Sufami Turbo Support

[Moondandy]

Hi guys, I thought I would do an overview of the Sufami Turbo, as it's a fun official add on for the Super Famicom that a lot of people aren't aware of, and isn't currently supported in the core. I didn't know it was even a thing until Rysha mentioned on here awhile back.

Released in 1996 in Japan only it was a cartridge adaptor, that took some of the hardware from inside cards, and allowed smaller (cheaper to make) carts to slot inside it. There are two slots, which for some games allows one cart to be in Slot A, and another in Slot B, with the cart in Slot B unlocking content when playing the game in Slot A.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuFami_Turbo

I picked one up and three carts (these things are generally very cheap on eBay from Japan if anyone is into original hardware and wants to have a play about with one).

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If you load up the Sufami Turbo without any carts in then it loads it's BIOS and you get a screen and some cute music.

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Here is mine running the Gundam game with one cart:

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Here is it with a different version of the Gundam game in Slot B, which is adding extra features to the game in Slot A, running on my Super Famicom Tower Of Power:

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Sufami Turbo Games

There were 13 carts released for it:
Poi Poi Ninja
SD Gundam: Generations Part 1
SD Gundam: Generations Part 2
SD Gundam: Generations Part 3
SD Gundam: Generations Part 4
SD Gundam: Generations Part 5
SD Gundam: Generations Part 6
SD Ultra Battle: Ultraman Legend
SD Ultra Battle: Seven Legend
Crayon Shin Chan
Gegege No Kitarou
Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Sailor Stars: Fuwa Fuwa Panic 2
Gekisō Sentai Car Ranger: Zenkai! Racer Senshi

Here is some information on the special features you unlock by having a cart in Slot B:

SD Gundam Generations
SD Gundam Generations is a series of 6 games, each containing a certain amount of unique Gundam fighters. With the main Gundam Generations game in slot 1, the player can use Gundam fighters from the cartridge in slot 2.

SD Ultra Battle
SD Ultra Battle is a beat 'em up game based on the Ultraman series which allows the player to use the characters from whichever cart was in slot 2, in the main game in slot 1. It links with other copies of the same game (Battle 1 links with Battle 1), allowing both players to use the same character and saved data, or with the opposing game using characters from both games. The first game is based on Ultraman, and the second is based on Ultra Seven.

Poi Poi Ninja
Poi Poi Ninja only links with other copies of Poi Poi Ninja, to share save data or character data for vs. battles.

Implementing Into MiSTer Core

I am not a developer, but I have been thinking at a high level how support could be added into the SNES MiSTer core.

Firstly have a sufamiturbo folder within the folder structure, containing the BIOS and roms of the 13 carts.
Add a new Sufami Turbo option on the core menu
Selecting this option would load a screen that has options to select rom for Slot A, select rom for Slot B, and launch Sufami Turbo
Launching Sufami Turbo without no carts selected would just launch the BIOS to get the no carts screen and music (if no correctly named BIOS then throw up an error messaging for missing BIOS)
Launching Sufami Turbo with valid rom selected in Slot A would launch the game selected
Launching Sufami Turbo with valid rom selected in Slot A and Slot B would launch rom set in Slot A and apply the additional feature of rom in Slot B

If it were to be developed in stages:
1. Get the Sufami Turbo BIOS loading
2. Be able to load a valid rom
3. Be able to load a valid rom and apply features from valid rom in Slot B

What do you guys think about this as a viable implementation? I think it is a really cool add on that is bizarrely so unknown that would be really nice to be implemented. It isn't in either the Analogue Super NT or the FXPAK, so nobody had implemented it in FPGA yet.

ps: Thanks Rysha!

[Moondandy]

--fixed image links, what a massive faff to just get image links is these days

[KremlingKuthroat19]

Good work. Sufami Turbo support would be great!

[Moondandy]

I have added a feature request to Github:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/SNES_MiSTer/issues/280

[max1602]

Are the games good?

[KremlingKuthroat19]

Honestly they're average. They do have really cool and innovative link capabilities. Also, they're all in Japanese and none currently have translation patches. Regardless, this is the last add-on to make the SNES core complete, unless you really care about that complex Shogi chip. Also the M.A.C.S. gun should be implemented at some point too.

[Moondandy]

The Ultraman ones are quite fun beatemups, there is a z axis on the plane as well so not just X and Y. I had a good time playing that one. Gundam games are not English friendly so I can't really play them. Sadly I don't have the others, Sailor Moon goes for a lot of money.

It's a bit chicken and egg, but perhaps if more people were able to play the Sufami Turbo games then localisation communities might be interested in translating and patching them. It could be good as well to get a patched version of the BIOS, there is very little text in there so it might not be too difficult.

I haven't come across the M.A.C.S gun before, is this a peripheral that you can't connect? Might be something Shane Lynch is interested in looking at, he's big into his lightgun support.

[KremlingKuthroat19]

One of the benefits of having relatively small libraries is that they have a much higher likelihood of getting translated. For example, the Pokemon Mini and Virtual Boy have all their games translated since so few games released for those consoles. Also the N64 DD has the Mario Artist games being worked on as well as Sim City 64, so that library will be completely localized some time in the not so distant future since there's only 9 games.

The Sufami Turbo having only 13 games could benefit from this. Also, I totally want to try out the Sufami Turbo, but I'm a stickler for not playing games that aren't translated. It's one of my hangups.

The M.A.C.S. gun is a very obscure light gun for the SNES for this military training game. It's pretty awesome:

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https://snescentral.com/article.php?id=0901

Supposedly, it's much more accurate than the Super Scope, and it'd be worth implementing this just to play that M.A.C.S. game properly.

[dentnz]

Perhaps instead of the FPGA dealing with the bios and two carts, you might be able to assemble an appropriate rom on the linux side. The rom could include the combination of BIOS, BIOS and ROM SLOT 1, BIOS and ROM SLOT 1 and SLOT 2. I believe this is how some flashcarts are used to play these roms, right?

[Kitrinx]

Perhaps instead of the FPGA dealing with the bios and two carts, you might be able to assemble an appropriate rom on the linux side. The rom could include the combination of BIOS, BIOS and ROM SLOT 1, BIOS and ROM SLOT 1 and SLOT 2. I believe this is how some flashcarts are used to play these roms, right?

You can do that with some, but not all of them.

[Moondandy]

Someone on NES Dev has dug into the hardware and drawn up a schematic:

http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?t=19787