Didodeman wrote:after splitting the Star Ocean rom i get the first file being 4,194,304 bytes in size and the second file 2,097,152 bytes in size. is there something i have to do to these to run them in an emulator to make sure they're right? it won't run on an emulator as is, does that mean i've done it wrong?
I'm not sure what the exact byte size is, that's not something I'd know off the top of my head lol. Name the first (4MB) file "StarOcean.1" where ".1" is your file extension. In other words, don't name it "StarOcean.1.bin" as that is incorrect. Name your second (2MB) the "StarOcean.2" where ".2" will be the file extension. You can name it whatever you want, but the names have to be identical, and the parts have to be in .1, .2, .3 etc (in this case there's only two parts).
So anyways, once you have your .1 and .2 files named accordingly, load the .1 in an emulator. Also make sure your emulator (and it's version) supports Star Ocean because it's a tricky game to emulate. If you're using ZSnes you're fine. I thing Snes9x also plays the game well.
chupon wrote:I'm not trying to hijack this thread but I gotta tell you guys I'm a huge SNES RPG fan and am so jealous of what you guys are doing. I've briefly looked into getting a Willem programmer but just never pulled the trigger. Hearing all these success stories really makes me want to join in on the fun.
My other half says F it - just spend the $60 to $100 per Rom cart and have them shipped to my door. There is no way I'd ever want to play these gems on emulation on my PC.
How much of a front loaded time investment is a project like this? I know most games are different and require additional learning. Seems everyone starts with Starfox 2. Start to finish from when you first said I want to do this how long before you got a cart working? Month? 3 Months?
I know you'd have to wait for all the stuff to ship that you have to buy ect. Sometimes Eprom chips might not be available ect. From your experience, what's the time committment?
Much thanks.
Took me a while to gather all the required information, but I didn't have any one to ask about this either. And I'm constantly learning new tricks and whatnot. Waiting for stuff to ship is usually what takes the longest time, mostly because a lot of the stuff is coming from outside the country (mostly China and Japan - takes a while or else it's expensive shipping). Only do it if you're completely committed to putting the time in. The retro-gaming community tends to frown upon repros because they view them as destruction of carts. I only view it as destruction when donor carts are used (as oppose to original carts) and when some one says, "Hey! I can do this!" but ruins a game cart trying.
Oh yeah, don't bother using a Willem programmer unless you have a LOT of patience. They're affordable (because all other programmers are hundreds of dollars) but they can be a pain in the ass to use. The VERY limited instructions you'll get we be in bad English, and the problems you will run into will be hard to find answers for. I hate my Willem programmer, right until the day it stopped working!
You have to have good soldering skills. If you do, go for it! If you don't, and please don't take offense to this, but don't attempt it and wreck a cart.
Repros can be bought pretty easily these days, there's a number of sites that make them. In fact, I've been making them for sale here on Racketboy for about a year now. If you're interested, send me a PM. What's more, you can get a flash cart and play pretty much any game (sans for Star Fox 2 because of the SFX2 chip). Flash carts are readily available as well.
