jbuonacc wrote:no chance of this using a mapper that's currently supported by the PowerPak? if not, this would make it much less useful for myself and plenty of others (unfortunately).
OK, this is the situation.
I'm running it on PowerPak right now. I have to for testing purposes and it works fine. However, the amount of 'objects' is really limited;
Songs : 1
Steps per Song : 40 (hex)
Total Chains : 20 (hex)
Total Patterns : 20 (hex)
Total Instruments : 20 (hex)
Total Drumkits : 2 (12 samples each)
Total ADSR Envelopes : 20 (hex)
Total Tables : 10 (hex)
Total Vibratos : 10 (hex)
Total Duty Tables : 10 (hex)
The worst of these being the Patterns and Tables as while they are the most used, they are also the objects that take the most space :S
This is using 8kb save files. Using 32kb save files, as I intend once it has wider support, I'll obviously be able to multiply up a lot of those limits.
I have been in contact with Retro USB about adding support and I'm told that it can be done. It's just something I have no control over and I don't like to nag the guy so until I know otherwise it's a case of 'eventually'.
It may be the case that I'll end up releasing Pulsar using an 8kb save file memory model but I don't want to do that because any song files created using this are not going to be compatible when I eventually implement the 32kb memory model (it's not simply a case of scaling up the data sizes, the 32kb NVRAM is bank switched so I'll have to totally reconfigure the layout to work around this).
Beta testers, once I'm at that stage, will get a working, PowerPak-compatible, 8kb save file version.