Re: Java sucks, just a friendly joke, I wasn't expecting people outside my forums to read that page. I could share my dislikes of Java (and they are many), but it's off-topic and I ultimately don't care whether one uses it or not.
Yes and no, but that didn't stop Nintendo.Star Fox, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, DOOM, etc used a 21MHz RISC coprocessor that was placed inside the cartridge. This is effectively 8-10x more powerful than the SNES processor was, and has specialized rasterization capabilities.
Super Mario RPG, Kirby's Dreamland 3, Kirby Super Star, Dragonball Z: Over 9000 Dimension, etc used a 10.5MHz version of the SNES CPU with about two dozen extended hardware capabilities inside its cartridge.
Pilotwings, Super Mario Kart, etc used a DSP that performed higher-end trigonometry and calculus functions, whereas the SNES CPU core is not even capable of multiplying or dividing.
Star Ocean and Far East of Eden Zero used memory mappers that let you access more ROM than a standard cartridge could hold, and also provided hardware decompression.
The Super Game Boy put an entire Game Boy inside a cartridge, and the BS-X added satellite linkup and download capabilities, as well as a read-write flash cartridge connector slot. Both streamed audio quality well above that of CD music.
Was the use of any of these chips considered to defeat the point of using an SNES back in their day? Did anyone complain that it wasn't the same anymore? They were selling points back then.
Every* system that has carts has done this: the NES had mappers, custom sound chips, even video RAM expansion. The Genesis had the SVP to draw polygons. The Game Boy put real-time clocks inside the games. The Nintendo DS even manages to pack specialized hardware in those little tiny flash cards. It's only impossible to add custom chips to CD-based media, for reasons that should be blindingly obvious. (* don't be Captain Obvious, I don't mean literally every last one in the entire universe.)
There's a huge difference between utilizing what real hardware could do and making shit up.What I have done was nothing that real hardware did not do. I have just combined part of the functionality of two devices into one: the S-DD1 mapper and BS-X audio+flash connector.
I did not add 1080p output, H.264 decoding, a 3D graphics accelerator, etc that could never happen on real hardware. That would be pointless and stupid, you are right.
21fx will be a real hardware device, and it will be for sale. I am capable of making the hardware, and I will. It's just a matter of time. 21fx's software implementation is to encourage interest and try and get others to help make it happen quicker.
I am taking advantage of the capabilities the SNES provided, like many popular games of the time did. Only I'm also taking advantage of the fact that storage is much cheaper now than in 1992.
Cost is also important. This device will cost about $20 in parts, and will work on the real thing with no external power source. It can also be added to any emulator in about 20 minutes, as the C source implementation is less than 4 kilobytes. It also won't cause any extra CPU usage to emulate. Compare that to sticking an Intel Atom with H.264 decode that would require several megabytes of source code and make the SNES emulator ten times more resource intensive.
Not true. I have the storage space for 1080p video, but the SNES' internal video circuitry is only capable of moving 2.68MB worth of data to video RAM per second, and it cannot transfer at all while drawing the screen. So cut that in half. We are limited to ~224x144@30fps on NTSC, or ~240x160@25fps on PAL. Correct. This is not revolutionary by any means. It's just a neat little thing for hobbyists to tinker with, and maybe enhance their favorite games a little if they like.Personally, I think it'd be really cool to use some of the awesome remix songs on this site in existing games and let the user swap them out as desired. Enhance the playability of a classic just a little for a slightly new experience.