Game not designed for this system - Discussion

[Aroenai]

This topic was discussed a little bit here, here, and here

Basically, some games implement checks that read the value stored at 0x80000300 and display a screen saying the cartridge was not designed for this system. Some games have a check to block the console but don't display an error message (as an example - Majora's Mask JP has a check, doesn't display an error message, but hangs at a black screen after the Nintendo 64 logo if you try and run it in 50 hz mode).

There's a Brazilian Portuguese translation for Majora's Mask that uses the N64 PAL rom, and I've just recently broken on the PAL Rev A rom. You can find the ported translation here:
MM (T-BR)(Projeto BR)(1.1)(Aroenai).zip (use the "Legend of Zelda, The - Majora's Mask (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es) (Rev A).z64" Big Endian rom)


Now, while I haven't been successful with the Australian version of Beetle Adventure Racing (HSV Adventure Racing), I think I've narrowed down the location of the check to 0x8005ADB4. Maybe someone else can trace the asm that reads from 0x80000300 and figure out what it's doing?

[saturnu]

for my transfer pak patches, i've used a modified version of mupen64plus that is recording a ringbuffer of the last interpreted instructions.
i don't really have breakpoints implemented, i just mod the interpreter source to trigger at specific events, but this makes it very flexible.
if it breaks i can use IDA to do a byte sequence search to find the offset inside the rom.
n64 asm hacking is quite complex with all these threads and functions. an intruction path helps me to keep track a little bit better. ^^

i guess what you are trying to achive is to set another tv type before loading a rom, so that the rom itself can setup the VI to a different tv mode, if the nag screen is disabled.
or you just leave the check as it is and overwrite the video table. ^^

[ozidual]

What happens if you change the first LW for that location into a SW r0?  Basically, instead of checking to see if it says 1 or 0, just store a 0 there because that hard codes it to work.

If the check is stopping the game from freezing because it can't handle either 50Hz or 60Hz, then bypassing this won't help either way.  If the check is just an annoying DRM thing, this will skip it.  Or does this byte do something else?

Sorry, normally I would test this theory out, but I only have a few minutes right now.

[Aroenai]

What happens if you change the first LW for that location into a SW r0?  Basically, instead of checking to see if it says 1 or 0, just store a 0 there because that hard codes it to work.

It "works" in that it bypasses the error, but the cars in the intro seem to be crashing into things that they're not supposed to so I think some other tests use that value to determine physics. (50hz vs 60 hz in some sections of code) Emulators are apparently very bad with the demos for this game, however setting the LW to a SW will force the game to keep 50 hz mode, skipping the actual jump mentioned below bypasses the protection and allows 60 hz mode. This method will only work for some games though.

Edit: Wow, ok.. I guess that's actually how the game is without any modifications. HSV Adventure Racing! (Australia).zip - Apply to the Big Endian (.z64) untouched rom.

Also, it's even easier than I was originally thinking. Just NOP the extra jump at 0x800006E4, and it'll run in 60 hz and break the protection.

[johnson]

thats great Areonai !  with shadow man (E) (M3)  the same thing happens the screen says "Game not designed for this system".  but now I can play HSV Adventure Racing in my ntsc console thank you very much!  .

 Could you do a patch for Shadow man (E) (M3) Please ?
 

[Aroenai]

Weird game, and sadly optimized for 50 hz so you're gonna have to play it in PAL mode for the cutscene timing to be correct.
Shadow Man (Europe) (En,Es,It).zip

Changes the instruction at 0x002D84AC to a J to bypass the protection.


Only patching that game because it has the option for other languages, but moving forward I'll only patch roms that have some type of difference between regions (censorship, specific languages not available in NTSC, etc.) to make patching out the "Not for this system" error worthwhile.

[johnson]

Weird game, and sadly optimized for 50 hz so you're gonna have to play it in PAL mode for the cutscene timing to be correct.
Shadow Man (Europe) (En,Es,It).zip

Changes the instruction at 0x002D84AC to a J to bypass the protection.


Only patching that game because it has the option for other languages, but moving forward I'll only patch roms that have some type of difference between regions (censorship, specific languages not available in NTSC, etc.) to make patching out the "Not for this system" error worthwhile.

Thanks and sorry for bothering, you always help the community a lot 

[Aroenai]

Well, F-1 Racing Championship has a Brazilian release which runs in 60hz, taking a look into F-1 World Grand Prix II to see if it actually has a 60hz mode or not... this one might take a little while...

Edit: My bad I guess there's already a NTSC patch for F-1 World Grand Prix II but the header is wrong. Patch this against the original rom: https://www.mediafire.com/?5slj3wch7spmdp3

For F-1 Racing Championship, use the "F1 Racing Championship (Brazil) (En,Fr)" rom.

Figured I should probably copy my post from Reddit here as well.

[johnson]

Great !. Other game that is better on PAL version it's  space station silicon valley and works with the expansion pak  sadly only works in 50 hz. I don't know if works with your method for allows 60 hz mode , if you have time Would you like to try to patch it, please?
 

[SunGodPortal]

I once used a program called Ucon64 to disable the region protection in some PAL SNES games. It's also compatible with N64 games so it might have a similar option for that system. It's a command line tool but there is a frontend available for it.

[Aroenai]

Region protection on N64 games is more complicated unfortunately, ucon64 does not have the option to get past the "Game not designed for this system" message they added to later N64 releases.

What's different in the PAL release of Space Station Silicon Valley? I'm not familiar with this game.

[johnson]

the difference is that pal version has a seven lenguages and work properly with the expansion pak , the ntsc version only has a english lenguage also has a bug and doesn't work properly when the expansion pak is used , so  the pal version is better than ntsc version.

[Kerr Avon]

Region protection on N64 games is more complicated unfortunately, ucon64 does not have the option to get past the "Game not designed for this system" message they added to later N64 releases.

What's different in the PAL release of Space Station Silicon Valley? I'm not familiar with this game.

The NTSC version crashes if there is an expansion pak present, but the PAL version (which was released later than the NTSC version, as was usual back then) works fine with an expansion pak. I did read somewhere that a fixed NTSC version was released, which would work with an expansion pak present, but I don't know if that is true.

[wprpalmeida]

International Superstar Soccer 2000 has a PAL-exclusive Career Mode I'd love to be able to play in 60Hz.

[Jpedro]

its easy create a region patch?

i have one game:Michael Owen WLS 2000, its a soccer exclusive pal game, someone have a region patch for ntsc 60Hz for this game?