- NewRisingSun2
- Feb 21 2018, 01:30:33 AM
I would like to investigate, but I already have no idea what I have to accomplish to finish the second level. I also cannot seem to find out how to reliably operate wall switches, assuming that they're not just props.[/quote]You just need to kill all enemies in the level to progress. I might send you a savestate if it's required.- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: ProBoTector23 on February 21, 2018, 05:41:26 PM
- KAGE-008
- Feb 21 2018, 05:31:54 PM
- NewRisingSun2
- Feb 21 2018, 01:30:33 AM
I would like to investigate, but I already have no idea what I have to accomplish to finish the second level. I also cannot seem to find out how to reliably operate wall switches, assuming that they're not just props.[/quote]You just need to kill all enemies in the level to progress. I might send you a savestate if it's required.[/quote]You can also send me a savestate? :) I tried the code (in FCEUX), but I could not bring forth the third level.- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 21, 2018, 06:36:40 PM- No, just setting memory variable $006B to $03, as you mentioned, is enough. But thanks for the offer.
Having investigated the code a little further, it seems to me that the PRG bank order is mixed up, but only slightly. There already is a Waixing Mapper number for that --- Mapper 249 will mix up the PRG banks if register $5000 has bit 1 (value $02) set, which Ling Jie Hu Fa indeed does right at the beginning. Unfortunately, the scrambling pattern seems to be entirely different from the existing Mapper 249 games ...... so one would have to find out what the correct pattern is. Those three Mapper 249 games freeze right away when run as Mapper 4 or 176, so to account for the fact that Ling Jie Fu Ha seems to mostly run well, the alternative pattern may invole changing only a single bit. Other games that write $02 to $5000, yet seem to run normally at first, but may crash at a later point for the same reason:
- Duo Bao Xiao Ying Hao - Guang Ming yu An Hei Chuan Shuo (Ch)
- Myth Struggle (Ch)
- Shui Hu Zhuan (Ch)
Has anyone played these games to tell me whether they crash at some later point?
- Golden Axe
- M&M Heroes (serial 980100295)
- Ye Ming Jue
There is an alternative version of M&M Heroes with serial 980584 that does not write $02 to $5000, so maybe comparing the two versions can lead to some insights.- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: KAGE-008 on February 21, 2018, 11:37:27 PM- Golden Axe and Ye Ming Zhu (Night Pearl) — I played them through and don't have crashing issues. Btw this reminds me of another game that crashes before the level boss: Journey To The West II. Only changing the video setting to PAL on Chinese builds of VirtuaNES-ex solves it, but that is completely unrelated to the crash being investigated here.
- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: dragon2snow on February 22, 2018, 12:44:44 AM- 这游戏，我有实体卡带，目前我手上的5个版本的卡带，第三关都死机
- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: wanren on February 22, 2018, 12:51:36 AM
- dragon2snow
- Feb 22 2018, 12:44:44 AM
这游戏，我有实体卡带，目前我手上的5个版本的卡带，第三关都死机[/quote]Oh! Do you own this game box and cartridge different version pictures?
:) < I'm very concerned about that.- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 22, 2018, 02:24:15 AM- Yes, the 980340 version of 帝国风暴 Napoleon's War also requires PAL or Dendy timing to not crash before the main game map is shown, while the 980100029 has no such problem. I'm not sure the proper way to interpret that number is to conclude that 980100029 is the later or earlier version of the game.
- dragon2snow
I will assume then that we just have (a good dump of) the broken version of the game. The $5000 write may be the result of an earlier version of the respective game using Mapper 249, with the current versions running correctly as Mapper 4, but Waixing not having bothered to remove that one line of code. Maybe the crash even comes from Waixing not properly removing the protection from the earlier version of the game.
I'm just a bit surprised (maybe I shouldn't be...) that of the several versions of the game they have, Waixing would put up the bad one for download. In any case, I have added an entry to the undumped games wiki page (http://bootleggames.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Undumped_Games#Undumped_alternate_versions_of_dumped_games). I think the $5000 write of Golden Axe and Ye Ming Jue may indicate that earlier, Mapper-249-using, versions of those games exist as well.- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: dragon2snow on February 22, 2018, 04:01:34 AM- 我要回去找找，我有上万盘游戏卡。最初的这个ROM，就是我从卡里DUMP的。
最后我测试的是一个单卡。ROM数据都一样。 我一直再找最最初的卡，但一直没有看到过。
包括 猫王等游戏卡
- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: ProBoTector23 on February 22, 2018, 05:53:21 AM
- KAGE-008
- Feb 21 2018, 11:37:27 PM
Golden Axe and Ye Ming Zhu (Night Pearl) — I played them through and don't have crashing issues. Btw this reminds me of another game that crashes before the level boss: Journey To The West II. Only changing the video setting to PAL on Chinese builds of VirtuaNES-ex solves it, but that is completely unrelated to the crash being investigated here.[/quote]The Journey To The West II also works in FCEUX in Dendy mode. If you play in NTSC or PAL mode, then will unfortunately crash before the first boss.- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 23, 2018, 01:28:30 AM- Are we talking about 真假猴王 (Zhēn jiǎ hóu wáng), headerless CRC32 0xA273590F? I cannot get it to crash before the first level boss in Nintendulator-NRS in either NTSC, PAL or Dendy modes.
Oh wait, there's an actual game called Journey the West II. Sorry, got my Journey to the West games confused. And yes, that one will fail at the first level boss in any mode other then Dendy (or "Hybrid" in older Nintendulator builds).- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: MLX on February 23, 2018, 03:35:42 AM- Since there are games requiring the Dendy mode to work, wouldn't it be a good time to suggest an update to the NES2.0 header?
- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 23, 2018, 04:00:02 AM- I have already written a proposal covering Dendy, Vs. Dual System, VT01 STN (suggested by lidnariq), VT03 and VT09, but wanted to wait until more information on the VT3x and VT36x, as discussed in this thread (http://s4.zetaboards.com/PGC_Forums?topic=30182763), has become known before I posted it to nesdev.
- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: NewRisingSun on February 24, 2018, 05:34:04 PM- I have further investigated the Ling Jie Hu Fa level 3 issue. The level 3 data is in 8 KiB bank 0x16, or 16 KiB bank 0x0B. Instead of containing the level code and data, 16 KiB bank 0x0B is a duplicate of 16 KiB bank 0x0E. The actual bank 0x0B data is completely missing --- trying to substitute that bank with any of the other banks will not do. This means that no amount of hacking will be able to restore level 3 using the current image, and a redump of a working version is the only way. I suspect that when Waixing ran out of Mapper 249 boards, they used a quickly-written tool to undo Mapper 249's PRG bank order scrambling to use a simple Mapper 4 board, and made a mistake in the process that caused one of the banks to be dropped, and that this version ended up in the downloadable WXN pack.
- Title: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: KAGE-008 on February 25, 2018, 04:50:10 PM- There is a multicart similar to this one (http://cah4e3.shedevr.org.ru/collection/KK3312_!_8in1.jpg) containing Ling Jie Hu Fa (without the copyright screen and intro?) that is undumped as of writing this. I remember seeing it on a Ruten sale several years back.
- Title: Re: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: crazyjesse on March 18, 2019, 11:39:56 PM- Title: Re: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: Terwilf on May 30, 2023, 07:04:56 AM- It is strange that no one has mentioned it, but perhaps the problem of the rom, comes from its origin, these roms were rescued from encrypted files and considering that several could not be decrypted at that time, it would be a good starting point to investigate ;)
http://bootleg.games/BGC_Forum/index.php?topic=447.0
- Title: Re: Ling Jie Hu Fa: Level 3 crash issue
Post by: NewRisingSun on May 30, 2023, 09:08:51 AM- All ROMs were successfully decrypted, but some used mappers that had not been understood at the time. The game has since been redumped several times (from non-first-edition cartridges), all with the same problem. It is definitely not the decryption that was at fault.