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RPGHacker / asar

(Now) official repository of the SNES assembler Asar, originally created by Alcaro
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How do I actually compile a ROM, not a patch? #286

Closed Videogamer555 closed 1 year ago

Videogamer555 commented 1 year ago

When I type asar.exe (with no filename), instead of saying something like "error no asm code file found", or even displaying a list of available commandline switches, it instead goes into some weird IPS patcher mode. It seems from this alone that this software (despite being called an assembler) is really more of a patching tool. I'm looking for a good quality assembler to write my own ROMs, not to patch existing ROMs. Is it possible to do that with asar? If not, do you have any alternative to recommend?

Alcaro commented 1 year ago

Yes, Asar is primarily designed for patching, but it works fine for homebrews too. Simply use a nonexistent file as output.

RPGHacker commented 1 year ago

Asar is most commonly used as a patching tool in the SMW Hacking community, but is certainly also capable of creating new ROMs from scratch. While I can't comment on whether it's the best tool for that job (I've never used any other SNES assemblers), I do know of enough who people are actively using it for homebrew development and/or disassemblies.

One thing that Asar has going for it is a pretty powerful define and macro system that will come back to haunt you and bite you in the ass one day that can be used to achieve a lot of stuff via meta-programming. For example, generating HDMA tables for your ROM to use at run-time.

Since this is more of a question and not an actual issue or feature request, I'll go ahead and close this (but if you have further questions, feel free to open a thread under Discussions).