Hacking Custom Frodo for C64 VC Injection

[gundalf]

Hmm.. i see. I hope someone can find out how it works on NTSC :-/

 

[FGOD]

so you have a clue how we can get this working?

yes, but unfortunately got not enough time to play with it

that's too bad... i hope you can help somebody out who has the skills to do it and the time... as injection of C64 files is still faster then emulation... and loading those and D64 files instead of snaps would be great!

 

[DarkunderdoG]

WiiCrazy do you have a C64 pal game that works on an NTSC machine? I have tested the method you recommended with the generic wii patcher and freethewads however I could not get it working. If you have a c64 inject or game that works on NTSC i would love a copy.

 

[HowardC]

I dunno how much wiicrazy has messed with pal c64 wads converted to ntsc, but I can personally attest to the fact that even when they work, they don't work well enough. After using a video mode patch on a pal version of IK and a region-free wii (via starfall) I finally managed to get it to boot up, but it was hardly playable. Due to the resolution differences, part of the screen was cut off, the onscreen keyboard didn't show up properly and if you tried to look at the manual the wii crashed! So I'd say or best bet is to get ntsc patching working instead of converting the pal releases. This seems to be one of the few systems in which a simple video mode change isn't effective.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Yep like howardc said,

C64 games use a lot of raster interrupts especially for music and for lots of other things like sprites & screen... that differs between pal and ntsc, on pal it's 50 times in a second while on ntsc it's 60 times in a second... But actually this is much related to the actual c64 jumpered to ntsc or pal...

There is no direct method of converting a pal game to ntsc, for each game one should take the restrictions (screen height, refresh rate, slightly different cpu clock) into account and manually make the adjustments to make it work on either video system...

 

[DarkunderdoG]

WiiCrazy I hope that you can help us make your custom frodo work with NTSC!

 

[DarkunderdoG]

No new updates

 

[DarkunderdoG]

WiiCrazy!! HELP!!!!

 

[WiiCrazy]

Really sorry dude, this usb loader crap really diverted me... It's on my mind but...
It's much more hard to start then finish... but I'll keep my word on this

 

[penetr8or]

I wonder if I could get Little Computer People to work on the Wii trough this?
I really liked that game

 

[wilsoff]

deleted by poster

 

[wilsoff]

I'm not sure if anyone is still looking at his, but I wanted to say thank you to WiiCrazy. I've managed to make a few decent quality c64 injets using this method and the EF100 save editor. I used custom Frodo to takea snapshot on the basic screen (after loading the game into memory, but before typing RUN), then ran it on the Wii and took a save from the Wii and injected that.

I want to make a decent version of Arkanoid and Trailblazer, however, they use WiiMote 2 as player one joystick (becuase they use port 1 on the C64). I'd like to swap the joysticks in these games, but I'm struggling with assembler. The best I've managed is to swap the keys needed to proceed past the crack screen.

Swapping joysticks:
The guys hacking the C64 DTV have managed this: http://picobay.com/dtv_wiki/index.php?titl...mes_for_the_DTV and I wondered if anyone could write a more detailed guide on swapping the joystick ports please.

( http://dtvhacking.cbm8bit.com/dtv_wiki/index_title_Fixing_Games_for_the_DTV.html )

Modifying disc loading games:
The DTV guys have also managed to modify disc loading games into a single file - perhaps this would be useful for injecting disc loading games into VC.

 

[Syfo-Dyas]

Custom Frodo keeps telling me it can't find the Basic ROM even though it is right there and untouched.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Custom Frodo keeps telling me it can't find the Basic ROM even though it is right there and untouched.

Hmm, possibly a bad build

Try copying those files under c:\

@wilsoff : sorry for late reply, I just see your post... Switching joy ports indeed would be possible but of course needs some debugging in Vice or similar emulator... I don't think disc based games can be injected as snapshots but of course there are disc based games in VC... those could be hacked instead... As always, I don't have much time for this stuff these days...

 

[FGOD]

i wish we had somebody with as much knowledge about this as you have but with more time

 

[Syfo-Dyas]

Wii Crazy, that worked, but...

...now when I use the Load"*",8,1 command, it says that the device is not present, though I do not get this error on normal Frodo.

I'm using Giana Sisters btw.

 

[WiiCrazy]

i wish we had somebody with as much knowledge about this as you have but with more time

Possibly there are a lot of people who even have more knowledge about this stuff than me... Those dudes possibly have other things to worry about... Nintendo software is a bit niche I think.


QUOTE(Syfo-Dyas @ Jan 8 2010, 08:51 PM) Wii Crazy, that worked, but...

...now when I use the Load"*",8,1 command, it says that the device is not present, though I do not get this error on normal Frodo.

I'm using Giana Sisters btw.

Hmm, weird... does that command loads the first entry in the directory?
I usually take the longer path... loading the directory with LOAD "$",8 and then listing and loading the relevant PRG file with only ,8 since adding ,1 will treat the file as a binary which has it's load address as it's first two bytes...

Maybe there's a problem about attaching the disc image...

Btw, me, gundalfx, probably FGOD and other people got it working properly before as seen in below video...

 

[Syfo-Dyas]

And I'm going to get it working too! It's just that something is screwed up on my end and I don't know what. I downloaded the precompiled package linked at the beginning of this topic but for what ever reason am having a very different experience than the rest of you.

If I list in in the latest release of normal Frodo, it just says ready.

But if I run the command:

Load"*",8,1

it finds the game which then allows me to run it via RUN



Now with your Frodo, I load the D64 image and reset the virtual C64 just as I do with normal Frodo.

Though now if I type:

Load"*",8,1

It comes back with:

Searching for *
?Device not present error
Ready.

If I type LIST I get nothing again, though I have had it come back with a listing before that did mention Giana Sisters but I can't get it to do it again.

Are you running Windows XP 32-bit? Might that cause issues? This is strange!

EDIT: I deleted the files from the root of C:\ and re-extracted them and did the whole process all over again to find that it now works....

So on with the rest of your tutorial, and I'll be back if I have troubles up ahead.

 

[Syfo-Dyas]

And here are my new results.

I have a copy of LZ77_snapshot.bin which I got from the NTSC version of IK.

I did:

gbalzss d LZ77_snapshot.bin ik.fss

ik.fss (71,232 bytes)

put ik.fss in c:\ with your frodo.

Loaded Giana Sisters took a snapshot and tested it.

ran gbalzss e ggs.fss LZ77_snapshot.bin

replaced original Lz77_snapshot.bin

Reconstructed 5APP and reconstructed the wad with WadPacker and tested it on the Wii only to find a black screen after booting the VC.

Note that IK plays fine on the Wii.



My next question is as to whether or not the file size on ik.fss is off and something needs corrected there, or is this because I used the NTSC version and not the PAL version?

If that's not it, then do I need to run Wii Generic Patcher.



I tried a different Giana D64 image, and tried to save the state right after I typed run, but this does not seem to work either.

Thankx again for all the help. This is very exciting stuff!

 

[WiiCrazy]

You should use PAL release of IK... NTSC version will not work...