Messages

1

General / Re: Snatcher Pc Engine Scd Translation

« on: Jul. 25, 2007, 01:46:24 PM »

http://forums.junkerhq.net/viewtopic.php?t=1389

Post Date: Wed May 02, 2007 4:29 pm

At this time, we are looking for a person, or persons, with sufficient free time to work on the technical aspects of the project. This would involve extracting the text from the PC Engine version, reinserting the translated text back into the game and making necessary code changes, and graphics adjustment. The Sega CD text has already been extracted. Contact can be made through the email address in my profile.

Heh - they want someone to handle *all* the hacking side of things? Between Dave and I, and my own personal projects, I have enough on our plate as it is for a game that's already has a translation (even if it is on a different platform). I'd help with the text routine,  but otherwise I'm too busy at the moment to take on a whole project.


SkyeWelse: No, I'm not working on the translation of Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari. Someone mentioned that they were looking at do it as a project, but couldn't find the font. I took a look at it, found the font, and wrote a doc explaining the compression used for the font (LZSS). Other than the font, it should be an easy project since that game already uses an 8x8 font (old NES style as tilemap chars - no vwf for that game).


Anyway, I wish I could jump start the PCE CD translation scene. Everything seems to be focused on SNES at the moment (as it has been in the past) :/

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General / Re: Snatcher Pc Engine Scd Translation

« on: Jul. 22, 2007, 07:54:12 PM »

*Poof*

 Ehh!? huh!? wha!?

>_>...<_<...

 Heh. I was contacted by someone from their team(??) about this a few months back. I answered a few questions they had, but that was the extent of it. They didn't ask for any other help though, but if they need someone to handle the hacking side of things or just some help in general - I'm game. I should send them an email to see how things are going. I'd love to the PCE port in english

 Been busy with documenting compression schemes for PCE/CD games. Just finished Downtown Nekketsu, Bonks Adventure, Seiya Monongatari, Gate of Thunder (have a WIP extractor). LOX 2 is probably next. Btw, Cosmic Fantasy 1 is getting a vwf text routine as well.  Dave's been doing some research on it - no translator yet, but it'll be prep'd and ready for when the time comes.

-Rich

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Ys I & II Complete / Re: Voice your opinion on the new, separate Ys I Complete Project Page!

« on: Aug. 04, 2006, 01:23:35 AM »

Ditto neo82

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General / Re: Fray PC-Engine

« on: Jul. 03, 2006, 06:51:28 PM »

I haven't play much of the game, but looks to be an action adventure game. The first level is a top top-view vertical scroller. After defeating the boss, you proceed to the town. Ok, that's not really helpful, but if you can locate a guide, I have a feeling you find everything you need to know about the game. The graphics are nice and the action part is decent - up to SCD standards from what I've seen.







.... Jason lives!

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General / Re: TurboRip v1.00: The PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 CD-ROM ISO/WAV/CUE Ripper

« on: Jun. 27, 2006, 07:31:29 PM »

Plus, with a PCE disc, sector starting offsets are important, so if you screw around and remove the proper pregap lines, all audio tracks will be at a different offset and when played, will be off by however many seconds the pregaps are equal, if the game doesn't crash. You'd be creating the MP3 problem basically.

Yeah, from the tests I've done, the audio track layout is very finicky. It appears the PCE/game is playing the audio based on the exact sector address instead of track number, but this doesn't appear to be the case with the data tracks. I have one CD were the first track(data) has a 47s +9frame pregap and the system is oblivious to it - all the sector addresses are based off index 01 for a data track (with index 00 containing the pre-gap), but the pre-gaps in the data track effect the LBA of the audio starting point to be played by the game.

Thanks NightWolve

Rich

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General / Re: Looking for a new ISP. Any suggestions?

« on: Jun. 27, 2006, 03:20:10 AM »

Cox/comcast has a $24 for 256k u/d. Sure it's not the fast, but when times are tight. I'll eat ramen soup 5 days a week before I go back to that again    Ok, maybe not.

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General / Re: TurboRip v1.00: The PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 CD-ROM ISO/WAV/CUE Ripper

« on: Jun. 24, 2006, 07:37:53 PM »

When you transition from AUDIO to DATA, you add a 3 second PREGAP, so that's why you see PREGAP 03:00 in that case, and you don't see it when the DATA track is the first track.

 So the first 1 s  of sectors in the pregap is audio mode(or previous track mode if not audio), followed by a 2 s pregap in data mode. Wouldn't this be a post-gap of 1 s on the preceeding audio track, followed by a 2 s pre-gap on the data track - by my assumption that pre/post-gaps are just sectors with blank data(0x00) in the data/audio part of sector?

 I've burned a few test CD's without any pre-gap for the second data track following an audio track in the que, they booted fine in the SCD system.  I wonder if NERO is adding/correcting the pre-gap before burning.  

Also, I was looking at the ECMA-130 doc and it states that if a data track preceeds the lead-out, that no pre-gap is used. Do PCE games with a last track as a data track follow this rule?


Thanks for the info,

Rich

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General / Re: TurboRip v1.00: The PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 CD-ROM ISO/WAV/CUE Ripper

« on: Jun. 22, 2006, 08:43:28 PM »

Nightwolve,

 Does the PCE CD format have zero pre/post gap for the data track when its the second track? The format looks very close to Yellow Book standard, except for the pre/post gaps.

 Also, do know if a mixed-mode CD is the samething thing as Yellow Book standard with the data track being the first with no pregap? Shapeshifter appears to have the data track as the first track and I was wondering if it adhere'd to a legal Yellow Book format.

 The reason I ask is that I trying to gather as much info on the PCE CD format before making rounds with the replication houses.

-Rich

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General / Re: revolution got a real name

« on: Apr. 28, 2006, 09:10:20 PM »

"360" for microsoft means "full circle" - as in: they're are right back from were they started - dead ass last

I really don't care what they call it as long as they stay afloat. It'll be a sad day if/when Big 'N' decides to exit the home console market.

I really can't stand the American teenage mentality on the subject of current video(console) games and the magazines/reviewers who instigate/promote/encourage this piss-ant attitude.

/rant off

10

General / Re: So you want to be a "hero"?

« on: Apr. 24, 2006, 05:27:27 PM »

I'm writing some utils at the moment for Hacking PCE graphics. I plan to write some tutorials as well.

Translating however, is a whole 'nother game.  Try www.romhacking.net  - almost nothing PCE, but ton of SNES info, projects, and noob( .. <_< .. >_>..) docs.

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General / Re: How and when did you discover Ys? and...

« on: Apr. 18, 2006, 08:37:40 PM »

Cool. I'll have play it from the beginning again as I don't seem to remember much about the game, even though I'm somwhat far along.

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General / Re: How and when did you discover Ys? and...

« on: Apr. 17, 2006, 11:04:18 PM »

Does anyone remember these guys being in the SFC version of Ys IV?

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ysanime4-03.jpg

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General / Re: How and when did you discover Ys? and...

« on: Apr. 17, 2006, 07:18:29 PM »

Hey, malducci, is that your Ys site? I friggin' love it!

Huh!?
 
No,  I don't have an Ys site. Do you mean Seldanes Ys site/forum?

Ohh you mean this - http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/ys/ys.htm. No, it's not mine but it's an awesome site

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General / Re: Crystalis - NES

« on: Apr. 17, 2006, 12:26:20 PM »

2) I didn't keep a list of the games I beat, but I did videotape the endings. Later, I recorded short segments from the games as well (i.e. bosses) because it was much more interesting to watch.

My friends and I video taped NES games as well. We would tape the game from start to finish - editing out the deaths, continues, and mess ups.

 The most popular video was the "Ninja Gaiden I, Ninja Gaiden II, and Astynax" tape.

 I only did a few TG16 and Genesis tapes... Bloody Wolf and Splatter house come to mind.

I starting compiling cassette tape recordings of VG soundtracks.

We taped videogame music as well. Oooooohh... megaman 2 bubble man stage music BTW, OCremix has some cool NES remixes. Later, when I was old enough to drive we'd cruise to tapes of DraculaX, Rayxanber III, Robo Aleste, LOT, GOT,etc.

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General / Re: new translation project

« on: Apr. 15, 2006, 02:32:57 AM »

You mean like Breath of Fire? 

I'll use the 16x16 fonts for now, until I can change the routine to point to a different set of fonts.
I wonder how difficult it would be to use 16x16 2 letter combine fonts like "th" and "e ".

The first level looks like there's plenty of room to extend the string data. I think I figured out all the string control chars, so I just need to translate the text.


Sort of off topic but-

DS: The Legend of Heros (U) has some sort of partial ascii text storage method. I was going to try and compare it with the JP version, in hopes to find similarity to TLOH II text (I'm betting on it using the same engine).  Problem is I can't find the TLOH (J) iso. 

He abandoned it eventually, so it's officially dead.

Why did he abandoned it?

16

General / new translation project

« on: Apr. 14, 2006, 06:34:24 PM »

I just wanted to say a huge thanks for posting the links to UltraEdit and NJWIN - NJStar CJK Viewer over at the Rigg site

I going to try my hand at Spriggan Mark2 as the S-JIS appears to be uncompressed with roman fonts.




Now I just need to figure out the string control variables and such

I feel giddy

 

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General / Re: Crystalis - NES

« on: Apr. 13, 2006, 05:27:13 PM »

I still have the manual from when I rented the game

 170 is definitely a grip of a NES games on your completed list. I have over 200+ games on my list, but only about 100 are NES games 

18

General / Re: Crystalis - NES

« on: Apr. 12, 2006, 11:32:37 PM »

Crystalis was awesome! The musics for me were very memoriable. I remember the story events unfolding being really cool. The gameplay was right on and the fact that you gain experience and levels topped it off. Now that you mention it, it did have an Ys feel - like int the later Ys series with Romun empire. The gameboy color port would have been great, had they not botch and replace musics of the original game.


Magic of Scheherazade - I totally forgot about that game! Brings back memories. Clash at Demonhead - that game was sooooo cool. I picked up that game again as soon as I saw about 7 years ago in a local pawn shop, when nes game were selling for $1-2. Matter of fact I bought about 50 more nes games from that pawn shop in the following couple of days.

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General / Re: PC engine compression schemes

« on: Apr. 11, 2006, 07:07:34 PM »

but I've taken care of that by intercepting the functions that use compressed images/text, etc. post decompression, and just overwriting the decompressed results with my uncompressed replacement files.

So after you have decompressed the data/image/text, you replace the old compression function and interface a new function that reads from the uncompressed files - using the same calling/handling parameters as the original? That's pretty cool... and clever

Now, with PC-Engine, I don't have this kind of power. I must invoke the power of Dave in order to reverse the decompression algorithm.  Plus, there just aren't the tools for the platform to get very far unless your experience is at Dave's or Neill Corlett's level.

Yeah, not having the ability to use a debugger for PCE, means a lot more work than normally required and ofcourse tools wouldl have to be made as well.



The way I figure it, I need to do one of the following:


1) Write some test code and figure out where everything is placed in the emu's save state file. Use the CPU' PC located in the file to provided a starting point for disassembling from the save state file.

2) Take random save states - rinse and repeat until everthing lines up and all code/functions have the correct starting/beginning address alignment.

3) Then after straining my eyes for hours/days/weeks crossing my fingers that I actually recognise which code is the decompression code (all because I can't do a triggered save state to get the actual point I looking for originally). 

4) Finish the dynamic dissassembler I have written. I need to added dummy read/write, skip instruction, and follow branch/jump instruction - for stepping through the code.

or

 Try to add a basic debugger for Mednafen since the source is available. But the idea of jumping into someone elses code (even with all the comments you can shake a stick at) and trying to make heads or tails of what is what, gives me a headache just thinking about it. On top of that, it's written in C++ which I've written in, but [inothing at or near a professional level/understanding.

20

General / Re: PC engine compression schemes

« on: Apr. 11, 2006, 01:18:33 AM »

Yeah, Gate of Thunder.

21

General / Re: PC engine compression schemes

« on: Apr. 10, 2006, 10:36:08 AM »

it might help if I knew what you were trying to accomplish.

 For now I just want to decompress the graphics, alter them, and recompress them. I've figured some games might store certain tiles and sprites as 1-bit, 2-bit, and  3-bit as a one type of compression - depending on the number of colors used. I know byte alignment can be off from one tile set to the next.

 I'm actually using Tmod2 with your PCE tile/sprite plugin  

Anyways reconstructing/analyzing a save state instead of using a debugger - isn't exactly my idea of fun   Here's hoping Mednafen team add a debugger

I assume you already have some technical knowhow in programming though, cause honestly, if not, you're barking up the wrong tree with this.

 I've programmed a few demos for the PCE and SGX hardware in assembly, so I'm at the point were I feel pretty confident - though my experience with compression algorithms is zero.

 I actually had this crazy idea: running a hucard or cd game on a real SGX (in SGX mode) - with added/alter coded for when pausing the game, you could bring up your own (debug) code and use the second VDC to display the content of  memory like a hex editor 

22

General / PC engine compression schemes

« on: Apr. 09, 2006, 11:05:18 PM »

NightWolve, is there a common compression scheme used for gfx in PCE CD games? Most CDs I've looked at don't have any gfx compression, but a few do. Gate of thunder is one of them that I'm trying to grahpic hack.

 I figured since about 99.9% of the graphics in Hucards appear to have some sort of graphic compression, that it might be part of an Hudson library and possible used with some CDs title.

23

General / Re: How and when did you discover Ys? and...

« on: Apr. 09, 2006, 10:56:04 PM »

Thanks Nightwolve 

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General / Re: Help: popular 80s terms and catchphrases

« on: Apr. 08, 2006, 05:23:10 PM »

"Sike" and "....NOT!" were from the later 80's if I remember correctly. There were popular combos like "totally rad!". Most people consider the 80's era as 81-85/86 as the later 80's was more hip-hop....word!

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General / Re: How and when did you discover Ys? and...

« on: Apr. 08, 2006, 05:16:50 PM »

I didn't know about Ys 1 being on the master system until years later. Master system wasn't very popular in the US, I even remember kids being picked on because they preferred a master system over the NES 

 Any Ys was the second TG16 CD I played, right after Valis II. I was impressed by Valis II, but when I got Ys I think my hands were trembling after the intro and opening cinema. All my friend and I could say was "duuude!" and "baaaddd!". This was in March or April of '91 (freshman year). Ofcouse we brought the good word of Ys to all our friends houses - utilizing the suitcase feature of the system!

 Ys I & II had amazing music too. I remember listing to it over and over. I also bought Ys III when it came out later that year. I did also play and beat the snes version which is easier imo. I'll have to give the genesis version a shot, since seldane and a few others say its better than the snes - I'll bet the music is atleast (I like the gen's distinct sound).

 Ys IV I imported in '94 since TTI was already going heads up and no chance of a translation. I got as far as the witch blocking the cave and couldn't find all the items she was asking for.  It wasn't until I found Rigg and waited patiently until the patch was released. Being able to beat the game in English was awesome, it was like I was back in '93 again.

 I've beat Ys: The Oath in Felghana for PC and Ys VI for the PS2. I guess that just leaves Ys IV and V for SFC left.

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General / Re: Cancelled projects

« on: Apr. 04, 2006, 08:19:27 PM »

Awesome, thanks! I don't have the game yet - still trying to track it down for a reasonable price.

 As far as ripping the image, if I rip it in the correct mode but comes up a bit short due to the last few of sectors - I can just pad the image myself right? All ISO's I've looked at are padded with "0" in the last group of sectors. Anyways, I'll figure it out - thanks again


PS: Ohhh, btw I was extremely greatful Ys IV patch came out, but was only able to donate $10 at the time. Now that things are little better these days, I would like to show my graditude. Do you have a paypal email address I can send it to?

27

General / Cancelled projects

« on: Apr. 04, 2006, 12:21:48 AM »

First- Hey everyone. I didn't post much in the old forum, but read quite abit I noticed a few familiar faces

Anyway I came across Startling Odyssey II in an old issue of PC Enjin I had stashed away and remembered that the translation had been cancelled. Nightwolve, I was wondering how far along the Startling Odyssey II WIP was? I know you stated that you had no interested in picking up the project, but would might release the WIP if requested(if I remember correctly). Do you still have the WIP available?

Thanks,
Rich