Splitting a ROM and getting a Footer file?

xander · Post by **xander** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 8:14 am

Hi everyone,

I am trying to make a reproduction of the hack Bubble Bobble Madness for the game Bubble Bobble on the NES. I splitted the file using TniNES and I got 4 files: Header, CHR, PRG and a Footer (ext: .ftr).

The PRG is 128 Ko., the CHR is 32 Ko. and the footer is 32 Ko. I've never seen a footer file, can I safely ignore it and make my repro only using the CHR and PRG files? What is the purpose of a footer file? Is it made only to pad the ROM to a multiple of 64 (wild guess)?

Dwedit · Post by **Dwedit** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:20 am

Look at the footer file.
Some people stuck footers on the rom to give credit to the rom site which distributed the file, other people stick a footer on the game to indicate its name.

xander · Post by **xander** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 10:50 am

I opened it in EditPad Lite, Wordpad, notepad and HxD and it looks like gibberish to me.

..p¸ìÜt8..p˜¨Èp...`°(Pðx..`. @ð...`°hPðx..`. @ð...p¸ìÜt8..p˜¨Èp... p00p8.. ` p...p¸|<tx..pˆx.p...p¸tøt8..pˆpˆp...ø|.(0...ø.. ...p¸t¸t8..pˆpˆp...p¸|<t8..pˆx.p...p¸üüÌD..pˆøˆˆ...ðøôøôx..ðˆðˆð....x.p.x..ð€à€ð...ð¸ÌÌôx..ðˆˆˆð...ðøàððx..ð€à€ð....0.tDD..pˆøˆˆ...x¼ØÌt8..x€˜ˆp....8. .p..p€`.à.

Stuff like that.

MottZilla · Post by **MottZilla** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 11:10 am

Open the footer in a NES graphics editor. Maybe it's intended to be CHR ROM. If not, then it's nothing I imagine. Try combing the header and the PRG and CHR again without the footer data and see if it works on the emulators too.

Dwedit · Post by **Dwedit** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 11:58 am

I think it's an overdump, the footer is probably a duplicate of the CHR.

xander · Post by **xander** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:20 pm

Alright guys this is slightly embarassing and I feel incompetent but I cannot seem to make the -j command work in tniNES. I tried a dozen different way to rejoin the files back into a .NES file and it doesn't work. =/

Anyone have any experience with the command? I have all 4 files in the same folder as TNINES, all files have the same name with different extensions (bbm.hdr, bbm.prg, bbm.chr and bbm.ftr). I tried without the header or footer. After I run the command it says it created the file bbm.nes but the files doesn't show up. I thought at some point it was some shit with vista permissions. I gave admin privilege to tnines.exe and made sure the folder had open permission from everything, but it didn't work either. And if I make an empty bbm.nes hoping that it will just edit it, my empty file disappear and isn't replaced by a new one.

I downloaded QND, NESImage and cajoNES trying to find another program able to do it, but they don't seem to have that function.

Post by **Memblers** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:14 pm

The command "copy /b bbm.hdr+bbm.prg+bbm.chr+bbm.ftr bbm.nes" is the usual way to do it. The /b means binary (not text).

xander · Post by **xander** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 6:12 pm

Aaah much simpler.

Thank you Memblers. The ROM seems to work without the footer. I'll give it a try and run it on real hardware

Thank you again everyone for your input.