Dracula 3D patch, anyone got it?

[SuperDeadite]

Now this is one hell of a long shot, but according to this Japanese blog, there is actually a fan made patch that adds 3D Goggle support to Dracula.  Something I'd love to try out.  But besides this one post, there is no other proof of it's existence.  About 8 months ago, I posted a comment on the blog about locating it, but it's still "awaiting approval" to even show up as a comment...
Good chance this one is lost forever, but damn I can still hope..

http://mojira68.blog24.fc2.com/blog-entry-4.html

[kamiboy]

Where the deuce would you even find 3D goggles that work with the X68000?

I've always wondered about that port. What games even support 3D out of the box?

[SuperDeadite]

Where the deuce would you even find 3D goggles that work with the X68000?

I've always wondered about that port. What games even support 3D out of the box?

As shown in that blog, Sharp made their own, it was actually a full set that included an I/O board for X1 usage.  In fact Sharp even sold their own rebranded Famicom goggles to match their TwinFami systems.

All those old goggles used the same tech, you can easily make an adapter.  I've seen people sell moded Fami goggles several times.  The official X68/X1 set is quite rare though.

As for games, Fantasy Zone is the only game that officially supports them, and it's a hidden feature not mentioned anywhere in the manual.  The Dracula patch is the only other use I've ever heard of.  Why more games didn't support them is beyond me.  But they failed so bad, Sharp removed the 3d port when they did the compacts...

What's funny though is that Ving actually made 3 FM Towns games to support 3d goggles (Final Blow, Operation Wolf, Image Fight), but the Towns never had actual glasses, you could order a Famicom 3D adapter cable (they plug into Towns controller port 2) directly from Ving though.

[kamiboy]

Fascinating. Venturing deep into the Japanese PC market is like exploring a magical primordial rainforest, the wonders never cease.

[cr4zymanz0r]

As I expected, my google searches for the patch failed miserably. Have you tried finding any contact information for the blog owner? That would probably still be a long shot though since it looks like it's been 3 years since the blog has been updated.

The 3D glasses intrigue me though. Since I bet the original X68000 version is probably nearly impossible to find, do you know of any guides/documentation for making an adapter to use the Famicom 3D glasses (or any other more available 3D glasses)?

[lydux]

I'm sure it's pretty easy : any kind of LCD shutter based glasses with a wire should do it. The wire generally end up with a 3.5mm stereo jack.
I can see some on ebay, like this one : http://www.ebay.com/itm/150924199237?ru=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_sacat%3D0%26_from%3DR40%26_nkw%3D150924199237%26_rdc%3D1

Here is the jack pinouts (a standard) :
- Tip : +5V
- Ring : 3D sync in
- Sleeve : Ground

And for the x68000 side, check here first : http://www.cityfujisawa.ne.jp/~akitsura/connect/X68_3D.html
- Pin 1 : 3D sync out
- Pin 2 : Right shutter control out
- Pin 3 : Left shutter control out
- Pin 4 : +5V
- Pin 5 : Ground
- Pin 6 : Ground

I think shutter controls lines (pin 2 & 3) were designed for others kind of 3d glasses, or are here for lcd shutters testing... Just ignore them.


Also, please note that this is pure theory !

[neko68k]

I'm not sure what this is intended for. There's an article on one of the Dennou Club disks.

[BlueBMW]

That looks like the schematic for an adapter to use the famicom 3d glasses adaper... Ill have to try that out!

[kamiboy]

I wonder how said 3D patch even works, technically. This leads me furthermore to wonder how flexible the 3D hardware capabilities of the X68000 are.

Your frame rate would obviously be cut in half, which for a slow paced game like Akumajou should not be too big an issue.

I assume all the 3D patch does is to turn whole graphics/sprite planes into flat 3D planes with variable depth according to oneanother.

Like make the background plane the furthest and the sprite plane the closest plane to the screen.

Still, most levels would need special attention since some trickery is often used to create the illusion of more planes than the hardware could support.

Personally I would be much more interested in a 15khz patch for that game.

[lydux]

This thread is interesting !

I wonder how said 3D patch even works, technically. This leads me furthermore to wonder how flexible the 3D hardware capabilities of the X68000 are.

Pure theory again : I think the 3D sync signal is in sync with the CRTC vertical blanking.

Your frame rate would obviously be cut in half, which for a slow paced game like Akumajounshould not be too big an issue.

Indeed ! That means 30Hz for each eye... I guess it could give you a great headache !

I assume all the 3D patch does is to give whole graphics/sprite planes into flat 3D planes with variable depth according to oneanother.

Like make the background plane the furthest and the sprite plane the closest plane to the screen.

Still, most levels would need special attention since some trickery is often used to create the illusion of more planes than the hardware could support.

Because of the nature of the x68000 hardware, you can simply assign priorities to each graphic layers against each others, and scroll them independently. So, the patch take place on each VBLANK interrupt : one time in two, offset each layers by the desired depth.
Something like this... Don't you think ?

[kamiboy]

I would only do it that way if the X68000 does not have any system calls to aid with adding 3D effect to games. I do not have a list of IOCS calls here, but there must one one two that relate to 3D capability.

The IOCS calls are a bit too sleek and well put together for me to not expect this, but you never know.

The problem with this and 15khz support is that testing them in an emulator is pretty much impossible.

[SuperDeadite]

Fantasy Zone is the only game that officially supports 3D, and it doesn't have a 15khz mode...  It only runs in 31 or 24.  24 is the preferred way if you have a compatible monitor.

[kamiboy]

That is one of the few examples where a lack of 15khz is actually defendable since the arcade version natively ran in 24khz as well.

In case of Dracula I consider it unforgivable.