AI Tool Labs

Builds about Retro

Free tools for homebrew on the NES, Master System, SNES and Mega Drive, aimed at the code and art that look plausible but break on real hardware limits. Each one is tested on games or art written by Claude, and run headless in an emulator where the post says so. Start with the profiler: the lint and the checker build on what it measured.

Reading order

  1. SGDK profiler: find the function that causes slowdown: mdprof, a headless Mega Drive profiler: per-frame load, dropped frames, DMA overflow and the function behind each.
  2. SGDK performance: a lint for slow code, tested on 40 AI games: measured 68000 costs of ordinary SGDK code, and a lint that flags them in 40 AI-written games.
  3. A pixel art checker for NES, SNES, SMS and Mega Drive limits: palette, attribute and tile limits on four consoles, checked on 72 images drawn by Claude.

  1. A pixel art checker for NES, SNES, SMS and Mega Drive limits

    pixcheck tests a PNG against each console's palette, attribute and tile limits. Claude's art broke them in 11 of 36 images, all NES or SNES.

    Shipped

  2. SGDK performance: a lint for slow code, tested on 40 AI games

    Measured 68000 costs of common SGDK code, a lint that flags them on the frame path, and what it found in 40 Mega Drive games written by Claude.

    Partly worked

  3. SGDK profiler: find the function that causes slowdown

    A headless Mega Drive profiler built on Genesis Plus GX: per-frame load, dropped frames, DMA overflow and the function behind each, at 26x real time.

    Shipped