Commercial FDS NSFs not playing on hardware.

This is an archive of a topic from NESdev BBS, taken in mid-October 2019 before a server upgrade.
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Commercial FDS NSFs not playing on hardware.
by on (#143831)
Having relatively recently obtained a TNS-HFC5 and, extremely recently, a TNS-HFX4, I've been trying out many NSFs on real hardware. I can currently play files using the VRC7, 5B, and/or FDS, but I've noticed that the vast majority of FDS NSFs ripped from commercial games won't play at all. The files load into memory, but upon pressing reset, I'm only greeted with a pop and silence, with one (Famicom Mukashibanashi: Shin Onigashima) only playing the first track correctly with the others sounding like a corrupted mess.

Most of the FDS NSFs created via modern methods work perfectly fine (with the exception of one created with IT2NSF), but the few from games that I've come across that seem to work are:
  • Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa
  • Falsion
  • Namida no Soukoban Special

I was wondering if anyone with similar methods of hardware playback (any owners of an HFC4 or using an HFC3 with a pair of NES and Famicom adapters), anyone who uses some PC-FDS interface method, or anything like that has these issues as well and what the cause might be.
Re: Commercial FDS NSFs not playing on hardware.
by on (#143849)
Some emulators implement FDS NSF memory in a strange way, where a bankswitch is essentially an instant memcpy. This led to a few FDS rips that don't work well on a ramcart like the PowerPak. I've tried to update the wiki with advice about how to make FDS NSF rips that play well across most emuators and ramcarts, but there are a bunch of old rips that are problematic.

I made fixes for four FDS NSFs that had mirrored-write problems:
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9224#p98299

Two of the three you mentioned don't play on PowerPak but I could never figure out why. Are you saying that those ones work or don't work?
http://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=9228

I don't know how the FDS is implemented in the PowerPak NSF mapper, and I have even less idea about how a TNS cart might do it. I identified a bunch that didn't run on PowerPak but I didn't want to sink time into figuring out what was wrong with the rips. I don't have a TNS to test against, so I don't have much advice there (other than it's probably a lot like the PowerPak in this respect).
Re: Commercial FDS NSFs not playing on hardware.
by on (#143850)
All three of the ones I listed play, but none of your four fixed NSFs will. The only one mentioned in that thread that works is Namida no Soukoban