nesdev.org

God that sounds great !!

Dwedit wrote:So how many of the hacked up translations actually work on hardware?

I'm pretty sure that most do. Playing them on real hardware is nothing new. The backup units have been around before any translation projects were started. I know I didn't have any trouble with Final Fantasy 4 or Seiken Densetsu 3. I didn't play them all the way to the end but still I didn't have any problems in the part I played.

Hojo, that would be totally awesome, but I won't get my hopes up on anyone completing such a project. I'll believe it when I can buy it.

Please finish that soon. I need that sd storage for euhm..multiple homebrew game storage methods.

MottZilla wrote:Hojo, that would be totally awesome, but I won't get my hopes up on anyone completing such a project. I'll believe it when I can buy it.

I regularly visit the guy's (Scott Goldman) blog. He seems to be making a decent amount of progress and if I remember correctly he's doing it for some academic project mainly. I think if he completes it we should at least get schematics and what not, it's not as if it's impossible to hand solder FPGAs and the like! ^_^

Is supporting SuperFX part of his project's goal?

Dwedit wrote:So how many of the hacked up translations actually work on hardware?

If any problem at all, usually it's something like a hacked-in intro screen that'll be screwed up, and everything else is fine. I can't recall any specific titles though.

The added intros in Translation Corporation titles (Dual Orb 2, Wozz) don't work properly when built into a cart. You can hear the music but nothing on the screen. You can get it to show up intermittently by reseting a few times. The strange thing is that the added intro works when using a gd7 or playing on bsnes.

shadowkn55 wrote:The strange thing is that the added intro works when using a gd7 or playing on bsnes.

Definitely sounds like an initialization problem. A cart like the Mash-Mods one here (which looks pretty cool btw) is the way to find these kind of bugs. I was surprised my NSF Player reportedly worked on cart (I used a gd7), but the initialization routine was huge (and ripped from somewhere).

cybertron - say an SNES cart had a FlashROM and CIC, only the basics, is anything else needed on-cart to reprogram it?

Memblers,
Its easy to replace the ROM chip with a flash chip. But this only goes to 512kB unless you build an adapter for a larger one.

If you connect the Write signal to the flash you can reprogram it in the cart easily. The snesflash program would have to be updated tho.


What games use SuperFX?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_FX has a games list.

The best ones obviously being SMW 2 and Starfox. Though I kinda liked Dirt Trax back then.

But personally I'm interested in SuperFX support more as a coder than as a gamer. Same goes for other chips like SA-1 and CX4.

I just received my programmer and I'm going to do a mini review from a dumper standpoint.

Pros
-----
-Uses USB interface for power and transfer. No dicking with EPP/ECP BIOS settings, no slow transfers, and guaranteed to work on new motherboards.
-Dumps almost any game quickly and reliably in mere seconds.
-Drivers support 64-bit OS.
-Very reasonable price for such a niche product.
-Responsive tech support in native English.

Cons
------
-No rubber feet on the bottom corners to keep it in place like my tototek programmer.
-Dumping software is command prompt only. It works, but a GUI would be faster.
-Can't dump SA-1 games, but neither could my tototek programmer so maybe it's not possible.
-Documentation recommends loading a game in snes9x to obtain internal rom attributes. Using NSRT or GameHeader is a far better way to go about doing that.
-Supports flashing "SWC" and "SMC" copier extensions (which need to die), but not "SFC".
-Uses "BIN" and "SAV" as examples instead of supported emulator extensions "SFC" and "SRM."
-Doesn't include the necessary USB cable and no offering is made on the site.

Current rating: 9/10.

cybertron wrote: If you connect the Write signal to the flash you can reprogram it in the cart easily. The snesflash program would have to be updated tho.

Great. Mostly it's because surface-mount is preferable, so if I ever make an SNES cart with SMT Flash I'd rather use something like this. It'd be easier than hacking up a Game Docter bios, heh.

FitzRoy wrote:Cons
------
-Dumping software is command prompt only. It works, but a GUI would be faster.
-Can't dump SA-1 games, but neither could my tototek programmer so maybe it's not possible.
-Documentation recommends loading a game in snes9x to obtain internal rom attributes. Using NSRT or GameHeader is a far better way to go about doing that.
-Supports flashing "SWC" and "SMC" copier extensions (which need to die), but not "SFC".
-Uses "BIN" and "SAV" as examples instead of supported emulator extensions "SFC" and "SRM."

Most of these are fixable with a proper software; the SA-1 is also likely fixable through software but without testing I'm not sure. I've already asked about the source and it will be released at some point, and since it is the same chip as the CopyNES USB I already know it will work on OSX which is the biggest plus for me, no more damn parallel port.

Your prayers might be answered: http://sneshack.blogspot.com/
It's a cart in the same vain as the Powerpak. It uses a SD card to store the rom images, ram and a FPGA to make it all work. I dare say that somebody with enough know-how could make a SFX module for it, heck, the original SFX chip was prototyped on a FPGA.

Judging by the prototype board it doesn't look like it will support SuperFX. The prototype is missing the extra cartridge pings on the edges that you find on cartridges with add on chips. I hope it changes in the final version. I'd love a powerpak like cart for SuperNES. Especially if it will play games with add on chips.

I dont really care about the super fx. Only few games used it and well....I dont think its that well documented so this wouldnt exactly be the best way to dev. Other then that.....piracy would be awesome. (fuck it i'm not saying backups....its just stupid) And of course development