[majinbuu]

Hi there

I have a MAYA DVD-402 DVD player with a so called "game function" which emulates the NES. However, the emulation sucks, the games run at 1/4 speed and the sound is terrible (i have to play it on mute).

It came with a mini VCD with around 300 games on it (around 100 if you discount doubles). I would like to play these games on my PC with the nestopia emulator however it will not recognise the roms. The roms have a .bin extension where normal roms are .nes. I have tried renaming them to .nes but still no luck.

I have been talking with the Digitalpress forum guys and one of them suggested I contact you guys to make heads or tails of these files. They are definitely nes games, but with a different file structure.

I would like to play them on PC since the DVD player stinks, if you guys are interested in the roms to look at I could send some to you through email. Some look like hacks, others originals.

If you would like to help, please respond and I will send you some of the roms.

Thanks
Sam

[Skrybe]

I'm pretty certain the Fire Dragon rom that's out there was originally found with a DVD player like yours. So, I'd say it can be done, but I personally don't know how to go about converting the files.

[Carnivol]

You should probably try to acquire a "working" rom of one (or more) of the games you've got on that CD. Then use a hex editor to do a compare of the working one with the one you've got on that CD.

Wouldn't surprise me if the differences are just some sort of header stuff, or evt. that the .bin files are in reality something like an archive file (like a .zip w/0 compression) or something

[Wonderbutt]

This is a realllllll longshot, dude, but it's worth a quick try.
If you have (I assume you are using Windows) WinISO or UltraISO, these files can open and extract .bin files. Of course, I have used this for Sega CD or PSX or Sega Saturn cd images. How they fare for roms? Well I tried opening Atari 2600 and Sega Genesis rom files with the .bin format, and no luck. But it jut might work here.
If you have luck, the files will show up in a tree or window or whatever. Select them all and "save as" with any name you want, but try saving with a .nes extension.
I really doubt this will work, but....

[majinbuu]

I have a thread at DigitalPress http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107595# that has some more info on this.

I gave the roms to a couple of the guys there and that is what they came up with. If any of you guys want a go let me know and I can send the roms to you. I'd really like to find out if I have some undiscovered hacks or originals

[ProgrammingAce]

I can take a look at them if you can email a few off to me, it's h4ckur@gmail.com

[ProgrammingAce]

I received the files, but it'll be a bit before i can look at them, my internet has been out for a week and a half... i'm all comcastic about it!

[majinbuu]

ok, no problem

[TheRedEye]

majinbuu, judging by the replies at Digital Press (and by looking at the files you emailed me), the only way anyone is going to make these into playable emulator files is if you list out all the games on the compilation. They need to be assigned what is called "mapper numbers" in order to work, and unless we know what the game is, finding the right mapper might be a guessing game (and there are over 100!).

[majinbuu]

What I'll do later on today is post the names of the games I have sent to you and see if you can do anything with it.

[TheRedEye]

That's fine, but I don't think I can personally do much with these, other than maybe host them on my web space and let other people turn them into playable files.

[majinbuu]

well, everything helps. Hopefully someone will take up the challenge

Here is the list from 60 to 70. The names given are the ones given on the game list sheet, so some may be in chinglish


60- The Li We Lady Mermaid
61 - Lode Running
62 - Lode Running 2
63 - Lot Lot
64 - Lunar Ban
65 - Magmax
66 - Mahj4
67 - Majong
68 - Mappy
69 - Mr mary
70 - Millipede

[taiki]

send me the files.

taiki@cox.net

[taiki]

Good news.

I almost have Mappy working

Update: I have mappy working

-

Edit:

So here's the story. I got incredibly lucky. The BAD DUMP was 95% close to being the source file. All I had to do was write a correct iNES header, and delete some extraneous data. For some odd reason, at offset 0x400E or so, the ROM data repeats itself. After clearing THAT out, and then clearing out some garbage data, the ROM was nearly spot on with the Mappy [!].nes dump.

let's see how well Millipede goes.

note: the bad dump works in NEStopia.

oh, screenie:



edit again:

now I have millipede running too.

The problem is is that there's some application data, as if each of the bin files themselves are ROM + game emulator. ROM Data starts at 0xCB70 and goes to 0x16B6F, atleast on the 25k ROMs.

on the larger BINs, it's starting elsewhere, which leads me to believe that each of these binaries are custom built for each game, or atleast, custom built for each mapper set.

further edit:

Lemme clarify: ROM data, after removing the emulator code, repeats itself at 0x400E, not 0x400E of the BIN file itself.

n/m it's not repeated, it's just garbage for some ROMs, like Magmax.

[majinbuu]

Damn that was quick

I'd like to be able to do this sort of thing myself so I don't have to pester others, did you learn this stuff on your own or are there guides out there to help people learn about the structures of NES roms?

I really really appreciate your help. All these games came on a vcd for a DVD player with NES functionality that runs at 1/4 speed. All I want to do is to play them at full speed on my PC.

Let me know if you want any more files to play with. Otherwise I will use your help so far to try it myself

Thanks
Sam

[taiki]

I'd recommend going an illegitimate route to gather ROMs. To make ANY of these things playable by hand, you need to edit the ROM manually and compare it to ROM data from a good ROM.

[majinbuu]

Ah well, you've been a great help anyway. It's a shame though

Thanks
Sam

[handofg0d]

He's right - it is pointless to correct the ROMs of all the NES games that we already have dumps for. But, didn't you say that there were some pirate originals on that disc as well? Those might be the one's worth looking into.

Taiki - was there any bit of structure to the ROMs you corrected? I.E. could you apply the same technique blindly to any of the files (proper header excluded of course) to get it working and we could just manually insert all known headers? Might be worth it on some of the pirate originals (if there are any).

[taiki]

[majinbuu]

millipede runs fine