Homebrew Discussion SNES Online - Mod Discussion

[18Phoenix]

it's a bug with SFROM Tool. I pointed it out to DarkAkuma a week or two ago.

The program crashes when trying to save Street Fighter Alpha 2 (E-PAL) with either (or both) PCM and SDA patches. A .sfrom is created (0kb) before the crash occurs. This bug is not present when using the American or Japanese versions and their respective PCM and SDA patches.

Thanks for the infos, but I use the US rom.

 

[k1r92]

Thanks for the infos, but I use the US rom.

Whoops! Overlooked the part where you said you were using a US rom.

Very weird. It's definitely a valid rom, otherwise the patch wouldn't appear.

Just tried creating all 3 different regions with 1.1.3.1 (just to be certain) and like I said in my last post, it'll crash and create a 0kb sfrom for me ONLY with a PAL rom

 

[18Phoenix]

Whoops! Overlooked the part where you said you were using a US rom.

Very weird. It's definitely a valid rom, otherwise the patch wouldn't appear.

Just tried creating all 3 different regions with 1.1.3.1 (just to be certain) and like I said in my last post, it'll crash and create a 0kb sfrom for me ONLY with a PAL rom

Ok, then you use smc files perhaps.
I use this verified good rom: Street Fighter Alpha 2 (U) [!].sfc , CRC-32: 9c59ddff

 

[k1r92]

Ok, then you use smc files perhaps.
I use this verified good rom: Street Fighter Alpha 2 (U) [!].sfc , CRC-32: 9c59ddff

file extensions shouldn't matter. we're both using verified good roms with the same hashes.

the .cnp patches will only appear in SFROM Tool if the imported rom match the hashes present in the .cnp's .xml file

best to wait for DarkAkuma​

 

[18Phoenix]

best to wait for DarkAkuma

Yeah, seems so. But veeeery strange.

 

[18Phoenix]

By the way, do you also get graphic glitches in SFA2 during the intro and at the end of any round? Just to make sure it's not just a stupid mistake on my end. I shouldn't be the only one testing these things, please play these two games and report anything you see.

Yeah, first some errors in the intro:


That's with all rotating bitmaps, same with the "Fight" and "K.O." flying into and out of the screen.

Then errors since the moment the "K.O." appears the first time at the end of round 1:


And when the "Fight" appears the game always hangs for 2 secs.

 

[RadMcFist]

Yeah, first some errors in the intro:
View attachment 181233 View attachment 181234

That's with all rotating bitmaps, same with the "Fight" and "K.O." flying into and out of the screen.

Then errors since the moment the "K.O." appears the first time at the end of round 1:
View attachment 181235

And when the "Fight" appears the game always hangs for 2 secs.

The same then. And SFA2 on SNES always pauses for a couple of secs on Fight, it's how it's always been whether it's on real hardware or emulation.

All I can tell you about your problem creating the sfrom is that both me and k1r92 plus whoever created the rom you downloaded had no problems creating it. Are you absolutely sure you didn't accidentally use a pal rom? Try again with another one. Like k1r92 said, smc and sfc doesn't matter, but if you still think it does I also used an .sfc like you.

 

[18Phoenix]

The same then. And SFA2 on SNES always pauses for a couple of secs on Fight, it's how it's always been whether it's on real hardware or emulation.

All I can tell you about your problem creating the sfrom is that both me and k1r92 plus whoever created the rom you downloaded had no problems creating it. Are you absolutely sure you didn't accidentally use a pal rom? Try again with another one. Like k1r92 said, smc and sfc doesn't matter, but if you still think it does I also used an .sfc like you.

So it is the correct NTSC rom.
And the tool and the patches I have from DarkAkumas page itself.

 

[DarkAkuma]

Just using the one with [!] should be enough. In any case, when you load it with the sfrom tool it should be obvious if it recognizes it correctly. Go to advanced options and see if the PresetID is changed. If it didn't, it's the wrong rom. If it did, don't change anything (don't apply any PCM patches but do apply SDA and VC patches, these should be the default settings anyway), save the sfrom and that's it.

Or... even easier to tell if the rom you selected is recognized by the database is, if the little circle in the corner is green. If grey, it's unrecognized and you would have to edit the info manually.

I don't fully understand the rest of your post. No footer is added to these roms, specially not the SMW footer. Everything that worked before will work now, what didn't work probably still won't work yet (except for these two games). I don't think you should go editing all the roms you had already inserted, there's no reason at all to do that. I think that (for now at least) you should just use the sfrom tool method for Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Star Ocean.

They should be edited to use the correct Preset ID in the footer, but thats it. Theres no reason to use traditional .sfroms created with my tool except for SDD1 games. For other games... either version of the .sfrom is probably fine for now. The only difference is you have to manualy add/edit footers for switch sfrom versions (until I know enough about the footer format to update my tool to support them).

The switch format .sfroms are probably more versatile because of the extra params, but as those havent all be figured out yet, for the most part both .sfroms formats do basically the same thing. Supply a Preset ID, MaxInput, Volume, and Special Chip byte. MaxInput and Volume are basically unused, and the Special Chip byte is only needed for SuperFX games. So maybe theres a case for using a tradition .sfrom with Star Fox 2? But as other SuperFX games on switch have that clock speed effecting param, StarFox 2 probably should too, so it should probably be used with a switch .sfrom/footer.

...

That said, now that I think about it. There is a bit in the code that might suggest that traditional SNESC .sfroms might run differently than switch .sfroms. There's a check in the code that checks param74 (The one thats always set to 0x06 except for Super Tennis which is set to 0x07). When thats set to less than 6 and not equal to 2, a big switch is processed that checks other IDs and sets some flags unique to many IDs'. If it is 2 or 6 and over, it only checks for the joe and mac 2 param and if not preset, seems to do nothing. Since a SNESC .sfrom does not supply that param, its going to be seen as 0 (less than 6 and not 2), and thus should process those flags.

What all the flags do, I dont know. But they probably exist for a reason, and that reason is most likely related to optimization/compatibility/bug fixes.

...


As for the SFA2 issue with my tool. I have no idea... The PAL version I suspect I know the problem with, but just haven't got around to addressing. It a bad older patch that I forgot to update. The US version used to have a bad older patch too, but I updated that long ago so I doubt you found that.

And yes. In general, my tool expect and requires either the [!] goodsnes version of the rom, or the nointro version (which are mostly the same thing) to be recognized by the database.

 

[18Phoenix]

Or... even easier to tell if the rom you selected is recognized by the database is, if the little circle in the corner is green. If grey, it's unrecognized and you would have to edit the info manually.

It crashes anyway. But no matter I have working rom

 

[DarkAkuma]

It crashes anyway

View attachment 181262

... I didn't mention that as something related to the crash... just as a quicker/easier way then opening the advanced window to tell if your game is recognized by the database or not...

As I said, I have no idea what your crash is from. It works for me. It works for most people. Without any more detailed info to work with, I can't possibly debug such an issue. My only remote guess is that somehow you got a hold of an older version of the patch that has the same issue as the PAL version, but odds are that isnt the case because you probably got the patch from my site. So... no clue...

 

[18Phoenix]

... I didn't mention that as something related to the crash... just as a quicker/easier way then opening the advanced window to tell if your game is recognized by the database or not...

As I said, I have no idea what your crash is from. It works for me. It works for most people. Without any more detailed info to work with, I can't possibly debug such an issue. My only remote guess is that somehow you got a hold of an older version of the patch that has the same issue as the PAL version, but odds are that isnt the case because you probably got the patch from my site. So... no clue...

all fine, no prob, thanks for all your knowledge, infos and help

 

[DarkAkuma]

Whoops! Overlooked the part where you said you were using a US rom.

Very weird. It's definitely a valid rom, otherwise the patch wouldn't appear.

Just tried creating all 3 different regions with 1.1.3.1 (just to be certain) and like I said in my last post, it'll crash and create a 0kb sfrom for me ONLY with a PAL rom

Since you reminded me, I just got around to updating the SFA2 E-PAL patches. You can download them directly by these links for now, or redownload the package (v2_0_0_1).

SFA2-SDA E-PAL
SFA2-PCM E-PAL

 

[18Phoenix]

If original good dumps are working, mustn't there be a way to make the translated work aswell?
Example: Mickey & Donald - Magical Adventure 3 (J)
The English translation from RPGone v1.4 doesn't even start.
It's such a nice 2 player game


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


Btw let's say the next app update would make it impossible...
Is there a way to avoid older apps from not starting because forcing to update ?
Like it's with the NES app. This dosn't only inform that an update exists it forces you to get it, without the app doesn't start anymore.
F.e. I like the old NES 3.1.0 version because the limit for adding roms without closing crash was higher.
But this version isn't startable on newer FW, a 4.0.0 update is a must.

 

[DarkAkuma]

If original good dumps are working, mustn't there be a way to make the translated work aswell?
Example: Mickey & Donald - Magical Adventure 3 (J)
The English translation from RPGone v1.4 doesn't even start.
It's such a nice 2 player game

Good dumps, and nointro dumps are basically the exact rom that was used to make the cartridge. Such ROMs are what nintendo coded their emulators to expect. Look at it like this. The emulator does some on the fly memory/ROM patching to ensure the ROM plays as optimally as they want. To do that, its preprogrammed with edits of specific offsets based on the proper dump. If you add a translation, well then locations of data being patched can change. Additionally, such translations are made by fans, not professionals. Fan ROM hacking tends to be a learn-as-you-go thing. Mistakes happen. Proper testing and debugging may not have lasted long enough, if done at all... and of course, there's the whole ZSNES thing... where for the longest time, ROM hack devs tended to only care if their hack ran on ZSNES. Not real hardware or other better/more accurate emulators. This has been a problem with older patches and causes them to not always work stable on real hardware/good emus. Finally, for games that are not listed on the preset ID list, it means that that game was never officially released by Nintendo on the Wii/WiiU/3DS/SNESC/Switch, and thus the emulator is not specifically coded to play it. This can be an issue because rather than design their emulator code better to fix issues, Nintendo instead used game specific hacks to address issues. These hacks come in the form of internal preset ID based hacks, and the VC hacks from my tools patch package.

Anyway, this means that a game like "Mickey & Donald - Magical Adventure 3" does not have internal hacks or a VC patch for it to play 100% perfect. Add onto that a fan translation that may not be designed for real hardware... and well, there may be issues.

There used to be a guy who created unofficial VC hacks to eliminate such issues with specific games, but he retired from that. I thought about picking up his work, and have tried learning SNES asm hacking to a degree. But I doubt I ever will. At the most, maybe a hack here and there. I was mostly just learning it to try and develop a SFA2 hack that works of real hardware.

As for your other inquiry... if you are asking me, IDK. As you know, I don't own a switch so I have no experience with things like how updates are handled.

 

[18Phoenix]

Thanks for your interesting details
In case of Magical Adventure 3, an intro screen appear introducing the translator. After that the normal roms part start.
So there seems to be a problem with this introducing. Couldn't that be overjumped or canceled ?
Or exist a tool that can "clean" or repairs a rom somehow in a general way to increase compatibility ?

 

[DarkAkuma]

Thanks for your interesting details
In case of Magical Adventure 3, an intro screen appear introducing the translator. After that the normal roms part start.
So there seems to be a problem with this introducing. Couldn't that be overjumped or canceled ?
Or exist a tool that can "clean" or repairs a rom somehow in a general way to increase compatibility ?

I know of only 1 tool that would allow someone to selectively remove parts of an ips... and I wrote it. But havent released it. Its just a development tool I made for debugging when developing my Star Ocean patch. But even with that program, its trial and error to figure out what part of a patch is causing a crash in order to remove that part.

But even then, lets say you got past that point. There's no reason to believe the patch wont cause a crash again elsewhere.

No such tools to automatic "clean" or "repair" a rom exist in this context. It would be like a Windows exe having a bug that would cause an issue. You wouldn't expect to find a general tool that would repair whatever random issue is in it. The bug would need to be fixed by the dev, or a bored hacker.

 

[18Phoenix]

So only way seems to learn Japanese now
Or hacking

 

[RadMcFist]

Thanks for your interesting details
In case of Magical Adventure 3, an intro screen appear introducing the translator. After that the normal roms part start.
So there seems to be a problem with this introducing. Couldn't that be overjumped or canceled ?
Or exist a tool that can "clean" or repairs a rom somehow in a general way to increase compatibility ?

On top of what DarkAkuma already said, if I was a betting man I'd bet on that intro not breaking anything anyway. There are some other translations that this emulator just refuses to load for no apparent reason and I mean modern, very well-done translation patches that work on even the SNES Classic. I mean, I added absolutely terrifyingly bad roms to this thing in attempt to figure out its likes and dislikes, old ass things from the late 90s with trainers and they loaded just fine. It just doesn't like headers, it doesn't like ExHiroms, and it refuses to load some random translations.

My recommendation? Either add the game in Japanese for now like I did (there's minimal text in the game any way and what there is is not necessary at all), or if you still want to play it in English on Switch, use Retroarch for that game. It's the only solution for now.

 

[18Phoenix]

My recommendation? Either add the game in Japanese for now like I did (there's minimal text in the game any way and what there is is not necessary at all), or if you still want to play it in English on Switch, use Retroarch for that game. It's the only solution for now.

Jep, I'll keep it as JAP version, that's ok. Btw I've heard the translation works with SNESmini, so more sadly.