Through working on Princess Crown and more recently Langrisser III there’s been times where I’ve been working with tight code space. Sometimes you need to add a few instructions and you just have no space to put them. Anyways, here’s some areas I found where you can often optimize the code giving you a few extra precious bytes to work with:
- Negative or high value word’s stored as long’s. Sometimes you run into following scenario:
mov.l my_label, r0
[more code here]
my_label: .long 0xFFFD
The data then is basically treated as a word for its entire use. It’s a bit inefficient since you should be able to store it as a word instead. Of course you may also have to deal with data alignment which may negate the savings. So a better approach instead is as follows:
mov #0xFD, r0
extu.w r0, r0
This works because of how the SH2 loads immediates. It always sign extends so it ends up as 0xFFFFFFD, etc. Then you can clamp it down to the word value of 0xFFFD with extu. - Unnecessary extu’s. Sometimes there’s cases where code may want to check for a specific value like 0xFFFD and it’s reading word’s from a buffer:
mov.w @r0, r0
extu.w r0, r0
mov #0xFD, r1
extu.w r1, r1
cmp/eq r0, r1
bt my_label
Given that reading word from a buffer and loading an immediate both sign extend, there’s really no point in converting them both to words. Here’s a smaller version:
mov.w @r0, r0
mov #0xFD, r1
cmp/eq r0, r1
bt my_label
- Similar pointers. Occasionally you run into code that reads and writes to specific address:
mov #0, r0
mov.l addr1, r1
mov.l r0, @r1
mov.l addr2, r2
mov.l r0, @r2
addr1: .long 0x06005000
addr2: .long 0x06005040
So long as the addresses are within offset -/+ 127 you can strip out the second address immediate and use an add instruction:
mov #0, r0
mov.l addr1, r1
mov.l r0, @r1
mov r1, r2
add #0x40, r2
mov.l r0, @r2
addr1: .long 0x06005000
Just remember that add immediate is signed byte(just like loading immediates). so “add #0xFF, r0” is the equivalent of add -1, not add 0x000000FF. - Unused code. If you can find it and it just happens to be larger than the code you want to insert then use this. Most of the typical unused code you’ll see is related to the CD Block. In fact the official libs used for the CD Block were incredibly bloated. If you know what you’re doing you can find some space here.
- Unused HWRAM areas. If you’re lucky 0x06000C00-0x06004000 may only be partially used or not used at all. You can usually verify this by running the game, and checking 0x06000C00/0x06002000 areas and see if it contains data from the first sector of the disc. If it’s still there then it’s quite likely the area is free. I’d still run some checks to make sure though.
Hey, I was thinking about dipping my feet into the Saturn Grandia Translation Project, and all my digging around for information led me to you. I was wondering if I could speak with you maybe over Skype (or email if you prefer) regarding this so I can pick your brain a bit. I really want to see this project come to life, but don’t really know where to start and could use a hand.
Greetings Warrior. Does seq2midi work on Windows 7 x64 ?
When i start exe appears message “the version of this file is not compatible with the version o windows you’re running,
check your computer’s system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or
x64(64-bit) version o the program, and then contact the software publisher.”
Compatibility mod doesn’t help.
I want to convert saturn ssf music file to midi. Your program is last chance ? or maybe you can
advise me another way for convert.
The compiled exe may not work on newer computers. However the source code was provided so it could be recompiled.
Hello i wish to contact yu but your contact menu don t work 🙁 you could email me when you have few minutes. thanks
Hey Warrior, I just wanted to give a word of support, and encouragement. I know the fan translation world can often be thankless work, especially when the few bugs are seen and focused on, not the hundreds of lines of code that it takes just to get the letter “A” to show up everywhere it’s supposed to. I love the work you’re doing, and hope you know how much the many silent members of the emulation community appreciate your efforts, and achievements. You are more than a scholar and a gentleman, you are a gaming savant, who brings the many foreign worlds of times past, to a passionate population of the people who grew up loving the same games as you. Keep on Keeping on, and thank you for everything you do.