SNES PowerPAK Game Genie Support, Does it Work?

[MottZilla]

I made a code tonight for Mega Man X to prevent the Dash Upgrade Capsule from appearing. It worked fine in emulators. I converted it to a Game Genie code and put it into my PowerPAK but no matter what it seemed it wouldn't work. Holding select shows the code is correctly decoded. I actually then took my Pro Action Replay and Mega Man X cartridge and tried the code there and it worked. What is going on? Has anyone else has trouble getting Game Genie codes to work? I didn't have any problems using them on the NES PowerPAK.

And whenever I pause the game is black screens which suggests the code is doing something unintended like patching somewhere else in ROM.

[whicker]

Please do not assume that all Game Genie and Pro Action Replay codes are interchangeable. They are two different devices.

Just because you found a tool that can convert codes, does not mean that they will work on the real system. It's very likely that a Game Genie code can be converted into PAR, but not all PAR codes can be successfully converted to Game Genie.

[MottZilla]

I know what I'm doing actually. Game Genie codes modify ROM. PAR codes can modify RAM or ROM. The codes in question modify ROM and can be converted to Game Genie codes. The codes in question are properly decoded by the PowerPAK. However they do not function properly.

If you would like to try, the code is this.

Code: Select all

3CAA-CDB3
3CAA-CD23

This should work on both 1.0 and 1.1 versions of the US Mega Man X rom. I used 1.1 to make the code. The code makes it so the capsule for the dash boots upgrade never appears. To test if it works, you should use a password to skip the intro stage and go right to Chill Penguin and see if the dash capsule appears. This password can be used.

Code: Select all

Opening Stage beat	5385 7136 6321

As I said, it works on my PAR with my real Mega Man X cartridge. But not on the PowerPAK. I tried my Game Genie but it wouldn't run Mega Man X in its current condition, I'm guessing it is dirty and needs a cleaning so I couldn't test it.

But it seems like something is wrong with how PowerPAK applies Game Genie codes to ROM.

[mic_]

Maybe the PowerPak doesn't take LoROM/HiROM into account when applying ROM codes? That would break GG support for many more games than MMX, so maybe that's not the case.. Should be relatively easy to find out if it is though.

[MottZilla]

One thing I was wondering is that Mega Man X uses banks $80 and so on rather than $00 to $7D for ROM. I don't know if that affects how it applies the code.

If I can I'm going to try to get my actual Game Genie to work to test the code on it. If it works there, its definitely the PowerPAK's fault.

[mic_]

The fact that the game is accessing ROM through one of the mirrors shouldn't matter. But the fact that your codes refer to these mirrors can matter depending on how/when the PowerPak applies the codes.

Try using 3CAA-6DB3 & 3CAA-6D23 instead.

[MottZilla]

I think I tried that when it wasn't working but it didn't make a difference. I will try again soon.

[mic_]

If that doesn't work either you can test whether it's assuming HiROM when applying the codes (use 3CAA-6D63 & 3CAA-6DA3)

[MottZilla]

I'll try that. I can't try my actual Game Genie, the cart port is messed up or dirty or has a bad solder joint. Either way it won't work right now.

Edit: Those don't work either. Again though pausing the game crashes/black screens like whenever I tried any version of my code. But again it works fine with Pro Action Replay and on emulators. All Via Game Genie code format too.

Edit: I put the ROM with the GG code pre-hacked onto my powerpak and it all works as intended. So the question is why is it the PowerPAK atleast in this instance doesn't apply GG codes correctly?

[MottZilla]

Bunnyboy asked me to test a new SM.MAP with the codes and it fixed it. =)

[isolomon6]

Bunnyboy asked me to test a new SM.MAP with the codes and it fixed it. =)

Hello there! I'm having the same issue with Contra III. I have attempted to update the firmware and it's still not working for me. Would you mind sharing with us what the SM.MAP you received? I own both the NES and the SNES version of this unit. Thank ou very much for your time!

[MottZilla]

That's up to BunnyBoy. I didn't ask about distribution and I don't want to give it out if he didn't intend for that. I assume it would be part of the next update.

[jupitersj]

I realize this thread is almost a year old now and apologize about the necro, but didn't find this updated fix via a quick web search.

BunnyBoy posted the fixed file up on the NA forums last year; mentioned something about it not being a Hi/Lo Rom issue but rather messy coding losing a couple bank bits.

http://www.retrousb.com/downloads/SM.BIN

rename to SM.MAP

[MottZilla]

Thanks for sharing the link for others that may be experiencing the problem.

[Ramsis]

BunnyBoy posted the fixed file up on the NA forums last year; mentioned something about it not being a Hi/Lo Rom issue but rather messy coding losing a couple bank bits.

http://www.retrousb.com/downloads/SM.BIN

Thanks! What's strange is that I've never encountered any problems at all when trying out MottZilla's Mega Man codes with the latest official mappers available (v1.05) and can't possibly imagine what bunnyboy might have changed to make them "work". I'll disassemble and compare this to the original source as soon as I have the time (low priority though since I can't even reproduce the issue).