Bootleg Games Central Forum
Pirate Discussion => Famicom/NES => Topic started by: forgotusername on November 05, 2023, 06:21:31 PM
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I've ended up with a rather large selection of random NES files that I haven't released anywhere, generally obtained from hack testing and whatnot. Since I've never really found a place to put these, I figured making a miscellaneous thread here could be a good way to distribute them.
To start, here are three hacks obtained from some quite obscure multicarts. Down Deep (a Dig Dug hack) was unplayable within the multicart itself, while Route-16 Moto (hack of Route-16 Turbo) was on a plug & play thing that I couldn't get to emulate properly (it's somewhere on Clusterrr's website...) Dungeon Escape was playable on the multicart iirc, though it's a very obscure game variant regardless.
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I have a massive folder of NROM and MMC3 conversions (that's mappers 0 and 4 in iNES header-speak), which are generally bootleg in origin. I'm not sure how much interest people have in mapper conversions these days (I mainly use them for the purposes of rom hacking), though I may as well publish them here. The folders are as follows:
*MMC3 conversions - CoolX-Lite: a set of very elaborate conversions, designed for a customizable multicart developed in Ukraine. while most are pure MMC3, some are based on the "CoolX" mapper itself, which i don't think exists in the iNES 2.0 database yet. there was a giant github page for these which seems to have been taken down, so this moreso serves as a mirror for them. about 100 games in here.
*MMC3 conversions - multicart rips: conversions which i've ripped from various multicarts and plug & plays; many of these are CNROM (or CNROM-like) games. quality control greatly varies with these, some work perfectly while others do not (for example, buggy popper crashes at level 4). 113 games here.
*NROM conversions - misc: anything NROM-based. a few of these are likely available elsewhere, though they can be difficult to find. some of these (including everything in the "plug & play" folder) are my own conversions, with some being created as a "basis" for my previous rom hacks. around 50 games here.
I skipped the other directories I have, as those files can generally be found elsewhere (GoodNES, romhacking.net, clusterrr's website, etc).
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I'm interested in mapper conversions, as it can make the ROMs more accessible, such as Virtual Console imports, so converting to a common mapper is definitely appreciated. Thank you!
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No problem. :)
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I remember asking before about some tool that converts from bootleg mapper to common one, but from what I've heard it has to be done manually & with expertise in ROM hacking
I don't know what mapper is used by Donkey Kong Country 4 from Hummer Team, but from what I recall, it was not a common mapper.
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Recently, I did a large study on "educational computer" Famiclones. As part of this research, I ripped many ROMs from various educational computer systems and cartridges.
Many years ago, I attempted to rip some of the educational computer games as standalone ROMs; though I dubbed almost all of them "bad roms", as they would display glitchy graphics in every emulator. As it turns out, however, I simply...didn't understand how the coding of the games worked. On almost every educational computer device, the internal programs read all graphic data off of the PRG rather than using an additional CHR chip. In my older extracts, I had unknowingly copied decoded graphic data to the games as separate CHR data, which FCEUX places as additional (often incomplete) code in its hex editor. With this in mind, I was now able to extract the ROMs without issue.
It is still rather obtuse to run some of these via single-rom extracts, given the multitude of different inputs required between programs. Most games use a Subor keyboard and either a "3x8-bit mouse" or a "24-bit mouse". Fully 24-bit mouse-based games also work with standard NES controllers, but often have an issue where the cursor will dart to the top-left corner of the screen; I'm unsure what causes this, though it's an issue with the educational bootlegs in general rather than these extracts. Additionally, many ROMs have a second program (or more) built into them; in some cases I was able to separate both games from the file, while in others I could not. Some games also had to be physically decoded to run as separate extracts.
There are around 175 ROMs here total, including variations. These are mostly English and Spanish-language programs, with a handful of Russian ones; Chinese programs are much more difficult to rip (mainly as they use ~224k of data just for the font), though I did rip a few for testing. As a side note, I retained all documentation for this process, but I didn't include it here (as it's kind of a giant mess...); I can provide it if that's something people want.
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As
further torture a bonus, here is a set of NROM conversions of most of the Action 52 games. Additionally, I have a custom sprite hack of sorts here that requires a bit of explanation.
A couple attempts of Action 52 rips have been done before; though generally, they run on the native Action 52 "mapper 228", due to each game using one extra sprite bank for text screens (menus, score counters, etc). As with the aforementioned educational computer programs, Action 52 often combines two or three games into one file; however, the Action 52 code is quite well documented by this point, so decoding every game was trivial. However, due to how resourceful the Action 52 code is - with enough hacking - 46 of the 52 games can run as standard mapper 0 files, without the need for the extra sprite bank. Absolutely no visible sprites have been removed in these conversions; with the sole exception of the copyright notice on Ooze, which was removed for space. I also ripped a "prototype" copy of French Baker, and a modified ROM of Ooze starting on an unused "Level 8".
Now comes the more intriguing part. In 2011, a crappy little reproduction cart called "Cheetahmen: The Creation" was released. This literally $200 USD cartridge is a badly cut-up copy of an otherwise-undumped Action 52 prototype build, which featured a different game at slot #52. However, half of this ROM is some other scrapped Action 52 game, which is not accessible through the Cheetahmen: The Creation cart whatsoever. Of course, since it is from that overpriced abomination, the graphic data for this unused game is not present; though you can get a general idea of how the game plays with some junk data in its place.
I previously released the unaltered, unused game ROM on The Cutting Room Floor, though I have also mirrored it here. In addition, I have created a simple hack called "Here & Hare" with custom graphics; which almost certainly looks nothing like the game was supposed to, though it makes it much more playable.
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Excellent work again, thank you!
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Recently, I did a large study on "educational computer" Famiclones. As part of this research, I ripped many ROMs from various educational computer systems and cartridges.
(...)
"xue si dian nao (dr. pc jr., unknown input).nes" needs the PS/2 keyboard that the Doctor PC Junior takes. If you want to run it in its native environment, place the attached DRPCJR.BIN into the BIOS subfolder of your NintendulatorNRS folder. Run any normal NROM game, like Super Mario Bros., in NintendulatorNRS, then select Game->Machine Type->Bung->Doctor PC Jr. (*) At the Doctor PC Junior boot screen, insert the attached GAMES.IMA 1.44M disk image via "File->Load 3.5" disk...". Select file TTOK for the typing tutor. Set Scroll Lock so that all keyboard keys register instead of being interpreted as emulator control keys. You will also find the native form of the FC7005 "cartridge".
(*) This treatment as a "plug-through device" may seem awkward but is technically correct, since the Doctor PC Jr. has a cartridge slot, and its BIOS sits between the cartridge slot and the CPU. It only seems awkward because while NintendulatorNRS must have something in its "cartridge slot", a real Doctor PC Jr. will run its BIOS with an empty cartridge slot.
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I see the files on the disk are just custom-headered NES ROMs... the old "Development Page" states that the other programs can't be run on standard NES architecture; is that truly the case, or the result of less information on the NES hardware existing circa 2001? Other disc images seem to use proper computer-like data (with .bin/.dat/.cmd files and whatnot), I assume those can't be compiled into a .nes file?
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There are three execution environments on the Doctor PC Jr.:
- BIOS only: run a "custom-headered NES ROM" from a floppy disk.
- SM-DOS: boot the SM-DOS system disk and run software from DOS-like files.
- MCC-DOS: boot the SM-DOS system disk, then run a Terminate-and-stay-resident program that loads the 256 KiB Hanzi font into CHR RAM from the system disk.
Each piece of software runs in one of the three environments. TTOK runs as BIOS-only, as do pirated commercial NES games. Most Chinese software runs under MCC-DOS, while the BASIC interpreter only needs SM-DOS.
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Here is an attempt at ripping and decoding the games from the "Digital EZ-LG" 15-in-1. The games are encrypted in a somewhat simple way: each game requires bytes #800C-800D to be replaced with the bytes located at #8008-8009. Some of these extracts (particularly Space War) have issues, though the majority of them work fine.
As a side note, there is notable text data in four of the games' code: Perfect Puzzle, Quick Brain, Car Racing, and Cricket. Perfect Puzzle and Quick Brain both begin with what seems to be text for a 3-in-1 menu, with the third game being Car Racing. However, the Car Racing code instead begins with "(C)RAMA..RACE!!!", with Cricket similarly reading "(C)RAMA.CRICKET". Presumably, Rama is the name of the games' developers; they are likely also the creators of two other NES bootlegs, BugTris and Block Puzzle (or perhaps Rama is a 2000s offshoot of that developer).
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Ha! Your Action 52 conversions reminded me of my conversions (some) that I made a long time ago, I attached my collection under the post. Also I had Ninja Assault hack with fixed stage 4.
I'm also pleased with the fact that FDS conversions are still being done. By the way, Boogerman II previously ported Sharpnull. And in games from Ei-Ho Yang, anti-piracy protection is sewn in (I hope you've removed it all, the integrity of the CHR ROM is also checked there).
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I didn't touch much of anything in the "CoolX" mapper hacks in terms of coding, but I would assume anti-piracy measures were disabled. The github page had what seemed to be full decompilations of the ROMs (albeit still in PRG/CHR-like formats, not outright source code); which I unfortunately didn't back up.
I see in your "Streemerz" rip that there's a visible health bar; is that an unused function, or was it custom coded? (I assume the heart graphics themselves are new)
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I didn't touch much of anything in the "CoolX" mapper hacks in terms of coding, but I would assume anti-piracy measures were disabled. The github page had what seemed to be full decompilations of the ROMs (albeit still in PRG/CHR-like formats, not outright source code); which I unfortunately didn't back up.
I see in your "Streemerz" rip that there's a visible health bar; is that an unused function, or was it custom coded? (I assume the heart graphics themselves are new)
Are you talking about a complete decompilation of all Action 52 games? Is there a link?
Maybe there are still saves on the web archive?
With regard to Streemerz, all games were supposed to have a life bar and a score counter, since the games were made on the principle of a conveyor and have an identical design. But in a number of games, some functions are disabled, and in some cases it was possible to turn platformers into flying games like Micro Mike (I did that once with Haunted Hills) or vice versa. The heart icon is taken from the first Chip and Dale.
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The "decompilation" was referring to CoolX, which pertains to the other games you mentioned (Boogerman II, FDS ports etc.). The Action 52 rips I mostly re-coded myself, and are unrelated to CoolX; there is no full decompiling of Action 52 AFAIK.
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The "decompilation" was referring to CoolX, which pertains to the other games you mentioned (Boogerman II, FDS ports etc.). The Action 52 rips I mostly re-coded myself, and are unrelated to CoolX; there is no full decompiling of Action 52 AFAIK.
Clear.
I once set out to improve the first Cheetahmen, but it didn't go beyond small edits. There is a port of this game on MMC1, I also rewrote the intro for the game based on the intro from the sequel (so that you can skip it and go to the menu with a pause), but the music from the intro of the second part remains in it ("Bossa Nova", if you know).
I also planned to insert an intro at the end of the game so that after the last boss there would be a screens with frames from the Action 52 advertisement, as well as rework the characters and enemies under the 8x16 sprite mode to insert the sprites of the Sega version, but I lack the help of a person who understands machine code or assembler.
By the way. I have trimmed to 48 kilobytes the famous dump of Cheetahmen: The Creation.
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Here are MMC3 conversions of the two Ocean-published Bubble Bobble games: Rainbow Islands and Parasol Stars. Note that these were PAL-exclusive releases originally, and have slight graphics issues on later levels if run as NTSC (which isn't a result of the mapper hack).
The method in which I was able to convert these games is quite bizarre. I found that four Ocean releases - Rainbow Islands, Parasol Stars, The Addams Family, and Cool World - feature near-identical opcodes and code structure. There is a fan-made Addams Family MMC3 port by "infidelity" which included documentation, so I used that as reference for Rainbow Islands/Parasol Stars; alongside some code from a bootleg Cool World conversion.
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Dragon Ball Z 5 - CHR ROM Optimized by me (Reduced to 256 kilobytes). ROM mapper is still the same.
I also saw a lot of unused empty space in the PRG ROM (more than 20000 bytes) to reduce the PRG size to 128 kilobytes, but for this it's necessary to disassemble the game in order to rebuild the ROM.
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The game already runs as mapper 4 submapper 4. I made a small change to the IRQ code to run it as regular MMC3. I only checked the initial screens, however.
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The game already runs as mapper 4 submapper 4. I made a small change to the IRQ code to run it as regular MMC3. I only checked the initial screens, however.
Ha, it was unexpected) :)
I also have some work on San Guo Zhi - Chi Bi Zhi Zhan by Asder, which I wanted to make more closer to the arcade original, optimizing the CHR data along the way. This game has already been ported by Sharpnull to the MMC3 mapper (see attachment).
But I have problems with text output (it's better to convert it to a standard output type) and in some places (in cutscenes with text) the graphics banks don't want to change, only with banks located nearby.
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Deerstalking from Nice Code Software - MMC3 port by Sharpnull:
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I don't believe I've run into Sharpnull before (first I've heard of the name), but I found that he created more elaborate decodes of the Digital EZ-LG games; I've attached them here, as they should probably supersede my attempt posted here previously.
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Here are five of the "Super" hacks seen on some early 90s multicarts - Super Donkey Kong 3, Super Galaxian, Super Pac-Man, Super Pooyan, and Super Star Soldier. These are pretty simple hacks conceptually; Super Pac-Man greatly increases Pac-Man's speed (similar to the arcade "speed-up chip" hack), while the other three just increase the player's bullet speed/power. Some multicarts also feature a "Super Star Force", though I haven't included it here for the simple reason that I can't figure out what it actually changes (outside of some nasty title screen coloring...)
Normally, these games are built into the original versions in code (i.e. unhacked Pac-Man runs on the same file as Super Pac-Man); I wasn't able to rip them for the longest time because of this. However, I came across a couple multicarts which run the "Super" games separately from the originals, allowing them to be extracted.
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I still like the nasty colors
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Posted here in case anyone doesn't have a rom of this game:
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Puzzle game from Asder educational Famicom cartridge:
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Thank you, I was unable to rip Puzzle and Xin Ji Zhan Jiang previously (outside of some of the hacked variants).
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It would be great to see these games in a separate form and without binding to the keyboard:
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Mini collection of The Cheetahmen games (standalone The Cheetahmen on 228 and MMC1 mapper also included):
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I wonder if there is a MMC3 mapper haсk of the game San Guo Zhi 4 - Chi Bi Feng Yun?
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No, and creating one would be difficult, as the game uses 8x16 sprites, which make the MMC3's scanline counter act near-inscrutably (https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/MMC3): "When using 8x16 sprites, PPU A12 must be explicitly tracked. The exact time and number of times the counter is clocked will depend on the specific set of sprites present on every scanline. Specific combinations of sprites could cause the counter to decrement up to four times, or the IRQ to be delayed or early by some multiple of 8 pixels."
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No, and creating one would be difficult, as the game uses 8x16 sprites, which make the MMC3's scanline counter act near-inscrutably (https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/MMC3): "When using 8x16 sprites, PPU A12 must be explicitly tracked. The exact time and number of times the counter is clocked will depend on the specific set of sprites present on every scanline. Specific combinations of sprites could cause the counter to decrement up to four times, or the IRQ to be delayed or early by some multiple of 8 pixels."
But after all, some of the Cony Soft games were successfully hacked to MMC3, so it's still possible.
Here's what I learned about the late ports from Cony Soft/Future Media:
"In Crayon Shin-Chan, MMC3 is possible due to the use of CHR banks in PPU $000-7FF and $800-FFF as whole, and in CPU $C000-DFFF banks with garbage and the code is similar at the beginning, so you can only transfer data and change the code. In San Guo Zhi 4 - Chi Bi Feng Yun, at the beginning of the game, CHR banks are also whole, but there are several banks in the CPU $C000-DFFF and they are more complicated, so it's more difficult."
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I don't know that these games were "hacked"; I think Cony at some point recompiled the games themselves one they obtained access to an MMC3 clone that was more affordable than their own custom mapper.
In any case, VRC4 may be an easier target for hacking than MMC3.
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A crappy little plug & play known as "Croaky Karaoke" was just added to MAME. In concept, the game is nothing more than a karaoke video played with some song covers played in that distinct "DDR Famiclone" style. Amusingly, four of the songs were licensed from Sony Music, leading to the console having a licensed NES cover of "Take On Me", of all things.
There's no microphone input or anything on this console, but the menu inexplicably uses a proprietary control setup; so I can't actually navigate the song selection screen in any emulator. As such, I attempted to extract the songs into individual ROMs; to my surprise, this worked perfectly for 13 out of 14 songs (the one exception being "Sing"). Each file has three songs built-in, running dominant as one of them (similar to the educational computer ROMs); however, zeroing out one or two sections of code will run the other song + video. The only caveat with the working files is that they do not emulate the sampled "clapping" sound effect, I am unsure if that's an emulation issue or an extraction issue. Download attached below.
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Does anyone know if there's ever been a conversion of Armadillo/Mario IV to standard mapper 4 (or if one would even be feasible)? AFAIK all dumped multicarts containing the game use weird registers to "mimic" mapper 118 behavior, but aren't outright mapper 4 conversions.
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There is none, and I doubt one can be made without rewriting major parts of the game. One-screen mirroring is such a different way of programming a scrolling routine that the original publisher would rather use different hardware (TLSROM rather than TLROM) instead of just adapting the game for more common hardware.
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This archive contains the original (unmodified) ROM image of the game Fighting Road and an abandoned half-ported to MMC3 mapper (fixed only PRG registers).
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I doubt I'll get an answer for this one, but it's been a lingering question for a while. I was wondering if two FDS games - All 1 and Clox, both part of the Famimaga Disk series - could theoretically be converted to standard NES format. I question this as most of the files on the disk appear to only be splash screens and copyright notices; the actual game data is ~24k in size, with 8k CHR for graphics. If the extra notices were removed, could the games be converted to 40k NROM (with 32k PRG/8k CHR)? I can't find much information on how FDS conversions are done, other than that game conversions using only one disk side seem to be more prevalent.
I've attached unmodified extracts of the (non-splash screen) files in a .nes-like structure; naturally they don't work as-is.