Messages

1

EverDrive 64 / Re: GoldenEye With Mario Characters

« on: October 14, 2018, 07:45 AM »

BTW, since there were several people asking about patching ROMs on a Mac, if the patch is in any of the traditional formats, IPS, UPS, PPF, XDelta, BSDiff, or BPS, there is an OSS tool that works very well on macOS:

https://projects.sappharad.com/tools/multipatch.html

Hope this helps.

2

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 14, 2018, 06:16 AM »

My guess is that it is a renderer/PPU issue. That's one of the most costly things for an emulator to do, and it only affects a small number of official games. Likely that this hack just gets tripped up on it with timing somewhere because of the menu transparency effects. Depending on why could be an easy or a difficult fix. IDK. :/

I'm at least glad it's not the fault of neither the SD2SNES nor Super NT.

Yeah. So am I.

3

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: SD2SNES boots to a purple screen

« on: October 14, 2018, 01:28 AM »

Have you tried another SNES and/or Super NT?

Does your SNES/Super NT run other carts?

Edit: Ah. I see. You don't have another to test on. But can you test other carts?

Sometimes it's the consoles themselves that go bad, not necessarily the flash cart.

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FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 14, 2018, 12:56 AM »

ROM format is SFC and not SMC

Extension is not indicative of format.

I got 0x1320298e, so it's possible you have a bad ROM or a bad patch.

Also, is that flickering line particularly harmful to LED displays at all? Don't want it to screw something up should I decide to play it.  Also also, have you had a chance to test it on your end?

Doubtful it would damage anything. And no. I'm out ATM.

Edit: Patched an unheadered ROM, got the same checksum as you posted earlier, same anomaly on Higan Accuracy and Super NT. Yeah, short of the author being contacted, no go.

Ah. Okay. Then you have a good ROM. Sorry. Looks like that's the only solution. The mod has issues on real hardware. :/

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FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 14, 2018, 12:03 AM »

I can't seem to find any tools to verify the checksum, maybe Snes9x can display that info during ROM boot up. *sigh* Why can't ROM hack devs develop patches that work on real hardware?  All of this could've been avoided.

You can use 7-Zip on Windows to get the CRC-32 file checksum. Just make sure the ROM is unheadered, which the patch on romhacking.net requires anyway.

6

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 13, 2018, 09:34 PM »

Is there anyway to update a ROM that already has been patched, or do I need to start over?

You should start over and patch from a clean ROM. Then check your checksum against the ones I posted above.

I think ROM Hacking forums is my best bet.

I agree.

7

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 13, 2018, 09:26 PM »

I refuse to use Zsnes, because the garbage S-SMP emulation and speed hacks galore, haven't used it in years.

Fun Fact: There are actually quite a few hacks that /depend/ on ZSNES's garbage S-SMP emulation and speed hacks. They don't work on anything else.

I agree that ZSNES sound is especially offensive among its many issues and makes everything sound like it's in a metal room. Also SA-1 is broken on ZSNES. And it hasn't been updated in over a decade as you say. Oddly, this doesn't stop people from using it nor does it fix those hacks that were made 5-10 years ago when ZSNES was still considered reasonable.

You said yourself that this hack was tested on real hardware, and I believe those screenshots on ROM Hacking were taken from emulators.

Yeah. It said there were fixes done for real hardware in the readme, but clearly it wasn't tested enough or some bad flash cart was used or IDK.

Again, make sure you have the same version as the one romhacking.net is hosting.

8

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 13, 2018, 09:15 PM »

How am I supposed to enjoy it without being distracted by that partially flickering line? It's distracting, it could damage my display (25"  HP Omen display)?  If it's been reproduced, why hasn't anyone reported it?
What's a good idea, me giving up on this? Or reporting it to ROM hacking?  Because either way, not a damn thing's going to get done to fix this.

It might sound bad, but my recommendation is to play it on an emulator where it works properly, like SNES9x or ZSNES, since that's what this hack was designed and tested for and it has significant issues on real hardware. There are ports of SNES9x to various devices, so you'll have some choice of how you want to play it.

I know you aren't going to like that tho. But outside of someone finding a way to fix the hack, which is something I don't personally know how to do, there isn't a solution for real hardware.

There are other hacks that don't work properly on real hardware. It gets even worse and some of them require a specific version of a specific emulator to even work right. Like, you think those Auto-Mario hacks where Mario moves to music work on real hardware? Nope. They are generally designed and timed to work only on ZSNES . . .

If it's been reproduced, why hasn't anyone reported it?

Because most people play on emulators. And often crappy ones. There I said it.

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FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 13, 2018, 09:05 PM »

Good idea.

I will try the jailbreak firmware, and *sigh* I have no choice but to apologize to everyone on here for wasting time, effing yet again.

Son of a bitch... 

Oh, I don't mind. I find this fascinating. 

The fact no one else can reproduce it pisses me off.

Dup84 reproduced it. So, it has been reproduced by others. And on real SNES hardware to boot.

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FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 13, 2018, 08:55 PM »

So uh, that's it? I should just give up and not bother testing anything at all and make it easier not to burden myself or the developers on this site? Sounds like a solid plan to me.

Got it, can't win, don't try.

Well, it's not the SD2SNES's fault from the evidence you've presented.

You could check the ROM again and make sure it's the same as the latest version.

But outside of that, yeah. It's the hack author's fault it doesn't run on real and accurately hardware-simulated hardware properly.

When they design stuff and only test on emulators, this can happen. :/

At least on SNES, higan/BSNES makes it easier to test, and modern hacks do get tested and are more likely to work properly on real hardware.

On N64, even new hacks are unlikely to work on real hardware since the emulators are still so bad.

11

FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 13, 2018, 08:45 PM »

Okay so I ran into something pretty interesting with Higan Accuracy (which is horrible in the performance dept, but useful for testing something like this), and oddly enough, I got the exact same 1:1 result on there, same partial black line with most of it missing and the flickering, too, never thought I'd be able to reproduce it on there, so yeah, it's definitely not my Super NT, maybe it's how it acts on certain Snes models?

Higan and the Super NT are based on the 2/1/3 2-chip SNES, which is also the most common type and also what mine is (SNS-CPU-GPM-02, specifically) and probably what Dup84 has.

So, if Higan reproduces this issue, it's not the SD2SNES. It's normal SNES behavior. It's a bug in the hack translation, and it needs to be fixed by the author of the patch. That's still kinda odd since it was apparently tested on real hardware.

Just to confirm, when I patch the ROM, I get an internal checksum of 0xa83d and a file checksum of 0x1320298e for the unheadered patched ROM.

Same location, I'm thinking that the black line is supposed to cover the entire HUD, but instead on both Super NT and Higan Accuracy, I got the exact same results, same flickering behavior where that black line begins. At this point, I don't even know if this can be fixed, or if it's even worth having the devs look into it, I fear it would be a huge waste of time. *sigh* I was afraid of this 

Based on the screenshots on Romhacking.net, it looks like the intended behavior is for no black line at all like on SNES9x.

Edit: It's fairly easy to download and install the jailbreak firmware, run the game, and then put it back to vanilla 4.5, yes?

It's almost certainly not going to fix anything, so I wouldn't bother. I don't have a Super NT, so I don't really know. I guess so?

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FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 13, 2018, 08:26 PM »

It's possible I don't have the bleeding edge version of the ROM hack, but I don't know for sure, and using a real Snes isn't an option, because A, I don't have an AC adapter and B, because I've no way to hook it up to any other displays. I sure don't have money for an SCC or Framemeister. Super NT has literally no other issues for every other game I play on the SD2SNES, every game I've tested runs 100% perfectly as far as I can tell; it's a very baffling issue, but maybe it's the way the the HUD is being displayed, using some weird Mode 1-7? I've no way to ask how the original translator did it, since he's near-impossible to get a hold of.

I don't think it's your NT. Someone else on this thread already confirmed the issue on a real SNES anyway. It's either the game or the SD2SNES IMO.

Also, I linked to the Romhacking.net page where the patch is hosted. Says the latest version is 1.2b. You can try repatching with the patch there and see if you get the same checksum.

I'd rather not try jailbreak firmware, but it's the only way I can know for sure, and if it turns out the SD2SNES causes it, but jailbreak doesn't, where do we go from there? Is there a GitHub where I can report this on or am I SOL? I'll be back later with the test results.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure that testing with the jailbreak firmware is the only way we are going to know. If it turns out it works as expected on the jailbreak firmware, you could post an issue here:

https://github.com/mrehkopf/sd2snes

Are you able to reproduce it at all? It's weird because on Snes9x 1.55.2, there's no black line at all, but it's consistent and not flickering; IIRC, Snes9x uses very little hacks, if any at all in favor of more accuracy.  I'll try Higan again.

I have a real SNES and a Rev. H SD2SNES. But not sure there's much point in me testing at this point. What we really need to do is rule out the SD2SNES as the cause. And unfortunately, I can't think of any other way other than using Super NT's jailbreak firmware. That should support BoFII since it doesn't have custom chips. If it works fine that way, then I'll check on my Real hardware 2/1/3 SNES + SD2SNES for more confirmation and to make sure it's not some revision thing.

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FXPAK (SD2SNES) / Re: Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

« on: October 13, 2018, 07:43 PM »

That is weird. Based on the Readme for this retranslation, it looks like it was tested on real hardware:

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/1384/

https://www.romhacking.net/translations/snes/patches/1384readme.txt

Make sure you have the newest version of the patch, though I presume you do.

If you can't reproduce the issues on the latest version of higan, it's possible it's an SD2SNES issue, but that seems strange since AFAIK BoFII doesn't have any custom chips or anything . . .

Edit: I forgot. You have a Super NT, the_randomizer. Have you tried loading this game directly using the jailbreak firmware instead of using the SD2SNES?