Breath of Fire 2 - battle HUD missing top line/flickering

[ReddestDream]

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.

[the_randomizer]

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 . . .

I refuse to use Zsnes, because the garbage S-SMP emulation and speed hacks galore, haven't used it in years. The whole idea of me getting a Super NT and SD2SNES is to get the most authentic and accurate experience possible, no overhead, minimal lag, etc. If I wanted to do all that and not care about anomalies, I'd stick with Snes9x 1.55 (best version to date).  You said yourself that this hack was tested on real hardware, and I believe those screenshots on ROM Hacking were taken from emulators.  ROM hacks designed for emulators don't take into account cycle-accuracy but exploit weird quirks in the program, and it's a bloody shame. It's a shame that the same hacks on emulators run like crap on real hardware, goes to show that developers are lazy and only make hacks for the sake of hacks and have to sacrifice accuracy.

I refuse to use Zsnes, the developers abandoned it and don't really support it after 11 years. So Snes9x and Higan are really the only way to go for this game. But yeah, I'm going to get a mod to close this, this is going nowhere.

Snes9x and  Higan both use Blargg's cycle-accurate S-SMP, something Zsnes will never have.  I'm sticking to my Super NT for SNES, so, not happening.

[ReddestDream]

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.

[the_randomizer]

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.

Is there anyway to update a ROM that already has been patched, or do I need to start over? Zsnes is the true I.E. 6 of emulators, hot garbage and wildly popular. If I got the same ROM checksum as you, I have the same version, so I'll check that out first.

I think ROM Hacking forums is my best bet.

[ReddestDream]

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.

[the_randomizer]

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.

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.

[ReddestDream]

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.

[the_randomizer]

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.

Ran the CRC32 with 7-zip and, well, it's not what I expected.

ROM size: 4194304 bytes (32 megabits)
CRC32: EFB81E29
ROM format is SFC and not SMC
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?

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.

[ReddestDream]

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. :/

[the_randomizer]

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. :/

Yeah, I asked on ROM hacking to see if there was a way to contact the original authors/team, no response yet. I wish I knew more about the SNES PPU and why it does what it does, especially when Higan accuracy and Super NT have the same results, but Snes9x 1.56 and Higan performance are 100% identical. Methinks it may be related to the fact that the former use scanline-based rendering versus dot-based rendering (more accurate). Maybe. I mean, it's not like the screen is flashing, just that weird line and a few pixels on there, so weird.

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

[ReddestDream]

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.

[the_randomizer]

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.

Times like this makes me wished I knew more about how the PPU renders, and there is one instance where this game uses pseudo hi-res mode, beginning in the game in the forest behind the village (the funky shadows). Snes is definitely a complex machine, if only there was a GitHub I could report this to.