Pitfall II (Atari 2600) 'proper' dump

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Psychofox11
Posts: 100
Joined: 26 Feb 2023 23:39

Pitfall II (Atari 2600) 'proper' dump

Post by Psychofox11 »

I've been working to dump or verify some Atari 2600 games here, but had a question about Pitfall II, and how it's been traditionally dumped, and if that should be the same here.

Pitfall II for the Atari has a DPC chip which generates RNG tables (that I don't believe exist until it generates them), which it uses to make the eel enemies flicker (I think that's all). Current dumps out there, and what's on the DOM (1 yellow trusted, 1 third party) have the 255 bytes that is the generated RNG data appended to the end of the dump. This is what emulators that know ROMs will identify as Pitfall II as well. It also does something to the music on every scanline, the chip has a few functions, but only RNG tables are added to the dump.

The OSCR (which I use to dump) is intentionally not having the RNG table data read as it isn't part of the game ROM, and probably doesn't exist until the chip creates it and should be emulated by emulators like other chips (Super FX etc,) along with the RNG table generation code it runs, rather than packing the game with the resulting tables, though emulators don't typically do this from what I've seen. I understand the Harmony Cart can emulate it, but I'm not sure if it needs RNG data from the ROM to do so.

So how would no-intro want to record this? The only way it has been for ~25+ years with the RNG data at the end, or just the game ROM, which is the OSCR's idea of proper (and makes sense to me as well)? I talked to the dev that did Atari on OSCR, and they are sticking with only dumping the game ROM as proper.

I can try on another Atari dumper that's on its way to me, if it is supported, but even if that matches the DOM's dumps that aren't fully trusted, is that what we want to record?
Also without the RNG tables it is 10,240 (a proper 10kb), but the current one is 255 bytes bigger than that.
Hiccup
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Re: Pitfall II (Atari 2600) 'proper' dump

Post by Hiccup »

I think it would make sense to record it without the RNG data, yeah. Although RNG data could go in the comment as a stop-gap if emulators generate it yet.
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