Hacking Question on NES VC Injection

AWal

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I have a small question:

Has anyone sucessfully VC injected anything into Castlevania III.

I've been in a strong understanding of how VC injection works, pretty much since it was conceived, and I've noted that sucess for most games games on the NES side can be given thanks to Zelda II and Kirbys Adventure, IIRC the largest MMC1 and MMC3 games, respectively.

I, like any other tweaker on the planet wanted to take it a step higher. From what compatibility lists existed at the time, a majority of them showed the MMC5 endowed games in their lists (as incompatible, of course).

On a general note of thumb, if Castlevania III was like any other VC title, i'd hold the game code in a iNES format file in 1.app, and be set up to run the code as MMC5. From what I was able to crounge up, it does hold the game code in the suspected file, but there's a catch. 1.app in CV3 does not have a header. I found the "NES^Z" of a typical iNES formatted file, and then what appeared to be lz packed binary; I tried using gbalzss, which proved to only be partially correct, screwing up somtime through the rom code, with a lot of incorrect bytes.

As expected, u8tool crashes when attempting to unpack this app file, even headerless.

So, from what I can tell, unless the compression method of this app file is known, I am in a rut for getting anything else working in VC for the MMC5 games.

P.S.: The target here is to inject Laser Invasion. Not that I have anything against FCEU...I am just looking for it to work in Ninty's own engine...given that it supports any of the MMC5 extensions, required by all other games than CV3.

P.P.S.: (auto)Injectuwad attempts, but breaks the file, resulting in a channel that appears to be correct, but only returns to the wii menu when invoked.
 

damysteryman

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Most newer vc games have their main executables compressed, as you've already seen.

Since it's not "normal" lz77 compressed, maybe try wwcxtool.
 

AWal

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DeadlyFoez said:
Hell, by the sounds of it you might not be really classified as a noob.I've been lurking scene-to-scene pretty much all my life.

What really helped is all the stuff I've done with the NES directly...the whole MMC mess and why X VC title wont work with Y game is obvious to me, whereas someone just reading tutorials wouldn't see things like different program/character data sizes and chip type changes.
QUOTE(da_letter_a @ Mar 4 2010, 07:08 PM) maybe try wwcxtool.
wwcxtool /u 00000001.app wee.bin

Split file at 0xD8BF0, and it ran verbatim in FCEUXD SP!! That emu just ignores the extra stuff after the character data anyways, which is unoficially the title according to iNES extensions, but Jnes, one rom tool, and like one other emu support that, so I'ts not widely adopted.

I, call that progress
smile.gif


Looking at Laser invasion from a PRG/CHR point of view, it has 1MBit of Program and 1MBit of Character. Castlevania has 2MBit of Program and 1MBit of Character. If I double the program and repack the nes file accordingly (i doubt header makes a difference, but it's there...), I should get the same size nes file, without tampering the existing layout.

Repack using wwcxtool, then wadpacker and I should be good...Mabye if I'm feeling frisky I'll redo the emaual.arc too like my lj65 inject...then again, I could just get lazy and import the no guide arc...lol

Wish me luck
smile.gif
 

BBking83

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I know having channels is cool and stuff, but FCE Ultra GX is an awesome app. You've got the ROM, right? And there's no risk of installing a (messed with) WAD.

But hey, good luck.
smile.gif
 

AWal

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Okay. I packed it all toghether, and sh*t-for-sure, it worked.

It seems to work amazingly well too, the only issue I see is sprites not cutting off when they're supposed to at scanlines, but the EXRAM seems to be implements and the EXVRAM (which is pretty much only demonstrated with the chief's face in this game) seems to be working too...If that's the only nag working fine in FCEU then I'll prolly stick with the VC version
smile.gif


Thanks for the suggestion on the compressor, guys.
 

giantpune

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i guess im entering this conversation a bit late, but the lz77 compression has been figured out pretty well. check out the wii.cs tools from leathl. it has a nifty u8 packer/unpacker that supports lz77. its also open source (c#) so you can check out how it works. in usbloader GX source, there is a u8 unpacking function which handles lz77 written in c if you prefer that.
 

AWal

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giantpune said:
nifty u8 packer/unpacker that supports lz77. its also open source (c#) so you can check out how it works. in usbloader GX source, there is a u8 unpacking function which handles lz77 written in c if you prefer that.

Wii.cs tools are pretty spiffy. Thanks.

I try to avoid code compiling at all costs, but I looove CLIs. I had a lot of MS-DOS experience growing up and that is pretty much all to blame.
 

giantpune

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wii.cs tools have a gui and cli also. just start the exe without any args and you will get a window to click around in. or use the exe in a prompt window with teh args and it will run like a normal cli app.
 

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