VTxx Dumping Thread

[davidstech]

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

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.

[Y2K05]

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.

[NewRisingSun]

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.

[Y2K05]

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

This has probably been somewhat acknowledged above but I'll post about this anyway.

[davidstech]

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.

[Y2K05]

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 - 288-in-1--how come it does this, btw?

[davidstech]

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.

[forgotusername]

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.

[NewRisingSun]

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.

Here is my current Nintendulator build 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.

[forgotusername]

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?

[NewRisingSun]

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.

[Y2K05]

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?

[forgotusername]

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.

[Y2K05]

Does the 200-in-1 (in the first post) have any unique games on it?

[NewRisingSun]

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 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. 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.