Could you Patch SNES Roms to run without Special Chips?

[Rocky_D]

Question above

I have no Idea about the subject,but with the current state of modding and Community Work i don't think that stuff is not impossible anymore

So could you just Modify/Patch Roms so they would work without All those Extra Chips?
Would be got for some Flash Card who cannot emulate them!

Feel free to call anyone in here - I won't be of much help -

...

Happy Geeking maybe? ^-^'

 

[FAST6191]

Going to have to be the classic answer of "it depends"

SNES special chips compared to some other devices often actually did provide serious extra processing, and if you have to go to your boss and say we need to spend this much more per cartridge (immediately bumping up cost of manufacture and possibly your profit margins the other side) you are going to have to justify it.

At the same time I could see a path to a few games ported from fancier stuff to weaker chips that might be supported in lesser flash carts, maybe some lookup tables done for a few things to do a software mode port, or maybe things like background effects lost from games that for at least that level only use the special chip for that.

Whether anybody would bother I don't know -- most people are more interested in making existing games use special chips, or more potent special chips, to allow them to do more with their hacks. Equally we are living in the post everdrive world so good SNES flash carts are plentiful, and most emulators on contemporary devices don't have much trouble until you go crazy audiophile or hyper accurate for those few games that justify it.

 

[raging_chaos]

So could you just Modify/Patch Roms so they would work without All those Extra Chips?
Would be got for some Flash Card who cannot emulate them!

If you mean like the mapper replacement patches on a few NES games, you aren't going to find many for the SNES (one or two hacks exist for games that used chips for decompression). Games that use extra chips for real-time processing were designed around them, you can't just patch them out. The FXPak Pro (SD2SNES) is worth every cent, sell your existing flash cartridge and upgrade during the next sale, or use an emulator to play the games that your flash cart doesn't support.

 

[zfreeman]

Star Ocean no S-DD1/96Mbit hack

 

[Rocky_D]

If you mean like the mapper replacement patches on a few NES games, you aren't going to find many for the SNES (one or two hacks exist for games that used chips for decompression). Games that use extra chips for real-time processing were designed around them, you can't just patch them out. The FXPak Pro (SD2SNES) is worth every cent, sell your existing flash cartridge and upgrade during the next sale, or use an emulator to play the games that your flash cart doesn't support.

i was not for the Money but more for the Coolnes 8)

Post automatically merged: Jan 20, 2023

Going to have to be the classic answer of "it depends"

SNES special chips compared to some other devices often actually did provide serious extra processing, and if you have to go to your boss and say we need to spend this much more per cartridge (immediately bumping up cost of manufacture and possibly your profit margins the other side) you are going to have to justify it.

At the same time I could see a path to a few games ported from fancier stuff to weaker chips that might be supported in lesser flash carts, maybe some lookup tables done for a few things to do a software mode port, or maybe things like background effects lost from games that for at least that level only use the special chip for that.

Whether anybody would bother I don't know -- most people are more interested in making existing games use special chips, or more potent special chips, to allow them to do more with their hacks. Equally we are living in the post everdrive world so good SNES flash carts are plentiful, and most emulators on contemporary devices don't have much trouble until you go crazy audiophile or hyper accurate for those few games that justify it.

Hm i guess 1 would have to reprogramm the whole Game and find new ways of dealing with the Issues...

 

[tech3475]

Maybe someone could create a workaround/replacement for the wireframes in MMX2 (sprites?), although I wouldn’t expect as good of an experience.

Overall, unless it’s for the challenge, I’d just get either a good flash cart or use emulation.

 

[eyeliner]

You cannot. They exist to circumvent the SNES's limitations.
The SNES could THEORETICALLY produce all of the effects the chips allowed by itself, but the games would be slideshows at less that 1 FPS, or the ROMS would be gigantic (for the time).

One example could be taken from Tales of Phantasia, where the graphical nature of the game was so big that they developed a chip specifically for that game, to allow for the decompression of the massive number of sprites and allow the game to fit a cartridge.

The SNES could do it, sure, but then you would have PSX style loading screens.

 

[FloppidyDingo]

I would have to agree with everyone above.

I guess theoretically you could patch a game to lets say, work without the Super FX chip. But it would be a ton more work than just using a flashcard with the needed chips, or an emulator. Not to mention the performance would be terrible emulating all the lost features in software.

Is it possible? Probably. Is it worth it? Probably for the experience and bragging rights, but not for actually playing the game