Since atleast officially the PowerPak doesn't support Namco 106 which these games use, I decided I'd give hacking them a try. I was pretty successful. Both games were hacked to run on Sunsoft FME-7 (Batman Return of the Joker). Star Wars works except for graphics issues in the space scene or scenes (I haven't played all the way through) because I didn't do anything with the IRQ.
Splatter House though works nearly perfectly. It only has a slight error with the sprite #0 hit it does which causes a tiny line of pixels to the left of the lifebar. Hopefully someone else here likes either of these games and has the PowerPAK so they can now enjoy them too. I also documented everything I did to Splatter House so people can learn or better yet maybe someone with more time might want to take it further and make it run on MMC3. It'd be better for repros then.
If anyone uses these and experiences any problems let me know. Splatter House was tested beginning to end though and should be perfect.
http://ninjagaiden4.thegaminguniverse.com/NES/index.html
Id love to have Splatter House completed on MMC3, that would be awesome
I still might try to do that myself. I plan to correct the sprite 0 issue too.
Also I played as far as I could through Star Wars and it crashed on me when I was fighting Darth Vader on Yavin 4 and died. I don't know if that means you just can't die there or if it was isolated. But I've been told that was next to the last level. And I doubt anyone would beat that game anyway as I was cheating like crazy and still had trouble figuring out what to do. :p
Anyway, I've played through Splatter House several times now on the NES and haven't had any problems. We'll see about the MMC3. I've got plenty of MMC3 games I wouldn't mind transforming.
Update: I decided to give it another shot. I think I should be able to pull off MMC3 Splatter House. I understand what the game is doing a bit better after really looking into it. So far it looks like just a matter of time and I'll have it working fine. So you could expect a MMC3 version from me in the future.
Update 2: I removed patch details from the patch download but they are available if anyone really wants to see. More importantly the MMC3 version is coming along. Everything until Stage 2 is perfect. Stage 2 and beyond is yet to be done but from what I've done so far I'm confident the rest will work out.
This is great, keep up the good work.
thanx eh
I've run into a problem with MMC3 Splatter House. I ran out of CHRROM. =( I thought it would make it with room to spare. But it's down to the wire and I'll have to free up some room somewhere. I know of a few places. I'm not sure if I'll have room yet, but at the current stage the game is playable beginning to end with only 1 spot with corrupt graphics, and I believe only 1 background animation missing.
I'm hoping I can sort it all out.
Update: The hack is complete. I tested it and it seems to work perfect now. I'm working on the patch package now. It will consist of both an IPS patch and a Win32 executable. The IPS patch takes care of the PRGROM while the Win32 executable handles modifying CHRROM chunks. I'll post when it is ready to go.
I've updated my webpage with the MMC3 version. Feedback/test results would be appreciated for more confirmation that it works properly. It shouldn't have any problems but if it does please tell me. So tell me if you play it and it works perfectly or if it doesn't. Enjoy.
http://ninjagaiden4.thegaminguniverse.c ... index.html
MottZilla wrote:
I've updated my webpage with the MMC3 version. Feedback/test results would be appreciated for more confirmation that it works properly. It shouldn't have any problems but if it does please tell me. So tell me if you play it and it works perfectly or if it doesn't. Enjoy.
http://ninjagaiden4.thegaminguniverse.c ... apper.html
This is still showing as mapper 19 for me with nestopia? I was going to try to put this on an actual wired up cart to see how it goes, but its showing vrom switch, and that would be impossible to wire up, as the required board only uses 28 pins.
Would it be hard to use a pretty common mapper, like 4? Mario 3 uses, etc. Thanks!
Did you apply the IPS patch? It should alter the PRG ROM section and the header to "mapper 4". If you only ran the executable, then all it did was shift around CHRROM data. You must apply the IPS patch. Either before or after running the SH_CHR_Patcher program. If you still have trouble let me know.
I think you may have to find a "mapper 4" board that can support a 128kb prg rom and a 256kb chr rom.
Also, when you load in Nestopia, check the PRGROM and CHRROM CRCs, and see if they match the PATCHED CRCs. The readme lists the original and patched ROM crcs.
Update: To simplify things I'm going to be updating the package. The Patcher program will now have you select your original ROM and where you want to output your patched ROM. It will then patch the CHRROM and then use a built-in IPS patch engine to apply the PRGROM patch. This should make things easier. I'll update when it is uploaded.
Update: I posted the new patcher on my webpage. This should avoid anyone from just patching their CHRROM and not applying the IPS patch.
Wow this came together fast. Im going to have to set some time aside this week and try and make a cart version of it.
Thank you so much.
Can I make a request for your next project, Buzz and Waldog to work with the PowerPak or a hack to make a cart version.
Again thank you for this.
MottZilla wrote:
Did you apply the IPS patch? It should alter the PRG ROM section and the header to "mapper 4". If you only ran the executable, then all it did was shift around CHRROM data. You must apply the IPS patch. Either before or after running the SH_CHR_Patcher program. If you still have trouble let me know.
I think you may have to find a "mapper 4" board that can support a 128kb prg rom and a 256kb chr rom.
Also, when you load in Nestopia, check the PRGROM and CHRROM CRCs, and see if they match the PATCHED CRCs. The readme lists the original and patched ROM crcs.
Update: To simplify things I'm going to be updating the package. The Patcher program will now have you select your original ROM and where you want to output your patched ROM. It will then patch the CHRROM and then use a built-in IPS patch engine to apply the PRGROM patch. This should make things easier. I'll update when it is uploaded.
Update: I posted the new patcher on my webpage. This should avoid anyone from just patching their CHRROM and not applying the IPS patch.
Yeah I must have done it wrong the first time, 2nd time worked perfect. Have you played all the way through the entire game? Just want to make sure it doesnt crash or anything before I spend a few hours making a cart
By the way, your link is no longer working :*(
I have played through the entire game on the MMC3 version with Nintendulator. I played through the FME-7 version on the PowerPAK. I haven't done the MMC3 on the PowerPAK yet but it shouldn't have any problems since Nintendulator did not and the game doesn't do anything tricky. If you are concerned about it before making a cartridge you should run through it yourself on Nintendulator or you can wait till I play through it on the PowerPAK which I could do today.
About my webpage, I'm not sure what the deal is, I'm guessing my host is having problems. I don't own the site, I've only got a subdomain there related to another project of mine. If someone wants to mirror my patches I can send them. I don't have any other webspace at the moment.
Update: I have hacked Buzz & Waldog. It is currently patched to FME-7 however it will be patched to MMC3 shortly. My webpage is back up now.
Update: I overlooked something, and MMC3 will probably not happen. MMC3 for whatever reason (I didn't realize this) can't do 1 screen mirroring. This means there will be the FME-7 version and maybe I'll look into other options. Maybe a MMC3 board can be modded to do 1 screen mirroring?
Update: MMC3 may come out afterall if you can mod the cart mirroring.
I've updated my webpage as I hacked Buzz & Waldog on marvelus10's request.
http://ninjagaiden4.thegaminguniverse.c ... index.html
Should work fine on emulators and PowerPAKs. Gotta pay attension if you build a repro though.
Also, I tested the MMC3 Splatter House on my PowerPAK and ran through it with no problems.
AWESOME, I may have to put this on some carts.
To make a TKROM into TKSROM you just need to rewire CIRAM A10. Cut the CIRAM A10 wire that connects the mmc3 pin 10 to nes connector pin 22. Then solder a wire from nes connector pin 22 to mmc3 pin 12 (chr a17). You may have to cut the chr a17 trace that goes to the chr rom, but it should be unused on the 128KB chip anyways.
The wiki seems to be wrong in saying A16 is used for mapper 118. Bootgods site shows Play Action Football uses TLSROM (no wram) so modifying a TKROM should be much easier.
Interestingly Buzz and Waldog doesnt work on Mac Nestopia 1.3.7, but runs fine on Nintendulator/FCEUXDSP for Windows and FCEU for Mac. Mac Nestopia may be doing the strict no wram on mapper 118?
Thanks for the cart modding information. I'll have to try it when I get a chance. I should also probably add a small IPS patch for disabling the infinite lives in the prototype. That would probably be better for when you make a cartridge.
I found out what happens to Buzz & Waldog with no WRAM when I first did the FME-7 patch and hadn't enabled it yet. =)
Update: If you re-download the Buzz & Waldog patch it now has a "Lives.ips" to disable infinite lives. Also I added your cartridge hacking info bunnyboy.
is the CIRAM the WRAM chip above the PRG chip? is this a good schematic to look at when trying to mod a TKROM:
http://nintendoallstars.w.interia.pl/romlab/smb2.txt
bunnyboy wrote:
AWESOME, I may have to put this on some carts.
To make a TKROM into TKSROM you just need to rewire CIRAM A10. Cut the CIRAM A10 wire that connects the mmc3 pin 10 to nes connector pin 22. Then solder a wire from nes connector pin 22 to mmc3 pin 12 (chr a17). You may have to cut the chr a17 trace that goes to the chr rom, but it should be unused on the 128KB chip anyways.
The wiki seems to be wrong in saying A16 is used for mapper 118. Bootgods site shows Play Action Football uses TLSROM (no wram) so modifying a TKROM should be much easier.
CIRAM is the 2 KiB RAM attached to the PPU inside the NES. CIRAM A10 is that RAM chip's A10, and mirroring is the function from PPU A10-A11 to CIRAM A10, which the cart computes. Carts with fixed mirroring set CIRAM A10 = PPU A10 or CIRAM A11 = PPU A11; more sophisticated carts have the mapper compute this function.
Nice work on these patches! I know a lot of people who have wanted to get Buzz & Waldog in particular working on PowerPaks and repros.
It would be a pretty miserable job trying to convert a TLROM or TLSROM even into TKSROM, as there is no spot on them to install a WRAM chip.
I've never actually seen a TKSROM before, what games are supposed to use it?
I heard 2 games that may use it, those are NES Action Football and Pro Sport Hockey. I was told somewhere here that one of those doesn't have the WRAM.
I updated my webpage again. The next hack up is
Holy Diver from Irem. Holy Diver used the logic chips you'd find in UNROM/CNROM and has iNES mapper 78. Now I Know PowerPAK supports this, but lets say you wanted to build a reproduction, it would be a bitch having to wire those chips and all.
So I hacked
Holy Diver to MMC-1. I haven't fully tested it, but things look to be working fine. The game is 128k prg & 128k chr, no WRAM.
great work! i checked and both pro sport hockey and play action football dont have WRAM. i am still up about the TKSROM modding. do you have to mod the PPU in the actual nintendo for this to work? i found this schematic:
GND |01 37| CLK 21.47727Mhz (NTSC)
PRG A11 |02 38| M2
PRG A10 |03 39| PRG A12
PRG A9 |04 40| PRG A13
PRG A8 |05 41| PRG A14
PRG A7 |06 42| PRG D7
PRG A6 |07 43| PRG D6
PRG A5 |08 44| PRG D5
PRG A4 |09 45| PRG D4
PRG A3 |10 46| PRG D3
PRG A2 |11 47| PRG D2
PRG A1 |12 48| PRG D1
PRG A0 |13 49| PRG D0
PRG R/W |14 50| PRG /CE (/A15 & /M2)
/IRQ |15 51| EXP 9
EXP 0 |16 52| EXP 8
EXP 1 |17 53| EXP 7
EXP 2 |18 54| EXP 6
EXP 3 |19 55| EXP 5
EXP 4 |20 56| CHR /WR
CHR /RD |21 57| CIRAM /CE
CIRAM A10 |22 58| CHR A13
CHR A6 |23 59| CHR A7
CHR A5 |24 60| CHR A8
CHR A4 |25 61| CHR A9
CHR A3 |26 62| CHR A11
CHR A2 |27 63| CHR A10
CHR A1 |28 64| CHR A12
CHR A0 |29 65| CHR /A13
CHR D0 |30 66| CHR D7
CHR D1 |31 67| CHR D6
CHR D2 |32 68| CHR D5
CHR D3 |33 69| CHR D4
SECURITY |34 70| SECURITY
SECURITY |35 71| SECURITY
+5V |36 72| GND
+-------+
Cartridge Connector
any non-technical help would be awesome
No, you modify the game cartridge. See here:
http://nesdev.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=3949
Bregalad says you cut the MMC3 CIRAMA10 from connecting to the CIRAM A10, and instead connect the MMC3 CHRA16 to the CIRAM A10 on the cart edge. I haven't tested this myself but it sounds right.
Good to know those 2 games don't have WRAM.
A nice high resolution picture of the modified cart would be really nice too. If anyone gets to it I would like to see some examples. BunnyBoy its time to work some of your magic we need a Box and Manual to go along with this.
Thank you MottZilla keep up the good work.
ok, so i scanned a TKROM board:
I marked the pin 22 and CHR A17 (i think they are correct), but i am unsure of this step:
Cut the CIRAM A10 wire that connects the mmc3 pin 10 to nes connector pin 22
where is pin 10? is the CIRAM A10 wire a trace? i havent cut traces before, can you mess up the board easily?
bunnyboy wrote:
AWESOME, I may have to put this on some carts.
To make a TKROM into TKSROM you just need to rewire CIRAM A10. Cut the CIRAM A10 wire that connects the mmc3 pin 10 to nes connector pin 22. Then solder a wire from nes connector pin 22 to mmc3 pin 12 (chr a17). You may have to cut the chr a17 trace that goes to the chr rom, but it should be unused on the 128KB chip anyways.
The wiki seems to be wrong in saying A16 is used for mapper 118. Bootgods site shows Play Action Football uses TLSROM (no wram) so modifying a TKROM should be much easier.
coinheaven wrote:
ok, so i scanned a TKROM board:
I marked the pin 22 and CHR A17 (i think they are correct), but i am unsure of this step:
Cut the CIRAM A10 wire that connects the mmc3 pin 10 to nes connector pin 22
where is pin 10? is the CIRAM A10 wire a trace? i havent cut traces before, can you mess up the board easily?
Isnt that pin 15? According to the numbers printed on the board?
bunnyboy wrote:
AWESOME, I may have to put this on some carts.
To make a TKROM into TKSROM you just need to rewire CIRAM A10. Cut the CIRAM A10 wire that connects the mmc3 pin 10 to nes connector pin 22. Then solder a wire from nes connector pin 22 to mmc3 pin 12 (chr a17). You may have to cut the chr a17 trace that goes to the chr rom, but it should be unused on the 128KB chip anyways.
The wiki seems to be wrong in saying A16 is used for mapper 118. Bootgods site shows Play Action Football uses TLSROM (no wram) so modifying a TKROM should be much easier.
yup, your right, i was reading the pinout backwards. here is a new one:
The document on NESDev for EPROM conversions says:
TKROM & TSROM (mapper 4):
PRG socket:
Bend up pins 1, 2, 24, 30 and 31 (or cut tracks 2, 24, 30 and 31)
Solder pin 2 to hole 24 (A16)
Solder pin 24 to GND (OE)
Solder pin 30 to hole 1 (A17)
Solder pin 31 to hole 2 (A18)
CHR socket:
Bend up pins 1, 2, 22, 24, 30, 31 (or cut tracks 2, 22, 24 and 30)
Solder pin 2 to hole 24 (A16)
Solder pin 22 to hole 31 (CE or CHR /A13)
Solder pin 24 to hole 2 (OE or CHR /RD)
Solder pin 30 to hole 1 (A17)
I guess you'll have to decide wether you wish to bend the chip pins or if you want to cut traces and rewire. It's not that hard to do. I'd bought a Ninja gaiden 3 cartridge used and it didn't work. Turned out someone did something that damaged the traces going to the edge connection so I had to solder wires. And back then I really didn't know what I was doing.
I'll pickup a programmer soon and see about building some carts. In my opinion the hardest part is probably making a nice label and putting that on there.
Great work Mott! =) Any chance of you ever hacking the pirate game, Super Mario World for NES? Thanks!
I've thought about that actually but haven't looked into it. All I know is it uses Mapper 90 which I've heard is very messy. But it is on a list of pirate games I'd like to hack to MMC3, another one being Contra Spirits (a nes pirate version of contra 3).
bunnyboy wrote:
AWESOME, I may have to put this on some carts.
To make a TKROM into TKSROM you just need to rewire CIRAM A10. Cut the CIRAM A10 wire that connects the mmc3 pin 10 to nes connector pin 22. Then solder a wire from nes connector pin 22 to mmc3 pin 12 (chr a17). You may have to cut the chr a17 trace that goes to the chr rom, but it should be unused on the 128KB chip anyways.
The wiki seems to be wrong in saying A16 is used for mapper 118. Bootgods site shows Play Action Football uses TLSROM (no wram) so modifying a TKROM should be much easier.
has anyone tested this to see if it will work on a live cart? thank you
There is no reason it wouldn't work. They worked in Nintendulator, Nestopia, and on the PowerPAK in an official NES system.
Hello hows things for you Mott.
Have you got any new projects planned.
As you may have seen from the other forums, I've been working on a NES emulator though I think I've gotten most of what I wanted out of that now. I still want to work on actual NES games. As for mapper hacks, I have no current plans. I was thinking about trying to do some Konami VRC series games.
I also was hoping to build cartridges for the hacks mentioned in this topic, but the EPROM programmer I bought didn't work and I don't have the money to spend on a USB EPROM Programmer right now.
Tormenter wrote:
AWESOME, I may have to put this on some carts.
To make a TKROM into TKSROM you just need to rewire CIRAM A10. Cut the CIRAM A10 wire that connects the mmc3 pin 10 to nes connector pin 22. Then solder a wire from nes connector pin 22 to mmc3 pin 12 (chr a17). You may have to cut the chr a17 trace that goes to the chr rom, but it should be unused on the 128KB chip anyways.
The wiki seems to be wrong in saying A16 is used for mapper 118. Bootgods site shows Play Action Football uses TLSROM (no wram) so modifying a TKROM should be much easier.
has anyone tested this to see if it will work on a live cart? thank you[/quote]
So let me make sure I have this before I break out the ol burner and give her a shot. Wire it just like any normal TKROM board, PLUS add what is above?
MottZilla wrote:
As you may have seen from the other forums, I've I was thinking about trying to do some Konami VRC series games.
Please, hack Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa to MMC3
Yes Tormenter, I believe you have it right. Basically the game is a TKROM game except that Buzz & Waldog uses Single Screen Mirroring, which MMC3 can't normally do, so it TKSROM which you can convert TKROM into by doing the steps mentioned. So do it as a TKROM reproduction, and then do the CIRAM A10 stuff to convert it to TKSROM.
According to Kevtris, the CIRAM A10 is on the image, the bottom of the mmc3 chip, 2nd from the right, correct? I do not see this leading anywhere on the front, and you turn it over and it does not lead anywhere either?
http://www.kevtris.org/nes/nestuff2.txt
sorry, image didnt show up on last one
I found two server-side problems with that image URL:
- The img tag in phpBB appears to work with only a few URL extensions. To work around this, use URL rewriting, or use AcceptPathInfo = On and $_SERVER['PATH_INFO'].
- The server isn't sending out the right MIME type. It's sending text/html, not the correct image/jpeg.
Sorry guys, a while back I had to implement a number of things to keep image leechers from bringing my site to a standstill. No hot-linking and the images are embedded into the document (hence the MIME type).
You can view the image by going to its profile page first:
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=1343
Tormenter wrote:
According to Kevtris, the CIRAM A10 is on the image, the bottom of the mmc3 chip, 2nd from the right, correct? I do not see this leading anywhere on the front, and you turn it over and it does not lead anywhere either?
http://www.kevtris.org/nes/nestuff2.txtI believe you are looking at the chip upside down. The pins are at the top in the image and it should be the second from the left.