INL Flash board - Dragon Quest III English

I bought a Kazzo flash board writer and a "6MB" flash board (not sure if it's not really just 8MB). I have tried writing the DQIII English translation to this board, both in 6MB mode and in 8MB mode, both with the minimalist .NET program and the more extensive one in the zip file. DQIII always boots to a big garbled screen of broken graphics. The header reads DRAGONQUEST3 though.

I have read around this forum a bit on similarly large INL flash boards and I understand that one must alter the ROM to fit INL's flash boards. Interleaving?

Has anyone else here done DQIII English on an INL board? I would really appreciate some help with this game.

EDIT: Dragon Quest English is 48Mbit / 6MB big.

I assume that translated DQ3 is mode 25/35 (ExHiROM), like Tales of Phantasia, correct?

What happens when you try to write the 48 Mbit Holy Striker Batman onto the cart?

I've made a repro for this using the 8MB INL cart. I posted this in another topic but basically the best thing to do is split the original translated ROM into 2MB pieces and then rearrange them in a new file such that the last 2MB of the original file appears at the front of the new file repeated twice, followed by the original file's first and second 2MB parts at the end of the new file.

So, if the original translated ROM file layout looks like this



(note that the last part between 6-8MB is empty above because the original ROM is only 6MB in size)

Rearranged INL ROM file layout



And again to be clear, the resulting file size is 8MB. This file you can flash to your INL cart and it should work fine. Also make sure to set the Hi/Lo switch on your cart to Hi as DQ3 is a HiROM game.

Hopefully this makes sense! If not let me know.

Excellent, thanks for posting that to clarify. I do understand the concept, but I don't quite remember the commands to do it in windows terminal / command prompt. Can Windows 7 64-bit still do that? copy /b, that kind of thing.

Yes, copy still works on Windows 7 64.

Followed the instructions to a T, flash board boots to a black screen, header info is broken.

I'm rather stumped at this point. Any other ideas? The ROM works fine in BSNES.

I am using the retro programmer software linked to on this page http://www.infiniteneslives.com/kazzo.php
I have also tried using the zipped retro programmer software in the same download, after updating the kazzo to the new firmware of course.

Yes, I have the SNES flash board facing the right way (like in the picture in the above link).

I have read the readme included, installed the driver correctly and have flashed the board in RUN mode. I've flashed the kazzo to use the two different retro programmer apps in BL mode.

EDIT: Sorry I didn't mention this earlier, I tested the Holy Striker Batman 64Mbit ExHiROM file on the flash board, it boots correctly, header reads properly too.

EDIT: I tried downloading another Dragon Quest III ROM and I applied the V1.1 translation to it, headerless per the instructions. Translated ROM works fine in BSNES. I tried flashing this ROM direct to the flash board, just like with Holy Striker Batman. Same result as before, screen of garbled tiles. Header is corect.

At this point I'm starting to think the ROM just doesn't want to work, maybe in this way specifically. I've seen this game reproduced before, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong at this point.

Holy Striker Batman provides a set of diagnostics that will let us tell you the correct way to re-interleave the file, if that's what's wrong.

But we'll need to know what it says in order to do so.

Actually, if it was done correctly for that board it should NOT work in bsnes. I've made that game before using his board and the rom file I used wouldn't play in bsnes, but worked fine on his board.

check your pm for further info.

Thanks for the PM getafixx, I flashed the board again and the game works as you said it should. Thanks for all the aid everyone!

For future reference getafixx, is your ROM re-arranged like in the example given above? Or is it different?

I've attached a Python program that'll strip off the copier header (if there is one) and then rearrange ExHiROM into an 8 MiB raw image ready for INL's 64 Mbit cart.

Yep it was rearranged. Split the header off first. Then in a hex editor cut the last 2MB of the file, double it, and place it at the beginning of the ROM. Maybe your header was still attached?

Thanks a ton for the python program tepples, this forum rules.

getafixx, I tried doing just as you said to my DQ3 English ROM, for some reason it didn't work. I could try it again, but the original problem of this thread is solved. I'll take note of the findings here for future INL boards though.