conflicting iNES mapper numbers

Discuss emulation of the Nintendo Entertainment System and Famicom.

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hap
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conflicting iNES mapper numbers

Post by hap »

There are a lot of conflicting iNES mapper numbers, but the ones that are only solvable with checksum checks are most annoying, so I suggest a few mapper number changes.

- iNES mapper 1, MMC1 SOROM (uses 16KB WRAM instead of 8): Aoki Ookami to Shiroki Mejika - Genghis Khan, Best Play Pro Yakyuu Special, Nobunaga no Yabou - Zenkoku Han, Sangokushi, Genghis Khan, Nobunaga's Ambition, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Final Fantasy I & II --- change to 31
- iNES mapper 1, no WRAM protection: Tatakae!! Rahmen Man - Sakuretsu Choujin 102 Gei, The Money Game --- AFAIK already assigned to 155
- iNES mapper 4, latch at $6000 for high bank select (almost like mapper 47): Super Mario Bros. + Tetris + Nintendo World Cup --- change to 37
- iNES mapper 4, MMC6: Startropics 1 and 2 --- change to 36
- iNES mapper 4, no WRAM: Low G Man (many more but this one depends on it) --- change to 28
- iNES mapper 32, one-screen mirroring: Major League --- change to 30
- iNES mapper 11, D0 awkwardness: Death Race --- AFAIK already assigned to 144
- iNES mapper 70, 2 types, normal mirroring: Kamen Rider Club, Space Shadow, Family Trainer - Manhattan Police, Family Trainer - Meiro Daisakusen, one-screen mirroring: Arkanoid 2, Gegege no Kitarou 2 - Youkai Gundan no Chousen, Pocket Zaurus - Juu Ouken no Nazo, Saint Seiya - Ougon Densetsu --- AFAIK the one-screen mirroring type has already been assigned to 152
- iNES mapper 71, one-screen mirroring switch: Fire Hawk --- change to 159
- iNES mapper 78, 2 types, normal mirroring: Holy Diver, one-screen mirroring: Uchuusen - Cosmo Carrier --- change the one-screen mirroring type to 54

Anyone (dis)agrees ?
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Quietust
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Post by Quietust »

Although it would be nice to reassign mappers, it's not feasible because the affected ROMs have been in wide circulation for a LONG time and there are no tools in circulation to fix them - GoodNES is the most popular NES ROM scanner and has the capacity to do it, but Cowering is a lazy bastard and doesn't want to update his little program to fix iNES headers.

In short - it's a bit late to be suggesting this sort of thing...
Quietust, QMT Productions
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tepples
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Post by tepples »

Stick this capability into a separate program called nes2unf.
Josh G.

Post by Josh G. »

Adding new mapper "numbers" is not really a viable way of fixing the issues with NES/FC cataloging, because the format is inherently flawed and lacks much necessary descriptive info. Furthermore, the mapper numbers are utterly meaningless and make no sense. It's a mess.

Sadly, I begin to doubt that UNIF will ever become the predominant NES file format due to its lack of backward compatibility (read: it won't work with NESticle). I think our best bet is to make a file format that is backward compatible, but contains the comprehensive file information that UNIF does. How can we do this? The best way is to come up with a footer format for .NES files, where the footer would contain all of the necessary information for up-to-date and accurate emulation or cart replication, while the header would contain the best approximation for legacy emulators. It would be a lot easier for this to catch on than an entirely new format.

Until then, a big CRC database is really the best way around this nonsense.
tepples
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Post by tepples »

Josh G. wrote:The best way is to come up with a footer format for .NES files, where the footer would contain all of the necessary information for up-to-date and accurate emulation or cart replication, while the header would contain the best approximation for legacy emulators. It would be a lot easier for this to catch on than an entirely new format.
Just make the footer a valid UNIF file without the PRG and CHR chunks. That way you can reuse your UNIF parser.
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hap
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Post by hap »

That's a good idea actually, but still, as Quietust mentioned, cooperation from Cowering is needed to spread such ROM images to the public.
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Post by tepples »

hap wrote:cooperation from Cowering is needed to spread such ROM images to the public.
Or you could just sell more CopyNES units and make "iNES Plus" the default output format of the new software. Remember that the only unquestionably legal way to spread ROM images to the public is by spreading CopyNES units and letting members of the public backup their own Game Paks. Do we really need to appease Cowering any more than we need to appease the authors of nesticle?
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Quietust
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Post by Quietust »

tepples wrote:Remember that the only unquestionably legal way to spread ROM images to the public is by spreading CopyNES units and letting members of the public backup their own Game Paks.
The problem is that CopyNES is targetted toward NESdev people, so John Doe/Joe Sixpack (or whatever you call him) wouldn't be able to use it effectively. Besides, in order to make a proper UNIF dump (or whatever you dump it as, where it includes the board name) you must open up the cartridge and read the board name, something you cannot do unless you buy a security bit (or make your own, as I did) or destroy the cartridge shell in the process.
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Great Hierophant
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Post by Great Hierophant »

Obviously new leadership is required to bring the NES Emulation world, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century. The new CopyNESs will hopefully lead to a consortium of dumpers that can collaborate to author a redump of the entire NES catalog to a higher standard than GoodNES and iNES. Verified good dumps of commercial NES games, licensed and unlicensed, should be the top priority, (although unaltered Famicom Disk System games are in much greater danger.)

Are people with CopyNESs willing to dump the carts, especially the rarer ones, and upload them to a central server for comparison purposes? Who will host this? Who will do the work of ensuring the dumps are correct? Most importantly, will UNIF or another standard be used? UNIF is supported, to an increasing extent, by the most accurate emulators. Can other standards offer the same level of flexibility when we discover previously-unknown boards? Who will lead this dumping project? At least hardware emulation has its de-facto leaders.

Essentially, what you have to say to people using Nesticle is "either use these much better ROMs or hack them to work in Nesticle." They will say: "Don't make me sacrifice my precious Nesticle, the iNES format is tried and true."
tepples
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Post by tepples »

Quietust wrote:The problem is that CopyNES is targetted toward NESdev people
For now.
Besides, in order to make a proper UNIF dump (or whatever you dump it as, where it includes the board name) you must open up the cartridge and read the board name
Or, for personal use, look at the label and match it against TCV's table.
something you cannot do unless you buy a security bit
And how hard is that, compared to buying a CopyNES in the first place?

Anyway, the easy way to skip the need for Cowering's tools is to maintain our own superior tools.
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