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  • Joined: 01 May 2011
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MSX to SMS Hacks
Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 1:41 am
These were done by using the various hacks that Taiwanese and Korean devs used for their MSX ports and swapping out a different MSX rom instead, as mentioned by nitrofurano in another thread.

First up, some Compile games. Rescue the princess in "Crusader", Shoot 'em up in "Final Justice", and clean some windows in "Swing".

I've edited the title screens so that they don't get mistaken for legit roms. Patches are for the corresponding MSX rom. Tested via Master Everdrive.
Crusader Title.png (4.19 KB)
Crusader Title.png
Crusader Game.png (2.82 KB)
Crusader Game.png
Swing Title.png (3.11 KB)
Swing Title.png
Swing Game.png (3.65 KB)
Swing Game.png
Crusader MSX2SMS.ips (46.56 KB)
Swing MSX2SMS.ips (30.78 KB)

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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 5:02 am
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:43 am; edited 6 times in total
Thank you for this topic ;)

Edit 2021: Original post was a compatibility list, useless today.

All MSX2SMS conversions are available here:

 
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 5:12 am
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:44 am; edited 3 times in total
Here Bank Panic & Bosconian conversion:

Bank Panic is not working on real hardware, the conversion is working with the first 16ko of Road Fighter (TW) but not with the (KR) version.
Bank Panic-01.png (3.63 KB)
Bank Panic-01.png
Bank Panic-02.png (5.55 KB)
Bank Panic-02.png
Bosconian-01.png (4.38 KB)
Bosconian-01.png
Bosconian-02.png (2.61 KB)
Bosconian-02.png

 
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 7:39 am
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:44 am; edited 3 times in total
Followed conversions of: Doki Doki Penguin, Flicky, Galaga, Gulkave, Hang On, Hyper Sports 3.

All rom have header and valid checksum.
Flicky-01.png (2.88 KB)
Flicky-01.png
Flicky-02.png (2.62 KB)
Flicky-02.png
Galaga-01.png (3.42 KB)
Galaga-01.png
Galaga-02.png (2.3 KB)
Galaga-02.png
Gulkave-01.png (3.52 KB)
Gulkave-01.png
Gulkave-02.png (3.32 KB)
Gulkave-02.png
Hang On-01.png (4.6 KB)
Hang On-01.png
Hang On-02.png (3.27 KB)
Hang On-02.png

 
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 9:19 am
Would you be kind to add a [HACK] tag to every ROM filenames? (_including in the files above_)

It's been a huge amount of work categorizing Korean and Taiwanese dumps, they are countless variations and the original games are rare, I'm _not_ done yet. I would appreciate if those hacking efforts were very clearly avoiding extra confusion.!
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 9:51 am
Thankyou for sharing your MSX hacks

;)
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 10:00 am
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:45 am; edited 2 times in total
Followed conversions of Lode Runner 1, Majyo Densetsu, Mappy, Moai no Hibou, Zaxxon, Zoom 909.

Moai no Hibou is not working on real hardware, the conversion is working with the first 16ko of Road Fighter (TW) but not with the (KR) version.

 
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 2:16 pm
Thanks Revo!
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 3:10 pm
Last edited by Revo on Wed Dec 14, 2016 12:38 pm; edited 1 time in total
Followed conversions of A.E, Cannon Ball, Champion Soccer, Color Ball, Fire Rescue, Galaxian, Hitsuji Yai - Preety Sheep, Hyper Rally, Hyper Sports 1, Jyankyo, Konami's Ping Pong, Mini Golf, Mr DO Vs Unicorns, Star Blazer, Warp Warp.

Mr DO Vs Unicorns is not working on real hardware, the conversion is working with the first 16ko of Road Fighter (TW) but not with the (KR) version.

 
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 3:13 pm
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:46 am; edited 2 times in total
and...

 
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Post Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 11:14 pm
That's a pretty cool idea!
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:45 am
Last edited by Revo on Wed Dec 14, 2016 3:03 pm; edited 1 time in total
For these conversions, I started using first 16ko from others games as Sky Jaguar.

Followed conversions of: Castle Excellent, Champion Boxing, Champion Kendou, Con-dori, David 2 (bad sound), Devil's Heaven, Did Duge, The Goonies, Gozira-Kun, Hustle Chummy, Hyper Olympic 1, Hyper Olympic 2, King's Valley 1, Konami's Baseball, Konami's Boxing, Konami's Golf, Konami's Mahjong Dojo (not sure if all control are ok), Konami's Soccer, Konami's Tennis, Lunar Ball (not sure if all control are ok), Midnight Brothers, Pac-Man, Q-bert.

Castle Excellent and David 2 are not working on real hardware, these conversions are working with the first 16ko of Road Fighter (TW) but not with the (KR) version.

Konami's Golf and Midnight Brothers don't have any header and bad checksum 'cause when I try to put them the games crash.

 
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:54 am
And...

 
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:57 am
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:47 am; edited 2 times in total
And...

 
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:14 am
For games with bad controls try "Pooyan (KR)" as the base hack.

The MSX games in the "Hi-Com 8-in-1 The Best Game Collection"s probably has best compatibility for Konami games. Still, HiCom's MSX "driver" has a sound bug in some games (watch the demo in King's Valley HiCom Best Game Collection). Taiwanese King's Valley doesn't have that, but it uses the RAM adapter mentioned next.

"Magical Kid Wiz" seems to have better compatiblity with more advanced games, but it maps RAM to the Dahjee RAM adapter, so only works in emulation. Would require hacking it to use the SMS RAM on real hardware.

Xyzolog is unusual as it's 48kb with the middle 16kb empty and the MSX rom located at the last 16kb. That might help with some black screen games, although I'm not sure if the MSX header needs changing or not.

Edit: Most of your hacks aren't working on real hardware. I guess that you created them with the Taiwanese games which use the RAM adapter. I expect that these hacks are doing lots of stuff which isn't correctly emulated either.
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:10 am
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:48 am; edited 2 times in total
Followed the conversions made with Pooyan (KR) first 16ko: D-Day, Exerion 1, Exerion 2, Indian no Bouken, Ninja Kage, Scramble Eggs, Sinbad, Yellow Submarine.

All rom have header with valid checksum, D-Day is not working on real hardware.

 
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 7:40 am
Checksum doesn't matter on Everdrive. All of those last ones work except D-Day, which doesn't run in Emulicious either. So probably down to using a less accurate emulator.

Edit: Ah yes, I see it works in Meka. I recommend testing with Emulicious.
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 8:27 am
Last edited by Revo on Wed Dec 14, 2016 3:47 pm; edited 3 times in total
Ok, thank you. I will update all my hacks (no more TW rom used for the 16ko code) and I will take time to put header with valid checksum for those who don't have an everdrive. = DONE

edit: Bosconian and MSX2SMS Hack #1 to 5 have been updated.

Games not working on real hardware are normally all noted.
 
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:29 am
I'm really curious to understand how this trick works... unfortunately I have zero knowledge about the MSX (well, I know it's Z80 based and that it has the same TMS chip, but that's it...).
Someone care to explain me how can a simple copy-paste of files create these wonders? :)
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:48 am
I guess that back in the day when people converted MSX games to SMS for the Korean and Taïwan market, they used a 16ko code that they add on the beginning of a game to convert it. As I know for now, the code is changing the controls, it make the pause button as reset and it probably handle the VDP and VRAM of the Master System. It would be indeed interesting to completely understand this 16ko code for maybe be able to adapt it on every games?
 
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 10:56 am
Games not working from batch 4;

Castle Excellent
Con-Dori
David 2
Devil's Heaven
Hustle Chumy

For games with garbled text (Becky, Pachicom etc) try using Alibaba as the base hack.

@sverx, the first part contains part of the MSX bios and presumably code to translate between MSX and SG-1000/SMS.
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 11:12 am
MSX BIOS? That would explain a lot. If the game interact with hardware just using BIOS calls, and those calls are simply RST or CALL opcodes into the first 16 KB area, it all boils down to having hardware specific instructions there...
Very interesting, thanks! :)
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:05 pm
This is really neat thing you guys figured out!
It's just sad that the original msx palette isn't preserved in these games, but.. can't have everything!
p.s. did you try to convert Zanac? its an amazing game.
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:17 pm
I found a nice image comparing memory maps of the MSX and the MARK III, it's in this post. Also, the post is about porting MSX games to MARK III :)
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:35 pm
@dink: I will upload the conversion of Zanac very soon.

@sverx: Nice find! Does anyone want to do a translation?
 
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:06 pm
I tried reading something using Google translate, just to understand what was that about. Anyway here's a list of the MSX BIOS calls, so we can check if something is missing (or broken) in that 16 KB header block... which might lead to creating a 16 KB header that works with "everything".
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 3:55 pm
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:48 am; edited 1 time in total
Followed some conversions made with Alibaba: Becky, Choplifter, City Connection, Exoide-Z, Kick It, MSX Soccer, Pachicom, The Protector, Zanac.

I didn't put any header on MSX Soccer and The Protector 'cause it was making games crash. Other games have header with valid checksum.

 
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Post Posted: Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:01 pm
Maybe an open source MSX bios like C-BIOS could be modified to work.
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 1:52 am
Followed some conversions made with C_So! [MSX] (KR) header (excepted for Rally-X): 10 Yard Fight, Aquapolis SOS, Aquattack, Back to the Future, Bee & Flower, Blockade Runner, Bouken Roman, Buru to Marty Kikiippatsu, Butamaru Pants, Casio Worldopen, Come On! Picot, Dragon Attack, Exoide-Z Area 5, Formation Z, Fruit Search, Gunjin Shogi Mars, Hadesu no Monsho, Hayabusa Moonsweeper, Heavy Boxing, Hydlide 1, Iga Ninpouten, Issunhoushi no Donnamondai, JP Winkle, Kageno Densetsu, Koneko no Daiboujen, Megaro Polis SOS, Mobile Planet Suthirus, Ningyo Densetsu Fathom, Ninja Jajamaru Kun, Oil's Well, Othello, Panther, Picture Puzzle, The Police Story, Puzzle Panic, Rally-X, Scarlet 7, SHougi Meijin, Shougi, Shougi Sinan 1, Sky Galdo, Space Maze Attack, Spelunker, Star Force, Star Soldier, Step Up, The Stone of Wisdom, Super Snake, Super Soccer, Takahasi Meijin no Boukenjima, Takeru Densetsu, Tear of Nile, Tensai Rabbian Daifunsen, Top Roller, Tower of Druaga, Triton, Volguard, Yokai Yasiki.

Roms are not working on Emulicious, no problem with MEKA, please let me know if they run on real hardware, if yes I will upload rom with header and checksum.

 
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 1:54 am
and...

 
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 2:00 am
Last edited by Revo on Sun Sep 05, 2021 9:49 am; edited 1 time in total
and...

 
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 2:15 am
The C_So! [MSX] (KR) hack doesn't work, it just sticks on the Joy Soft screen (same with the actual game). If it doesn't work in Emulicious, then it's unlikely to work on hardware.
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 2:35 am
That's too bad, C_So! have the best compatibility for conversion so far.

I hope that we will have one day a new everdivre with a mapper handling all Korean games, the current everdrive doesn't seem so great.
 
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 2:41 am
Those games don't need a mapper, only games over 48kb do.
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 3:18 am
Then what make the original cartridge of C_SO! run on real hardware?
 
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 3:28 am
I don't know, but it does exactly the same on Emulicious as on real hardware via an Everdrive. Maybe you can debug it if you know how.
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:24 pm
Revo wrote
I guess that back in the day when people converted MSX games to SMS for the Korean and Taïwan market, they used a 16ko code that they add on the beginning of a game to convert it. As I know for now, the code is changing the controls, it make the pause button as reset and it probably handle the VDP and VRAM of the Master System. It would be indeed interesting to completely understand this 16ko code for maybe be able to adapt it on every games?


I think this is the problem with C SO!, but instead of mapping reset to pause, it maps it to start, so it just resets everytime. Unlike the other games, neither pause or reset buttons resets it. It probably doesn't have that effect on Korean/Japanese systems as they don't have a reset.
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:37 pm
Interesting, I will look into that.

Here videos compilation of some short gameplay of few games:



 
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Post Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 4:58 pm
I disabled port 1 in software and the reset button started working again, so it looks like it's an IO issue on export SMS 1s. It might work on SMS 2s, but the only one I have with me isn't working.
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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 9:04 am
sverx wrote
I found a nice image comparing memory maps of the MSX and the MARK III, it's in this post. Also, the post is about porting MSX games to MARK III :)

Attaching the image. The paging is mismatched, and games bypassing the BIOS won't work, but otherwise it seems fairly straightforward to make a BIOS that'd be fairly compatible.
MemoryMap.png (44.11 KB)
MemoryMap.png

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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 9:28 am
In fact I was wondering if those games which have problems it's because of a feature-incomplete BIOS or what. If that's the case, we might bake the missing functions into one of those BIOS 'headers' already available.
Also, it might be the case that some functions are present in some headers and some in others so it might turn into a cut&paste work.
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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 9:31 am
I'd rather copy and paste code than binary blobs... Emulicious should make a decent job of disassembling them, especially if you write a helper program to invoke all the BIOS routines. Then you can pull them in as you wish. Adding a nice SMS Power splash screen would be nice too :)

The obvious other issue with these ports is the memory usage. That's probably why they target SMS and not SG, but even so you need the game to stay well under 8KB.
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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 9:48 am
I think that some of the Taiwanese ones don't use a bios, the code is a lot more complex than the Korean ones. Those games probably didn't use the MSX bios in the first place.
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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 1:11 pm
Revo wrote
Thank you for this topic ;)
Here a list of conversion I tried (only with Road Fighter TW 16 first ko).
Note that I'm not testing games of 128ko and over.
*3D Golf Simulation - High-speed Ed. (1984) (TandE Soft) (J) BAD
*3D Golf Simulation - Normal Ed. (1983) (TandE Soft) (J) BAD
(...)
*Zenji (1984) (Pony Cannon) (J) BAD
*Zexas Limited (1985) (dB-Soft) (J) BAD
*Zoom 909 (1985) (Pony Cannon) (J) OK


perhaps we should keep a collaborative updated online spreadsheet somewhere like at googledrive or somewhere else, so we could follow and control the whole progress? there might be other games to be added (like those exclusive to cassettes and floppies (except those zx-spectrum conversions i guess?) that somehow might be possible to get converted to rom files) - for now, for example, i can’t remember if Hudson’s Gangman, Driller Tanks and Bousou Tokkyuu SOS were released as rom - i think those recent indie msx games (like from msxdev contests) would be great trying to convert as well - what do you all think?
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Post Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2016 1:15 pm
i found a good googledrive-spreadsheet (and login-free) alternative: https://ethercalc.org/msx2sms
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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 11:30 am
I don't think I will make anymore list of compatibility...

Here some new videos of short gameplay of MSX2SMS hack:



 
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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 12:09 pm
i can imagine (and thanks a lot indeed for what was done up to now, was a real surprise for me actually)... - but the idea is to have an idea of the conversion progress, since some are easier to convert, and some not that much (specially those cassette-based, that might need to be converted from ram dumps or decompiled - i really wished to be skilled enough for that, and all help there is really hugely appreciated, since it means a significant amount of titles available for sg1000/sms, that most people even imagined possible to play!!! ;) ) - i still believe that most of the msx1 games can be converted to sg1000/sms - the idea of sharing an etherpad-like online document is that everyone could contribute updating, i guess that could be useful
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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 1:34 pm
Maybe this will inspire some people to add an msx to their collection :) or at least an MSX emulator (for proper sound and colors) ;)
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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 1:42 pm
Just a friendly note: if you find a version of American Truck where the truck can only be controlled one direction, try to find the alternative version of the rom (google: msx tosec for everything)
Also, when doing an MSX emulator for FBAlpha project, me and friends played over a thousand MSX1 games, sometimes several times, to make sure they all worked right. We had to use alternative romsets for several different roms. If you have access to one of the huge EMU torrent portals with the FBAlpha collection, get it. Otherwise PM me and I can help you find it (~30 meg zip for just over 1000 working/tested games, lots of stuff not available on the net from deep in my collection)

best regards,
- dink
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Post Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2016 9:22 pm
What would be the best way to play those that work on a Mark III? Tried a few on my Mega Drive with the Everdrive MD, but well the videomode... >_>
I'd suppose Master Everdrive, right?
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