Neil- a quick suggestion about mappers: use whatever mapper you want, but keep in mind that very very few games had 32kb of WRAM. In fact, here is a list of every single NES and Famicom game which used 32kb of WRAM:

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/search.p … 9+20+41+53

My guess is that an MMC5 may be your most viable bet for an "available" mapper for freeing yourself from timing constraints. However, only one game exists which used this combination of MMC5 and 32kb WRAM: Romance of the Three Kingdoms II.

As for scaling the pulses with a microcontroller, that might be a bit overkill. Perhaps a solution with a 555 would be easier to implement as a pulse multiplier.

If I understand it correctly the highest ppqn value you could get, from say Pulsar, is 4. The micro controller would have to fill in the rest. Without any tempo changes, it should be fine though as long as the 4ppqn is constantly outputted.

True but easier said than done

It doesn't help that screen writes have to be tied to the screen refresh speed (i.e. 60hz). Makes things very complicated if you then want to run a separate background process to handle timing-critical functions i.e. timed code to make arbitrary pulses out of the controller port.

I wonder if any of the 'newer' mapping controllers (MMC3,MMC5) have features that can be utilised. But then there's a risk of making Pulsar and PR8 even harder to support

very true.

fine replace arduino with ATMEL CHIP. OR PIC. Or WHATEVER. But youll need to get the nes out of its 60hz mindset SOMEHOW.

i'm all for even numbers for clock output counts as long as it's something. if it was pulse per quarter i'd be ok w/ that. hahaha
.. forget arduino.. it's not for manufacturing purposes.. only hobbiests and diy'ers
not to mention EXPENSIVE just to have a boot loader pre-installed onto a $2-3 micro controller.

why not have it spit out 8, and have an adurino fill out the rest? Tempo changes at fast tempos might suffer but how many tempo ramps would be do in their music??

here is a a lot of over my head stuff about serial communications off the controller port:

http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopi … 68b6544c25

LOL

OK, put it another way - if you couldn't output 24 evenly-spaced pulses per note, what then?

lol. i'm not the code guy. you are.

Any ideas how you might output 24 evenly-spaced pulses per note?

well i think for starters a simple +5V clock pulse OUT of the NES Player 2 controller port might be a good start.. could be a common 24ppqn or something.
So things could at least slave to the NES.

Neil, have I told you lately that I love you?

edit: l-g, you too :3

Thanks l-g. Ideas would be good at this stage...

With the absence of any other ideas of how to approach this, my first instinct is to try to get the advance-the-pattern-each-time-the-NES-receives-a-note-on method working.

As the NES lacks arbitrary timers I'm not sure that any other method is feasible?

i'm still available for help on this if there's anything i can do lemme know

Batsly kindly sent me some Arduino bits and pieces for me to have a play with (though I am totally out of my depth with electronics - what's the worst that could happen...)

I just haven't had time to really look at it recently but I really want to get something working.