Metal Slug 2 slowdown reduction patch

system11 · Mar 29, 2015

http://blog.system11.org/?p=1442

Now you can enjoy smoother Metal Slug 2 without overclocking. Actually with OC it might even run as fast as X, but my motherboard is just a standard one.

Enjoy.

Kid Panda · Mar 29, 2015

This
Is
Rad

More proof that 2 > X

pulstar · Mar 29, 2015

Cool. Interesting to know that SNK built Metal Slug X from the ground up. I was always of the opinion that X > 2, but after playing 2 quite a lot it does feel a little better (and with this, hopefully better still). Can't wait to try this.

Ray · Mar 29, 2015

That looks like a pretty significant improvement! Fantastic job!
Now I'm just wondering how well this would run in 2 player mode. I love Metal Slug 2 but 2 player in that just goes way overboard with the slowdown.

system11 · Mar 29, 2015

Yeah it's not night and day, but it feels better to play, sadly that's as far as it can really go without disabling graphical features or rewriting lots of code. Trap15 had a look into this for me after I .. encouraged him to spend some time on it for me, but there were no other obvious big wins to be had. I guess that's why SNK wrote a new engine in the first place.

system11 · Mar 29, 2015

Ray said:
That looks like a pretty significant improvement! Fantastic job!
Now I'm just wondering how well this would run in 2 player mode. I love Metal Slug 2 but 2 player in that just goes way overboard with the slowdown.

It would still be terrible in 2p I'm afraid. The train level is still pretty rough too, apparently the code which tracks the train movement is somehow really slow.

Ray · Mar 29, 2015

system11 said:
It would still be terrible in 2p I'm afraid. The train level is still pretty rough too, apparently the code which tracks the train movement is somehow really slow.

Yeah, I figured that would be the case... Still, even with the slowdown MS2 is still a blast to play with 1 player, and this fix would help a lot, especially with some of the more notorious choking points like the bridge on the final mission.

Razoola · Mar 29, 2015

Very nice work.

I wonder if this is something the unibios could catch via a cheat?? I may have a look if I find some free time to see if that's doable if your ok with that.

Raz

aha2940 · Mar 29, 2015

Nice work!! can a M27C160 be used with the fixed code in the lower half and the original code in the upper half (or viceversa) and solder a switch to the highest address line to switch between version? also, I guess some jumpers gotta be moved in the board, right?

Regards.

GadgetUK · Mar 29, 2015

Yes a 27C160 will work as a replacement for the 27C800. Just lift pin 1 (A18) and switch that between 5v (via 4K7 resistor) and ground on the other end of the switch. If the cart is using a 1Mb chip already there's no need to change the jumpers.

It's also cleaner to use a 74HCT161 or something to switch between ROMs using reset. I did that on my Magician Lord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXWZlWuGljk

aha2940 · Mar 29, 2015

GadgetUK said:
Yes a 27C160 will work as a replacement for the 27C800. Just lift pin 1 (A18) and switch that between 5v (via 4K7 resistor) and ground on the other end of the switch. If the cart is using a 1Mb chip already there's no need to change the jumpers.

Nice, I think I'll give this a go when I fix the issue I'm having with 27C160's and my programmer.

Thanks!!

system11 · Mar 29, 2015

Razoola said:
Very nice work.

I wonder if this is something the unibios could catch via a cheat?? I may have a look if I find some free time to see if that's doable if your ok with that.

Raz

I'd actually like it to be kept standalone for a few reasons.

DNSDies · Mar 29, 2015

I wonder if this can be ported to the CD version of the game?

That would be flipping rad.

trap15 · Mar 29, 2015

With a 16MHz overclock and the patch, the game is smooth as butter. As good or better than stock MSX in the frame rate department.

kuze · Mar 29, 2015

Nice work! Do you think it would ever be possible to sub in the entire Slug X engine so no OC is needed?

bustedstr8 · Mar 29, 2015

aha2940 said:
Nice work!! can a M27C160 be used with the fixed code in the lower half and the original code in the upper half (or viceversa) and solder a switch to the highest address line to switch between version? also, I guess some jumpers gotta be moved in the board, right?

Regards.

GadgetUK said:
Yes a 27C160 will work as a replacement for the 27C800. Just lift pin 1 (A18) and switch that between 5v (via 4K7 resistor) and ground on the other end of the switch. If the cart is using a 1Mb chip already there's no need to change the jumpers.

It's also cleaner to use a 74HCT161 or something to switch between ROMs using reset. I did that on my Magician Lord.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXWZlWuGljk

I remember we where talking about doing the switch with reset about a year ago. Cool to see at least someone did it

Are you able to test and see if the /RST is pulsed when you switch games on a multislot?

trap15 · Mar 29, 2015

kuze said:
Nice work! Do you think it would ever be possible to sub in the entire Slug X engine so no OC is needed?

Not really. If that was something someone wanted to do, they'd have much better luck just hacking X to change things to be like 2. Trying to replace an entire engine's just not worth it or really feasible.

Xian Xi · Mar 29, 2015

Fucking sweet. Thanks a bunch to you and your team for helping with the slowdown in MS2. Looks awesome. You guys already made my year.

GhostSeed · Mar 29, 2015

Nice work! I'll have to let my friend know about this, he loves that game.

HeavyMachineGoob · Mar 29, 2015

It is now time to crack open my Slug 2 carts and give them the engine facelift they so desperately need.

Thank you kind person for taking pity on the rest of us!

kuze · Mar 29, 2015

trap15 said:
Not really. If that was something someone wanted to do, they'd have much better luck just hacking X to change things to be like 2. Trying to replace an entire engine's just not worth it or really feasible.

Makes sense. Thanks for the work you put into this. Will definitely give it a try!

shadowkn55 · Mar 29, 2015

Kid Panda said:
This
Is
Rad

More proof that 2 > X

You mean this wasn't enough?

trap15 · Mar 29, 2015

For those curious about what exactly the problem was and what was changed to fix it, I wrote a technical explanation of things: http://daifukkat.su/blog/archives/2015/03/30/its_turbo_time/
Forgive how terse and technical the writing is, but I tried to give a decent explanation while not leaving out details.

Xian Xi · Mar 29, 2015

trap15 said:
For those curious about what exactly the problem was and what was changed to fix it, I wrote a technical explanation of things: http://daifukkat.su/blog/archives/2015/03/30/its_turbo_time/
Forgive how terse and technical the writing is, but I tried to give a decent explanation while not leaving out details.

Nice, so it did have something to do with updating, just not game logic. From the comparison vids it's like night and day. Is it true that in the PS2 MS Anthology version of MS2 that SNK just super over clocked the game to try and fix the slowdown?

trap15 · Mar 29, 2015

Well, I'd really not call it even updating. It's just the lock code is terrible. The game logic is really slow though, as system11's post mentions. It's really really slow. They didn't put much work into optimizing the game.

I'm assuming the anthology versions just overclock the emulated machine, yeah. I doubt they went through the effort to optimize it. I've not looked, but I don't think it's even worth checking; it's almost a guarantee.

Metal Slug 2 slowdown reduction patch

Shmups Overlord, ,

The Chinese Kid

Mickey's Coach

New Challenger

Shmups Overlord, ,

Shmups Overlord, ,

New Challenger

Divine Hand of the UniBIOS,

AH, A, COLUMBIAN!,

Gai's Trainer

AH, A, COLUMBIAN!,

Shmups Overlord, ,

I LOVE HILLARY CLINTON!

n00b

Galford's Poppy Trainer

Trollbox Trade Federation,

n00b

JammaNationX,

Amusaka's Lacky

My poontang misses Lenn Yang's wang

Galford's Poppy Trainer

Genbu's Turtle Keeper

n00b

JammaNationX,

n00b