Konami software requiring more than the minimum specs

Ascended (19691)

10-01-2018, 11:56

I noticed almost all Konami software only requires the minimum spec of the MSX (8kB RAM) or MSX2 (64kB VRAM).

This is a list of deviations... which ones did I miss?

128kB VRAM:
- Hai no Majutsushi
- MG2SS
- Crash Pennant Race 2
- Quarth
- SD Snatcher
- Space Manbow
- F-1 Spirit 3D Special
- Snatcher

16kB RAM:
- Nemesis 3
- King's Valley II MSX1 (NOT SURE! On the front and side RAM8KB is mentioned, but on the back side 16KB! The game does seem to work normally on a Casio PV-7 with 8kB RAM, but sometimes the game crashes later, like with Salamander. EDIT: BiFi informed me that it only requires 16kB for disk support.
- Salamander

32kB RAM:
- Shinyosizer / Konami's Synthesizer

For completeness, I think that according to the Japanese boxes, all of these only require the minimum:

No thing special mentioned (so minimum):
- Vampire Killer
- A Tricky Journey
- Gradius 2
- King Kong 2
- Metal Gear

States "Can be used in all MSX personal computers" (so 8kB RAM):
- Antarctic Adventure
- Athletic Land
- Baseball
- Billiards
- Boxing
- Circus Charlie
- Comic Bakery
- Football
- Frogger
- Golf
- Hyper Olympic 2
- Hyper Rally
- Hyper Sports 1
- Hyper Sports 2
- Hyper Sports 3
- King's Valley
- Knightmare
- Ping Pong
- Magical Tree
- Mah Jong
- Monkey Academy
- Mopi Ranger
- Nemesis/Gradius
- Parodius
- Penguin Adventure
- Pippols
- Road Fighter
- Sky Jaguar
- Super Cobra
- Tennis
- The Goonies
- THe Maze of Galious
- Time Pilot
- Track & Field 1
- Track & Field 2
- Twin Bee
- Yie Ar KUNG-FU 2
- Yie Ar KUNG-FU

Explicit statement of minimum:
- Crash Pennant Race (64kB VRAM)
- Hino Tori (64kB VRAM)
- King's Valley II MSX2 (64kB VRAM)
- QBert (8kB RAM)
- Shalom (8kB RAM)

All others I haven't checked yet... What did I miss?

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By Victor

Champion (509)

10-01-2018, 12:47

Usas: (64kB VRAM)

By Thom

Paladin (711)

10-01-2018, 12:52

Nice overview, impressive how Konami managed to create such good games using only 8 kB of RAM. Slightly off-topic: how does the memory layout of a 8 kB MSX look like? It seems to me that RAM must be from E000H to FFFFH. So, in page 3 there's nothing between C000H-DFFFH? (If you stick to the BIOS). So, what happens if you do LD A,(C000H)? Does the system hang? Or am I missing something which I should know? If this happens to be a stupid question, then I'd really love to become a bit less stupid

By TomH

Champion (375)

10-01-2018, 13:02

As a general principle, machines of the era don't hang when attempting to talk to something that isn't there, they just end up sampling a bus that is completely open, which means that they read FF. That's how you can test memory at startup: write 0s and see whether you read them back.

By Manuel

Ascended (19691)

10-01-2018, 13:48

Some others I missed (thanks BiFi):
- Konami Game Collecitons require 64kB RAM. The Special requires 64kB VRAM for the MSX2 games.
- Game Master and Game Master 2 require 16kB RAM (also due to disk support)
- F-1 Spirit 3D Special is an MSX2+ game, so the 128kB VRAM is the minimum spec also for that game.

By zett

Hero (608)

10-01-2018, 15:39

manuel msx2+ is always 128kb vram.

By Manuel

Ascended (19691)

10-01-2018, 23:31

zett: that's what I said... or at least what I intended to say

By zett

Hero (608)

11-01-2018, 01:13

Manuel wrote:

zett: that's what I said... or at least what I intended to say

good

By Thom

Paladin (711)

11-01-2018, 03:32

TomH wrote:

Thanks Tom, very clear explanation.

Manuel wrote:

- Konami Game Collecitons require 64kB RAM.

But how did Konami utilize the full 64 kB RAM, as they did use the BIOS in the original roms? DOS environment and interslot calls? I fail to grasp the full story, I'm afraid.

By msd

Paragon (1532)

11-01-2018, 08:37

Isn’t 128KB vram standaard in the msx2+ , so F1 spirit 3D is not a deviation

By Manuel

Ascended (19691)

11-01-2018, 22:22

msd, yes, see my last comments.

Thom: for the game collections, the ROM is loaded into RAM, so it needs at least 48kB.