Nemesis 3 patch for smooth scrolling and other enhancements

There's a new trend in MSX land to enhance classic games from the past. And it's a good trend. The MSX system has a solid game base, many classics were born in the Z80 crib. In the early days of home computing, many software houses jumped the train and gave us enjoyable games. The limitation of the system is something programmers had to deal with to get things done. One of the (in)famous so-so deals was screen-scrolling. Instead of smooth movement we mostly got blocky transitions. And with these new trends, by homebrew programmers, with todays knowledge, the time has come to correct these deals.

MRC user Víctor Martínez has done some incredible trend work in the recent past, remember Salamander smooth scrolling and other enhancements? And just when you thought you've seen it all, here's the next episode in hopefully a long serie of goods: a super-upgrade for Konami's Nemesis III subtitled "The Eve of Destruction" (RC-764). Yes, that's right geeks, Víctor delivers us an IPS patch to enhance your copy of this brill game.

Víctor, aka the patch professor, has taken his earlier gained knowledge and injected Nemesis 3 with all the goods from his magic hat. Check out what this patch brings:

Smooth screen scrolling
TurboFIX routine (original routine by FRS)
New player ships GFX by Toni Galvez who also did amazing new Intro, ship menu, and in-game graphics.
Voice Set (SCC in other slot/subslot) by WYZ/ARTRAG.
New Voice SET with better sound quality and a lot of new voices.
You can have the ROM of the game and the other SCC for Voice SET in the same slot expander.
You can insert the other SCC "in hot" in the INI screen and it'll be detected.
Compatible with the double SCC mode in Flashjacks
DrumFIX by WYZ
Enables the TURBOCPU in PANASONIC TR & 2+
In pause mode -> extra options:
- F2 key: In pause-> change player ship GFX
- F3 key: In pause-> change gameplay speed
- F4 key: In pause-> change Invincible mode
Joymega support:
- START button: Pause
- A button: Continue, extend game
- X button: In pause-> change player ship GFX
- Y button: In pause-> change gameplay speed
- Z button: In pause-> change Invincible mode
Selectable at boot: Language, VDP freq., invincible...

Isn't that just...Wow!? Amazing work, to say the least. Beside the upgrades, a lot of routines have been optimized to offer smoother gameplay. This patched game is, however, NOT compatible with Game Master. Further note that this is a patch only for MSX2 or higher machines, where MSX turbo R is fully supported and highly recommended.

So, get this patch and play Nemesis III on steroids like you always wanted to. There's no excuse, MSX can do smooth scrolling. Period. End of discussion. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way ending this space-war once and for all.

Relevant link: Video demonstration
Relevant link: Download the patch

text: ro
images: hamlet

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Comments (69)

By ToriHino

Paladin (990)

15-04-2018, 13:41

Wow that is some great work! You gave this game a second (and much better) life.

By hit9918

Prophet (2932)

15-04-2018, 14:15

it scrolls and it has more samples than an amiga game

By Pippo

Hero (521)

15-04-2018, 14:18

Dear Victor,
you are a Magician and a Professor, really and really!!
You Big efforts, for Our Great Computer, are very much appreciated by the Whole Msx World.
My most real Congratulations for these Very, Very Great Enhancement Jewels!!

By MISXTOR

Champion (397)

15-04-2018, 14:24

Congratulations Víctor......

What a good magic do you get in your little things to MSX and I love to enjoy it.

Spectacular work . Awesome.

By Pablibiris

Paragon (1842)

15-04-2018, 14:48

It's awesome!!
Thanks Victor!

By gdx

Enlighted (6800)

15-04-2018, 15:10

Yes, awesome!!
Thanks.

By santiontanon

Paragon (1927)

15-04-2018, 15:40

Wow, very nice!!!

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (7120)

15-04-2018, 16:09

By Fabf

Champion (267)

15-04-2018, 17:53

Excellent work !

By djh1697

Paragon (1794)

15-04-2018, 18:22

Brilliant! Nemesis 2 next please? (only asking politely!!)
Can you do anything with F1Spirit and the vertical scrolling games?

By Pac

Scribe (7250)

15-04-2018, 18:31

Unbelievable good work!

By ToriHino

Paladin (990)

15-04-2018, 18:51

djh1697 wrote:

Brilliant! Nemesis 2 next please? (only asking politely!!)

https://www.msx.org/news/software/en/gradius-2-enhancement-p...

By mambrino

Rookie (30)

15-04-2018, 18:58

Excellent! thanks

By meits

Scribe (6607)

15-04-2018, 19:24

Somewhere in the end of the 80s someone said: "MSX is dead".
Well, he was wrong.

By smx

Expert (78)

15-04-2018, 20:02

Please,
Can anyone give the CRC code of the original rom?

Thanks

By ToriHino

Paladin (990)

15-04-2018, 20:51

I used this one: Gofer no Yabou Episode II. Nemesis 3 - The Eve of Destruction (1988)(Konami)[a][RC-764] and works excellent

By Philip

Champion (380)

15-04-2018, 21:11

Very nice, thanks !

By Manuel

Ascended (20068)

15-04-2018, 21:53

Wooow, great; to be clear: only V9938 is required, right?

By PingPong

Enlighted (4220)

15-04-2018, 22:25

good! does smooth scroll works even on a plain msx2 machine with 3.58 mhz & v9938?

By Pablibiris

Paragon (1842)

15-04-2018, 22:34

It works with a simple MSX2

By djh1697

Paragon (1794)

15-04-2018, 22:38

i keep getting an error using the online ips patcher, the one on the Japanese website

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10194)

15-04-2018, 22:55

Very nicely done!

Question: in the original version, does Konami scroll each 8/16/24/32/40/etc interrupts? Because a really smooth scroll would require a factor of 8, I'd think. If not: then these levels are bound to be a little bit too slow or too fast compared to the original version, or you'd have some irregular jump in the scroll, which I haven't noticed.

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5700)

15-04-2018, 23:28

Awesome. Was really waiting for this.
My favorite Nemesis game made even better.
Thanks so much Victor, and everyone involved. Congratulations with this great effort!

@djh1697: Have you tried Lunar IPS?

By Mauk

Paladin (760)

15-04-2018, 23:37

What can I say? I'm speechless. Amazing work (again) Victor. It gives a new life to this great game.

Thank you for improving those great MSX classics.

I second djh's question: Is it possible to do the same treatment with F1 Spirit (vertical smooth scroll)?

By Manuel

Ascended (20068)

15-04-2018, 23:51

Pablibiris wrote:

It works with a simple MSX2

Would it be possible to make it work on a V9938 with 16kB VRAM? Or is the extra VRAM needed for scrolling? I know it's not very important, but it would be cool to have the smooth scrolling on MSX1 with V9938

By Pablibiris

Paragon (1842)

15-04-2018, 23:53

I don't know this
But Victor can answer this

By sd_snatcher

Prophet (3777)

15-04-2018, 23:56

Great work, Victor! We were having an MSX meeting here in my city this weekend, and I brought the patched game with me to show there. It was an instant success!

By karloch

Prophet (2160)

16-04-2018, 00:01

Awesome! Thank you so much for the work!

By Moniz

Champion (405)

16-04-2018, 02:02

played thru the game twice now (yep.. i'm a coward.. ) great improvement! thanks!!

By hbarcellos

Hero (662)

16-04-2018, 03:45

Parabéns Victor and all the others: Toni Galvez, Artrag, FRS,...
What a team!
I think that deserves a special, epic, cart!

By Victor

Champion (510)

16-04-2018, 04:49

Manuel wrote:

No.. Sorry.. I use 64 Kbytes of VRAM.. for that reason I say that it should work in any MSX2 or higher... I have double buffer for "Pattern Name Table", "Sprite Attribute Table", other part for the Pause letters,.....

By Victor

Champion (510)

16-04-2018, 04:56

wolf_ wrote:

The original game should scroll each 8*2=16 interrupts.. but this game was designed for more than 3.58 Mhz.. as FRS told here... and the original game has a constant frame dropping... For that reason is recommended a TurboCPU... After that I made some small modification in the TurboFIX routine becuase, for example, is too fast and sometimes the scroll could take effect faster...

By Colemu

Hero (544)

16-04-2018, 13:39

What a lovely surprise Victor!!
Loving these smooth scrolling conversions

The best advantage of owning a TR in my opinion!

The only thing that put me off the Gradious/Nemesis series was loosing all your weapons when you die. At least you've added an invincibility feature so we can now complete the game

Again well done, and here's hoping for more...

By Ivan

Ascended (9406)

16-04-2018, 19:38

Impressive! I do really like the new colorful graphics of the spaceships. And the digitized voices are a nice addition.

By valkyre

Paladin (756)

16-04-2018, 20:40

Fantastic work Victor and team, really appreciate your dedication.

By djh1697

Paragon (1794)

17-04-2018, 00:36

Great with the MFRSCC, great with Sofarun on the C2, cannot get it to work with the C2 flash memory though

By hbarcellos

Hero (662)

17-04-2018, 00:53

BTW, just out of curiosity: Why there's a special version for WebMSX?

By mariocavalcanti

Expert (116)

17-04-2018, 01:49

I played the enhanced version today. Works fine on real MSX and BlueMSX. Really good! Great job by Victor!

By Victor

Champion (510)

17-04-2018, 04:56

hbarcellos wrote:

BTW, just out of curiosity: Why there's a special version for WebMSX?

Becuase the line interrupt, in webMSX, is not correctly emulated and it must be at line 175... not in line 174... and the Joymega routine take conficlt with the emulation and the Mouse has to be disabled by default...

By Victor

Champion (510)

17-04-2018, 06:07

This week I 'll launch a new version with some small fixes and I'll try to include a graphic change that our friend FRS has sent my today...

By Imanok

Paragon (1202)

17-04-2018, 09:23

Amazing work, guys! Thank you very much and congratulations!

By JasonLee

Resident (41)

17-04-2018, 14:22

Just Amazing.

By Wolverine_nl

Paragon (1163)

17-04-2018, 14:28

it has already got Flashjacks support, now we just learned that that cartridge is going to be a local venture, hopefully it will not be only local.

By Louthrax

Prophet (2554)

17-04-2018, 19:49

Yeeeeaaaaah, thanks again Victor

By Maggoo

Paragon (1228)

18-04-2018, 01:36

Great job, it looks fantastic!!!!

By OeiOeiVogeltje

Paragon (1459)

19-04-2018, 19:43

very nice!!

By Victor

Champion (510)

20-04-2018, 18:50

New version v 1.03

Download here.

Change log:

V1.03:
- New David Burton image created by FRS

- MSX1 Message: "Only for MSX2 or higher"
- Fixed Joymega routine completely

By MSX4ever

Champion (263)

21-04-2018, 00:10

Made great !
Thanks Victor !

By gdx

Enlighted (6800)

21-04-2018, 10:38

I played the game today. Impressive, Victor you are the best MSX game improver in the world! Congratulations.

By sinus

Expert (85)

21-04-2018, 12:13

Hi, magic makers! So you did it again
I try to figure out the skills behind these improvements. So your team is composed of a kind of Minister of Scrolling Affaires, a Secretary of Graphic Arts, another twos in charge of Voice sets and Music... But that's a lot of work! Do you think any other contribution would be relevant to you, such as graphics? Or do you rather think it's much too technical for simple pixel art enthusiasts and would be hard to coordinate? I think of that because it seems to be a lot of work, and despite the fact so many of us out there cherishes the achievements, many more games can potentially be tackled that way, and I'm affraid at some stage it may be too much for a bunch of brave ones like you... The same applies for all those who are involved into this recent enhancement trend in MSX developpements (USAS, VK, joypad routines...).
Anyway, so far so good, what's been done will be for ever, and of course I can't help hoping for even more!

- No reply needed, just sharing, just read it as "thank you" -

By the way, I can't get SCC detection to work with v1.03 as it did with v1.02 for voice set (using BlueMSX), is only me?

By zett

Hero (608)

21-04-2018, 12:16

i dont think tha tlast image is a improvemend. you left out some detail to play with the colors. i think it looks now like a mixed styles. you beter redraw it and use more black as shadow.

By Victor

Champion (510)

21-04-2018, 13:01

sinus wrote:

By the way, I can't get SCC detection to work with v1.03 as it did with v1.02 for voice set (using BlueMSX), is only me?

I've put a more restrictive "SCC detection routine", the idea is that in 09880h you write a value, but always read 0FFh... It seems that BlueMSX is not so well done with that... Sorry...

If you want, take a HEX file editor and in file position of ROM 404B6h, write: 00 00

By sinus

Expert (85)

21-04-2018, 20:56

Victor wrote:

If you want, take a HEX file editor and in file position of ROM 404B6h, write: 00 00

I confirm it works fine, SCC for voice set is properly found in BlueMSX! Cheers.

By ToriHino

Paladin (990)

21-04-2018, 22:44

Great work, the improvement is even better now. Hope you guys can do something with Parodius as well

By Giangiacomo Zaffini 2

Champion (304)

22-04-2018, 13:31

I patched today and played a bit on a Panasonic MSX2+ with MFR and a Konami sound cartridge! What a showcase of a 8-bit game! Impressive! Thank You!

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10194)

22-04-2018, 14:07

Haven't played it yet, haven't seen much yet other than the video in the newspost. But how does that large screen-filling spider-like robot move in one of the last levels (the green level)? See, the screen having one kind of movement speed would be relatively easy to scroll, but that spider-thing moves with its own speed, so you got two different speeds!

By konamiman

Paragon (1228)

30-04-2018, 14:32

Finally got some time to give it a try. Absolutely loving the smooth scroll, the Vic Viper sprite... and the increased difficulty. I always thought that the weak point of this game is that it's too easy, but that's fixed now!

By djh1697

Paragon (1794)

18-05-2018, 19:56

I just, finally, completed Nemesis 3, okay I cheated! I used the invincibility mode!! Could not get the SCC to work though? MFRSCC in slot 1, and Carnivore 2 in slot 3, used Sofarun to execute the game. All good fun!!

By djh1697

Paragon (1794)

19-05-2018, 02:12

Swapped the cartridges around, SCC seems to be working ok now

By Feiraco

Master (140)

06-09-2018, 11:55

This is an amazing job!! Thanks Victor and all the other who worked on the improvement of Nemesis 3! It really looks great on the BlueMSX. It gives such a great game a renewed life for next generations.

Gracias otra vez! :-)

By Manuel

Ascended (20068)

02-01-2021, 12:40

I've tried to run it with Carnivore 2 on my turboR, but after starting from the start-up menu of the enhanced game, the game hangs on a white screen (before I would have expected the Konami logo to appear). What am I doing wrong?

By gdx

Enlighted (6800)

03-05-2021, 14:08

The full game in video on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcwowTUvxyA

By Popolon_fr

Expert (96)

23-12-2023, 01:06

This patch is great. Unfortunately, something is wrong with the voices during gameplay. This affects Gradius 2 (patch v1.1) and Gradius 3 (patch v1.4) and a continuous sound that overlaps music like speech which would suddenly freeze, I didn't search for Salamander or others, I've already spent enough time there just to locate the moment where this happens. By pressing the pause button, the music stops but the interfering sound continues. The procedure with Gradius 2 is simple. You must have an object in reserve (Speed, Missile, etc.) and take it just before hitting an obstacle. The two events must be very close. It's different with Gradius 3 and takes longer to highlight. This comes at a specific time, I haven't managed to produce it elsewhere. There is a stage made of dunes and rocks with three undulating tube worms as the final boss. A card is hidden in this stage, you must not take it, it is important, it allows you to replay the same stage in a loop later, which gives a greater chance of producing the bug and not doing like me, go through the entire game over twenty times without finding anything but headaches. In fact, you just need to go to the final Boss, when the scrolling stops, the bug will occur or not (start the same stage again). To make a long story short, as this fault is reproducible on OpenMSX, I made a downloadable backup here.

For Gradius 3, you need the Rom patched in slot 2 and an SCC in slot 1. For Gradius 2, you need the Rom patched in slot 2 and the voice Rom, with the Konami SCC Type selected for this file, in slot 1.

Observation made on a Turbo-R GT with an Ese-Ram and an original Sound Cartridge (2nd Ese-Ram for Gradius 1).

Has anyone already noticed this?

By [WYZ]

Champion (455)

25-12-2023, 22:29

Dear Popolon_fr,

Thanks for informing. Please, send me the backup by other ways since I cannot download from the site you linked . I'll fix the bug if it deppends of voiceset and I hope to contact Victor if the problem is not related. jvicentemz[]gmail

By Popolon_fr

Expert (96)

26-12-2023, 12:07

Mail sent .

By [WYZ]

Champion (455)

26-12-2023, 15:01

1.- Gofer no Yabou Episode 2 - Nemesis 3 The Eve Of Destruction enhanced 1.04

Well, I use this table to lauch the correct sample in each boss. -5- means a dummy sample or no sample (i didn't find a Konami sample wich fits with Triumph Kicks.
Really is a bug: It happens when this no_sample starts and no other sample is lauched during the stage. So congratulations, it its hard to find.

You can temporally fix it with an hex editor, find the table and patch the 5 with another sample number.

BOSS_SAMPLE_TABLE:	DB	5		;0:
			DB	17		;1:
			DB	5		;2:
			DB	17		;3:
			DB	17		;4:0 
			DB	5		;5:0
			DB	14		;6:Stage 1: Geezer Butler
			DB	15		;7:Stage 2: Hans Naughty
			DB	16		;8:Stage 5: Armored Saint
			DB	17		;9:Stage 6: Intruder, Lynyrd Skynyrd
			DB	0		;A: ???
			DB	17		;B:Stage 4:Tetran
			DB	15		;C:Stage 8: Killer Dwarf
			DB	25		;D:Stage 9: Crab Warlock
			DB	5		;E:Stage 7: Triumph Kicks
			DB	17		;F:Stage 10: Queensrÿche
			DB	19		;10:VENOM
			DB	17

By Popolon_fr

Expert (96)

28-12-2023, 22:17

Thanks. Without invincible mode, I could have searched for a long time. With Gradius 2, the problem is easier to reproduce. The sound result is similar but the cause is different.

By gdx

Enlighted (6800)

02-01-2024, 10:18

I hope NYYRIKKI is aware of this bug and can fix his version of Nemesis 2.

By [WYZ]

Champion (455)

05-01-2024, 23:15

*** OFFTOPIC ***

2.- Gradius 2 / Nemesis 2 + FRS (On MSX2+ and MSX Turbo-R: SmothScroll and standard TurboFix) + VOICSET

The VOICESET do not manage STAGE (&hE1C0=4 the screen goes black from left to right) So I've to consider it in this code:

;VOCES DURANTE EL JUEGO
			
			
INICIA_SAMPLE:	CALL	HOOK
			LD	A,[STAGE]
			CP	5
			JP	NZ,NO_INGAME
...

NO_INGAME:	LD	A,[STAGE]	;GAME OVER
			CP	7
			JP	NZ,NO_GAMEOVER
			
			LD	A,[STAGE_STATUS]
			CP	0
			JR	NZ,NO_GAMEOVER
			LD	A,9		;*GAMEOVER*
			CALL	SET_SAMPLE

NO_GAMEOVER:

			RET	;JP	HOOK

Nemesis 3 patch for smooth scrolling and other enhancements

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