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farmerbb / RED-Project

ROM Extraction Documentation Project
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Kid Dracula issue #12

Open Computerlabrat opened 3 years ago

Computerlabrat commented 3 years ago

The Kid Dracula dump from The Castlevania Anniversary Collection doesn't seem to boot up with FCEUX. I've noticed it doesn't work with the MESEN core of Retroarch either. I dumped it using the command shown. Multiple times. My concern is it's not being dumped correctly. I don't think it's my computer since the other games seem to work fine including the Japanese versions of the NES games. Can you please look into this? Thanks.

themazingness commented 3 years ago

The rom appears to be intact. The data starts and ends the same as the working version from the No-Intro dump from the Internet Archive. There are differences though, and the Castlevania Collection one doesn't seem to work on any of the RetroArch cores (running on Windows 10), stand alone Mesen, or the cores on RetroPie while the No-Intro rom worked on the first core I tried it on.

Computerlabrat commented 3 years ago

The famicon version works with FCEUX, but the other file labeled Kid Dracula doesn't work.

Computerlabrat commented 3 years ago

Hmm. Something else I've noticed is the Famicon version of Castlevania 2 is missing while the NES version is there. I wonder if there's a connection.

farmerbb commented 3 years ago

Make sure you extracted the save data as well. Kid Dracula requires both the ROM and the save data in order to boot in a standard emulator. You may need to rename the extension from .sav to something else, depending on what your emulator requires.

themazingness commented 3 years ago

That explains a little bit of the problem as far as I go. I had an empty .sav file. Now I have one that is 8 kb because I redid the process, but the game still doesn't run in the four RetroArch cores or stand alone Mesen. Granted, I'm not sure what they would require the .sav to be named or how to prompt them to load it along with the rom. I haven't attempted it on my Raspberry Pi yet.

Computerlabrat commented 3 years ago

Extracted, file extension is sav like others, and put in the same directory as the game, but FCEUX still doesn't recognize it. I'm not sure there's a newer version of FCEUX 2.2.3 that supports it that I didn't get or if something else is up with it. Maybe I need to get further in the game and get the save file.

TopHatHipster commented 3 years ago

Hmm. Something else I've noticed is the Famicon version of Castlevania 2 is missing while the NES version is there. I wonder if there's a connection.

The reason for the Famicom version of Castlevania 2 being missing, is that it is a Famicom Disk System game. Allegedly, Nintendo holds 50% copyright on every FDS release, thus Konami would've needed to negotiate licensing with Nintendo (which undoubtedly Nintendo would refuse considering it is a multi-platform title). None the less, a BIOS is necessary to run FDS games, which belongs to Nintendo. Another reason to go through licensing.

While I cannot find any proper evidence of the first claim (50/50 copyright on FDS games) besides old hearsay, the second one most likely is why all FDS versions of the games are missing. The Japanese version of Castlevania I is the (worse) cartridge version later released in Japan without save file support and with particular nasty bugs. Castlevania II has never been released in Japan outside of its FDS format, hence why only the North American NES version is playable.

Edit: Worthy to mention: Nintendo did license their BIOS for emulation once, to Square Enix for their Nintendo Switch exclusive Collection of Mana which uses the original Game Boy BIOS. Not sure if their recent SaGa collection uses it as well.

Jacen-Kelsai commented 8 months ago

I don't know if themazingness ever solved their problem, but let me comment as I recently purchased the game. Once you have the extracted 8kb .sav file, it needs to be placed in the emulator's save directory (not to be confused with the savestate directory) and also won't work in the ROM folder by default. Once it's placed there, the game should start up. The ROM file and save file also have to have the same filename, or the save won't load. The save is extracted with the ROM's stock name, so that won't be a problem unless you change it. I've tested this on both Mesen (stand-alone installation) and my Analogue Pocket via openFPGA, and they both ran fine.