Topic: Mapping Tools

[TerraEsperZ]

Well I can't use PNGGauntlet myself and its handy batch abilities, but I've heard that it's based on PNGCrush which is command line-based. It also has a brute mode which tries over a hundred different settings and it seems that it's essentially the same thing. In case anyone else can't use PNGGauntlet but wishes to reduce their file size too.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[JonLeung]

Wow, I saved 7.20 MB (actual size)/6.05 MB (size on disk) on the EarthBound Zero maps alone!  Then again, it's because it has one huge world map and four quadrants, each of which are pretty big by themselves.  But one quadrant had 16 colours or less, which helped.



I'm ALMOST done with the NES section.  Perhaps I should take the time to compress every map I ever got in EVERY section.  If I can still squeeze 20%-70% out of most maps, that will certainly save my bandwidth.  I'm sure the NES section being compressed will probably already help since that's one of the biggest and most popular sections.



Another plug for CompuPic Pro: to keep track of which maps I've compressed, I've used CompuPic's timestamp-changing ability to change all compressed-to-the-max maps to exactly midnight.  That way I can still view the maps in the order that I received them (since I don't change the date), but also "mark" which ones I've done without having to remember, without keeping a separate text file listing, without having to keep them in separate folders, etc.



Come to think of it, I could code various other things I need to do with maps using other similar times.  Maybe 12:00 means a perfect file, as I've stated, but I could use, say, 12:01 or 12:02 to mean something too.



EDIT: Finished compressing all the .PNG maps in the NES section!  It only took me three days...



Size / Size on disk

83.6 MB / 85.3 MB = original size

55.0 MB / 52.8 MB = after brute force compression

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28.6 MB / 32.5 MB = difference

34.21%   / 38.1%   = difference in percentage



See why I love PNGGauntlet so much?

[moon]

I find it strange that these heavily compressed png's can be compressed further relatively easily (fast) and with noteworthy results with standard compression schemes like zip, rar or 7z. Makes them less easy to handle though (can't be viewed in browser). There seems to be room for improvement in lossless formats like png.

[TerraEsperZ]

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I have a question regarding this.



Since I'm basically recreating my collection of roms and savestates following an HD crash, I have the opportunity to start using different emulators than before. Basically, I want people to try and sell some to me by putting emphasis on whatever functionalities they might have to make mapping easier.



Of course, I *could* try them myself, but for some reason I'm hesitant to do so; must be the same part of my brain which keeps me ordering the same plate whenever I eat out in a particular restaurant. If the dish is already great, why try something else that you might not like and thus spoil a meal? I know, that's some screwy thinking, but that's humanity for ya.



For starters, let's talk about the SNES. So far, I've always used ZSnes, starting with an old DOS version way back when; it's always worked fine but I've only done a little bit of mapping with it so far. Aside from the ability to disable layers, it's not that useful. Its main contender is of course Snes9x, which I haven't tried yet (aside from a very old version back in the days of Win 95 I think). In terms of compatibility and accuracy, both are pretty similar I think, but does it have functions such as a tile and sprite viewer, or something allowing to see the map in memory like the old BGMapper DOS program?



I'd also like to ask the same thing for the NES. Until now, I've used Nesticle back when I still had a 486DX2/66 and despite having shitty accuracy and compatibility, it was pretty fast and had a tile and palette viewer. After that, I switched to FCE Ultra which at the time was one of the best, but I've also heard good things from LoopyNes and a few others. Which one would be best in terms of functions and compatibility?



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[Raccoon Sam]

Forget ZSNES and go with BSNES. If I recall correctly, it has the same debug features as VBA (Graphics buffer thingie) and Layer-disabling possibilities.

[RT 55J]

The problem with that is that you need a supercomputer to run BSNES iirc.

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Dot? Dot. Dot!

[Raccoon Sam]

Well, it's biased around accuracy more than speed so yeah..


But if you have a Supercomputer, it'd be foolish to use ZSNES.

[TerraEsperZ]

Well unfortunately, I don't have a supercomputer, so Bsnesis right out. Anything else?



You did mention that Snes9x allows you to disable HDMA emulation, so that's already something. One of the feature I really liked with the old Genesis emulator Kgen98 0.4B is that you could disable certain video features, like Shadow/Hilite, Raster FX and H-Interrupts. Heck, any Snes emulator with some debugging features would be nice.



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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard



B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me

[Raccoon Sam]

Aw nuts.

Maybe you can still try BSNES, but with disabled sound emulation or something like that. You know, doing anything to maintain the speed on a decent rate.

[Thraxian]

I want to try to map VS SMB, Do I have to play all the Levels to Make a Map



I'm using NEStopia