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"Gun watch pos" exposed!
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zoinkity
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 PostPosted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Debug is stripped out of PAL. I'm an idiot. Some bits of code remain though, confusing certain hackers such as myself.

I'll write up a code for it when I get home.
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zoinkity
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 PostPosted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Unfortunately there won't be a simple code to reactivate any of the debug features. Sorry for the hassle. Naturally, I will explain, so feel free to tune out now while you still have a chance.

(You hear a terrifying rush of air being drawn in.)

PAL doesn't have a debug menu, obviously. However, all the debug menu ever did was set a bunch of toggles so other routines could do whatever debug feature was coded into them. So, almost all the debug features are present in PAL as in NTSC but alas, they can't be activated easily.

Here's the trouble. Typically, each one of these toggles has two bits of code attached to them. One is a routine to set the value, and another to retrieve it. PAL has these routines, but the retrieval code is rigged to just return zero regardless. In other words, there isn't any retrieval or setting. It's all been banished, likely with a torrent of evil cackling involved.

If you, say, set 7F0904A8 to read a value previously stored someplace that would trigger the gun watch pos, you'd be good to go. Simple codes wouldn't especially be helpful, unless you hook and alter either 7F0904A8 or its six callers.

One option, if you just wanted to see the effect, would be to open your ROM in a hex editor and change this tiny little line:
Code:
  0xC2E9C   24020001

You'll then need to recalculate the checksum. Bit extreme though, in any case.
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TimEh
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 PostPosted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

Quote:
im sure it must be there somewhere


Quote:
Debug is stripped out of PAL.


it makes me wonder there was ever a need to change this. I was always thinkin about this in reverse. Rare is a Company based in an area with PAL compatibility. So now i assume the PAL was the first to be made, then ported to NTSC. Mabey debug mode was always ment to be disabled permenatly durring the final release build. But whoever in charge of the NTSC release slipped up. inno... random thought
 
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radorn
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 PostPosted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

No, NTSC was done first because Nintendo required so.
Even if Rare is in PAL zone, they were working for Nintendo, and they have their priorities. PAL was made later.

Look how many N64 games, even from Nintendo, in their PAL versions they run 10 fps slower and have "black bars" at the top and bottom of the screen because they keep the original screen resolution instead of expanding it for PAL.
NTSC first is a requirement from Nintendo, it is a requirement from Sony and it was a requirement from Sega. Not too sure about MS, since I never actually played any Xbox, but probably the same.

Rare, given it's important position, had the resources, and indulgence from Nintendo, to expend resources and time into making good PAL ports, and they cared about it since they were in PAL zone, but NTSC was first, that's for sure.I Have 4 PAL Rare games: GE, PD, DKR and BK.
All of them have well crafted PAL video mode. fullscreen and, as far as I can tell without NTSC carts to compare, fullspeed. I wonder if other games of theirs had a different treatment.

Another proof is that PAL fixes a few bugs from NTSC, like the 6 mine per detonation limit. It would have been absurd to introduce them back in the NTSC port if they were fixed in PAL, don't you think?
 
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zoinkity
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 PostPosted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 6:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

The mine issue was also fixed in the japanese cart...

Well, the reason why PAL tends to be a little funky has to do with memory. There are typically at least two video buffers in memory, and most games use 16bit colour for them. PAL screen sizes are larger than NTSC or that other one in South America, so that means there's more pixels to add to the buffer.

Rare economized memory in order to assure there would be enough room for the screen buffers without detracting from the rest of the memory map. Most other games didn't bother, so there's more ROM->rdram transfer as data gets swapped in and out.

So, a few things were changed, and many for the better. You're missing a debug menu, but you also have a reduced format for the skies. There's a default text bank when one doesn't load--this is why Citadel would run on PAL, though you weren't validly in a room. The weapon set format, the animation tables, some of the TLB tables, etc. were all reduced in size.
In fact, because of the room saved, PAL has more memory available at runtime than the other systems. Funny, isn't it?
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SubDrag
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 PostPosted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 7:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

zoinkity wrote:
The mine issue was also fixed in the japanese cart...

Well, the reason why PAL tends to be a little funky has to do with memory. There are typically at least two video buffers in memory, and most games use 16bit colour for them. PAL screen sizes are larger than NTSC or that other one in South America, so that means there's more pixels to add to the buffer.

Rare economized memory in order to assure there would be enough room for the screen buffers without detracting from the rest of the memory map. Most other games didn't bother, so there's more ROM->rdram transfer as data gets swapped in and out.

So, a few things were changed, and many for the better. You're missing a debug menu, but you also have a reduced format for the skies. There's a default text bank when one doesn't load--this is why Citadel would run on PAL, though you weren't validly in a room. The weapon set format, the animation tables, some of the TLB tables, etc. were all reduced in size.
In fact, because of the room saved, PAL has more memory available at runtime than the other systems. Funny, isn't it?


It's strange those fixes - why would loading a default text table benefit anything in released product? Just somebody noticed a possible null through system?
 
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zoinkity
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 PostPosted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 7:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

That particular fix is neat. It was a side-effect of replacing their TLB pointer table used in NTSC with lookup values, so really it was unintentional. I used something similiar in NSNA, just a quarter of the size.
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Dragonsbrethren
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 PostPosted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 9:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

zoinkity wrote:
The mine issue was also fixed in the japanese cart...

It was fixed, but fixed differently, since you need to detonate any remaining mines manually in the Japanese version. Were any of the other PAL optimizations/fixes present in the Japanese version?
 
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zoinkity
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 PostPosted: Tue Sep 08, 2009 6:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote Back to top

All time counters in japanese/pal versions use floating-point instead of decimal counters. If you notice the backward watch patch is different for those two versions.

There's a fix to correct flicker for japanese text in only the J/P carts. Yes, all regions have japanese support...

There's more than this, but only those came to mind. A lot of it has to do with table structures and default values--that sort of thing.
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