nesdev.org

Hi there,
I know this is a very specific question, but it's driving me crazy; well I had some MURAMASA PCB boards with some games that I don't play, so I decided to replace its EEPROMs for something different. So everything went fine until I tried to make the translated version of Mickey to Donald Magical Adventure 3 (RPG one) which is an SFC game. The board I was using is the SNES DIP42 Advanced 4MB 1.01


And this might be the problem, Idk. but I've used a PCB that contains all the necessary chips and a battery soldered in to create a game that uses save file which isn't the case of that game.

But this game has a ROM size of 2.5MB so I've used Lunar Expand to make it 4MB and the PCB is soldered in a way that also read 4MB EEPROMs, so it should work in theory but I'm always getting a black screen.
I say ALWAYS because I've tried different ROM configurations and I'm just wasting EEPROMS with my tests

this is what I've done so far:
- Clean SFC ROM
- Checked if there was a Header
- Patched the ROM with the IPS translation
- ROM went from 2MB to 2.5MB so I use Lunar Expand to make it 4MB
- Repaired Checksum with IpsAndSum
- Programm a 27C322
===========================================
BLACK SCREEN

Then I've tried the following,
All the above
using ucon64 -k to remove protection (crack)
using ucon64 -l to remove SlowROM checks (this might be a problem?)
using ucon64 -k to remove NTSC/PAL protection
repaired the Checksum with ucon64 -chk
==========================================
BLACK SCREEN

I'm not sure if removing the slowROM checks can cause the black screen or I'm not supposed to solder the PCB in a way that loads a battery and an SRAM when the game won't need them, but I don't want to make further testing and keep wasting EEPROMs when I'm not sure what the problem is.

Can someone here lend me a hand with this?
thank you!

I don't a very helpful message but I wanted to ask, why do you say 'wasting EPROMS'? Are you not able to erase them? If you don't have an EPROM eraser, you can set them outside in direct sunlight for a week or two and they should erase.

Ben Boldt wrote:I don't a very helpful message but I wanted to ask, why do you say 'wasting EPROMS'? Are you not able to erase them? If you don't have an EPROM eraser, you can set them outside in direct sunlight for a week or two and they should erase.

It's because, at least for me, it's very hard to desolder them from the Muramasa without messing them up... but, if they survive the desoldering process, they use to fail while reprogramming ...

PD: I ordered a 42-PIN socket adaptor in order to test the ROMs before soldering... but I don't live in the US and it takes a while to get the items from eBay

I don't have an answer, but I can give some warnings:

Likely: Sometimes translations/hacks don't work on the real system, when they were unable to test on a real system during development. Older SNES emulators are notoriously forgiving about things that completely choke a real SNES.
Unlikely: Sometimes they might work on a Game Doctor etc. but not a "real cart", due to initialization issues.
Likely: There must be many games ucon64 doesn't know how to patch. I experienced this myself back when I used a Game Doctor, I ended up cracking at least a couple of them by hand. I think they were Rock and Roll Racing, and SimCity 2000.

I think copy protection is the most likely problem. What is the SRAM size VS what the game expects?

You probably know this, but you might need to run ucon64 on it before applying the translation patch.

Memblers wrote:I don't have an answer, but I can give some warnings:

Likely: Sometimes translations/hacks don't work on the real system, when they were unable to test on a real system during development. Older SNES emulators are notoriously forgiving about things that completely choke a real SNES.
Unlikely: Sometimes they might work on a Game Doctor etc. but not a "real cart", due to initialization issues.
Likely: There must be many games ucon64 doesn't know how to patch. I experienced this myself back when I used a Game Doctor, I ended up cracking at least a couple of them by hand. I think they were Rock and Roll Racing, and SimCity 2000.

I think copy protection is the most likely problem. What is the SRAM size VS what the game expects?

You probably know this, but you might need to run ucon64 on it before applying the translation patch.

I've googled about this problem and there is a guy who had the same issue with the same ROM some years ago, he said he had to modify a hex code with a hex editor in order to make the game works in real hardware, but I've checked the rom and it seems I've got the right version of the ROM. Only thing I did extra was removing slowROM checks (so idk if this could also cause this problem).

About SRAM size; this game doesn't use SRAM, but the PCB i'm using comes from a game that used SRAM before, so the spots for SRAM are all soldered with its corresponded chips... so maybe that could be the issue... I'm just not sure about this, I'll ask the muramasa guys anyway...

PD: this forum is awesome! this theme is soo niche and you guys are answering so fast.. I cannot believe this , thanks for the support

Some games do check if SRAM is present (e.g. Demon's Crest) eventhough they do not have it. Always use only the components that are needed for each game. I have made a few Mickey & Donald 3 carts and all of them were working fine.

Here are some questions/things that come in my mind that could prevent the game from loading otherwise:

Does the game even work in an accurate emulator?
-Snes9x, bsnes, higan, Mesen-S, etc.

Were the jumpers set properly for HiROM game and 32MBit (4MB = 27C322)?
-If playing on a Retron 5 (or other emulation console that dumps the game) you WILL definetely need to fix the game header, checksum (maybe not this) and ROM size in order to make it dump correctly. Just saying.

Have you tested any other games with these 27C322 before to make sure they're working?
-Some have reached their limit and might die or eventhough they've been programmed successfully they may not work.


Another thing is, if you're having troubles desoldering them already from those great solder pads, I can only recommend you to learn more about soldering and practice as well as get proper tools.

Ice Man wrote:Some games do check if SRAM is present (e.g. Demon's Crest) eventhough they do not have it. Always use only the components that are needed for each game. I have made a few Mickey & Donald 3 carts and all of them were working fine.

This might be the issue as I'm using components that the cart doesn't really needs.
btw. Did you made a translated game? if so, do you remember using Lunar expand to make that ROM a 4MB one?

Does the game even work in an accurate emulator?
-Snes9x, bsnes, higan, Mesen-S, etc.

Yes, I've tested it on Snes9x and bsnes ant they work fine.

Were the jumpers set properly for HiROM game and 32MBit (4MB = 27C322)?
-If playing on a Retron 5 (or other emulation console that dumps the game) you WILL definetely need to fix the game header, checksum (maybe not this) and ROM size in order to make it dump correctly. Just saying.

Yep, they are set for HiROM and 27C322

Have you tested any other games with these 27C322 before to make sure they're working?
-Some have reached their limit and might die or even though they've been programmed successfully they may not work.

Yep, I've tested some games before and they worked fine, they did make use of ALL components in the PCB though... which is not the case of Mickey to Donald which doesn't need SRAM

Another thing is, if you're having trouble desoldering them already from those great solder pads, I can only recommend you to learn more about soldering and practice as well as get proper tools.

Yes, I'm new to soldering, I've learned this through making these repros haha, but the problem really comes when I've to desolder

You can watch Youtube videos to help learn how to desolder better. Desoldering can be hard; good to practice on junk boards you find in the garbage.

I always expand the ROMs to the next MB and fix checksum after just to make sure.

I need to remove Sram and battery from a pcb to use it with other game that doesn't need save game, anyone know where I can find this?

Find what? Just don't solder these compoments then if they're not needed. Simple as that.