Been reading up on SNES repos, have I got my facts straight?

qwertymodo · Post by **qwertymodo** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:47 am

You need to check the readme on the patch file. Some patches are meant to be applied to headered ROMs (because some people are ignorant and continue to use headered ROMs >.<). Just be sure that the final ready-to-burn file has the header removed. Also, filename doesn't matter AT ALL when it comes to burning to the ROM. Raw flash ROMs don't have a file system, they have no concept of files, much less file names. It's just one big binary blob.

fireaza · Post by **fireaza** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:55 am

Actually, the re-translation patch for Breath of Fire II specially calls to it to be applied to a ROM with no headers

Something odd I noticed, if you check back to the page 1, I was worried about applying the Seiken Densetsu 3 English patch to a .smc instead of a .sfc. Well, I tried to apply the .ips to the .sfc version, ignoring the installer that came with the English patch. This horribly corrupted the game's graphics! Is this a normal thing?

Thanks for the tip on eprom file names! That helps matters! So you think this is all ready to go?

qwertymodo · Post by **qwertymodo** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:02 am

It shouldn't have mattered that you applied the patch to an .smc file, chances are that between the .smc and the .sfc, one had a header and one did not. Applying a patch intended for a headered ROM to an unheadered ROM or vice versa will corrupt it (that's why I said to check the README for the patch, but removing the header after applying all of the patches is fine, it's just an issue before patching). The other thing I usually do is before patching, I run the original ROM through NSRT to verify that it was a proper dump. Any decent patch will require the verified good dump (usually denoted with [!] in the filename, but I never trust that). Other than that, it should be good to go. Since it's already a 32Mbit ROM, you don't need to mirror anything like you would for a smaller ROM, so yeah, I'd say it's ready to burn.

fireaza · Post by **fireaza** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 8:21 am

Great!

I'm looking to apply a Breath of Fire II hack that re-translates the game, and also adds an animated opening sequence that includes a song with actual singing! Somehow, the size of the rom is still the same (witchcraft!), so do you think this hack would be playable on real hardware? I know it often causes BSNES to freeze, so I'm not sure.

*EDIT* solved issue with SD3 bad checksum

qwertymodo · Post by **qwertymodo** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:31 am

Use the one with the good checksum. If it doesn't work, see if it has a header or not. If it does, try removing it, if not, add it (in NSRT, right-click on it and add or remove header, it doesn't matter what type of header you add). The checksum might be bad after patching, some ROM hacks don't bother fixing their checksums, it doesn't matter.

fireaza · Post by **fireaza** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:45 am

Ha ha, I actually solved the issue (found an .smc version of the game with a good checksum) and edited my post to reflect this

But yeah, as mentioned above in my edited post, I'm not sure that BoFII hack would be playable, since BSNES is suppose to be console-accurete, you would assume that if the hacked ROM cases BSNES to freeze, that the real hardware would too right?

Another issue I'm having is with "Ranma Nibunnoichi - Akanekodan Teki Hihou", I've got a .smc with a good checksum, I've patched the game, run it through SNES Purify (which only detects that the extension is wrong, yet for some reason, despite saying it corrected it, actually doesn't, I need to rename it manually) but I get a black screen in BSNES when I try to load it. The game works before I patch it. Any ideas?

qwertymodo · Post by **qwertymodo** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 9:57 am

Not all patches actually work on real hardware. A lot of times, patches are built using ZSNES, not realizing that ZSNES utilizes a lot of hacks to get games to run such that hacks designed for ZSNES often won't run on an actual SNES. That's part of the reason byuu is so devoted to accuracy with BSNES (or is it ASNES now...?). His motivations are archival preservation and creating a hardware-accurate debugging and development environment for ROM hacks or homebrew games so that the resulting ROM would be playable on real hardware. Sadly, a lot of people hate on BSNES just because it has such hefty hardware requirements. On the other hand, BSNES is not entirely flawless either (though it should be pretty darn close), I can't for the life of me get the 96Mbit NoSDD-1 hack of Star Ocean to run in it (it shows a framerate as though it is running, but all I get is a black screen), even though I KNOW that hack works on copiers.

fireaza · Post by **fireaza** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 10:05 am

Hmmmm, well, there's a patch for the BoFII hack that removes the new opening, and this one seems to work fine on BSNES, so again, that would mean this hack should work on real hardware? The next tricky thing would be the donor cart, for you see, this hack is based on the American version of the game, not the Japanese. Would this hack still work on a Japanese copy of BoFII anyway?

Regarding your black screen in BSNES with Star Ocean, that's the exact same issue I'm having with Ranma Nibunnoichi - Akanekodan Teki Hihou. And I've seen English patched repos of this game, so I know it's possible to make a repo out of it.

qwertymodo · Post by **qwertymodo** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 10:05 am

I just checked my SD3 ROM, and it seems that the patch doesn't fix the checksum, so you should get a bad checksum on the patched ROM. In case you want to compare, the CRC32 on my patched, unheadered ROM is 7DBDE871 (CRC32 != internal checksum). After manually fixing the internal checksum, I get a CRC32 of 8D748300.

fireaza · Post by **fireaza** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 10:12 am

My understanding is patched ROMS will ALWAYS give a bad checksum since you've altered the ROM

Oh, and I found out why SNES Purify wasn't renaming my .smc, it didn't like the folder name :\

*EDIT* And now the English patched Ranma Nibunnoichi Akanekodan works fine in BSNES! It's filesize is only 1,572,864 bytes though, seems wasteful to put it on a 32 megabit chip, what would you guys suggest instead?

pichichi010 · Post by **pichichi010** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 10:41 am

get the eprom 27xxxx and do the swaping method?

its fairly simple, and it only involves limited wiring.

qwertymodo · Post by **qwertymodo** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:17 pm

fireaza wrote:My understanding is patched ROMS will ALWAYS give a bad checksum since you've altered the ROM

The patch can include a new checksum value. Just a lot of times ROM hackers don't bother.

fireaza · Post by **fireaza** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 6:38 pm

pichichi010 wrote:get the eprom 27xxxx and do the swaping method?

its fairly simple, and it only involves limited wiring.

Having trouble finding a 12 megabit eprom, do you know what model I should be looking for? I can only seem to find 8 megabit eproms :\

And do you have more information on the "swapping method" you mentioned? Googling "snes repo swapping method" actually leads me back to this thread

pichichi010 · Post by **pichichi010** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:25 pm

prepare to be amused!

this is in spanish but I'm sure you can translate it in google.

it teaches you ALL the methods.

http://www.elotrolado.net/hilo_tutorial ... es_1633607

Post by **tepples** » Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:30 pm

fireaza wrote:Having trouble finding a 12 megabit eprom, do you know what model I should be looking for? I can only seem to find 8 megabit eproms :\

EPROMs come in powers of two. You'd need to get a 16 megabit or an 8 + 4.