* PR8 DOES NOT WORK IN THIS EMULATOR *

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Roni
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* PR8 DOES NOT WORK IN THIS EMULATOR *

Post by Roni »

;-)
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tepples
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Post by tepples »

Picture appears to be of a repro of PR8 using a Legend of Zelda donor, showing an error message:
DOES NOT SEEM TO SUPPORT 32K SAV FILES REQUIRED BY PR8
The Legend of Zelda has a 6264 SRAM, which holds 8 KiB of data. You need to rewire it to use a 62256 SRAM, which holds 32 KiB of data.
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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

Who would do such a thing?

You know how many hours of work I put into PR8? And give it away for free and then you're too cheap to buy a PowerPak?

;)
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qbradq
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Post by qbradq »

The OP does not appear to subscribe to the PowerPak being the default. Neither do I. Then again I perfer not to canabalize vintage carts and buy Repro's :D

The OP covered all of this in his previous post in the Hardware forum.
tepples
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Post by tepples »

neilbaldwin wrote:You know how many hours of work I put into PR8? And give it away for free and then you're too cheap to buy a PowerPak?
Image

It's likely that the rewire job began while the PowerPak was out of stock.
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Grumskiz
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Post by Grumskiz »

tepples wrote:
neilbaldwin wrote:You know how many hours of work I put into PR8? And give it away for free and then you're too cheap to buy a PowerPak?
It's likely that the rewire job began while the PowerPak was TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE.
Maybe, but I think the OP also just likes to rewire cards as well ;3
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tokumaru
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Post by tokumaru »

You can probably run this in in a cart other than the PowerPak, but good luck with getting the saved data out of the cartridge.

Anyway, it looks like PR8 is supposed to be one of those "native tools", that require you to have the means to read/write the SRAM in order to be actually useful, even though they work just fine on common carts/consoles.
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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

I never made any secret of PR8's requirements. It's not even a case of being able to retrieve the data from SRAM - PR8 essentially treats the 32K SRAM as an extension of main RAM, hence the requirement to include the error screen as people were trying to run it on platforms that didn't have 32K SRAM support. And then sending me emails saying "PR8 sounds all broken!?!?"

Once blargg & arfink's Munchausen cart gets released there'll be another way to run PR8 (and Pulsar and NTRQ) but until then, PowerPak is your best bet. It's stated explicitly in the manual.

I think it's a noble effort if you want to attempt to make it run on a donor cart but don't publicly complain when it doesn't work. Well, of course, you're free to do what you like but I'll be sat here with my "I told you so" face on.

:?
tepples
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Post by tepples »

Having a notice is perfectly desirable. It just needs to be worded a bit more clearly: replace "EMULATOR" with something more general that applies to donor carts too. Here's something I whipped up at 18 lines, 28 characters per line:

Code: Select all

PR8 REQUIRES 32768 BYTES OF
RAM BUT ONLY 8192 BYTES ARE
AVAILABLE.

IF YOU ARE USING AN EMULATOR
THEN IT DOES NOT SEEM TO
SUPPORT ROMS IN NES 2.0
FORMAT.  PESTER THE AUTHOR
OF THE EMULATOR ABOUT NES
2.0.  THE MANUAL LISTS SOME
COMPATIBLE EMULATORS.

IF YOU ARE USING AN NES
DONOR CARTRIDGE THEN YOU
NEED TO REPLACE THE 6264
SRAM ON THE CARTRIDGE PCB
WITH A 62256 SRAM OR GET
A POWERPAK INSTEAD.

Another thing: Which emulator do you recommend for use on Linux? A copy of Windows to run Nestopia or Nintendulator, the emulators mentioned in the manual, is as expensive as a PowerPak. I tried compiling someone's patch to add Linux support to Nestopia, but the compiled program just froze when running an NROM game on my laptop.
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neilbaldwin
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Post by neilbaldwin »

I might just pinch that, if you don't object :)

Linux? There's a good question. I have very little (no) experience on that platform (I haven't even really used a Windows platform for over 8 years now but at least I have some access to XP even if it's via a virtual machine).
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cartlemmy
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Post by cartlemmy »

tepples wrote:...I tried compiling someone's patch to add Linux support to Nestopia, but the compiled program just froze when running an NROM game on my laptop.
I'm using Nestopia on Ubuntu, it works pretty darn good. (Except for the sound thing, it's a mess) I do recall a few snags when I compiled the source.

What distro/version are you using?
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Post by tepples »

I tried to compile and run Nestopia on an older version of Ubuntu back when I was working on Concentration Room. When it didn't work I went back to FCEU. Should I try again on 10.10 or wait for 11.04?
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Dwedit
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Post by Dwedit »

I'd just use Wine. Emulators just work.
Here come the fortune cookies! Here come the fortune cookies! They're wearing paper hats!
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cartlemmy
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Post by cartlemmy »

tepples wrote:Should I try again on 10.10 or wait for 11.04?
Mine is working well on 10.04 64bit. I'm actually a tad scared to try 11.04.
Dwedit wrote:I'd just use Wine. Emulators just work.
This might be the way to go. I've actually never tried this (for NES emulators).

The problem in and linux distro for games is always sound latency. There's work arounds, but no simple, elegant solutions. And that's why I still have an xp box waiting on the sidelines.
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Roni
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Post by Roni »

Whoa.
I'm really sorry.
I guess I rushed into running PR8 without RTFM, I was excited about having completed my working SNROM devcart and was runnning every mapper 1 .nes I had on hand to test it. I didn't mod the cart to use PR8, but after getting NTRQ on it with limited success, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. the whole time I didn't realize that I was offending the maker of the program by plugging it through the wrong cart HW.

I actually mainly made it to run mapper 1 versions of 6502 that I had devved myself, but didn't have on hand. I will hereby cease and desist all unauthorized use of NTRQ and PR8. I apologize to the author for any prior misuse.
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