mamefan2018

So after a long break from patching and fixing triforce games , I decided to take a look at F-zero monster Ride posted by murray and see what I can do .. I quickly tested it on all the triforce builds I have using the cycraft emulator from crediar tools ..game doesn't work at all up to the "22_01_2023" build, on the next build "24_01_2023 " cycraftemu connects to the gameboard but it's stuck at that point and keeps resetting and the game doesn't start ...and on the newer builds after this one the game boots but runs really slow and it's unplayable . so I was like ok ,if i tracked down the subroutine responsible for the slowdown like what I did with the mario kart games and patched it , I might be able to get the game to run fine on the newest builds ..I was thinking it might take couple of days but it ended up being a long agonizing journey ...and it really tested my patience . when I first started working on it , things were going great ..because in the first day I managed to locate the subroutine responsible for the slowdowns ..and when I stopped it , the game started to run full speed ..most of the time I needed to stop/restore it a few times to make it run fine because a lot of times the audio was working fine but the game ran at 1 fps ..although it was not a clean way to handle it but I thought that is it ,problem solved ..now all I need is to create patch to do that because of-course I was doing all that manually in debug mode ...3 days later it ended up in failure .. I tried at least 20 different patches to deal with the subroutine at different points but it just didn't work .the game ran at 1fps with the sound working fine with the patches applied ..it was unresponsive with the slowdowns and the way the patches work. So I thought ok, I need a different approach to this , and I just thought if I skipped the boot up sequence to get in game that might do the trick ...and I managed to find a way to do that through what I called " dev test mode" ... because it seemed like a mode made for testing the game ..the insert coin/start thing didn't appear but the game ran at full speed ..at least the attract mode ran fine ..but it stopped at the instructions screen when I hit start ... first I thought maybe cuz it's a dev test mode and that is all it does ...but since I managed to figure out the memory address range for the menu values , I realized that there is a timer for the screen and it's working fine but it stops because of the seat-belt check ..and of course the cycraftemu doesn't work anymore because I bypassed all the initialization sequence ..I tried to mess around with the game code to skip this screen and the best I could do is skip right to the race ...so it was a failure and I was back to square one. at this point I was going to just give up on it and post my findings ... but the next day I felt bad about abandoning it after all that work and all the time I spent on it ..and decided to continue working on it. So I started from scratch and this time I thought I just need to do it the right and clean way , and the key to get it working is the cycraftemu .. the main idea was to compile my own version and mess around with the code to try and trace the subroutines that handle the cycraft part ..and I was under the impression that the one in crediar tools was just a compiled version of the cycraftemu on github from 2021 by bobbydilley since the crediar one didn't have source code.. so I checked the other one turns out it was made for Linux ...which means that crediar ported and modified it ..although it was uncharted territory for me , I knew the general idea on how it works ..and I was like well it's too late to turn back now .. So I started working on porting the code and compiling it for windows ..and managed to get it done and it connected to the gameboard but then it stopped when it started to receive data .. which of course meant that crediar did some modifications to make it work with the triforce build .. and since there is no source code for his version .. I ended up using a few de-compilers on it trying to get as much of the source code as possible ..and sort of made my own cycraftemu by using my ported version of the emu and modifying it using some of the code I managed to de-compile from the crediar version .. and it worked !..to be honest I was surprised that this mess of a code ended up working ..I was just lucky that all the guesses I made ended up being correct . and although I ended up with a cycraft emu that did exactly what the credair one does which means it behaved in the same exact way and only worked on newer builds with the slowdowns .. but it was a big breakthrough and was the key to finally figure everything out because now I had an understanding how it all works and I had full control over it ..which lead me to trace the subroutines that handle all the cycraft part ..and I was finally able to make the first successful patch to bypass the cycraft checks . with this patch all builds up to "24_01_2023" worked perfectly fine with full speed (even older ones that didn't work at all with the cycraft emulator but since it was not needed and handled by the patch older builds worked fine) ...and it worked on newer builds too but the slowdowns were still there ...but now the "dev test mode " worked fine since the seat-belt check was handled by the code ...although it was missing some menu sounds and the insert coin/start thing ..it was running full speed on newer builds using this mode ...and I was like that is it , now it's in a great state and playable on all builds . next day I thought maybe now that I know the memory address range for all the sent and received values when connecting to the cycraft ..and I already knew what subroutine was causing the slowdowns .. that there is a chance I might find a clean way to fix this issue .. and yep , I ended up with a clean patch to fix the slowdown issue in all of the newer builds without the need for the "dev test mode" so here are the gecko codes needed to run this game : Bypass Cycraft 0043137B 00000086 it's actually a proper way to handle the cycraft checks .. it just feeds them directly to the game eliminating the need for the cycraftemu .. initialization / boot check and seat-belt on all the time . Slowdown Fix 0043137E 00000000 it is needed for builds starting from 01_02_2023 and here is a bonus one : Game Over/ Attract Mode 077e85d4 00000008 005d6dc8 0000c7cc this is what I called "dev test mode" instead of test menu it will skip directly to a game over screen then the attract mode .. game works fine expect some missing sounds and no insert coin /start game text . this is not needed ..it's only for for anyone interested to check it out maybe there might be some interesting stuff in that mode . as for the game ...as murray stated , u get all 41 vehicles unlocked but you only have race mode .. there is no time attack mode in this special version of the game . Finally I hope that the patches work fine for everyone and enjoy the game!

just calibrate the gun in test mode

this one ...just check the last 6-7 pages and u will find all the info/patches/fixes needed to get all the games running on the new dolphin triforce builds

u need the bypass boot patch that i posted here for it to work ... every single VS triforce dump now works, u just have to check the thread for the patches needed . here is the patch for VS 2006 rev D ... add it as a gecko code 040568D8 60000000

in dolphin u have the option to create custom control profiles and add them to the game ini ... so yea u can do that .

I see that some ppl r having problems with the latest 2 builds ,specifically with mario kart games ... so i got a patch that i didn't want to share because I think less patches to the game is better , i don't want to mess around with the game code way too much ...and i didn't want to make things confusing with so many patches all over the place ... cuz only 2 patches r required for the mario games ..the loop patch (comes with the build ) + the slowdown fix ...the rest of the patches r optional like the skip link to speed things up .. this patch simply skips all the boot checks without affecting the test mode ..if used with the link skip patch we end up with just a 1 second boot screen.. no need to disable camera or steering power and skips the clean card thing.. Skip boot checks MKGP 040320fc 60000000 Skip boot checks MKGP2 US 0402e858 60000000 Skip boot checks MKGP2 JPN 0402e8b8 60000000 and since there is no need to disable the camera with this patch .. if left enabled, we will get the countdown and flash to take a pic ..of course there is no actual pic taken ...but the game will function as if the camera is working...and of course this patch works with all builds ..it is just more useful with the latest ones . oh and one last note .. the test mode works in the latest build .. it just takes a long time to enter test mode .. the game doesn't freeze , just leave it for a min or so and test mode will work...

just go to test mode and disable steering power

looks like there r some ppl here interested in the special teams in VS 2002 ... I actually never knew they existed ...I didn't really play that game a lot ... but here is the unlock patch for anyone interested in playing with the sonic team and the Yukichan United team (never heard of them before ) it's definitely a ridiculous thing to add to the game ..but i guess it fits the over the top nature of this game . Unlock Special Teams 024E2F73 00004142 004E2FA3 00000001 004E2F9E 00000002 here is an alternative version for anyone who doesn't want them to be unlocked by default ...and want to manually unlock them .. Unlock Special Teams ALT 28423788 00001008 024E2F73 00004142 004E2FA3 00000001 004E2F9E 00000002 E0000000 80008000 in the team selection screen just press up and start at the same time and they should appear ... I didn't play a lot with those teams but everything seems to be working fine ..so hopefully it works fine with no problems oh and since the import and jap versions r basically identical .. the patch works for both versions.

yea same here i tend to go with bezels 99% of the time ..and i did share a stripped down version of ArcCabView to work with the latest triforce build and added a nice bezel to it ...but looks like the link is down here is a new link https://mega.nz/file/J1kBQAaS#-JQvSgT17Ww-XzBKjmeEt7I2Ax7l-WCU3o-Rga36lMo set back-end to directx and of course force 4:3 aspect ratio .. bezel added and curvature enabled (hit home and disable it if u want to ) .. and just did a little stretching to make it look good ...and of course u can enable the crt effect if u want to . oh and i set everything up on my 1080p display ... so not sure how it will look on higher or lower res ... best way to find the inputs for any game is to go in test menu and test inputs ... click all the buttons to figure out the buttons used for this game ..write them down and create a new control profile for it and add it to the game ini .

oh yea , I was really surprised on how good the game looked in proper widescreen ... I was like does it actually look better this way or I'm just trying to justify all the time i spent to patch the game and get it to work in proper widescreen lol .. but ur screenshots actually answers this question .. the game definitely look better in widescreen ..I guess maybe they had that in mind when developing the game .. i mean the first game was released in 2005 and gp2 in 2007 ..so I guess by that time widescreen support for games started to become a more common thing.

yep ,the arcade version of smashing drive is on a dreamcast derived board ...and runs with demul .. and hopefully in the near future on flycast . as for key of avalon ..yep the game is dumped but if anyone is wondering why it's not playable yet just check this out : https://segaretro.org/images/d/dd/AvalonNoKagi_Arcade_JP_Flyer.pdf the normal setup for this game is one server and 4 clients .. plus the card machine ... it is just a game that is meant to be played in the arcade for card games fans ...there is way too much work to be done to get it to boot ,not just patches or updates to the triforce build .. but we might even need more work on the dolphin core and if we get all this done i don't see how we can make it playable with the card system ..

here are the proper widescreen patches for the mario kart games (aspect ratio needs to be set to forced 16:9) Mario Kart GP Widescreen C228C800 00000009 C03F0034 9421FFE0 93C10004 93E10008 DBE1000C 7FC802A6 48000009 3FAAAAAB 7FE802A6 C3FF0000 EC3F0072 7FC803A6 83C10004 83E10008 CBE1000C 38210020 60000000 00000000 Mario Kart GP2 US Widescreen C22C80D4 00000009 C03F0034 9421FFE0 93C10004 93E10008 DBE1000C 7FC802A6 48000009 3FAAAAAB 7FE802A6 C3FF0000 EC3F0072 7FC803A6 83C10004 83E10008 CBE1000C 38210020 60000000 00000000 Mario Kart GP2 JPN Widescreen C22C86EC 00000009 C03F0034 9421FFE0 93C10004 93E10008 DBE1000C 7FC802A6 48000009 3FAAAAAB 7FE802A6 C3FF0000 EC3F0072 7FC803A6 83C10004 83E10008 CBE1000C 38210020 60000000 00000000 I spent way too much time on these patches ... although as i stated before i'm not a big fan of widescreen patches for classic games ...but i guess it ended up being a challenge ..halfway through i was regretting that i even considered doing this lol ..but it finally worked and surprisingly it looked really good with no graphical issues or clipping ..so hopefully it works fine for everyone ..i only played a few races but everything looked fine.

anyone interested in widescreen patches for mario kart gp and gp 2?

yea,same here .. I was surprised no one brought it up ... since this game really relies on the card to save progress and unlock stuff unlike f-zero for example that just uses the card to keep score , the game works perfectly fine without it because u can play any track ...but the mario games work like the new dx game ... progress is saved . I guess they thought that 50 games is more than enough in the arcades ..although it would still suck to unlock everything then the card expires and u lose all progress .. yep the patch simply kills the code that subtracts 1 play after the end of a session ...and i'm glad that it works fine and yep the game is stuck on remove card/save because there is no insert and eject card button ...and that is why once u add a coin the game detects the card right away.

@murray nope u didn't do anything wrong .. the ui elements r stretched and some of the selection screens show up in a 4:3 ratio (the 4:3 ratio thing happens in the GX version) ...it's a 20 year old game and I guess the widescreen thing in 2003 was in an experimental phase at this point ...they knew that not a lot of ppl will use it ...so it was not perfect and very few games had that option .. and with the arcade version the option was just hidden in the code and there is actually more gx stuff in the code .. like how there was a lot of ax code in the gx version (this is how we ended up with the ax patches for the gx version ) ... but yea it's a minor thing and the patch doesn't break the game and it looks and plays fine ...and I totally agree with u , I prefer the games in the original res /aspect ratio .. it's just a code for widescreen fans instead of using the built in hack witch messes up the selection screens or using a forced or stretched aspect ratio . @taktvoll69 @CARPnadamas @Guisado88 here is a patched VS 2002 (japan) version ... I guess that solves the issue for anyone who prefers running in one dolphin setup and they don't want to create another portable one. https://mega.nz/file/ohEngQxT#wbdIIZI9PM_myuJ54jHN-ph-7uq1PaCotjfeROFSNDY I guess that will make the life easier for a lot of people and here are mario kart patches to make the cards work for an unlimited plays ..they will never expire . Mario Kart GP unlimited card 041F5C44 60000000 Mario Kart GP 2 unlimited card 040A02F8 60000000 Mario Kart GP 2 Jap unlimited card 040A0910 60000000

I'm glad that my small contribution helped make those old classic arcade games playable and made some ppl happy 👍 yep i stated both solutions to make it possible to play both versions .. and yep the type 3 version is not affected because it's not identical to the other dumps ...if i remember correctly it has a newer loader for the disc ... for me i might just patch the japan version with the force japan patch .. at least that will make them different ... and the actually handled it on Nintendont in a similar way ..FIX94 the author for the loader made a small patching app to patch all the bin files to have unique headers so that they can appear as different versions. ..if anyone is interested in a patched disc i could quickly patch the dol file and upload it. and i'm really happy that both games work fine with no problems at all ... it was really tricky to get them working and it was driving me insane to the point i spent hours checking the Nintendont source code to c how the game is handled lol ... turns out they didn't do anything special cuz apparently the real hardware helped make them boot properly once setting the right region ...but it was interesting looking at the source code .. it had some useful info in general . oh and here is a bonus patch that i think i didn't post before ... widescreen patch for f-zero rev E 044461B4 3FE40000 although i'm not a fan of widescreen patches .. i prefer original aspect ratios ..the way the games r designed ... and most of these patches break a lot of stuff that is why a lot of widescreen patches r really long because they r trying to fix all the things that went wrong .... but this one for f-zero is a proper widescreen patch .. it's not a hack , the GX version has a widescreen mode it's just they didn't add that option to the aracde cab .. so it's like hidden option that this patch switches on ... and all that needs to be done is set the aspect ratio to auto and the game looks great .

so I spent the last couple of days trying to make the jap version of VS 2002 run on dolphin .. apparently the import version is the one that is always detected that is why all the game versions look the same ... but it worked fine on a modded wii using Nintendont ... so something was wrong ...so i spent a lot of time trying to fix this issue and finally got it done and managed to boot the jap version ... so for all the fans of this game that waited for a long time to see it boot on dolphin (specially @CARPnadamas ) here is the gecko code to play the jap version Force Japan Version 04054234 60000000 I only played a couple of games .. but i sure hope everything works fine ...cuz i really need to take a couple of days off without looking at assembly code lol once the patch is activated the import and japan roms will boot the japan version (type 3 is not affected ) .... the reason this is happening is because the import and japan dumps r the same identical game ... they got the same files even with hex comparisons they r identical .. this is why it was really confusing and made no sense ..and that is probably why the emulator just booted the default version .. so I spent a lot of time just working on the dump .. extracting and analyzing it and when i found some files and code that proves that the jap version definitely exists in there .. i just had to find a way to force it through the code ...my guess is that the game is designed to detect the hardware and know which version to run .. which of course won't happen on the emulator ...or maybe it was a manual switch on the hardware ... so the way to play both games is by setting up a portable version for the jap version .... or just using the type 3 rom instead of the import rom ..since they r both identical ... and of course a patched version of the rom with a different id could be created but that is a messy solution ... UPDATE : more great news for fans of virtua striker games .... i managed to run the jap version of VS4 .... i went to bed but my brain just kept running .. and thought maybe the reason the vs4 japan crashes is that dolphin forces the wrong mode on like it was doing with the 2002 version .. but since this is only jap and the roms r not identical to the import and asia versions it just crashed after bypassing the boot ..cuz there was no other version on disc ...so i used the same method to track down the code that is responsible for checking versions and patched it and it worked ... of course i only played like 5 mins but it seems to be working fine .. so here r the codes for u guys to test it out and hopefully it will work with no problems ... it need the fix for crashes code + bypass boot code to run bypass boot (VS4 Japan) 0405214c 60000000 Fix crashes 0403b5d8 60000000 the patches work on both rev C and E ... so now every single VS dump is working on dolphin ...and looks like i wasted a lot of time on the patched jap version and it will just go to the trash lol .. but i guess it was a learning experience .. how to extract and modify gamecube files .. i needed so many tools and dolphin is really picky with minor changes any patched game would crash ... ok now it's bedtime for me ✌️

second gecko is not needed since test menu saves ... it just disables network ...only the first one needed to bypass boot .. just make sure it's enabled and like @CARPnadamas suggested try to go in test menu and update firm and just in-case u r using a wrong dump ... i got the one i'm using from here https://archive.org/download/triforce-roms/Extracted Disc Images (Decrypted)/

this gecko code works with japan rev D ...and make sure u add it as a gecko code not a patch.

I just tried to get it as close as possible to the original jpn dump ..it was not going to be perfect even if it ended up being playable that is why i was going to abandon it ... but i guess i just thought i would complete what i started and make it playable maybe someone would be interested ... and i only got to the selection menu and 2-3 seconds of gameplay (just the players entrance) in the original jpn version .. and that was after patching a lot of stuff which always leads to dolphin crashing ..so i really can't tell if there is anything different in gameplay or if there is a different ball for this version ...the only parts that i reached r exactly the same in the patched version compared to the original (selection and players entrance) . and yea triforce emulation is near perfect at this point and in a very short period of time .. hopefully the remaining issues will be sorted out soon and it would be nice if we get new clean dumps for all the games .

oh excellent! I gave 4:3 a try a couple of days ago ,I used a stripped down version of ArcCabView (just core files) .. here r the files needed if u want to give it a try or if anyone here is interested .. https://gofile.io/d/oEFAvC -i used directx as the back-end and force 4:3 aspect ratio (must use these settings for it to work) -i added a bezel to have a nice clean look .. stretched it a bit to proper 4:3 and enabled curvature ... played around with the crt effect looked meh so i disabled it -options can be accessed by hitting the home button .. if anything needs to be adjusted . -i set things up using 1080p res .. but i think it should work fine with a different res.. maybe the bezel is the only thing that might need to be replaced. although i always prefer games to run using the original aspect ratio but i think it looks good ... because it wasn't stretched too much to be noticeable .

for the missing graphics just like all the other VS games ..right click properties and under general check " enable FPRF" ..this should fix the issue. and for the japan 2006 ver ...use this gecko code to bypass boot Bypass Boot 040568D8 60000000

here you go https://mega.nz/file/Ng8VzJYT#B7cLv8bgmpTfeUpnwEg9lEAAWbmbfMz0IeS30BYvl_A - over 99% of the files r from the japan dump ... only added and modified a few files . - gave it a unique id SBHNPA ..added PA for patched . - played a few games and everything worked fine and test menu saves .. if u get the boot check just backup data clear in test menu. - menu text and attract mode r in Japanese . - make sure to check "enable FPRF" in game properties . - Player names are in English ,I'm assuming they should be in jap ..I never really reached the point were i could see the names so I'm not really sure ... but after getting everything to work the names didn't appear at all .. not sure if the modifications lead to that or the file with players names is corrupted .. i used the one from the Asia version and the players names showed up in English . - in the opening titles the jap version has the smilebit logo at the end after the sega logo ... i managed to add it but had to get rid of the Adidas title screen. it's definitely not perfect .. I just tried my best to use as much files from the jap dump (over 99%) and end up with a working version ...so test it and hopefully it works with no problems . and did u manage to make the games show in a proper 4:3 aspect ratio?

test menu settings work for the VS games(at least in the ones i tested) .. just change settings and exit ...reset game and settings should be saved .. and test menu works for all the other games too like mario kart and f-zero .. although with f-zero u need to set tribackup_SBGG.bin to read only if u want to play with the created card after a restart ..and u will have to use the codes i posted to change settings because test menu will not save. oh and a couple of weeks ago .. I started making a patched version for VS4 (japan) .... it was the only version that didn't work even after i patched the boot check and skipped it .. the game just throws read and write errors, i only made it to the select team screen and a few seconds in the game + the game wouldn't update properly like the other versions in the test menu .. so there is a big possibility that it just wasn't properly dumped since all the other VS games work with no problems at all even the 2006 jap version with network ... so that is why i thought i could patch it with files from other working versions and see if it will boot .. and it did but it had a few issues and i thought it wasn't worth it since in the end it won't be a proper jap version .. A few days ago while i was cleaning up .. I was going to delete the folder with the patched version but i had a change of heart and decided to just finish what i started and see if it will work properly ...so i fixed most of the issues i could see and got it done ... the rebuild is over 99% from jap dump with a few files added and tweaked so it's as close as i could get to the jap version without breaking anything.... in the past few days i played a few matches and everything seems to be working fine ... of course i can't guarantee that everything will be 100% functional because i only played a few games...but if anyone is interested in it i could post it here .

bind the left stick to the mouse .. in order to get it right .. click to assign a direction and move the mouse to the direction u want and u will get "axis" for all directions ...after u r done now shift and right click on every directional button and they will turn to "cursor "... that is all now, u will have proper mouse controls... and of course assign mouse buttons for trigger,reload and E.S mode ...and save a profile for mouse so u can easily switch between normal controller and mouse .