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Pirate Discussion => Famicom/NES => Famicom/NES dumps => Topic started by: davidstech on January 23, 2018, 11:53:11 AM

Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on January 23, 2018, 11:53:11 AM
Hopefully over the next few weeks, I'll be dumping various VTxx based systems and I thought it would be good to keep them together in a thread.

First of all the 200 in 1 Thumbs Up Retro TV Games, with 200 VT03 delights:
http://davidstech.net/games/multis/200%20in%201%20Retro%20TV%20Game%20(VT03).7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/200%20in%201%20Retro%20TV%20Game%20(VT03).7z)

This runs in NewRisingSun2's Nintendulator, EmuVT and I will also add this to MAME.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on January 23, 2018, 11:56:02 AM
Oh hey, didn't I suggest that handheld to you? It's the 200-in-1 dreamGEAR plug'n'play, right? The thank yous from me just keep coming and coming, hahaha! :D
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on January 23, 2018, 11:59:16 AM
Yes, it was based on your suggestion :) Sorry for forgetting the credit! This one is Thumbs Up branded which is the much more common one in the UK, but I think it's identical to the dreamGEAR 200 in 1 plug and play.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on January 23, 2018, 12:02:30 PM
No worries, I'm just glad you dumped it. :)

Yeah i'm pretty sure it is identical. I recognize the multicart menu layout as well, so you're right about that one.

I also never heard of the Thumbs Up brand--do you know anything else about them?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on January 23, 2018, 12:06:59 PM
Thumbs Up rebrand and distribute various things like this in the UK, they also sell a 240 in 1 Micro Arcade like the Taikee and one of those non-Famiclone 1.8" handheld games, and some game accessories. Basically the UK equivalent of DreamGEAR, who are less common here.
If anyone is curious, here is a list of all the 200 games on the console (extracted from the ROM because I'm too lazy to type them all out)

Spoiler: click to toggle
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on January 23, 2018, 04:31:18 PM
Is the chip really a VT03? Because all the games on it seem to use VT02 features only.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on January 23, 2018, 04:35:45 PM
I think you're right actually, for some reason I thought one of the games looked like VT03 but it is all VT02 - that said the chip may be a VT03, I think VRT may have discontinued some older chips.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on January 29, 2018, 08:44:18 AM
New dump today, the SY-888B handheld. This is the same hardware as the SY-889, but a different set of games including several Nice Code VT02 games and some possibly new hacks (including "Where is Dad", a hack of Adventure Island II).

Download here: http://davidstech.net/games/multis/288%20in%201%20SY-888B%20(VTxx).7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/288%20in%201%20SY-888B%20(VTxx).7z)

I will add this to MAME, it also runs in EmuVT in VT09 mode with incorrect colours. Currently it doesn't seem to run in Nintendulator.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on January 29, 2018, 12:52:45 PM
Now it does (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/NintendulatorNRS2018-01-29.7z). Changed from checking whether $4304 bit 0 is 1 to whether any bit of $4304 is 1. Note that I am in the midst of updating the input code, so you will have to set your controller input assignments anew when using this build.

Is the menu supposed to be this, uh, empty-looking?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on January 29, 2018, 12:57:53 PM
Thanks for the updated build! Yes, the menu is correct, see this review on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqSLHzw-Yy4) - however it is supposed to fill the screen, presumably because the VTxx config is switched from scaling down to cropping? Not a big worry though. Everything else seems correct.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on January 29, 2018, 01:08:51 PM
Yuck, that downscaled Contra screen looks horrible.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on January 29, 2018, 01:25:06 PM
Yeah, these low res NES-based consoles are pretty ugly - but what can you expect for a handheld with ~50 playable games (plus some crappy ones) for $7 or something?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on January 29, 2018, 02:25:50 PM
Don't know if this has been answered before, but how do you convert .bin files to .nes? I want to remove all of the unique games from the menus, but can only do so when they're in .nes format.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on January 29, 2018, 03:24:24 PM
Yeah I'd like to know this as well. I hear there is no easy way to do it.

http://davidstech.net/games/multis/200%20in%201%20Retro%20TV%20Game%20(VT02).nes (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/200%20in%201%20Retro%20TV%20Game%20(VT02).nes) - Here's TV Game 200-in-1, which davidstech converted for me. It sadly does not work in FCEUX. I wonder what it runs.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on January 29, 2018, 04:04:02 PM
You add 16 bytes at the top using a hex editor, change the first four bytes to "NES" and 0x1A, and then open the file using Nestopia's or Nintendulator's NES Header Editor, select a NES 2.0 header, set mapper to 256, and the number of PRG banks to the ROM size in Kilobytes divided by 16.

Nintendulator-NRS runs TV Game 200-in-1, as does CaH4e3's current FCEUX build from his website.

@forgotusername: I can offer to extract all of the individual games, as I did before.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on January 29, 2018, 07:26:14 PM
Oh hey, you;'re right, NewRisingSun! It does run in the BuildBot  version of FCEUX! Excellent, thank you!

Has someone considered creating an executable that converts .bin to .nes? It surely has to be possible, right?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on January 30, 2018, 01:26:29 AM
NewRisingSun2
Jan 29 2018, 04:04:02 PM
@forgotusername: I can offer to extract all of the individual games, as I did before.[/quote]There's not really a point in doing so, as on these new dumps there's only two completely unique games to my knowledge (one is a bad hack of Tetris and the other an Assart variant). May as well not bother.
Quote:
 
Here's TV Game 200-in-1, which davidstech converted for me. It sadly does not work in FCEUX. I wonder what it runs.[/quote]
Thanks. Oddly enough it worked perfectly in FCEUX for me. Got all the new ROMs extracted, which I'll post eventually.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 07:39:20 AM
Two new non-working dumps, I'll try and get these working at some point when I have the time. In the mean time if anyone wants to look at these they're here.

First of all, the MOGIS M320 246 in 1, which looks like similar hardware to the SY-88x handhelds, but doesn't emulate. I can't get this to work at all in Nintendulator or EmuVT, and currently in my branch of MAME I get a green screen and the intro music but don't get any further.

http://davidstech.net/games/multis/246%20in%201%20MOGIS%20M320%20(VTxx).7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/246%20in%201%20MOGIS%20M320%20(VTxx).7z)

Secondly, the FC Pocket 600 in 1 handheld. This uses some kind of opcode scrambling, possibly involving XORing with 0xA1 but that doesn't always seem to work so I need to investigate a bit further. I think the problem may be down to working out how/when the scrambling is turned on, as I think the first few instructions aren't scrambled. Once that's figured out hopefully it won't be too hard to emulate. The same scrambling is seemingly used in the DreamGear DGUN-2573.

http://davidstech.net/games/multis/FC%20Pocket%20600%20in%201%20(VTxx).7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/FC%20Pocket%20600%20in%201%20(VTxx).7z)

I'm now making progress on emulation of the FC Pocket. There's more work to do, but it seems that what is happening with the CPU is that after the first jump (opcode 0x4C), all opcodes are scrambled by XORing with 0xA1. This is then turned off before NES games are loaded. I think register 0x411E might have something to do with this.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 10:14:22 AM
MOGIS M320 must use 8 KiB of internal RAM. Nintendulator emulates 2 KiB for normal NES and 4 KiB for VT09+. With 8 KiB, I also get intro music (that is too fast) and a garbled display.

Why is FC Pocket 128 MiB? The second half seems to be just zero bytes.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 10:17:40 AM
I don't know about the 128 MiB either - the flash ROM chip is a S29GL01GP which is definitely 1 Gbit/128Mbyte, so I kept the ROM size accurate. I can only presume that 128Mbyte chips were cheaper on the Shenzhen market the day that console was built.
I seem to have cracked the scrambling used in the FC pocket and DGUN-2573 as well now.

Writing 0x05 to $411e causes scrambling - XORing opcodes with 0xA1 - to be enabled after the next long jump operation (opcodes 0x4C, 0x6C or 0x00). Writing 0x00 to $411e disables scrambling after the next long jump.

Now I just need to sort out palette issues and both the DGUN-2573 and FC Pocket should be supported in MAME.
A few more things if you want to emulate the FC Pocket NewRisingSun2. There are some unknown opcodes at the start before scrambling is enabled. These can be ignored.

Also the high address bit of the ROM seems to be set by $412C but I need to investigate that myself.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 02, 2018, 10:46:11 AM
Is VT09 supported in MAME yet? It doesn't seem to be marked off in the progress bar, davidstech.

And it's crazy to think if 220-in-1 would finally be emulatable in MAME.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 11:37:22 AM
The 220-in-1 is booting in my branch of MAME now, and all the games I tested work, but the palette is totally broken and there are other graphical issues.

Some VT09 ROMs work, like the VG Pocket series, but some other suspected VT09 don't like lexcyber, it's an bit mysterious.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 11:54:23 AM
FC Pocket 600's palette is just four bits each of blue-green-red. Now for the PCM menu music...
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 12:02:17 PM
Thanks for working that out. If you're curious how the "fake cartridge" switches between 472-in-1 and 128-in-1, it seems if $412d returns 0x06 then the 128-in-1 is used, otherwise it defaults to the 472-in-1.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 12:08:02 PM
Here, In 220-in-1 (DGUN-2573), the preview image of Curly Monkey2 is still broken, while it's ok for Cut Fruit.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 12:09:16 PM
Same in MAME. I'm not sure why that is either though. Possibly DMA or nametable access related.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 12:11:38 PM
And "Champion Boat" needs the normal VT03 palette. So there must be a switch between the normal VT03 hue/luma/saturation 4-4-4 and R-G-B 4-4-4 palette.
Edit: the only thing in terms of register writes is $411E. Value $05 has two bits set, so maybe one of them turns on encryption after the next jump, while the other switches 12-bit palette types?
Edit2: No, that doesn't work for Thunder Man either.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 01:07:09 PM
This is a dump of the Family Pocket 638 in 1. Despite seeming similar to the FC Pocket, it actually seems to use standard VT02/VT03 stuff as far as I can see and runs fine in Nintendulator. This one just has the "console" and "cartridge" after each other in the ROM, so I've also provided split files.

http://davidstech.net/games/multis/Family%20Pocket.7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/Family%20Pocket.7z)
Actually, looks like a few games aren't working in Nintendulator for this. It seems bit 1 of $412C controls ROM A24 (and cartridge/console determines ROM A25)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 02, 2018, 01:17:05 PM
You sure that 130-in-1 cartridge is working right? All the game names are wrong (one of which being a super-rare Bubble Bobble hack, which here just loads up Mario 9...)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 01:18:24 PM
@davidstech: Add a NES header and set mapper to 270. The bankswitching must be similar to the Game Prince RS-16's. I need to add a "DIP Switch" menu for the non-split ROM to select ROM versus cartridge mode.

Edit: It seems that $412C bit 0 is ROM A25 also?
Edit2: Got everything working except console game #500 ("underwater", actually Little Mermaid), which has garbled CHR.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 01:48:53 PM
Here are the split ROMs in NES format, although it seems most of the 130-in-1 games still aren't working in Nintendulator? I seem to have them working OK in MAME now.

http://davidstech.net/games/multis/Family%20Pocket%20(split,%20NES%20format).7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/Family%20Pocket%20(split,%20NES%20format).7z)

I think you're right about 412C bit0, but I need to check.
Underwater is broken in MAME too, seems odd. Pretty sure dump is OK as it was consistent over several reads and everything else works...
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 02:04:49 PM
davidstech
 
it seems most of the 130-in-1 games still aren't working in Nintendulator? [/quote]The previously-posted build gets confused by $412C bit 0. I'll post an updated build later, once I get the palette selection issue in the 220-in-1 and 600-in-1 ROMs resolved.

Underwater and Zanac use CHR-RAM rather than CHR-ROM. $4242 bit 0 selects CHR-ROM (0) or 8 KiB CHR-RAM (1).

Edit: And FC Pocket 600 in 1 has an extended register at $411D with Bit 0 (value $01) enabling MMC1 mode at $8000-$FFFF, bit 1 (value &02) enabling an UNROM latch at $8000-$FFFF, and bit 2 (value $04) enabling 8 KiB CHR-RAM instead of CHR-ROM. Yay. Choose Jackal for testing UNROM/CHR-RAM, and Bionic Commando for testing the MMC1.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 03:35:20 PM
Interesting, clearly VRT cared more about wider game compatibility with their new chipset. I'll look at getting this implemented in MAME.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 03:40:23 PM
It would really be great if we could get chipset names for these, otherwise they will never be officially supported in NES 2.0. Right now, we have three unknown chipsets:
- The one with the 5-5-5 RGB palette and the dancing cats
- The one with the switchable 4-4-4 RGB palette used in FC Mobile 600 that also has encrypted opcodes and so far unknown sound hardware
- MOGIS M320 with unknown palette, unknown graphics bankswitching and 8 KiB of main RAM at $0000-$1FFF.

Family Pocket 638 is more of a mapper than a console chipset. Lexibook Compact Cyber Arcade and dreamGEAR My Arcade Portable Gaming System (DGUN-2561) seem to use VT16 or VT18, but use an unknown bankswitching scheme involving registers $415x and $416x. It must be bankswitching, because they're 64 MiB, while the normal VTxx hardware only goes up to to 32.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 03:51:29 PM
I've attempted to take photos of the dice of some of these consoles underneath the glob tops, but unfortunately VRT never put the real part number on the die (the 555 palette one, for example, is marked "VRT VH3029-002"). The FC pocket one is just marked "K06", and is clearly a different totally different chip.

I have a suspicion the M320 chipset is the same as the 555 dancing cat one, just using a different feature set/config, but I haven't decapped it yet. The PCBs look similar, and they both use SQI flash whereas every other type of VRT chipset uses parallel flash.

So far I know at least the following unclassified chips exist, that may have some degree of Famicom compatibility:
 - VT09
 - VT16
 - VT18
 - VT32
 - VT33
 - VT368
 - VT369
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 02, 2018, 03:55:35 PM
davidstech
Feb 2 2018, 03:51:29 PM
So far I know at least the following unclassified chips exist, that may have some degree of Famicom compatibility:
 - VT09
 - VT16
 - VT18
 - VT32
 - VT33
 - VT368
 - VT369[/quote]VT09 is confirmed backwards-compatible with Famicom. Many VT09 consoles feature VT02 games as well. What's with the numbers, by the way? Is there a reason why they make no sense numerically?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 04:07:16 PM
FC Pocket 600-in-1 register $411D: If bits 0 and 1 are set, then it's a CNROM latch at $8000-$FFFF.
@davidstech: Could you please check whether game #61 (Gauntlet) runs properly (as in the player not being able to walk through walls) on real hardware? That game uses 4-screen mirroring, and I have no idea how that would be enabled.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 04:07:19 PM
Yes. I'm pretty sure every chipset on that list is Famicom compatible, the only possible exception is the VT368/9. No idea about the numbering either.

Based on what I can see of the die of chipset of the M320 (I didn't manage to get it out cleanly, but I was able to get of a photo of enough of it), I'm pretty sure it's identical to the 555 chipset used in the SY-88x series.
Unfortunately the FC Pocket isn't working any more after dumping, so I can't check #61.
Update: UNROM and CHR RAM is working in my MAME now, I'll add MMC1 and CNROM later.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 02, 2018, 05:54:03 PM
Just adding that I've successfully ripped (to my knowledge) every unique game off the 638 in 1 (excluding an unsuccessful Foot Ball). Just saying it before someone else does it too.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on February 02, 2018, 05:56:42 PM
forgotusername
Feb 2 2018, 05:54:03 PM
Just adding that I've successfully ripped (to my knowledge) every unique game off the 638 in 1 (excluding an unsuccessful Foot Ball). Just saying it before someone else does it too.[/quote]wait, what nes football game, do you know, where you have this from?  :huh:
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 06:06:41 PM
That's quite fast. What tools did you use? Did you analyse the menu code to find individual game sizes and starting points? Or did you skip every game that was already ripped from other multicarts?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 02, 2018, 06:22:55 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 2 2018, 06:06:41 PM
That's quite fast. What tools did you use? Did you analyse the menu code to find individual game sizes and starting points? Or did you skip every game that was already ripped from other multicarts?[/quote]Just the FCEUX editor. This one was easy because the graphics are viewable in Tile Layer Pro (usually they're compressed), so I could just copy-and-paste them instead of searching for them in the multicart. And yeah I skipped over duplicates, eventually I might go back and get the ones with different copyright screens and whatnot.
Quote:
 
wait, what nes football game, do you know, where you have this from?  :huh:[/quote]
It's one I've never seen before - it's a hack of the Intellivision football game (American football, not soccer). I can give you the ROM, but like I said its broken.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 06:35:14 PM
Well, I'm going to call it a day. Here is my progress so far (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/NintendulatorNRS2018-02-02.7z). Use mapper 270 for FC Pocket 638-in-1 (and the two split ROMs), mapper 296 for DGUN-2573 and FC Pocket 472-in-1 (has the extra 128 game cartridge been posted?). I have not made any progress on 246 in 1 MOGIS M320 (VTxx) unfortunately.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on February 02, 2018, 06:44:52 PM
forgotusername
Feb 2 2018, 06:22:55 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 2 2018, 06:06:41 PM
That's quite fast. What tools did you use? Did you analyse the menu code to find individual game sizes and starting points? Or did you skip every game that was already ripped from other multicarts?[/quote]Just the FCEUX editor. This one was easy because the graphics are viewable in Tile Layer Pro (usually they're compressed), so I could just copy-and-paste them instead of searching for them in the multicart. And yeah I skipped over duplicates, eventually I might go back and get the ones with different copyright screens and whatnot.
Quote:
 
wait, what nes football game, do you know, where you have this from?  :huh:[/quote]
It's one I've never seen before - it's a hack of the Intellivision football game (American football, not soccer). I can give you the ROM, but like I said its broken.[/quote]good idea, give it to me  :)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 02, 2018, 06:51:13 PM
kelvin donna
Feb 2 2018, 06:44:52 PM
good idea, give it to me  :) [/quote]

Attachments:
  • _BAD_ROM__Foot_Ball__Super_Pro_Football_hack___Unl_.nes (64.02 KB) (http://b3.ifrm.com/30023/163/0/p3006463/_BAD_ROM__Foot_Ball__Super_Pro_Football_hack___Unl_.nes)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 02, 2018, 07:25:14 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 2 2018, 06:35:14 PM
Well, I'm going to call it a day. Here is my progress so far (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/NintendulatorNRS2018-02-02.7z). Use mapper 270 for FC Pocket 638-in-1 (and the two split ROMs), mapper 296 for DGUN-2573 and FC Pocket 472-in-1 (has the extra 128 game cartridge been posted?). I have not made any progress on 246 in 1 MOGIS M320 (VTxx) unfortunately.[/quote]Awesome thanks for your work! The 128 in 1 cartridge ROM is not separate, nor can it easily be split. The ROM is combined and checks for the value of the IO port $412d on startup. If it equals 0x06 the 128 in 1 cartridge menu is shown, otherwise the 472 in 1 menu is shown. I use a dip switch to implement this in MAME.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 02, 2018, 07:34:01 PM
Successfully implemented the DIP switch. By the way, the split ROMs of Family Pocket don't fully work, as a few games (57/58 in 508-in-1) are taken from the other half of the ROM.
I would say that DGUN-2573 is badly dumped? The 16 KiB CHR-ROM bank for the thumbnail picture is stored in $1D, then by the VBlank handler written to $2015. Banks $00-$3F are striped, banks $40+ look normal. The outer CHR-ROM banks are   zero. The first $20000 bytes in the file are just 00 00 FF FF, producing the striped pattern instead of the expected thumbnail.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 03, 2018, 06:55:29 AM
Quite possible, it's not my dump so there's nothing I can do. I have ordered one on Amazon Prime to have a look at tomorrow though.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 07:58:40 AM
I've spent time trying to deduce how DGUN-2573 selects between the original VT03 palette, with the 4-4-4 bits meaning hue/luma/saturation, and the new palette with the 4-4-4 bits meaning R-G-B. No CGRAM bit, no $2xxx and no $4xxx bit seems to tell this. The only method that reliably tells them apart on all 220 games correctly is whether the game attempts to adjust for the original VT03's hardware bug when using DMA transfers to CGRAM (by writing an address of $3F01 even though the data will go to $3F00 because of the aforementioned hardware bug). On the VT03, that of course only works in NTSC mode, so $4119 bits 3 and 4 must return 0 for this to work, and the emulator must of course replicate that hardware bug.

It still seems like a dirty heuristic, but given that the PCM sound code seems to read from $4014 to tell apart NTSC from PAL, instead of reading from $4119, to adjust either frequency or sample length, that might just be what the actual hardware is like. The only way to tell for sure is to find a way to run a test ROM on the hardware.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 03, 2018, 09:34:50 AM
For some reason I'm not seeing CGRAM DMA at all in most of the games in MAME. I'm curious, what is $4014 returning when read?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 09:59:54 AM
I don't what it is actually returning, but the game checks for bit values $01 and $02. If $02 is set, a different PCM sound parameter value is used.

CGRAM DMA will be used at least by Champion Boat (#7) and King (#220), and by the menu.
Actually, $4014 seems to be related to the PCM sound channels. I also just noticed that the sound effect and the music are supposed to play simultaneously (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i2-HPZqOoM). In other words, there are at least two additional PCM channels. This complicates matters a bit.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 03, 2018, 01:25:53 PM
I've started looking at the DGUN-2561 to see whether there is any hope of emulating it. I'm starting to think it's some kind of more enhanced part i.e. the VT368 or VT369. It seems to be making accesses to addresses in VRAM that wouldn't make sense for a simpler VTxx part (e.g. $3c00-$3eff). It also looks like it might have a VT168-style ALU at 0x413x (it's at 0x213x on the VT168), but I'm not sure about that. I also see a few reads and rights to various addresses $484x, $488x and $4ffx, not sure what they would be a peripheral or whether it's just RAM at $4800 .. $4fff,
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 01:44:44 PM
246 in 1 MOGIS M320 (VTxx) also writes to VRAM $3C00.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 03, 2018, 01:53:35 PM
I think this is starting to make sense. The SY-88x, M320, the DGUN-2561 and the Lexibook Cyber Arcade are probably all the same chipset, which I imagine is something like the VT368/VT369. That would explain the SY-88x using VT168-style RGB555 colour palette data, as it's some hybrid between the VT168 and the VT32/older NES-based parts, which unlike the VT168 also has backwards compatibility.

I notice MOGIS sell a console, the M200, which has enhanced games that look much more like VT168 (there's a video of it on Taobao here (https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14.11.5d84581flXWyTv&id=558449801665&ns=1&abbucket=1#detail) as well as NES games. This is probably also the same chipset, I have ordered one to dump.

If MOGIS are associated with Wellminds, who have various similar systems on their website, their list of platforms are "VT02、VT03、VT168、VT32、VT368、VT369、SPG220、SPG243、SPG288、GPL16218、GPL16258、ST2302、EM78P153". Obviously this is something VT, whilst it could be the VT32 I think the VT368 or VT369 is most likely.
They also mention WS109 series encryption ICs. One of the games lists for the M200 had "WS107" in the name of one of the games, which does make me fear these new consoles have some kind of authentication/encryption chip which will make emulation harder (but probably not impossible with some creativity...)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on February 03, 2018, 02:02:37 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 3 2018, 01:44:44 PM
246 in 1 MOGIS M320 (VTxx) also writes to VRAM $3C00.[/quote]dear newrisingsun2, can you fix the football rom please
NewRisingSun2
Feb 3 2018, 01:44:44 PM
246 in 1 MOGIS M320 (VTxx) also writes to VRAM $3C00.[/quote]dear newrisingsun2, can you fix the football rom please

Attachments:
  • _BAD_ROM__Foot_Ball__Super_Pro_Football_hack___Unl_.nes (64.02 KB) (http://b3.ifrm.com/30023/163/0/p3006468/_BAD_ROM__Foot_Ball__Super_Pro_Football_hack___Unl_.nes)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 03, 2018, 02:06:25 PM
kelvin, forgotusername warned you that the Football game was a bad rom, and you still insisted that you wanted it.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on February 03, 2018, 02:10:35 PM
Y2K05
Feb 3 2018, 02:06:25 PM
kelvin, forgotusername warned you that the Football game was a bad rom, and you still insisted that you wanted it.[/quote]ok, sorry, the title screen and the football player sprites work  :P

also, i changed the mapper from 4 to 256 and the graphics are normal
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 02:18:58 PM
Yes, changing to mapper 256 makes it run in Nintendulator-NRS, but not in anything else. I'll take a look at multicart extracts tomorrow.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 03, 2018, 03:50:51 PM
I am working on putting a pack of these dumps together for the latest version of NRS-Nintendulator. However, I can't get either FC Pocket or the DGUN-2573 ROMs working. The FC Pocket loads the title screen and Chinese menu fine, but the English menu gives only a blue screen. The DGUN-2573 just gives a dark green screen. I am using mapper 296, submapper 0, is there anything else I should have in the ROM header?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 04:08:47 PM
I'm not sure WHICH build I posted last. :) What I do know is that you need to set PRG-RAM to 8 KiB in the header, because the ROMs in fact do expect 8 KiB of PRG-RAM at $6000-$7FFF. If that doesn't make it work for you, I'll quickly post a current build, after I finish my currount round of multicart extracts (which requires me to work from a different build).
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 03, 2018, 04:33:21 PM
Thanks, that's fixed it :) - in MAME I actually enable the PRG RAM for all VTxx systems, so I forgot about it in the NES header. The only thing missing from the posted build AFAICS is the DIP switch setting for the FC Pocket 472-in-1 console/128-in-1 cartridge selection.

Download link for the VTxx pack below, including the 200 in 1 TV Games, Family Pocket, FC Pocket, and DGUN-2573 in NES format as well as the SY-888, SY-889 and CoolBoy RS-18 in BIN format (because those three don't seem to have a mapper yet.

http://davidstech.net/games/multis/VTxx%20New%20Dumps%20Pack%202018-02-03.7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/VTxx%20New%20Dumps%20Pack%202018-02-03.7z)

All of these should run in Nintendulator, let me know if there are any more header or dump issues.

Credit to persons unknown for the DGUN-2573 and TeamEurope for the RS-18 dump.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 03, 2018, 04:59:05 PM
BeckieRGB dumped the DGUN-2573.

Also, the link is currently acting up--it doesn't want to connect on my end.
Oh now it works again, on and off? Weird. It's ok--i got the download.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 05:18:06 PM
Yes, when using the 2.0 NES header format, all PRG-RAM needs to be explicitly specified, because the idea behind the 2.0 extension of the format is that the emulator should not assume anything.

Another thing: I don't think you should specify "PAL" in the NES header. It's not obvious from the description, but specifying "PAL" does not actually specify the television system in general, but specifically the RP2A07 CPU/RP2C07 PPU in the Nintendo PAL NES console with its peculiar timing. Famiclones targetting PAL television sets display a PAL picture but run the game at NTSC timing (in terms of vertical blanking duration). Unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, you should always specify NTSC timing in the NES 2.0 header.

As you can see, the NES 2.0 format is full of gotchas. :P
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 03, 2018, 05:26:20 PM
I tried emulating DGUN-2573 on Nintendoulator-NRS 02-02-2018, and it works. The menu just is a bit buggy--the music doesn't work, for instance. And the preview image for Curly Monkey is glitched: https://files.catbox.moe/q9mh0z.png (https://files.catbox.moe/q9mh0z.png)

This has probably been somewhat acknowledged above but I'll post about this anyway.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 03, 2018, 05:28:32 PM
Yes, the sound still needs work on the DGUN-2573. The menu images are glitched because it is almost certainly a bad dump. I have one on order to investigate myself, I will post an update if I get a good dump.

Thanks for the heads up about the header format NewRisingSun2.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 03, 2018, 05:29:20 PM
What is the cause of a bad dump? Also, the FC Pocket 472-in-1 menu--doesn't it have music as well? I'm also not hearing any music?
https://files.catbox.moe/nt9ef8.png (https://files.catbox.moe/nt9ef8.png) - 288-in-1--how come it does this, btw?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 03, 2018, 05:33:27 PM
No idea what caused the bad dump, but it seems like a small part of the ROM at the beginning got totally corrupted.

The 288-in-1 menu looks small because the actual console switches from scaling down to native LCD resolution mode for the menu, but this isn't implemented yet.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 03, 2018, 06:21:30 PM
Weird thing I noticed on the 220-in-1 - the game "Super Tennis" plays more sound effects than it does on the actual handheld (usually its silent when hitting a ball). Also, the 472-in-1 has Kirby's Adventure on it, but my (now broken) version had some other game in its place. Kirby is the weird hacked version as well, where all of Kirby's graphics have angry eyebrows on them.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 06:32:37 PM
Here are two multicart extracts (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/!MulticartExtracts2018-02-03.7z). Rockman 3 on the Rockman 1-6 multicart is actually interesting: it fixes an error in the original game, namely, the bad scanline on the level select screen. forgotusername wrote that he already extracted all unique games from the Family Pocket 638-in-1, but I wanted to extract possible variations of known games as well, so there.

Here is my current Nintendulator build (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/NintendulatorNRS2018-02-03.7z) for today, adding the DIP switch for the 600-in-1 multicart, and correct palette selection for the 220-in-1 multicart games (I think).

forgotusername
 
the game "Super Tennis" plays more sound effects than it does on the actual handheld (usually its silent when hitting a ball)[/quote]That sound reminds me of the WXN game 乒乓中文, usually rendered as Ping Pong. The applause sound effect sounds like an elephant is giving birth.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 03, 2018, 06:57:27 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 3 2018, 06:32:37 PM
Here are two multicart extracts. Rockman 3 on the Rockman 1-6 multicart is actually interesting: it fixes an error in the original game, namely, the bad scanline on the level select screen. forgotusername wrote that he already extracted all unique games from the Family Pocket 638-in-1, but I wanted to extract possible variations of known games as well, so there.[/quote]Thanks. As it turns out most of the Nice Code games on here are the original, unmodified versions (meaning the copyrights weren't removed the bottom). Also this might be a stupid question, but is mapper 256 what these games usually run on? Or is that just a thing to make them work in emulators?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 07:23:24 PM
Mapper 256 is used for OneBus multicarts. Because most of the games had to be modified to run on the OneBus hardware, the extracted games must retain the mapper 256 designation, as they still write to OneBus registers instead of whatever hardware they ran on when originally released as individual games. At least, that applies to normal NES games. As for Nice Code's games, since they were written for multicarts, you could say that mapper 256 is indeed what they usually run on.

I think I'm close to implementing the FC 600's sound hardware. I wasted time looking for a Sample Length register, when it's much more likely that the hardware just plays until it encounters an FF sample.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 03, 2018, 09:37:07 PM
What are the unique games in 638-in-1? is it in that multicart extract you provided, NewRisingSun2? Is an update to ProjectPlug'n'Play planned soon?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 03, 2018, 09:58:39 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 3 2018, 07:23:24 PM
Mapper 256 is used for OneBus multicarts. Because most of the games had to be modified to run on the OneBus hardware, the extracted games must retain the mapper 256 designation, as they still write to OneBus registers instead of whatever hardware they ran on when originally released as individual games. At least, that applies to normal NES games. As for Nice Code's games, since they were written for multicarts, you could say that mapper 256 is indeed what they usually run on.[/quote]Interesting. It seems like all of the mapper 3 games get turned into 256, looking at the games running on it. Meanwhile games running off of any other mapper are turned into 4.
Quote:
 
What are the unique games in 638-in-1? is it in that multicart extract you provided, NewRisingSun2? Is an update to ProjectPlug'n'Play planned soon?[/quote]
I'll release an update eventually, I'm just waiting to see if the 220-in-1 games can be ripped first (I don't know how to rip VT03/09). Some of the unique ones off the top of my head are:

* the Football game mentioned earlier
* Dotey Cat - hack of Bubble Bobble 2 with Doraemon in place of Bub
* Squeezer - hack of World of Card Games by Sachen
* Conqueror - already dumped Circus Charlie hack, but this one has different music
* Shoot - pirate original, but its just a crappy math game
* some weirdo hack of Poke Tetris where Pikachu is turned into a monkey or something (yet its still called Pikachu on the title screen)

And plenty of others as well.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 03, 2018, 10:08:18 PM
Does the 200-in-1 (in the first post) have any unique games on it?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 03, 2018, 10:14:57 PM
forgotusername
 
Interesting. It seems like all of the mapper 3 games get turned into 256, looking at the games running on it.[/quote]Pretty much, yeah. Basically, these games were hacked by the multicart author to replace the CNROM latch at $8000-$FFFF with the Middle CHR Bank number (https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/VT02%2B_CHR-ROM_Bankswitching#Middle_CHR_Bank_number) register at $201A, which only exists at that address on mapper 256.
forgotusername
 
Meanwhile games running off of any other mapper are turned into 4.[/quote]That's because mapper 256 is actually mapper 4 with more features (https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/VT02%2B_MMC3_Compatibility_Registers). So unless any of these additional features are used, a game hacked for the OneBus console can be run at mapper 4 as well. Without that backwards compatibility, every extracted ROM would be mapper 256, or 0 for NROM games. And if I extract the 220-in-1 multicart, many of the extracted ROMs will be at mapper 296 because they will retain that mapper's opcode encryption.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 03, 2018, 11:14:39 PM
Y2K05
Feb 3 2018, 10:08:18 PM
Does the 200-in-1 (in the first post) have any unique games on it?[/quote]There's a new racing game called Racing Fighter. There are others but they're all boring - just a bunch of casino games like Video Poker, Blackjack, etc. and a couple title hacks/variations.
Quote:
 
Pretty much, yeah. Basically, these games were hacked by the multicart author to replace the CNROM latch at $8000-$FFFF with the Middle CHR Bank number register at $201A, which only exists at that address on mapper 256.[/quote]
It's weird how bootleggers even bother doing crazy shit like this. I mean, there are plenty of other games to steal. No need to come up with some bizarre mechanism just to get 20 more...
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 12:24:46 AM
Would you like to extract the unique variations from 200-in-1, forgotusername?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 04, 2018, 06:22:00 AM
May I interrupt this technical discussion to state that "Champion Boat" on the 220-in-1 multicart must have the worst controls of any racing game that I have ever encountered. :P

Here is my current emulation of Mapper 296's sound (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/NintendulatorNRS2018-02-04a.7z). It does not sound bad at least, but I do not have enough footage of the 220-in-1 multicart to judge whether the sampling rates and volumes are correct. In particular, Cut Fruit sounds a bit high-pitched? Right now, I am using the sampling rate from $4010 and the value written to $4031 and $4032 as a volume with range 0-128. This is hacky because 220-in-1 sometimes writes nothing and sometimes writes $00 to $4010, which I am replacing with $0C.

My progress was hindered by what I think must be a mistake in FC Pocket 600-in-1's code that (I think) queries the wrong $4014 bit to check whether the song has finished playing and if so, restart it again. Because it queries the wrong bit, it keeps restarting the song during every vertical blanking interval. The song is not actually restarted at every vertical blanking interval only because I am blocking access to the sound channel registers until it is either disabled by writing $80 to $4033 or it has finished playing by itself. (If I did not block them and merely flipped the $4014 bits, then 600-in-1's menu song would restart after the language selection --- which it does not do, according to this video (https://youtu.be/6i2-HPZqOoM)) --- and more importantly, I could either get 600-in-1 or 220-in-1 working, but not both.)

After davidstech's console arrives and he tells me (or posts samples) of what still sounds wrong, I will then make a class out of the current sound emulation and post the source code so he can incorporate it into MAME.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 11:34:30 AM
Brilliant, thanks for your work on this! My console has arrived now so I'll record the sound for you.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 11:56:07 AM
I know I've probably said this before, but when will there be a VTxx(x) emulator for Android devices again? Is there a change of plans as to when that will happen?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 11:58:11 AM
@Y2K05 whenever rebuilds the latest MAME for Android is the realistic answer

Video of the console here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFiXbRueBa4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFiXbRueBa4). TBH it's quite hard to compare the tiny crappy speaker in the DreamGEAR with the sound from my nice computer speakers, but the emulator is definitely doing well. Sadly the ROM chip in the console is a type that's a massive pain to dump so I'll probably leave trying to dump it for now.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 11:59:32 AM
Hmm, what kind of rom chip is it? Did they deliberately try to make it tough to dump?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 12:06:36 PM
It uses one of these little COB ROM boards like this. IMO they're a pain to dump because they are hard to desolder with hot air without desoldering the small BGA ROM chip on them (which itself is even more of a pain to dump), and they're not so standard so my programmer doesn't support them nor do I have a proper socket for them. I'm working on a jig that uses pogo pins (little spiky pins) to read them out without needing to desolder them, but time is limited. This type is used sometimes in cheap stuff, I think it's a cheap way of using flash chips recycled or surplus from old mobile phones (at least once the chip was a combined SDRAM+flash chip, where the SDRAM wasn't used at all, but a popular chip previously used in phones).



Attachments:
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 12:09:21 PM
That might explain how some of the rom in the other dump got corrupted, right?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 12:12:37 PM
Yes, quite possible, it was almost certainly dumped with some kind of custom jig rather than a proper programmer+socket. IIRC some of TeamEurope's bad dumps that I found were this type of chip too.
BTW I'm seeing whether the Android build script for MAME still works, although I'm not sure what the performance of the VTxx stuff will be like.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 04, 2018, 12:18:32 PM
Hm, everything is pitched down one note or so in your video. I seem to remember that other Famiclones ran at 60 Hz when connected to a TV, but at something like 55 Hz when run from the internal LCD, which is why many of them cannot use both simultaneously. Given that the emulated 600-in-1 matches the captured video I linked to, I think the pitches are basically correct. As for the volumes, I seem to make out in your video that the "plop" sound is much louder than the music, which is also a result of its volume setting, so I'll just assume that it is correct as well.

In any case, sooner or later that ROM chip will have to be redumped, but I think we should wait a week or two until we know that we need no more impressions from the original hardware, as I get the feeling that any dumping attempt will make it unusable afterward.

As for recording purposes: Game #86 (Guard Radish) may be interesting to hear as well.

There is a song in the ROM (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/Unknown.wav) that I have not heard in any game. Apparently it is some sort of silly internet meme, but it is in the same outer bank as the menu. Maybe there is a way to make it play?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 12:22:05 PM
@davidstech thank you--if it works would you be ok if I report how VTxx emulates?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 04, 2018, 01:16:35 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 4 2018, 12:18:32 PM
There is a song in the ROM (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/Unknown.wav) that I have not heard in any game. Apparently it is some sort of silly internet meme, but it is in the same outer bank as the menu. Maybe there is a way to make it play?[/quote]Utterly disgusting. Maybe that was supposed to go with the dancing foxes on that other multicart, and it just got carried over into this one?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 01:23:26 PM
LMAO that's hilarious. This must be an unused theme in the 220-in-1 DreamGEAR handheld. I imagine it is eligible to be submitted to TCRF?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 04, 2018, 01:28:57 PM
Here is the original version of the song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE), for what it's worth. Don't say I didn't warn you.
@davidstech: Attached is the promised source file. Load(uint8 *) takes an pointer to the PRG ROM. Run() must be called at the CPU clock rate, usually 1789773. I removed variable sampling rates, as everything seems to be played at 16124 Hz anyway, and the games' lack or nonsensical initialization of $4010 would require hackish solutions. Should it become necessary to add variable sampling rates, just add a method to modify Channel's "period". What is still missing is save state support. The offsets in Read and Write are relative to $4000.

Unlike nornal NES/Famicom DPCM playback, PRG ROM access is entirely hidden from the emulated machine. I consider this acceptable since we have no idea about the actual memory timing anyway, and doing these accesses using the same code as DPCM fetches would cause a huge mess both in the emulator and in the emulated games alike.

Attachments:
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 03:25:39 PM
Thanks for the source code, I'll look at adding that to MAME - at the moment the sound support is still very limited for all VTxx platforms so there'll be some preparatory work needed first I think. Unfortunately no sequence of buttons seems to get into that tune.

MAME APK will hopefully be done soon.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on February 04, 2018, 03:31:10 PM
can someone seperate the 220 in 1 dreamgear or not?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 03:32:33 PM
Yes, it's possible, but a number of the most interesting games wouldn't run in anything other than NRS-Nintendulator or MAME because they use scrambled opcodes
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on February 04, 2018, 03:36:38 PM
davidstech
Feb 4 2018, 03:32:33 PM
Yes, it's possible, but a number of the most interesting games wouldn't run in anything other than NRS-Nintendulator or MAME because they use scrambled opcodes[/quote]yes, especially the vt02 are a mission to seperate  ;)

no NO NO NO NO, you dont have to do this  >_>
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 03:45:23 PM
Unfortunately I think the MAME on Android thing is a bit of a red herring, as it stands its UI is basically the MAME PC UI with no touchscreen support. I think this will only be useful if you have a bluetooth/hardware keyboard, or possibly bluetooth joystick.

APK download anyway (64-bit only) : http://davidstech.net/games/mame_vtxx_aarch64.apk (http://davidstech.net/games/mame_vtxx_aarch64.apk)

I haven't been able to test this at all as a result.

While I'm at it, here is a pack of VTxx games for MAME:  http://davidstech.net/games/multis/MAME%20VTxx%20Pack%202018-02-04.7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/MAME%20VTxx%20Pack%202018-02-04.7z)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 03:46:59 PM
I have a GPD XD, david, which is a gamer's Android device. I'll test it out and let you know.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 03:47:22 PM
That will need a 32-bit build IIRC, which I need to make.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 03:51:52 PM
How easy is it to make a 32-bit build? And yeah, I wondered what type of architecture it would need.

Isn't it possible to make a MAME build solely for a given system? I think I did that on Linux before.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 03:53:33 PM
Yes, it is, I've done that too. Don't know why I didn't realise. Won't take long then (it's not hard just a full build takes a while).
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on February 04, 2018, 03:54:32 PM
davidstech
Feb 4 2018, 03:45:23 PM
Unfortunately I think the MAME on Android thing is a bit of a red herring, as it stands its UI is basically the MAME PC UI with no touchscreen support. I think this will only be useful if you have a bluetooth/hardware keyboard, or possibly bluetooth joystick.

APK download anyway (64-bit only) : http://davidstech.net/games/mame_vtxx_aarch64.apk (http://davidstech.net/games/mame_vtxx_aarch64.apk)

I haven't been able to test this at all as a result.

While I'm at it, here is a pack of VTxx games for MAME:  http://davidstech.net/games/multis/MAME%20VTxx%20Pack%202018-02-04.7z (http://davidstech.net/games/multis/MAME%20VTxx%20Pack%202018-02-04.7z)[/quote]i have one question, is there a version of your mame for windows?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 03:58:01 PM
If you're on Windows, NRS-Nintendulator is probably a better bet. Otherwise MAME 0.194 has everything before the DGUN-2573 and FC/Family Pocket already. I can make a build, but I'm not keen on the idea of maintaining many private builds of MAME.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 04, 2018, 04:00:28 PM
As far as I know, MAME does not support Famiclones with mangled banking register addresses (https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/NES_2.0_submappers/Proposals#NES_2.0_Mapper_256) such as Samuri 60-in-1 or Z-Dog.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on February 04, 2018, 04:00:44 PM
davidstech
Feb 4 2018, 03:58:01 PM
If you're on Windows, NRS-Nintendulator is probably a better bet. Otherwise MAME 0.194 has everything before the DGUN-2573 and FC/Family Pocket already. I can make a build, but I'm not keen on the idea of maintaining many private builds of MAME.[/quote]do it, i like to see a windows version
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 04:02:22 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 4 2018, 04:00:28 PM
As far as I know, MAME does not support Famiclones with mangled banking register addresses (https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/NES_2.0_submappers/Proposals#NES_2.0_Mapper_256) such as Samuri 60-in-1 or Z-Dog.[/quote]No, unfortunately it doesn't yet. There's still lots to do... Thanks for the info though, that shouldn't be too hard to implement. VRT do like their mangling, what with mangled banking registers on the VT03, bit swapped opcodes on the VT168 and now XORed on the latest VTxx.
Multi arch APK (32-bit ARM and 64-bit AArch64) : http://davidstech.net/games/mame_vtxx_multi.apk (http://davidstech.net/games/mame_vtxx_multi.apk)

This has the full MAME for AArch64 and nes_vt (the VTxx driver) only for 32-bit ARM.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 04, 2018, 04:11:40 PM
A few other comments regarding MAME:
Attachments:
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 04:13:06 PM
Thanks david! I'm excited  to check this out! :D

I feel like even though VT03/09 games are often nothing groundbreaking, the thought of being able to emulate them is exciting since they've only verry recently been emulatable outside of EmuVT.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 04:28:33 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 4 2018, 04:11:40 PM
A few other comments regarding MAME:
  • mc_dcat8a does not like more than 2 KiB of internal RAM. Mighty Bomb Jack will act strange with more.
  • $4105 is not emulated yet as an exact mirror of $8000 (https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/VT02%2B_MMC3_Compatibility_Registers), causing Mighty Bomb Jack in mc_dcat8a and Violent to look garbled. Note that EmuVT makes the same mistake, while FCEUX does not.
  • Consider using my attached VT03 palette generation algorithm, which I have matched to get as close as possible to EmuVT's hard-coded palette
[/quote]Thanks so much for your help! The palette code in particular will be a brilliant help, that was quite a struggle even to get remotely right so getting that near perfect will be nice.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 04:33:41 PM
Hmm, i thought the VT03 palette was already perfect in Nintendoulator-NRS?

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bootleggames/images/1/14/Shark.png/revision/20180120043046 (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bootleggames/images/1/14/Shark.png/revision/20180120043046) - EmuVT screenshot from taizou
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bootleggames/images/1/14/Shark.png/revision/latest?cb=20180120043047 (https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/bootleggames/images/1/14/Shark.png/revision/latest?cb=20180120043047) - My screencap retake in Nintendoulator-NRS.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 04, 2018, 04:36:09 PM
I am switching back and forth between the hard-coded EmuVT and my own generated palette between builds. I think the current builds use the hard-coded palette. I'll post a few comparison screenshots later. I want to make it selectable using the palette dialog in the menu, but I hate programming user interface stuff, so I keep deferring it.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 04:38:22 PM
"There was a problem parsing the package." - my Android device says this when I attmept to install the nesvt-compiled MAME build. :(
And yes, i allow apk from untrusted sources.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 04:49:46 PM
Y2K05
Feb 4 2018, 04:38:22 PM
"There was a problem parsing the package." - my Android device says this when I attmept to install the nesvt-compiled MAME build. :(
And yes, i allow apk from untrusted sources.[/quote]Seems OK on my phone at least, I'm not an Android dev - this is my first time building an apk - so I can't really offer any advice other than trying the download again in case it got corrupted.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 04, 2018, 04:54:08 PM
Here are a few comparisons between EmuVT's palette, which I include hard-coded in the current Nintendulator-NRS build, and my generated palette. Left: Hardcoded, right: generated.

First the good ones that are close enough as far as I am considerd:
(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Hardcoded_Commando.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Generated_Commando.png)
(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Hardcoded_Shark.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Generated_Shark.png)
(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Hardcoded_ThunderMan.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Generated_ThunderMan.png)
(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Hardcoded_Samuri_Logo.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Generated_Samuri_Logo.png)
(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Hardcoded_ZDog_Title.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Generated_ZDog_Title.png)
And now the bad ones that I cannot get to look right (without making everything else look off):
(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Hardcoded_ZDog_Logo.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Generated_ZDog_Logo.png)
(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Hardcoded_Samuri_Title.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/palcompare/Generated_Samuri_Title.png)

Basically, cyans and pastel browns are slightly off.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 04:58:23 PM
davidstech, i wonder if it got corrupted when i downloaded it from your websites, which tends to be cumbersome. Is it ok if i tried like a Google Drive link or something?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 05:02:44 PM
Y2K05
Feb 4 2018, 04:58:23 PM
davidstech, i wonder if it got corrupted when i downloaded it from your websites, which tends to be cumbersome. Is it ok if i tried like a Google Drive link or something?[/quote]Try this?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fjY_n0-tuyKb6iVJpDI2Hu1XAxNI7Dxl/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fjY_n0-tuyKb6iVJpDI2Hu1XAxNI7Dxl/view?usp=sharing)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 05:05:46 PM
ok i'll try that
aw, what a disappointment. it still doesn't parse. :( Was this compiled for high-power android devices such as your phone?
Thank you for trying at least, davidstech. I'll still hold on to this apk
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 04, 2018, 05:49:10 PM
This was compiled using SDK 21, NDK r14b which I think requires a minimum android version of 5.0 but I'm not entirely sure, as I said I have no experience in android dev.
I may try tomorrow building MAME for Android as a retroarch core if I have time, that might be more successful and would also fix the input issues.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 04, 2018, 10:16:09 PM
Yeah I don't think the GPD XD is optimized for Android 5 & onward. The LegacyROM firmware is supposed to spoof the Nexus 5 as well.

Anyway, it's cool how you're still looking into this--I thought it was nice enough that you even compiled an NES-VT MAME in the first place. :)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 05, 2018, 08:45:50 AM
Thanks for your help, NewRisingSun2, I've added the bank scrambling and new palette code to MAME. The Samurai 60 in 1 is working now, but the Z-Dog still isn't. It seems like it is jumping to locations in RAM that don't contain code, and crashing, possibly following RTI with a broken stack. Curious if you know any reasons for this off the top of your head?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 05, 2018, 10:36:53 AM
After having had spent time getting Samuri to run, ZDog ran well all by itself, so no.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 05, 2018, 05:32:14 PM
An update on the android stuff. I was able to build MAME for RetroArch but unfortunately it was crashing (segmentation fault). This happens even with last weeks official build of MAME (0.194)'s nes_vt driver on Android, so clearly something is broken in the driver which needs to be fixed. I think once it's working it might be a reasonable route to cross platform VTxx support.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 05, 2018, 08:31:19 PM
i had no idea MAME and RetroArch could be combined?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 06, 2018, 05:31:37 AM
Yes, there's a MAME core for RetroArch (in fact several, from around 2010 to the latest 0.194). I just need to get it working with the VTxx stuff.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: woodexe on February 06, 2018, 10:52:28 AM
Hello,Can you upload the neighborhood?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 06, 2018, 02:24:27 PM
Looking through the 220-in-1 in Tile Layer Pro, I found graphics for a handful of games not on the menu. From what I can make out there's:
* The Hacker (Felix the Cat 3 hack)
* Sunken Ship (Titanic hack)
* some Mahjong game, Nice Code-esqe graphics
Any possibility the game coding is buried in the ROM somewhere? Wouldn't be the first time - I found several games buried in a 30-in-1 multicart as well, when I first started Project Plug 'n Play.

UPDATE: Yep they're in there. Got Sunken Ship ripped already. Might be able to get Hacker out too using the same method (but probably not Mahjong).
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 06, 2018, 02:39:12 PM
Stop where you are and let me at it. ;)

Edit: Ugh. The menu puts some code into $6100 and has about half of all games (not just VT03) modified to call it before reading input. These will all need to have that JSR $6100 removed before they work extracted.

Edit 2: @forgotusername: Are you sure that The Hacker is not just a CHR bank within "Super Hero"?

Edit 3: @davidstech: Something's really strange. Now Champion Boat and King also use the 4-4-4 RGB palette instead of the legacy VT03 palette! I'm not quite sure what I changed to make this happen, but it tells me that the hardware probably only supports that palette, and these individual games can write CGRAM data for either palette type, and for some reason, my previous emulation attempt made the game choose the wrong palette.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 06, 2018, 04:36:13 PM
This is starting to make sense, I thought the colours didn't look wrong enough. That also explains why I wasn't seeing CGRAM DMA accesses, clearly they were being disabled also as part of this weird auto-detection for however MAME was emulating it.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 06, 2018, 04:45:37 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 6 2018, 02:39:12 PM
Edit 2: @forgotusername: Are you sure that The Hacker is not just a CHR bank within "Super Hero"?[/quote]No its in there too, directly below the Super Hero data. Oddly enough I was able to rip Hacker, but not Super Hero (I'm guessing it runs on a weird mapper).
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 06, 2018, 04:50:49 PM
No, no weird mapper, just the $6100 issue I described above.

@davidstech: I now know how the game detects palettes --- by reading from $4119. On the VT03, $4119 returns $00 on NTSC and $18 on PAL consoles. On NTSC consoles, a game needs to compensate for the CGRAM DMA error if it uses DMA. Champion Boat on the other hand uses the 4-4-4 RGB palette if $4119 returns anything other than $18, and the old VT03 palette if $4119 returns $18. I don't think that's the way one is supposed to do it, but the lesson is: for this hardware, $4119 needs to return $00 and not NTSC/PAL like an original VT03.

It's still good that I made the modification yesterday. Basically, before I just had Nintendulator always return $18 so games would not try to compensate for the CGRAM DMA bug, because I did not want to emulate it. I had tried to emulate it, but ran into the problem that VT09 games assumed that the bug did not exist (because it may have been fixed by that time) and had no easy way to tell whether the bug should be emulated or not. I am now emulating it if a CGRAM DMA transfer starts at 3F01 and not emulating it if a CGRAM DMA transfer starts at 3F00, and I accurately make $4119 return the TV system except for mapper 296, under which $4119 always returns $00. That should work with any game in any TV mode setting.
Here is my extract of DGUN-2573 (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/!MulticartExtracts2018-02-06.7z). Only includes games accessible from the menu. Download today's updated Nintendulator build (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/NintendulatorNRS2018-02-06.7z) for the aforementioned palette correction.
Edit: Please redownload the multicart extracts; made a correction fixing uninitialized RAM in the PCM music-using games.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 06, 2018, 06:45:58 PM
Do you guys have dgun-2561 yet? I remember that also got dumped on Bannister.org, and i'm willing to post it right here
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 06, 2018, 07:13:27 PM
No, more reverse engineering is needed for that one before it will work in anything. I think it is VT36x based and has various enhanced features - more banking modes, more palette nemory, more PPU modes and possibly a multiply/divide ALU.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 06, 2018, 07:16:59 PM
That's strange--I thought less reverse engineering was required for the 220-in-1's predecessor. You know what I mean? Kinda feels backward.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 06, 2018, 08:56:08 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 6 2018, 04:50:49 PM
Here is my extract of DGUN-2573. Only includes games accessible from the menu.[/quote]Thanks. Just wondering, for Project BLEB compiling, is one format of these games preferable compared to the other (as in mapper 256 over 296)? And are the games with all the fancy extra features (Guard Radish, Cut Fruit, etc.) still VT03 or are they something else?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 07, 2018, 03:44:52 AM
Don't think that mapper 256 is preferable over 296, especially with Nintendulator-NRS supporting both and nobody else supporting either. The games you mentioned are not strictly VT03 in terms of palette and sound; maybe davidstech will eventually determine the actual hardware name.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 07, 2018, 06:01:42 AM
At the moment my best speculation for this chipset is VT33, which is an unknown new chipset from VRT (seen on the PCB of a NES clone I saw online, and one or two other places). But I'm hesitant to call it that without further investigation, I know there's been a few places in the past where guessed chipset names turned out to be wrong. I think calling it VT3x might be safe though?

@Y2K05 yeah it's odd, the 2561 is more advanced (albeit possibly older) hardware than the 2573 as far as I can tell. I don't think it's in any way impossible to emulate, and will probably be my next challenge, but it might take a while.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 07, 2018, 07:58:39 AM
Yeah, davidstech. It reminds me of when those ambitious Oplayer MGS33501's were replaced with this crappy Oplayer MGS2401A VT02's in European airports (rebranded by MiTone, aka mitone.eu). It was strange.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 07, 2018, 09:30:53 AM
The ZDog is now working in MAME. It turned out I was generating scanline IRQs incorrectly during VBlank. Now SMB3 in multicarts also doesn't crash. I've also sorted out the 16x16 sprite mode so the graphics are better in the Hummer games.
I finally have MAME on Android RetroArch working, so you can now play VTxx games on the go!

To install, you will need to follow these instructions
https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/how-do-i-download-cores-for-retroarch/16423/2 (https://bbs.nextthing.co/t/how-do-i-download-cores-for-retroarch/16423/2)
But use the following url:
http://davidstech.net/cores/ (http://davidstech.net/cores/)
Then install the MAME core in the "Core Updater".

This is very much experimental, the controls are a bit dodgy (the touch D-pad doesn't work, you have to use the touch "joystick" instead), but it works, and it should run at full speed on a mid to high end phone.

I also notice there is a bug in this build when switching from VT03 to legacy palette that needs fixing. Beware of this when trying this out, I'll fix it tomorrow.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 07, 2018, 06:40:55 PM
403 Forbidden (for your cores url). I'll wait a bit longer until more glitches/bugs are fixed. :)
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 07, 2018, 06:45:34 PM
You're not supposed to go to the URL, just enter it in RetroArch as the core update URL (because retroarch for Android will only download cores from a update URL, it doesn't let you manually install cores from a file). It should work other than the palette bug in some games.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 07, 2018, 07:52:13 PM
Oh, I see. I'll give it a shot.
The MAME core doesn't load! It doesn't detect! I'm sure I followed the instructions cor rectly as well. :(
why do things have to be so complicated
i just don't understand. i did everyhing right but it won't loet me load the mame lcore.
(yeah sorry i was upset earlier because i didn't feel good either).
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 08, 2018, 07:40:21 AM
I think this is probably another Android version issue, maybe it's best if you wait ~3 weeks and try the next official build which will have all this stuff included.

What exactly is happening when you go to "Load Content", select one of the ROMs, select "Load Archive" and then if asked select the "MAME 0.194" core?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 08, 2018, 10:46:57 AM
it says "Failed to open Libretro core"
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on February 08, 2018, 10:58:22 AM
Unfortunately as far as I can tell MAME itself no longer supports Android versions before 5, and I don't think there's anything that can be done about this from my point of view.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 08, 2018, 01:07:09 PM
I would appreciate if "MAME on Android"-related questions were discussed in a separate thread in the future.
Here is today's multicart extract (http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/!MulticartExtracts2018-02-08.7z). I don't know if the FC Mobile 600 has any interesting hacks or Nice Code Software versions in it, but here you go. Apart from the sheer number of games, this one was particularly easy since the VT3x's bankswitching hardware supports not just MMC3 but also MMC1, CNROM and UNROM directly, so none of the games had any weird mapper hacks applied to them. The number of Console games is less than 472 because of a few repeats.

And if somebody has this console in working state, I would still like to know whether Gauntlet displays correctly, if not, then the player will seem to walk through walls.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 10, 2018, 01:31:02 PM
no worries davidstech. thank you for trying
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on February 11, 2018, 02:10:19 PM
NewRisingSun2
Feb 8 2018, 01:07:09 PM
Here is today's multicart extract. I don't know if the FC Mobile 600 has any interesting hacks or Nice Code Software versions in it, but here you go.[/quote]There are around 15 previously undumped NC ones in there (along with a few "goof" games). Couple notes below:
* "Block Puzzle" appears to be made by the same company who made BugTris.
* Version of Chinese Chess on here is an Inventor (?) hack with animal graphics over the middle-aged bald men, which I'd argue is a huge improvement.
* Despite all the crazy mappers this thing supports, Dr. Mario and Hello Kitty are converted into mapper 4 (probably some others are too, I only checked a handful).
As always, thanks for the rips.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: MLX on February 11, 2018, 03:45:47 PM
Block Puzzle actually use Metal Force #6 track as its main theme albeit slowed down, slightly modified and missing the drums. So it definitely originates from Korea but its origins are still unclear. It's missing the Game Line logo seen in Bugtris. Now I wonder if it had a single cart release.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 11, 2018, 03:49:50 PM
Quote:
 
Version of Chinese Chess on here [/quote]What's it called on the multicart?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 17, 2018, 01:31:10 AM
An addendum on the subject of the VT03 palette:

I noticed that Pic32, V.R. Technology's official graphics drawing utility, comes with two palette files: HSL_NTSC.TAB and HSL_PAL.TAB. EmuVT's hard-coded palette matches HSL_PAL.TAB, but the DGUN-2573 220-in-1 plug-and-play console's games' 12-bit RGB colors are close matches of HSL_NTSC.TAB. This indicates that for most VT03 games, HSL_NTSC.TAB represents the authors' intent, and EmuVT's palette is quite off. This is most visible in Curly Monkey 2, where on the title screen, the monkey is magenta rather than red in EmuVT when using the DGUN-2500 130-in-1 multicart. HSL_NTSC.TAB is also somewhat darker than EmuVT/HSL_PAL.TAB, and I have always thought that EmuVT's palette was a bit too bright. Compare (left: VT3x RGB, middle: HSL_NTSC.TAB, right: HSL_PAL.TAB/EmuVT):

(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/CurlyMonkey2RGB.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/CurlyMonkey2NTSC.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/CurlyMonkey2PAL.png)
(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/KongKingRGB.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/KongKingNTSC.png)(http://symphoniae.com/nrs/pgc/KongKingPAL.png)

In other words: I wasted my time trying to approximate EmuVT's palette in my palette generation code, because that's not the correct palette that needs to be approximated.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 28, 2018, 01:09:33 PM
@davidstech: Pocket Games 150-in-1 is not a VTxx multicart, but a normal NES multicart using the CoolBoy mapper (http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/NES_2.0_Mapper_268), with 256 KiB of CHR-RAM.

Nimbus 176-in-1 must be a bad dump - games after number 85 sort of work, but many with CHR data corrupt in such a way that the correct CHR bank is chosen but the data itself is bad.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Y2K05 on February 28, 2018, 01:40:26 PM
I missed your Feb 16 message--

Apparently your emulator has a more accurate palette than the official emulator does?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on March 21, 2018, 02:04:03 PM
Don't know if you've already seen this, but I found this website: https://github.com/altr0n/arcade-classics-re (https://github.com/altr0n/arcade-classics-re)

Basically explains how to dump Basic Fun handheld arcades. Can't really provide any more insight past that but it might be useful (?)

I do know that the Qbert handheld hides some strange secrets - apparently it has Centipede (another basic fun handheld) coded inside, and I also found a test screen. Test screen is interesting as A. it doesn't appear on the centipede model, and B. it plays the same music found on all the recent bootleg handhelds (the badass song in the mogis and sy-88b among others). Maybe there's an entire menu in there, and they just forced some random pirated multicart to start at the qbert section?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: Awesome Panda on March 21, 2018, 09:41:31 PM
I don't suppose the graphics on that example are broken because Nintendo Tetris is an MMC1 game and the machine is designed to handle a different mapper?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: forgotusername on March 22, 2018, 02:31:29 PM
Awesome Panda
Mar 21 2018, 09:41:31 PM
I don't suppose the graphics on that example are broken because Nintendo Tetris is an MMC1 game and the machine is designed to handle a different matter?[/quote]99.9% sure that's the case. Main giveaway is that the 1989 text is intact while everything else is scrambled. I don't think its necessarily a mapper issue rather than the game itself - nes tetris uses a weird graphic method that makes the game hard to clone. its also used in punch-out and probably a couple other games.
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: cavencruiser on April 07, 2018, 08:39:20 AM
What hardware do these systems run on?
https://www.myarcadegaming.com/products/gamer-mini (https://www.myarcadegaming.com/products/gamer-mini)

The serial number for it is dgun2953, is this nes based?
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: davidstech on April 21, 2018, 01:58:58 PM
I think that one might be something like a VT369, but I'm not sure
Title: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: kelvin donna on May 01, 2018, 08:32:02 AM
forgotusername
Mar 21 2018, 02:04:03 PM
Don't know if you've already seen this, but I found this website: https://github.com/altr0n/arcade-classics-re (https://github.com/altr0n/arcade-classics-re)

Basically explains how to dump Basic Fun handheld arcades. Can't really provide any more insight past that but it might be useful (?)

I do know that the Qbert handheld hides some strange secrets - apparently it has Centipede (another basic fun handheld) coded inside, and I also found a test screen. Test screen is interesting as A. it doesn't appear on the centipede model, and B. it plays the same music found on all the recent bootleg handhelds (the badass song in the mogis and sy-88b among others). Maybe there's an entire menu in there, and they just forced some random pirated multicart to start at the qbert section?[/quote]oh, since it has centipede coded inside, can it be dumped as a nes rom?
Title: Re: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: jo19sh92 on February 02, 2022, 04:22:03 PM
Does anyone have a backup of all of DavidsTech's ROM dumps? They don't seem to exist anywhere else (aside from 4 of them on a Chinese forum)
Title: Re: VTxx Dumping Thread
Post by: PixelCrunch on July 26, 2023, 08:19:01 PM
Sorry for the Necropost, but I'm looking for the full VT03 palette. Is there a way to open the HSL2_RGB.tab file? I'm still stuck using the latest EmuVT version. Please let me know!