PCE Flash Cards

[Paisa49]

That was my initial suspicion, as well. When the flash cart was first working on my console, it was doing so with an ac adaptor from radio shack that was giving me 9 volts. As a result of getting less "juice" to the flash cart, the cart would start up, but there would be an annoying buzzing sound coming from my TV whenever I played a rom. After I switched the radio shack adaptor to an original TG-16 adaptor, the buzzing sound went away, and the flash cart continued to work. Then, after sometime, it would only load up my rom menu screen every so often. Now, it won't even load it up at all. I really can't think of anything else other than my console not liking the contact configuration for the flash cart.

I'm so glad this forum exists. Your collective knowledge is appreciated.

[awack]

You can play US games on a Jpn system but you have to do some editing to the rom with a hex editor, i changed the code in the us version of magical chase so that it would work on my core grafx.

[nat]

That would be very useful information for you post, IE, what address range needs to be changed and what it needs to be changed TO.

Missa was looking for information like this for a pet project, and I'd like to have this info on hand for reference purposes.

[awack]

First you need a hex editor, you can download a trial version for free if you don't have one already, you have to know how to use it of course, its not hard it took me about 10 min's, then you need to search for this line $54 $A9 $FF $53 $01 $AD $00 $10 $29 $40 $F0 change the $F0 to $80.

Obviously its ideal to have the ability to put both US and Jpn roms on one flash card even if you have a US and Jpn system.

If you need any help let me know.

[nat]

I'm already familiar with how to use a hex editor, etc, and all that.

A couple questions:

a) Will this work for disabling the region program in all US ROMs or only Magical Chase?

b) How did you figure out where the region check was located in the ROM? Is there documentation somewhere I don't know about?

[awack]

I have been able to find this line in 4 out of 6 US roms that i looked in, so they might all be the same and i just couldn't find it.

And to your second question, i read it some where on the net  but i cant remember where, some one allot smarter than me figured it out

[nat]

Hmm, maybe someone over on the Assembler forums.

Thanks for the tip, I'm going to do a little digging on this.

[MotoRoaderMike]

Boy, I could really use a TG16 flash card so I can play import games on my TG16. Do they even exist?

[nat]

Of course! Why do you think this thread is here?

[sideshow]

I did the hex edit trick to all of the US roms except the following of which I cant find the standard code:

Cadash
Final Lap Twin
Ghost Manor
Legend of Hero Tonma
Night Creatures

I did this about 2 years ago when I first got my NEO Flash Card with nice R-Type decal.  Too bad I get just a white screen when booting it up on my DUR-RX console.  I cant even get the main menu.  Maybe I need to do this non abrasive cleaning methods as stated in this thread.  Funny thing is that regular Hucards work great.  I'm pretty much having the same problems as Paisa49.  The card worked the first couple times now doesnt work at all.  The card appears to write the roms correctly cause I get no errors on the PC side.  I"ve come to point where I'm playing Turbo roms on my modded XBOX. 

[nat]

First you need a hex editor, you can download a trial version for free if you don't have one already, you have to know how to use it of course, its not hard it took me about 10 min's, then you need to search for this line $54 $A9 $FF $53 $01 $AD $00 $10 $29 $40 $F0 change the $F0 to $80.

Hmm, that string is not present in either the Air Zonk ROM nor the Space Harrier ROM, two games I own the US versions of but I'd like to be able to play on my GT handheld.

I even tried variations on that to make sure it wasn't just slightly different or something. The last three bytes, $29$40$F0 don't exist together anywhere in that order in either ROM.

Sideshow, if you patched all the ROMs to work on JP hardware, can you tell me how you did Air Zonk and Space Harrier?

[sideshow]

Check your PM Nat.

[awack]

I just looked in Air Zonk and it was the first line in the hex dump, make sure the rom is unzipped and if that does not work find another rom, lat me know if you need to know where.

[nat]

Not only is it not in the first line, it's not in the first 25 lines, or anywhere in the dump at all. Take a look for yourself:





I used my hex editor's handy "search" function to make the looking go a little easier. To be honest, I haven't found that line in any of the ROMs I've looked at, period.

[Bonknuts]

Nat, you have one of those crappy "bit-swapped" roms that haven't seemed to die yet (no thanks to some old EMUs). This is why you can't seem to find it. Does your flash card software support bit-swapped roms? I know tototek software doesn't detect it (as it shouldn't, those dumps need to disappear).

  The first 0x200 bytes is the header. The real rom starts at 0x200. The correct rom would read "78 54 A9 FF" at 0x200 (or 0x00000 if it has no header) for AirZonk. US roms actually have the word "NEC" in the detection code.