Hacking Does 1.77 fix save issues with pocketnes?

[Lemmy Koopa]

I've noticed that 1.77 forces GBA bios before the ROM plays, and the SAV fix for pocketNES breaks the GBA Bios header in place to make the SAV work, at least for 1.76.

Is there any fix for this?

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

Using the client to patch the roms says it's 32kb (ironically, setting the size does nothing and always says it's saving 32kb when backing up the save file).

It still cuts off a large portion of the save. I made 2 pocketNES files and switched back and forth between them to overwrite the SRAM, and it still cuts off the saves.

It appears these emulators need the 64kb size in order to save properly. There is a patch that fixes this, but in return, it breaks the GBA Bios "NINTENDO" header and will not progress pass the bios screen.

Before the 1.77 kernel, using the 16MB flash memory would bypass GBA Bios, so I'd compile 16MB emulator files, because the 32MB memory forces the GBA Bios to initiate.
The 1.77 kernel now forces the 16MB routine to also use the GBA Bios, making these emulators defunct.


Can anyone help me with this please?

 

[Localhorst86]

Before the 1.77 kernel, using the 16MB flash memory would bypass GBA Bios, so I'd compile 16MB emulator files, because the 32MB memory forces the GBA Bios to initiate.
The 1.77 kernel now forces the 16MB routine to also use the GBA Bios, making these emulators defunct.


Can anyone help me with this please?

I do not know about the saving thing, but I do know that the official 1.77 kernel does not do a soft reset when launching a rom from PSRAM (which is what I am assuming you're talking about when you mention its using the BIOS)

My guess is, you're using a soft reset nodded kernel which causes problems for you. Are you by any chance using a skinned version from this forum?

PS: what steps are you using to "break" your ROMs? I created a pocketnes rom and it would just boot.

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

I do not know about the saving thing, but I do know that the official 1.77 kernel does not do a soft reset when launching a rom from PSRAM (which is what I am assuming you're talking about when you mention its using the BIOS)

My guess is, you're using a soft reset nodded kernel which causes problems for you. Are you by any chance using a skinned version from this forum?

PS: what steps are you using to "break" your ROMs? I created a pocketnes rom and it would just boot.

Actually, yeah, it's a skin modded kernel
http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flash-iv-skin-1-77-ez-flat-iv.389868/

The thing that makes PocketNES break on soft reset is the patch I use to fix PocketNES' SAV.

If you don't patch it, EZ4 will back up a SAV file that's too small. It needs to be a 64k SAV to make a proper save file.

Without the patch, saving does not work, but the normal kernels apparently don't do a soft reset if you use the 16MB flash to load the ROM. If you save it to the 32MB flash and then boot that, it will soft reset.


It's complicated and retarded.


Either I can't have the ROM being soft reset when booting up, or I can't have a save feature, and a save feature outweighs having ROMs bigger than 32MB in my eyes.

 

[Localhorst86]

Actually, yeah, it's a skin modded kernel
http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-flash-iv-skin-1-77-ez-flat-iv.389868/

The thing that makes PocketNES break on soft reset is the patch I use to fix PocketNES' SAV.

If you don't patch it, EZ4 will back up a SAV file that's too small. It needs to be a 64k SAV to make a proper save file.

Without the patch, saving does not work, but the normal kernels apparently don't do a soft reset if you use the 16MB flash to load the ROM. If you save it to the 32MB flash and then boot that, it will soft reset.


It's complicated and retarded.


Either I can't have the ROM being soft reset when booting up, or I can't have a save feature, and a save feature outweighs having ROMs bigger than 32MB in my eyes.

Ok, so I see you're using my skin with the reset patch. That's nice to see.

I am still unsure what exactly it is you're doing to break your pocketnes rom, I just created a pocketnes rom that contains a few games. It boots justt fine using my kernel and saving works just fine for me, but I didn't do a long term test here.

We could either try and fix your ROMs or you can undo the reset patch on my kernel, all you have to do is to reverse what I did to it (see kuwangers post here: http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-iv-1-76-boktai-1-3-w-solar-patch-white-screen.389406/#post-5514306 )
All you need to do is to change the byte at address 0x6802e from 0x26 to 0x00.

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

Ok, so I see you're using my skin with the reset patch. That's nice to see.

I am still unsure what exactly it is you're doing to break your pocketnes rom, I just created a pocketnes rom that contains a few games. It boots justt fine using my kernel and saving works just fine for me, but I didn't do a long term test here.

We could either try and fix your ROMs or you can undo the reset patch on my kernel, all you have to do is to reverse what I did to it (see kuwangers post here: http://gbatemp.net/threads/ez-iv-1-76-boktai-1-3-w-solar-patch-white-screen.389406/#post-5514306 )
All you need to do is to change the byte at address 0x6802e from 0x26 to 0x00.

Saving will appear to work fine, until you load up another ROM and load it's SAV file.
It'll only save 8k of data, anything above that will be chopped off. When you load another ROM, the SRAM will be wiped out and when you go back to load PocketNES, it'll have only a small portion of the data loaded, the rest corrupted and erased.

Using the EZ client does nothing and does not fix the save file size.

I've been using a 64k save patcher to fix Pocketnes, but like I said, it breaks the header to get past the GBA bios screen.

 

[kuwanger]

Uh, use GBATA to fix the rom header? Out of curiosity, what tool are you using to patch pocketnes?

 

[Coto]

cant you set the client to force the save size of 64K (512kbits)?

then use a tool like GBATA + a good gba dump (made by yourself of course!), then srampatch the compiled (and patched by client) pocketsnes?

edit: nvm beaten

edit2: make sure the original entrypoint created by ezclient is restored once the gbata tool does its job in the header. http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#gbacartridgeheader

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

GBATA fixed the Nintendo logo and it now works!
Thank you!

cant you set the client to force the save size of 64K (512kbits)?

then use a tool like GBATA + a good gba dump (made by yourself of course!), then srampatch the compiled (and patched by client) pocketsnes?

edit: nvm beaten

edit2: make sure the original entrypoint created by ezclient is restored once the gbata tool does its job in the header. http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#gbacartridgeheader

The client doesn't work on setting the save size for pocketNES. Maybe if I use GBATA before the client, it'll work.

As for now, I've patched the ROMs with the 64K save patcher, then fixed the Nintendo logo header with GBATA and now I can use the NOR flash to play games now!

 

[Lemmy Koopa]

Looks like everything is great now! I can now use the 32MB NOR memory with the emulators!
Loading to NOR is atrociously slow though, so for now, since I play NES games a lot, I have PocketNES as a 32MB ROM on NOR at all times and gameboy ROMs and other emulator ROMs still split into multiple 16MB and under ROMs.

PocketNES seems to have issues randomly crashing anyways, so it's nice to load it back up super fast when it's preloaded to NOR.

The only other games I can thing I'd use NOR for is Mother 3, so if I ever want to play a large game, I'll just swap them into the NOR.



Thank you for all the help!