Hacking The general VC rom injection thread (NES,GB/C/A etc.)

[hippy dave]

Good work guys. I love it when a plan comes together.

 

[Normmatt]

take it you hadnt found the MMC5 and UNROM headers.....(although it was just trial and error once we knew the mapper byte)
also are you sure about the mirroring, as zelda has horizontal and metroid has vertical and the only header difference is at 0x9 ....but then other games dont seem to follow that standard which is why its a bit weird

It's not my pastebin...

 

[gamesquest1]

It's not my pastebin...

ahhh ok sorry XD

 

[duffmmann]

Question/Thought. Would it be possible to take anyone of the Genesis classics in 3D for the 3DS and insert a different rom in the place of the game in there? I ask this because I read an article where someone from Sega explained what they did with those titles, and he explained that the truth is, they actually made a custom emulator, that would output any and every Genesis rom in stereoscopic 3D. He explained it as if they had created a new custom piece of Genesis hardware, like if the emulator they created were put into a real machine and connected to your 3D capable tv, if you were to put any of your old Genesis cartridges into it, the hardware would automatically output the game in Stereoscopic 3D even though they were not created that way originally to give that kind of effect. If that is indeed true, then that would mean you could have any Genesis game you want injected like you've done here, playable on your 3DS but also giving out the 3D effect. That would be pretty damn cool.

 

[piratesephiroth]

Question/Thought. Would it be possible to take anyone of the Genesis classics in 3D for the 3DS and insert a different rom in the place of the game in there? I ask this because I read an article where someone from Sega explained what they did with those titles, and he explained that the truth is, they actually made a custom emulator, that would output any and every Genesis rom in stereoscopic 3D. He explained it as if they had created a new custom piece of Genesis hardware, like if the emulator they created were put into a real machine and connected to your 3D capable tv, if you were to put any of your old Genesis cartridges into it, the hardware would automatically output the game in Stereoscopic 3D even though they were not created that way originally to give that kind of effect. If that is indeed true, then that would mean you could have any Genesis game you want injected like you've done here, playable on your 3DS but also giving out the 3D effect. That would be pretty damn cool.

They had to modify the games to add perspective to the 3D effect, otherwise it would be just sprites floating over the background plane.

 

[duffmmann]

They had to modify the games to add perspective to the 3D effect, otherwise it would be just sprites floating over the background plane.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20...irtual_sega_console_for_3d_sonic_the_hedgehog

In order to get around these problems the M2 team did something rather impressive — it created a new "virtual" console. In many senses it's actually an all-new system, except of course for the fact that it currently only exists in emulated form; with that said it could in theory be built and be a real console, with the team labelling it as a GigaDrive.

"The specs are very clearly defined, and someone out there with enough skill could make probably make the same hardware. That’s the level at which we’ve built it. In other words, if you (virtually) popped in a GigaDrive cartridge, you could play Sonic in 3D, and if you took an old MegaDrive cartridge and put it in, you could play that too; we’ve built it with that type of cross compatibility in mind."

Reads to me like you wouldn't need to alter the roms at all, just "plug" them into the new virtual emulator.

Edit: As I read this now, I see where my confusion came from, I didn't realize that the GigaDrive cartridge isn't simply a MegaDrive cartridge, and I initially had read it as if you take out one megadrive cartridge and put in another, you'd be able to play it (which it can handle both types of cartridges) in 3D, but a standard megadrive cartridge obviously isn't the same as a gigadrive cartridge, as clearly a gigadrive cartridge has been altered to properly output the 3D effect on the 3DS.

Even still, with that above info, and if someone who knew what they were doing disected any of the genensis 3D classics games, they'd probably be able to create some sort of patch or something you could apply to your genesis roms and then run them through this new virtual console and get any genesis game in 3D.

Or at the very least, since as the developer explained it, you could take any of the genesis 3D classics, dissect it, find this new virtual console and inject any standard genesis game in it and get yourself a collection of non 3D genesis games going on your 3DS as well.

 

[piratesephiroth]

Take a look
http://blogs.sega.com/category/sega-3d-classics/

In Streets of Rage, for example, they made the characters depth level change as they move.
Note how the the interviewer describes the difference between that improved version and the first version he was shown, which had that lame 'floating characters' effect.

Yousuke Okunari: I actually have an early test version of the game right here on hand, so you can what we’re talking about. (brings out a 3DS) Check out the 3D.
- Oooh, OK. So this is what the default 3D approach looks like.
Yousuke Okunari: At first, you’re like “Seems legit! This is pretty cool!” But as you keep playing, you’ll come across places in the game which were drawn at the time with a specific background perspective, and didn’t take into account vanishing points etc. That’s why M2 felt that remaking the game in 3D would be impossible.
Naoki Horii: Indeed.
Yousuke Okunari: What you wind up with are characters floating above the background. …Next let’s show you the finalized version that we remade after observing these issues.
- (While playing) Yeah, it’s completely different. Wow, this is impressive. When you move from the background to the front of the screen, you get a real 3D perspective.

 

[hippy dave]

Urg, let me know if anyone happens to find the mapper byte for Camerica - I wanna play Micro Machines
...actually wouldn't surprise me at all if Nintendo's emulator doesn't support all the weird and wonderful third party mappers.

 

[duffmmann]

Take a look
http://blogs.sega.com/category/sega-3d-classics/

In Streets of Rage, for example, they made the characters depth level change as they move.
Note how the the interviewer describes the difference between that improved version and the first version he was shown, which had that lame 'floating characters' effect.

you must have missed my edit before you posted this.

 

[alexenochs]

So is anyone even considering making an application that can generate a header based on information you give it for Nes injection

 

[Deleted member 301661]

what software to build it would be enough (i mean, i do understand parts of programming, just i prefer an absolute language like basic used to be...)

 

[gamesquest1]

All software, tools and tutorials are in the first post

 

[Deleted member 301661]

gamesquest1, i didn't mean those tools, they're there and yes i understand how i can handle those, just i aso understand this is much to complex for most people at home. i was wondering if i could somehow helpout building a nice tool with windows look that can help choose the right files to inject your rom and change the header when needed. also i'm not planning to claiming to be a writer of any soort since i don't understand half of what these tools really do to complete decrypt and encrypt... just a tool that can combine all versions with for example one nes vc needed as adon for being able to inject nes, one gg vc needed for as adon for being able to inject gg, etc. one that does the hex editing in background for you...

 

[Snailface]

gamesquest1, i didn't mean those tools, they're there and yes i understand how i can handle those, just i aso understand this is much to complex for most people at home. i was wondering if i could somehow helpout building a nice tool with windows look that can help choose the right files to inject your rom and change the header when needed. also i'm not planning to claiming to be a writer of any soort since i don't understand half of what these tools really do to complete decrypt and encrypt... just a tool that can combine all versions with for example one nes vc needed as adon for being able to inject nes, one gg vc needed for as adon for being able to inject gg, etc. one that does the hex editing in background for you...

Here's a simple little tool I whipped up. Just edit the HEADER variable in script.txt, save, and double click on patch.bat
https://anonfiles.com/file/29ca50aa86db142f1004061b75130a3f

Honestly a hex editor is not that much harder but since people asked for it, ok.

 

[iNFiNiTY]

The gigadrive is an interesting case, I was hoping someone might buy them and have a look.. they definitely are not injectable and able to use the 3D features (possibly it's able to ignore the 3D additions and run a plain genesis game?). It sounds like the ROM file, a ROM patch file for sprites that add depth/other required data, then the 'gigadrive' emulator itself. But it's possible prehaps to set it to non-giga mode? I was bugging coders on IRC about it months ago but they are probably pretty busy.

It shows why Nintendo is lazy as fuck with their virtual console... look at the effort Sega put in for actual 3D games.. they are using the functions of the system better than Nintendo themselves. Let alone 3D they don't even have a SNES emulator working. Also the blogs Sega put out with the technical work detailed is very interesting. You don't normally get this kind of community interaction on a technical level.

 

[Deleted member 301661]

thanks snailface!

 

[SpaceJump]

if you using banner maker you just need to edit the appdata.txt in the main folder of banner maker, then run the python script, then if you dont change the rsf file to have a new unique ID it will just keep loading the cached copy, so icon changes wont happen.....you NEED to edit the uniqueID in the rsf file

basically follow the guide in the first post, edit the png images, run the python script in each folder after you have edited the image, then go back to the main folder, edit the appdata.txt, then run the build script, once done you will be given banner.bnr and icon.icn, you can copy these into the exefs if you like, then remeber to change icon.bin to icon.icn, and banner.bin to banner.bnr in the makerom bat file(or you can just delete the old icon.bin and banner.bin and rename the new ones to *.bin

before you build open up the rsf.rsf file in notepad and change the UniqueID part to a different uniqueID......only then build the rom

I followed your explanation. I edited the 3 images, ran the 3 scripts in the subfolders, edited the title in the AppData.txt and then ran the script in the main folder. I renamed the files to .bin and overwrote the files in the tempfold of "Bobversion" and created the .3ds file. But now it doesn't work at all. The correct title from AppData shows up, but the icon image is something garbled. When I select the game, nothing happens. Any idea? Is there maybe a special specification for the .png images?

 

[gamesquest1]

I followed your explanation. I edited the 3 images, ran the 3 scripts in the subfolders, edited the title in the AppData.txt and then ran the script in the main folder. I renamed the files to .bin and overwrote the files in the tempfold of "Bobversion" and created the .3ds file. But now it doesn't work at all. The correct title from AppData shows up, but the icon image is something garbled. When I select the game, nothing happens. Any idea? Is there maybe a special specification for the .png images?

try sticking to the original specs/sizes and dont do anything too fancy

 

[hippy dave]

Urg, let me know if anyone happens to find the mapper byte for Camerica - I wanna play Micro Machines
...actually wouldn't surprise me at all if Nintendo's emulator doesn't support all the weird and wonderful third party mappers.

Decided to google the Camerica mapper and found out that "It's largely a clone of UNROM". There are some difficult exceptions, but Micro Machines doesn't appear to be one of them, so it works fine with this header:

544E4553062000000200000000000000

(no spaces for pasting into a hex editor, or: )

54 4E 45 53 06 20 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

 

[SpaceJump]

try sticking to the original specs/sizes and dont do anything too fancy

Finally got it working. Had one image messed up. Thanks again