CRC merge done !

Written by cafealpha 20 september 2017 4 comments

Among the boring tasks remaining in Pseudo Saturn Kai development, there was "IP header CRCs merge to cheat codes list" task remaining ...
... There was, because I finally finished to merge the CRCs I could gather here !
Well, I think there are still 20-30% of the games in cheat codes list still not associated with any CRC, but anyway that's a fair amount of work done so far

Last CRC merged, at the end of cheat codes list
Left text file : list of IP headers and their CRCs for each games I have here
Right text file : Pseudo Saturn Kai cheat codes list

What is that CRC thing ? That's a value I use in order to identify each Saturn games. Thanks to such CRC value, it's possible to easily associate each cheat codes to a given game, and consequently automatically select game in cheat codes list according to CD-ROM inserted in Saturn CD lid.
You don't like to manually select a game from cheat codes "select game" menu ? Me too

So that I added this "automagically select game" thing in Pseudo Saturn Kai cheat code feature

By the way, it's probably a bit late for a surprise effect, but I'm glad to to announce that cheat codes feature will be available in Pseudo Saturn Kai next release

Basically, cheat codes handler now works ... for a majority of games tested so far. And user interface regarding cheat codes stuff is more or less okay ... but still needs to be perfected here and there.

So as you guessed, there are still details to complete until considering Pseudo Saturn Kai cheat codes feature ready for public release, and unfortunately polishing details usually (always) require time in software development, so let's hope next release will be available in a near future, which is "this year" in my own time scale regarding Saturn projects

Nights into dream cheat codes working !
That's the first game I used in order to test assembly version

of cheat codes handler

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Having fun with cheat codes and USB connectivity on Radiant Silvergun

In-game memory contents are mine ! Ph34r my l33t h4Cklng sKI1lZ

So, the next development jobs are to support multiple CRCs per game : cheat codes list have several CRCs defined for some games (this is typically used for games using several CD-ROMs), but Pseudo Saturn Kai currently supports one CRC per game.
Modifying the cheats list → data conversion utility in order to support multiple CRCs will be also an occasion to add some extra verification stuff regarding CRC, such as verifying that two different games don't collide on the same CRC, which is something like around 2500 different CDs versus 4 billions possible CRCs ... hence should be OK, but who know what may happen when developing software

After that, it will be probably be the time to do some testing on as many games as possible, in order to verify that cheat code and game are correctly associated, and to verify that cheat codes are correctly working, etc.
Such task will require a significant manpower, hence to find a lot of beta testers. So if you're ready to give a hand, please stay tuned

4 comments

#1 monday 25 september 2017 - 04:46 - Kris said :

i use your program for my youtube channel. i have several ar4m carts can i be a tester?

#2 tuesday 26 september 2017 - 06:20 - cafealpha said :

Thank you for your interest in beta testing !
I just sent you an email about beta testing conditions, disclaimer, etc, so please let me know if everything is OK regarding them.

#3 wednesday 27 september 2017 - 01:49 - Jacob Proctor said :

I have dumps of the ROM carts for king of Fighters '95 and Ultraman. Would it be possible to flash them to an action replay cart? I have a Rhea ODE and if this was possible those games would be plauable.

Also I have access to pretty much the Saturn's entire library via the Rhea, and I have an AR cart, so I would be interested in some beta testing.

#4 wednesday 27 september 2017 - 20:14 - cafealpha said :

I just sent you an email regarding beta testing, so please keep me informed if you're OK to start or not.
Basically, I'm concerned about the free time you can allocate for beta testing : this is usually the limiting factor in homebrew projects.

And, Rhea is welcome for testing :) This is (for example) particularly convenient when having to test a specific revision of a game, because other revisions aren't supported by cheat codes.
KOF ROM can't be flashed to Action Replay cartridge, because both cartridges have their own way of mapping ROM, and ROM of KOF carts are significantly larger (2MB vs 256KB) too.