nesdev.com

I knew this would happen... I wander back to the website and now my Xbox One is collecting dust and all I am playing is NES SNES and N64 games. Well I have the itch again. This time I want to make some NES games. Is anyone interesting in making sure I place the right order from INL.com if I list off the games and the figures that should match up? Or (if allowed) if anyone on site sells rom hacks, I would be interested in buying some boards (I do not need labels or carts) ready to go from someone on the site that deserves some feedback and most importantly $$$.

Are you making just NES games? You should just download Nestopia and the GoodNES ROM collection. Drop your ROM into Nestopia, then open View > Image Info. Usually Nestopia is very accurate, but sometimes the iNES header is malformed and lists 8KB WRAM even if the game doesn't ever write there. This is super common among Mega Man hacks.

If you ever want to know whether an NES game really does use 8KB WRAM, then download FCEUX, open your ROM, open the Hex Editor and scroll down to the address range $6000 - $7FFF. If nothing useful is written there (usually FF), then the game doesn't use WRAM. Most games will write early in that range so it's easy to see. I've come across one Mega Man 3 hack where a little bit of WRAM is used near the end, so watch out.

So here are the titles I would like to put to cartridge. Little Samson, Bubble Bath Babes, Hot Slots, Peek a Boo Poker, Super Mario 3 Remix, Mega Man in Mushroom Kingdom, Super Mario Unlimited, Mario Adventure.

I will just do one and post the results and see what happens.

I will start with Super Mario 3 Remix. This is the screenshot I get:


So when I go to INL.com is this the right board to select?


Then the FCEUX side just try to find $6000 - $7FFF and if it says "Error String Not Found" am I good?


Do I need to worry about the W-ram or anything else? Is it really this simple? I know the SNES side is pretty dang simplified but since NES games have so many different chip sets on the game boards themselves I feel like I am doing something wrong even though I have successfully burned a NES game before.

Thanks in advance. I know this is a very dumb question and with all the SNES games I burned you would think I know how to do this. At $20+ a pop I want to make sure I get this right and unfortunately a week later, I still do not have a response from inl.com with there ticket support.

Edit: I got a response from the ticket today. Paul said he was out of town on vacation. I am going to try to get this wrapped up with him on the support ticket instead of bugging you guys.

I don't know much about WRAM, but here are some notes about a hex editor to help you:

In each row of a hex editor:

• The left number is an address.
• The middle numbers are values.
• The right characters are the same values interpreted as text.

HVC-Man was suggesting you scroll the window down until you see the rows 6000 to 7FF0. (Or go to the File menu, choose Goto Address, and enter 6000.) HVC-Man says if you see interesting looking values in this range, then the game uses WRAM.

Thanks. With these posts as well as the responses from inl.com I feel pretty confident about placing my next order and will probably end up ordering by the end of this week.

A good rule of thumb is if the original game used WRAM, then any hacks of it will also use WRAM. Super Mario Bros. 3 uses WRAM, so Super Mario 3mix will use it too. In fact, the game even has save files, which SMB3 never had. That should be an immediate indication that the game needs WRAM.

In case you're confused, WRAM (or I prefer PRG RAM) is usually an 8KB Static RAM chip accessed by the 2A03 and used for save files AND engine code or scratchpad memory. All NES games that record your progress use a minimum of an 8KB SRAM chip. There are some NES games that have a WRAM chip, but don't offer saving, like SMB2, SMB3, Kid Icarus, Metroid, etc. In the world of ROM hacking, this gets far more murky, because there exist hacks of NES games to support saving, such as SMB3 and Metroid.

Like I suggested before, get yourself Nestopia and use it to analyze the iNES header of the games you want to make. It has the occasional error with reporting WRAM usage, but it's very accurate when it comes to the other specifications, like PRG / CHR ROM sizes, presence of CHR RAM, mirroring control, mapper etc.

Curious question. Not sure if I should post here on start a new topic. I have personally put Zelda LTTP, Goddess of Wisdom and Parallel Worlds on INL boards successfully. However, I cannot get Zelda LTTP "Master Quest" to work. It basically changes locations and dungeons around. Anyone know why this one wont play? I am curious if someone can simply look at the file and tell me why exactly it does not work properly on INL boards (unless I am doing something dumb again).
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/601/
Filename: Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (U) [!].smc
SHA1: 8288b4bc88052a3cf4effed3acd6a498847bfb95
SHA-256: d9c69c5270b2f7eac54f254688a43cc767fd5cb4f21fc079a0f9fbe09978eaec
CRC32: dd42510e
MD5: 1a74468291b02729329dd1357afb45af

I would start by asking the author for an older version of the IPS patch, specifically v1.01, and trying that. If you look at v1.5, they began "fooling around" with trying to get FastROM addressing to work, which is often way more complicated than (most) romhackers understand: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/snes/pa ... readme.txt

Thanks koitsu. I tried an earlier version and it *almost* starts. I guess they indeed got it to work on emulators but native software is still iffy.

So interestingly enough, I have several people locally that are fans of classic gaming. Several of them have expressed interest in coming over to my house for a retro night at least once a month if not weekly. I have a 4 player adapter for the NES SNES and then obviously N64 on. I have been digging around online and just realized one of my favorite SNES multiplayer games had several JP only versions not released here in the states. I am talking about Super Bomberman for the SNES.

So: Has anyone tried burning Bomberman 1 2 3 4 5 on Snes INL boards? I might have to buy another 10 broads and then burn the JP only versions if someone can confirm they work.

On a related note, anyone have any other great rom hacks that support 4 players that they could suggest for these intended retro events?

Why don't you just buy the games from Japan? They are really cheap. I'm personally a great fan of Super Bomberman 5. Some highly original stages, and amazing frantic music.

I guess I could buy the SF versions. They are obviously in JP. Correct me if I am wrong, but SF games I have to snip off a plastic piece in the carts or was that to play SNES games on a Super Famicom?

There are two plastic tabs in the Super NES (NTSC U/C) Control Deck that you need to remove with needlenose pliers to make Super Famicom games fit.

Curious now... Instead of cutting the tabs on my SNES that I have owned since I was 10 years old. Could I just buy the JP versions and then gut a $2 NA cart and put the chip inside that cart?

You could do that... or you could just break the plastic tabs off, like pretty much all of us have done (I didn't even use pliers when I was a kid, I actually used a soldering iron tip), so that you don't have to keep buying US carts and transplanting JP PCBs into them. :P