of the crawl to smoothly remove sprite data on a scaneline basis. I've always wondered if there were other neat ways that technique could be used. Something I don't really get tho. If games like Elite and Soltice can just draw whatever it like to occupy ever slot of it's tileset without any presets occupying the ROM, why doesn't more static games utilize that. It would mean that you can make full use of every tile slot without without wasting space with duplicate graphics in each bank. Wasn't this also how the Famicom Disk System worked. It would pull out the tile data it needed on a individual basis? Really cool video. I love hearing about all these little neat trick and hacks developers did to bend the old 8-bit hardware to it's will, with no regards for it's original limitations. Now all I want is a version of the original Super Mario Bros that lets you scroll left xD

[@Tromzy]

I didn't even know Pin-Bot had a sequel. Great video!

[@grandmasterthefuriousfive7487]

Nice explanation, I did not know this about pin bot

[@jge123]

Software also evolves, it's normal they get better results on older hardware with some modern tehniques.

[@DEMENTO01]

17:30 tbh i think they shouldve left the loading screen like that, seeing how th room loads is satisfying idk 😭

[@Ragesauce]

This solstice stuff is so interesting, thank you!

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks for watching.

[@andresbravo2003]

you know, Rare did a great job making Pin-Bot and High Speed for the NES. Williams would have been proud for a Pinball Port...

[@gazzofdoom]

The 3d mode on Rad Racer, especially with the Famicom Glasses Vs red and blue ones we got in the west, makes it's tch even more impressive.

[@TheMountainDemon]

My dad and I played PinBot all the damn time. It had some sounds that I kinda thought were creepy at the time. Games like PinBot and Magic Darts were amazing cuz they were just so unhinged. Great video!

[@MrGoneja]

glad I watched this video, I had completely forgotten about pin bot, played that game a lot when it first came out

[@Sharopolis]

It's a really well done game.

[@DoomIIMaster]

Let's see... April 1990, that was two months before I was born but I remember playing Pin-Bot and loving it as a child. 6:22AM 11/25

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Playing Fatal Run on the Atari 7800 on the Atari 50 Anniversary Collection and when you see something like Rad Racer on the NES, easy to see why the 7800 couldn't hope to compete. NES Gauntlet puts the vomit inducing jerk fest of ST Gauntlet to shame as well and I say that as an EX-520STFM owner..

[@Sharopolis]

Funnily enough it was Fatal Run on Atari 50 that got me thinking about Rad Racer for this video. The Next thing I'm working on will be about the 7800 too.

[@channelofstuff6662]

gauntlet is my favorite. gauntlet also has the collision built in the enemies since they can't overlap.

[@knghtbrd]

I'm here for Pinbot…

[@GXSCChater]

Great Video! Super Mario Bros 3 also renders its HUD on a different bank.

[@Halbared]

Solstice looks good. A tad like Immortal, a game which I did want. Too many great games came out at the same time back then.

[@atom_zero5413]

OMG IT'S START >>>>>>>>>>> GOAL, when i was a kid i always wondered what 5 >>>>>>>>>> 6 was!! 😮

[@turbinegraphics16]

Pretty impressive, master system can't do that pinbot trick but the cartridges are massively expensive for the time.

[@mattpierce5009]

I didn't know anything about the details when I was a kid, but I "knew" Rad Racer was somehow leaps ahead of most other racing games. I wasn't really amazed by console racers again until F-Zero vulcanized my thinkin' meat a few years later.

[@inceptional]

16:07 Interesting. I think both Solstice and Pin Bot are using a method that would be necessary in an idea I have for a SNES game with a similar viewpoint. Will need to keep that in mind.

[@ruadeil_zabelin]

Solstice's menu music is possibly one of the most impressive compositions on the NES.

[@renakunisaki]

The map drawing in Solstice looks really cool. I wonder if they could have made it visible?

[@terrylyn]

Solstice looks good for a NES game. Would've loved to play that as a kid, but this was the first time ever hearing of that game.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

Comparing High Speed to the likes of Rad Racer, Solstice, and River City Ransom really proves why more detail doesn't mean better graphics. A shame Sega struggled with the same issue, as it makes a lot of Master System games look a lot uglier than they really need to.

[@ParadeTheGospel]

Solstice was an awesome game! I’m sure not many people played it.

[@patsk8872]

Need a video about Solstice's opening music. It crushed some emulators in the past.

[@octonoozle]

I love Rad Racer but I always thought that was a dog in the back of the F1 car.

[@ZipplyZane]

I notice that Solstice shows the same screen repeated 4 times in graphics memory. Why not have two screens, and build up the second screen next screen while you're on the current one? My guess would be that the CPU is too busy to do this. But maybe there's another limitation I don't know about.

[@princejm448]

Gremlin Graphics also co-developed Square and Kemco games during the NES and SNES era. I'm not sure about it.

[@themagicboy6548]

You didn't even mention that rad racer had a 3d glasses mode that could be switched on at any time

[@Halbared]

Never had Battletoads, I wish I had, as I think it looks marvellous, and I had many Rare games,as they made gems. I had Tengen's Gauntlet with the funny cartridge, I think I should have gotten the officially released G2 bu I had a think about buying all games in a series.

[@VitaEx]

I remember rad racer also had a 3d mode think by pressing select came with red blue 3d glasses

[@jpjokela1]

Super Mario Bros is 8-way scrolling (more complex than only 4-way scrolling)

[@someoneelse1534]

It's nice to know that they put so much work into High Speed Pinball and that I'm playing it on a plasma screen so it's blurry as shit

[@Redhotsmasher]

But plasmas are known for damn near CRT level motion handling? You mean LCD?

[@UncleUncleRj]

Never played BattleToads but it looks beautiful

[@ZiggityZeke]

Would have loved to see you talk about Elite, as it's my personal favorite on the system

[@Sharopolis]

I did a whole video just on NES Elite a while back kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXTUiXyObZmMhKM It's a personal favourite of mine too!

[@ZiggityZeke]

@@Sharopolis based

[@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli]

Not gonna mention Rad Racer generated two alternating offset viewports for Famicom 3D (and Anaglyph 3D on the NES). ?????

[@ParadeTheGospel]

12:42 has anyone even made it this far as kids in the game Battletoads?

[@JohnnyWednesday]

Bet this will be good!

[@Sharopolis]

Hi Johnny!

[@Bob_Beaky]

I wonder if you'd consider doing a vid on some the latest games for the Atari 2600? I'd be fascinated to know what's going on with the Champ Games releases and things like the upcoming Lode Runner.

[@dyscotopia]

As an Amiga owner who knew people with Master systems, I always found that NES games looked primitive and washed out... But seeing the ingenuity put into working with the limited hardware, I can only think that it made for a pool of very clever developers who would take their skills into more attractive platforms

[@FatNorthernBigot]

What is that toad doing to that snake???!!!! 😨

[@rootbrian4815]

Something I wasn't even aware of. XD

[@thedrunkmonkshow]

I'm not trying to pick on the youngsters, as many of them honestly do try to go back and play the classics, but even for the folks in my age group of 35+ if you understood all the trickery and techniques programmers did back then to squeeze out the potential of classic 8-bit and 16-bit hardware back then would be amazed. Also what isn't talked about enough is a lot of these coders and developers are that just getting acknowledged today, more often than not didn't get praised, encouraged, and a lot of them didn't get paid well. Some were even required to work insane 60 and 80 hour weeks to complete games even if it meant sleeping in offices. While we visibly see your Miyamoto's and Yuji Nakas which deserve their just due, there's hundreds of equally gifted folks who don't. Anyway, fantastic video as always! 😇

[@jwilder2251]

The OGs turned water into wine. Today’s programmers have an entire vineyard just to produce one decent bottle

[@Halbared]

@@jwilder2251 Nice!

[@sleepbox2]

I remember playing Rad Racer on the NES and then wondering why Outrun on the Genesis looked so choppy in comparison.

[@sannyassi73]

You said doo-doo.... hehe :D

[@bighairydel]

Rad racer looks great

[@nickhamblin8179]

If Alan Bennett talked about video games...

[@fuzzix]

Did anyone ever get that anaglyph 3D actually working in Rad Racer?

[@Halbared]

I had Rad Racer on the *Nes*, the 3d specs were laughable. I preferred smaller racers like RC Pro-am and Galaxy 5000.

[@WorKoHolik84]

Like you Voice. Thanks for that video.

[@AKATenn]

pinbot isn't well known? it's one of the best games on the nes, also i think it's the biggest game on the nes?

[@inceptional]

Can the SNES increase RAM via similar cartridge chips like the NES here?

[@ssg-eggunner]

A game with RAM dedicated to Sound Related Things would be Particularly Nice

[@williamdrum9899]

3:44 What's that website

[@Sharopolis]

www.nesdev.org/wiki/Nesdev_Wiki The NES Dev Wiki. Lots of great info on there

[@radiosnmore]

rad racer had support for 3d stereo seperation with RB glasses super fat

[@MBCollector672]

fyi you forgot to link that video in desc

[@Sharopolis]

Thank you! I totally forgot.

[@RichardCraig]

I never knew just how advanced Pin*Bot was on NES, but I played both the original pinball table as well as the NES version as a kid in their time, and something always felt a little different about this one. Also, wtf, they totally ruined High Speed with all the video-gamey crap they threw into it, it's a fantastic pinball table but the NES version went too far with it.

[@DoomIIMaster]

I've wanted to play the physical table of Pin-Bot, since finding out it was a physical table. 6:01AM 11/25

[@chinopuertorico]

I played the crap out of pinbot.

[@DoomIIMaster]

me too 5:56AM 11/25

[@Illumina_Blade]

I want to dislike just because you didn't let the whole Solstice theme play.

[@thuggeegaming659]

The title confused me. I thought this was a list of fanhacks that pushed the NES to the limits.

[@mstcrow5429]

NES cart ROM faster than RAM? How/why?

[@Sharopolis]

It's not read faster or anything, its just that in practice ROM banks of graphics data can be swapped in and out pretty much instantly in the middle of rendering the graphics. With RAM you need to load the data in which takes time. An NES cartridge could have multiple banks of RAM and swap them around just as fast as ROM, but no one ever did that as far as I know. It would probably have been way too expensive at the time.

[@davidmcgill1000]

Basically changing a pointer to point somewhere else. With RAM it must be read from somewhere then written to RAM byte by byte.

[@ITGuyinaction]

🤪💪😀

[@error4159]

Gauntlet wasn't made by Atari or Tengen. It was programmed by the two guys that stared the M2.

[@TakaMaru777]

this video is so blurry