Homebrew CaVE Database Manager - A SNES, NES, N64, Genesis Switch Online modding App

[18Phoenix]

sx os installer is the only way i use

You mean the standard way in the SXOS menu ?
Try these instead:
SX Installer (3.0.2) or Tinfoil (8.1.0) or Goldleaf (0.8) or Goldleaf (0.9-dev)
Important (not for Goldleaf):
In the install options you have to choose <Convert to Standard Crypto> and <Reinstall NCA's>.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Not very helpful....what is it that you are trying to achieve? Hacked switches do not work with the stand alone NES/SNES APP after a certain update they end up with a blank screen after certain updates and none of the games show.

Wrong, that happens only if using Kefir.

 

[burhansalih]

You mean the standard way in the SXOS menu ?
Try these aswell:
SX Installer (3.0.2) or Tinfoil (8.1.0) or Goldleaf (0.8) or Goldleaf (0.9-dev)
Important (not for Goldleaf):
In the install options you have to choose <Convert to Standard Crypto> and <Reinstall NCA's>.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


Wrong, that happens only if using Kefir.

Correction I've tried it without Kefir also and the same thing happens

 

[18Phoenix]

NO (= zero = absolutly nothing = not a single one) game shown is a known result using Kefir.
ALL other ways work perfect, discussion useless !

 

[scroeffie1984]

i was trying to use this but if you say it wont work with sx os than it wont iam not a expert
thanks

 

[18Phoenix]

i was trying to use this but if you say it wont work with sx os than it wont iam not a expert
thanks

What are you telling, I've said it works perfect !
Have you tried all ways I listed ?

 

[scroeffie1984]

What are you telling, I've said it works perfect !
Have you tried all ways I listed ?

Getting Started:

1. First of all, of course you will need the SNES/NES Online app installed on your Switch.

No hack is necessary.

Just make sure you are using v4.0.0.0 of the NES Online app.

Copy to:

• SD:/sxos/titles/

does not work on the newest sx os

 

[18Phoenix]

The subject has been that (S)NES Online is working fine.
Install the base, install the update of your choice, old or new, that works, that's what we are talking about.
Does that work ? If not you don't need to start copying anything on SD.
LayeredFS was the subject, only if the newest (S)NES Online works and it does fine.
If your expansion isn't working rebuild it. If it not yours it's illegal anyway and against the rules here.

Anyway you're asking without giving any infos, zero, how should someone be able to help ???
it doesn't work - answer -> make it work -or- congratulation
it doesn't work gives absolutly no information what is happening
it happens X - answer -> make Y
Many possibilities, hangs here, crashes there, shows this, freezing if, reacts like that, if I do X happens Y etc. etc. etc.

I'm out.

 

[ElitePowerGamer]

With the release of Linkalho I was able to update to the latest version of SNES Online, but I think the mod that hides the player icon doesn't work anymore? And I'm not too sure how I extracted sysmain.scn last time, but now when I try to extract it with NCA-NSP-XCI_TO_LayeredFS it gives me an error about corruption.

 

[DarkAkuma]

With the release of Linkalho I was able to update to the latest version of SNES Online, but I think the mod that hides the player icon doesn't work anymore? And I'm not too sure how I extracted sysmain.scn last time, but now when I try to extract it with NCA-NSP-XCI_TO_LayeredFS it gives me an error about corruption.

I think that may be the issue I was getting with hactool and the most recent update. I downloaded a newer version of hactool and it extracted mostly fine though. A couple .sfroms come out corrupt is all.

 

[Kane91z]

New working account linker - https://github.com/rdmrocha/linkalho/

Edit: Just saw I was beaten to the news.

 

[18Phoenix]

With the release of Linkalho I was able to update to the latest version of SNES Online, but I think the mod that hides the player icon doesn't work anymore? And I'm not too sure how I extracted sysmain.scn last time, but now when I try to extract it with NCA-NSP-XCI_TO_LayeredFS it gives me an error about corruption.

Nice that linkalho works.
The files that are used for the Hide mod change from time to time so that the new files have to be edited but it still works fine.
As has already been said you have to update the hactool.exe used for NCA-NSP-XCI_TO_LayeredFS by yourself:
https://github.com/SciresM/hactool/releases

 

[DarkAkuma]

I was told that it was found that the game has ROMs for those games in it is all. I haven't looked at things myself. I figured someone thats more interested in the 3D games would. I'm generally a SNES fan first and foremost. Is there a particular lack of someone digging in and investigating?

My theory, based purely on speculation and previous knowledge, is that the emu code is likely forked and heavily customized for each game. Unlike canoe that has game specific customization, but is largely broadly compatible. Part of this theory is based on the little i know of previous N64 emulation on GC/Wii, and part of its based on that they do resolution and UI image enhancements. To me, that stuff would require hooking game specific routines and memory addresses.

I suspect that for n64 at least, only different versions of SM64, and maybe the Zeldas would work. Just cause those games are all based off of the the same in house Nintendo engine.

IDK. Maybe I'll try giving it a look, but I cant make any promises.

Small followup to my previous post on the subject.
I'm probably late to this, and not providing any new info. I don't follow anyone else's efforts on this, as this is just of little personal interest...

I was finally able to get files extracted, and poke around a bit. Nothing like a sfrom header/footer is used. I can find nothing like the sfromsig being used either. Going over the emu code briefly, I cant find functions like the SNES stock game routine that checked preset ids.

But as predicted, it looks like all this customization for upscaling and HQ texture replace stuff is handled by hooking the routines at preset addresses. Dealing just with SM64 and 01_UNSMJ3.002.bin (the ROM), there's a 06_UNSMJ3.002.lua file that pretty clearly eludes to all this. It starts with a hookfunction that hooks at emu init. There's even a json format .cfg file for extra configuration.

All the tools seem there for someone else to easily make adjustments to get other games to run. Id suspect at least by making new lua/cfg files with empty functions/nodes, as the lua/cfg files for sm64 would likely disrupt emulation for another game if left in tact.

To be clear though, i dont think the code will boot ANY game. I'm sure its designed in a way to refined to support other games over time, but right now it would probably only support SM64 and misc other early life n64 games. Maybe OoT since it was developed on the same in house engine.

All this really says for me with CaVE and maybe future N64 Online/VC releases is, part of the work towards such things are already done. They didn't write the code sloppy and incredibly hardcoded to 1 specific game only. They made their code expandable and configurable, like id expect. So we have a little stronger "maybe" for if we might see such things in the future?

EDIT:

As I was almost instantly made aware after posting... me being made to think I need to look into this was a waste, and I am in fact late.

This video will tell you pretty much everything I would and more (since I didn't bother to look at sunshine/galaxy files). The only differences are, he focuses on why NERD chose emulation over source porting. For me, they chose emulation, so I don't care about the other path. From there they could either choose to hard code a emulator for specific games (stupid), or make their code reusable with future games (smart).

 

[Startropic1]

Would anyone happen to have an already made db, (and just the db--no roms), for the complete NES library? I'm kind of looking for an SNES one as well, but that's hard to do sans roms since the roms have to be specially formatted/coded for compatibility.
I'm just thinking there's one complete list of NES games, hopefully someone has already built the db itself so I don't have to do boxarts/etc. for ~500 games.

 

[AlanLC]

Every new update of SNES Online requires a new .ips for the added roms to work, but I'm curious why on NES nintendo does not prevent the use of additional roms (don't need .ips)?

 

[Startropic1]

How do you add box arts/title screens to your db?

 

[rafsilva1983]

SNES Online 1.7.0 was released

 

[DarkAkuma]

Yea. Already have the new Unlock patch and CaVE database update submitted for testing.

0x127C is The Peace Keepers new ID. Boring as expected. Only mildly interesting thing in the footer is the MaxPlayers value is set to 4 players. Not that Switch Online supports 3+ players...

DKC2's footer is boring.

Mario no Picross's footer doesn't use anything new like I had a slight hope for, but does use the ResRatio param that was previously only officially used by Super Family Tennis. And it uses a different value. 0x01 instead of 0x03. So that's 2:1 High instead of 2:2 High.

EDIT:

2 new interesting footers from SFC Online.

47 02 00 00 2B 10 76 73 74 07 61 02 70 01 6A 48 10 00 00 00 43 61 6E 31 // Fire Emblem: Monshō no Nazo
47 02 00 00 66 12 74 07 70 02 0A 00 00 00 43 61 6E 31 // Super Tennis J-NTSC

Fire emblem is the first official use of the epilepsy protection i believe (61 02), but no accompanying use of param 41. IDK, its been a while since i worked on that. maybe i deemed it wasent required to use both at the same time.

Also, first official use of param 6A (6A 48) without the value 38.

Super Tennis is only interesting because it is the first time ive been able to confirm that NERD has changed to using 1 ID across multiple region versions of a game. Joe and Mac 2 probably should have confirmed it, but I swear that I found that they used toe E-NTSC version in japan too. Now when i look, i notice that every version of the SFC sfrom for it came out corrupt and thus im unable to confirm anything. Ill just have to try the old fashion way later, and load the game with yuzu.

But yea. Using the same ID seems like further steps to impede figuring out their placements. Though you could at least argue that with this they might just be doing it because it really make no difference in 99% of the cases.

 

[DarkAkuma]

CaVE Database Manager and the SNES/SFC Full Unlocks have been updated to the latest SNES/NES/SFC/FC Online V1.7/V4.7!

As always, check the original comment for links to the homepage to download it!

----

Further, for once this isnt just a database update for CaVE. It's now v1.1, and a newly compiled binary. There's only 1 major change, but its an important one. The ability to update your custom databases made for older versions of the Online app, to include the new games from a newer update.

This feature comes into play automatically when CaVE detects that there are games in the selected Stock Database that dont exist in your currently loaded database. It prompts you with a pop up and a Yes/No option to update.

Further, I remember fixing 1 minor bug that was caused by incorrectly allowing databases to be in a folder without a title ID in the path. If you see an error mentioning something like this, you need to place your "romfs" in a parent folder with that platforms title ID as the name. For reference:

SNES Online = "01008D300C50C000\romfs"
NES Online = "0100D870045B6000\romfs"
SFC Online = "0100E8600C504000\romfs"
FC Online = "0100B4E00444C000\romfs"​

Finally, I addressed a minor "issue" I heard people ask about FAR to much. The most minor version number is now no longer displayed in the About window. This is because I do NOT use that version for app updates, and instead JUST FOR DATABASE UPDATES. I will tick that number up in the file name of the archive, but not within the app when the only thing I have updated in the archive is adding the latest databases. So once and for all, shut up about it! lol

----

A general warning. I have been working really hard at streamlining and automating the process I go through for making these updates. In the short term, there may be errors in the databases/strings files. Just let me know if you find any, and I'll try to fix my process. In the long term this should mean that I can probably pump out a update for each Online app within 30m of getting the files, including Full Unlock hacks. But of course there are other limiting factors. How fast I'm able to get my updates tested, and how fast files are even available to me (this time? It was REALLY slow! A couple days, and I was even lucky for that. Previously it only took like half a day max.). I just worked to eliminate the stuff within my control that could cause delays.

EDIT:

There are 2 known issues at this time.

First is a directory not found exception. This is fixed by redownloading the archive if you downloaded it prior to posting this edit.

Second appears to be a database issue caused by my automation like I suspected might happen. It only happens with NES/FC databases. I'll get to fixing it as soon as I can, but for now I just re did those databases manually. Again, just redownload the archive.

 

[rafsilva1983]

Thank you

 

[Startropic1]

How do u add boxarts to the db?