Breakthrough CT Wii VC News

[Prince Valmont]

Are you trying to insert the CT re-translation into a Virtual Console file again? Can it handle a 48 megabit ROM?

Yes, I'm attempting to get it to work within a Virtual Console game.
The whole process is still relatively new, and parts of the game are playable, but because of the freezes, it gets me to wonder about the VC's compatibility.

[MathOnNapkins]

I find it very unlikely you'll get a 48 Mbit rom to work in the VC. You have to keep in mind that there are only two 48 Mbit games on the system, and they use a different mapper chip to be able to address 48 Mbit. (not an expansion chip though)

So... it comes down to figuring out how Nintendo designed the VC emulator to handle memory mappings. If their approach was anything like snes9x or zsnes's they will tend to use generalized memory maps called lorom and hirom, which are not applicable to a 48 Mbit rom anyway (it's sort of like a hybrid of lorom and hirom, and hirom and lorom aren't even real memory maps anyway, they're approximations.) So... I think 32 Mbit is probably the limit, unless Tales of Phantasia or Star Ocean hit the VC any time soon. Then you could just restuff that file.

[FaustWolf]

Hey, good to see you around here Math. Your discourse on lorom and hirom makes me thankful that I started with PSX hacking and not SNES hacking; I think a lot of people don't appreciate just how much expertise is needed to hack the oldies.

Prince Valmont, have you had any luck with Prophet's Gulie on the VC?

[MathOnNapkins]

I guess I don't particularly understand why the retranslation is 48 Megabits.... I wouldn't think it would much larger than the US Translation. Was it due to automatic expansion that Temporal Flux does? (Like, did he need Temporal Flux to insert the script?)

[FaustWolf]

Yeah, according to ZeaLitY it was mostly the text strings, though Vehek pointed out that the title screen change may have been partially responsible as well. Am I understanding correctly that the VC uses completely uncompressed equivalents of the SNES ROMs? For example, Chrono Trigger is 4MB or so as a .SMC, yet it was advertised as being 32 megs.

[MathOnNapkins]

4 MB = 4 Mega BYTES = 32 Mbits = 32 Mega BITS

 

[FaustWolf]

I'z been skooled.

That settles some confusion I've been having for years.

[MathOnNapkins]

In any case, my point is that I really really doubt Nintendo has thought as far ahead as to implement the memory map for ToP and Star Ocean, although that memory map was first described in Nintendo's own development manual, so I suppose it's possible they have, but I wouldn't count on it. Has any one taken the time to decipher Nintendo's format for the WAD files. Surely there has to be information in there for managing a memory map, or else Nintendo is just as lazy/haphazard as free emulator developers. In free emulators, special memory maps tend to be handled as exceptions and are specially handled, and everything else is lumped into two basic memory maps (lorom and hirom). But even so, they have to have a way to distinguish between even lorom and hirom as I'm sure at least one hirom game would be out on VC by now. Lorom, aka mode 20 mapping, was used more so towards the start of the SNES's career, with many games gradually using hirom later on. (CT is hirom) Both memory maps have their advantages and disadvantages so it's not like one is better than the other. One other possibility is that the retranslation patch is not the *correct* 48 Mbit memory mapping that Top and SO use. But given that they run fine in emulators without any extra patching makes me think otherwise.

[Vehek]

I don't think the dictionary strings were changed in the Retranslation. Do you think that could have saved enough space?

[AgniTheFire]

well... if the size is the case all we need to do is divide it in two parts. like the Final Fantasys.

[MathOnNapkins]

I don't think the dictionary strings were changed in the Retranslation. Do you think that could have saved enough space?

I don't know enough about CT to give a definite yes, but assuming there's at least like... 32K of free space total in the original game I'd say most likely yes.