Ever wondered how devs measure performance on real a NES, which has...

2,515

2 years ago

Ever wondered how devs measure performance on real a NES, which has no dev kit? A common way is the change the "color emphasis" while an operation is executing, during rendering. This effectively draws colored bars representing how long something takes.

Here, Green represents the player update. At the start of the "player_update" function, which is running while the TV is drawing the previous frame from top to bottom & left to right, I tell the NES to tint everything Green. At the end of the function I stop tinting Green.

This tells me that to update the player, it takes *roughly* 15 scanlines of the video frame. I have about 260 scanlines to finish all the work for the next frame to maintain 60 frames per second, so this one function takes about 6% of my CPU budget for the frame.

The game in the video is a new, untitled, NES homebrew I am working on.

Follow for more updates on that game, and retro console development in general!

Game Dev

Game Dev Show & Tell

Nintendo ClipsNScreenshots

Pixel Art general

Retro & Homebrew Games Home Brew Devs

Next up

@MattHughsonGames28

Time is almost up on a new GAME BOY and NES title!⏲️

Only 2 week left to pick up a physical copy of "From Below Pocket" for the Game Boy, and "From Below" for the NES! 🦑

Both come complete in box with free global shipping! 📨

shop.matthughson.com

@MattHughsonGames48

🚨1 WEEK LEFT!🚨 🚨GAMEBOY PREORDER!🚨 Last chance to get a copy of this brand new Game Boy game, From Below Pocket, as well as the NES version!🦑 After this week, the game will be out of print, likely for YEARS. 📆 https://frombelowgame.com #gbdev #nesdev

@MattHughsonGames41

Big news for From Below (NES) and From Below Pocket (GB) physical editions!

Full Update: https://mailchi.mp/9df0515acedb/from-below-update-3

Short Version: Both NES and GB will start shipping next week!

Woohoo!!! #nesdev #gbdev

@gamejolt480

Happy Video Game Day!

July 8 is Video Game Day, a holiday that's obviously close to our hearts at Game Jolt.

Celebrate by completing our quests! They won't be around long, so get the rewards while you can.

@MattHughsonGames73

An NES crossover!

The Kraken from my first NES game, "From Below", will make a cameo as one of the bosses in my next NES game, "Super Sunny World"🌞

Super Sunny World is a new pixel platformer, and a love letter to the original Super Mario Bros.🍄

WISHLIST!

@gamejolt470

@ryon is a Jolter to Watch, game dev, programmer, and artist who worked on Five Nights at Friedrich's! Follow @ryon before the quest ends on July 15 and you'll get Coins!