I see no problems with my homeland. Joost van der Berneer approves.  

I originally read Joe's Dutchie name as Joose and had bad flashbacks

Aren't they just Chain Chomps ?

Sumner21 wrote on 02/16/19 at 00:36:13:


And there is no Chain Chomp in Super Mario World-- so you might be onto something wth Bullet Bill...



Look at those eyes, and the eyes of the Chain Chomps are circles, but maybe the truth(?) is...


ScouB wrote on 02/16/19 at 01:16:49:




Nope, they are the Unchained Chomps


Bonus:



Legend to Figure 1: When Antistar meets Fenner lol

On today's front page news, Sami welcomed Dan Lewis to the site for the second time, instead of this week's newcomer, Pat Czeranski (both American players).

An actual suggestion for the Players' Site (in accordance with this thread's title)

As someone who plays both NTSC and PAL, I think it would be mighty useful to add a link at the top of the page for each of the charts, allowing you to switch between the NTSC and PAL version charts of the same track/flap with one click for quick reference. All the NTSC charts would have a "Switch to PAL" link at the top and vice versa. The MKDS site already does this with PRB and Non-PRB so this is why I suggest this.

I'm not sure if Sami would be able to make this modification to the charts on his own; Alex Penev might have to do it. Does anybody else here wish we could have this feature added for the SMK charts? This would allow for much quicker and easier comparison of the top times on the NTSC and PAL charts for the same course, and those of us who play both versions can also easily compare our times in both versions as well as who our closest rivals are in each.

ScouB wrote on 05/11/19 at 04:54:52:


Hiya, I will raise the links idea with Alex as it is a coding level task.

In regards to the video links Alex would need to do a huge redesign on the sites which will not be done at this time. There was a backup option using the comment boxes but it made the charts look untidy therefore we have put this on hold.

I will request the NTSC and PAL links like the MKDS site. Please allow some time for Alex. Thanks.

Harvey Kartel wrote on 05/11/19 at 20:50:57:


Such a coefficient does not apply to SMK tho. (contrarily to F-Zero for example)

With the LB and platform jumps you mentionned, it's all the mechanics that aren't the same and hence can't be time converted.
Same applies for the boosts, as a boost wins more time on NTSC than on PAL (0"10 vs 0"07 I believe)  the more you do boosts the more the delta will be bigger between a PAL and a NTSC chrono, on the contrary you can cut bigger portions on PAL which might compensate a little.
This means a coefficient you might find "working" for a track, won't work for another track as it's too dependant on the game mechanics being so different between the two games.

In any case there is no easy way to compare times between SMK PAL & NTSC except by watching the videos and with the players feelings after they have accomplished both times.

Michael: in PAL the kart actually moves more pixels per frame in order to better approximate the speed of NTSC. It's still 2.54% off, but that's better than being 20% off. PAL games in general do not necessarily run at 5/6 of the speed of the NTSC version; as Scoub mentioned, game physics are often tweaked in order to make the PAL experience feel closer to the NTSC experience. If all you changed was the frame rate, PAL gameplay would feel sluggish compared to the original NTSC. Although I have heard that's what they did with Sonic the Hedgehog.

Part of the reason why the GV1 platform jump is more difficult to hit on PAL is due to this change in the kart's frame-by-frame movement; often the jump cannot be made (especially Non-NBT) because there sometimes just isn't a frame where the kart is close enough to jump-- one frame it's too far back to make the jump, and the next, it's already gone too far and fallen off the track (when this happens I call it a "scratch", a term used in track-and-field long jumping when the jumper crosses the foul line before jumping).

In Super Mario World, in the very first level of the game, if you immediately run forward at full speed when the level starts, small Mario can make it underneath the sliding shelless Koopa before it falls on him in the PAL version, but not in the NTSC version (you'll die), indicating that the PAL version is not simply the NTSC version slowed down by 20% (Mario moves farther per frame in PAL, as is the case in SMK)

NTSC does run "smoother" in that it's 30 frames per second instead of 25. Although a PAL picture is 625 pixels tall compared to the 525 of NTSC, allowing for PAL pictures to be sharper (many Nintendo games, including SMK, don't take advantage of this, and just use the 525 rows that the NTSC verson did, leaving 50 blank rows at the top and bottom of your screen-- this is called letterboxing, and because the shape of your TV screen is still the same whether it's 525 rows or 625, the picture on a PAL TV therefore looks a bit "flattened")

Harvey Kartel wrote on 05/11/19 at 00:37:40:


Harvey Kartel wrote on 05/11/19 at 00:37:40:


That's a useful feature so yes.

Thanks Harvey yes Sonic 1 PAL runs too slow, the music is an absolute give away. Like you say it literally just runs at 50Hz unmodded and is annoying, Sonic 2 onwards fixed the issue

KVD wrote on 05/12/19 at 00:44:26:


Truth be told I don't really notice the 2.54% speed difference myself. I seem to be a poor judge of speed anyhow, and often can't quite tell exactly when I'm losing speed during NBTs, etc. during a race unless I'm near a ghost. I've had flap attempts that I thought were PRs but missed by tenths, because I failed to notice when I was exiting an NBT area at a speed below my normal cruising speed. When I'm playing PAL it mostly feels like I'm just playing NTSC but in black and white, with a few very noticeable differences such as slightly different drifting physics (easy to get used to), the startboost timing (also easy to get used to), GV1/GV2 platform jumps not working as often, more speed lost when I bounce off water in VL2 et al., bouncing more when I hit bumpers on BC2/BC3, or weaker longboosts in MC2.

Speaking of PAL technicalities, can someone explain exactly why PAL games run in black and white on my TV? What's unusual is that PAL games will play in color if my specially modified SNES is set to 60Hz mode. But I want to play the games at the intended speed, so I just sacrifice color.

From my understanding, the pixels on any color TV set are divided into three subpixels: red, green, and blue. A black and white set, I presume, does not have these subpixels: there is one white pixel that can be "on" for white, "off" for black, or somewhere in between for a shade of gray. On a color set, white is created by turning all three subpixels completely on, while if all three are off, you have black. Shades of gray are made by partially turning on all three subpixels to an equal degree. And, of course, the rest of the colors are made by turning some subpixels on while leaving others off (or dimming them)-- red and green on (while blue is off) gives you yellow, etc.

In SMK, a green pipe is (normally) green because the game tells the TV to turn on only the green subpixels. Playing in 50Hz does not change the fact that I still have three independent subpixels per pixel on my TV, yet pipes are gray in 50Hz (along with everything else), indicating that all three subpixels were being turned on equally. It's as if all three subpixels are being treated as a single white pixel... just like on a black-and-white set. Shouldn't the game still be telling the TV only to light the green subpixels in order to draw a pipe? I don't get this. Maybe somebody here has a technical explanation of why I do not get color when playing a game in 50Hz on my set.