Final Fight 3 Optimized 1.1

This hack optimizes Final Fight 3 so that there are fewer slowdowns during the game. Several optimizations have been made, none of which alter the original gameplay or are explicitly notable. Some of the changes made are:

• The routine that pulls unused sprites off the screen has been completely replaced with a faster one.

• The game originally and unnecessarily updated all 256 colors every frame, now it has been divided into four steps.

• If there is excessive CPU load, CGRAM mirror updating is paused to prevent a lag frame.

• During an interruption routine, the game originally waited until it reached H-Blank. The horizontal starting point of the interrupts has been moved to avoid wait loops.

• The routine for storing the sequence of inputs has been optimized.

• Some loops that used RAM as a scratchpad now use DMA registers as a faster RAM alternative.

And a few more small things. The top black border is 3 lines smaller now, showing background details that weren’t visible before.

Version 1.1 Update:

• Many more optimizations have been made, including a new lag prevention system. If lag is about to occur, the game will give the CPU a little more time to finish before updating the next frame.

• Optimized OAM routine.

• Fixed a rare sprite glitch from the previous version.