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View topic - Sega 8-bit winter of dumps Part 2: 4 PAK All Action

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  • Joined: 24 May 2010
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Post Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 7:37 pm
Hey, thanks for taking a swing at that, Logbomber -- I just got your PM. I look forward to the updated version.

BTW CrabEmu was recently updated to include support for the 4 Pak All Action mapper. The new 0.2.0 version hasn't been released yet, but I downloaded and compiled it last night. So I was able to give it a brief swing in emulation, at least, but I was running into some sound issues with CrabEmu that made it difficult to evaluate.

Speaking of sound:

Bock wrote
The sound seems badly broken.


More so than it normally is, I assume? I'm still curious about whether the Level 2 music in Toto World 3 can be fixed, since there's the germ of a decent composition in there but something went horribly wrong.

From what I could tell Cave Dude seemed equally messed up in Level 2, but I was less sure about Level 1 (but the sound issues I was having made it hard to tell).
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Post Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 8:07 pm
The hacked ROM which Logbomber posted had completely broken sound from the start of the game. Not sure about what's going on after level 2. Can you elaborate?
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Post Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 8:27 pm
Bock wrote
The hacked ROM which Logbomber posted had completely broken sound from the start of the game. Not sure about what's going on after level 2. Can you elaborate?


We actually talked about it here a while back. Basically, in Level 2, there are several distinct musical loops going on, with implied chord changes that are the same in each loop -- but in what seems to almost certainly be a programming error, they're not properly synchronized. It's like three people playing the same song who can't hear each other, so they're playing in different tempos. (Hmmm, that sounds exactly like the Shaggs!)

There are also places in the music where it sounds like it was improperly adapted from another sound chip (the AY-3-8910, maybe?), so that you get notes that are wildly out of range because the SMS can't go that low (or that's my hypothesis, anyway).

Anyway, point being that, from what I can tell, Cave Dude has at least some of the same issues, including in Level 2. However, the sound in this build of CrabEmu is so messed up (gain is something like 400% too loud) that it's hard for me to tell if the Level 1 sound is identical to Toto World 3.

I guess I was just hoping they'd fixed it, since they took the time to translate it!
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:03 am
Correction: the music is fixed! Well, partly anyway. Now that the nasty sound bug in CrabEmu has been fixed (thanks to BlueCrab!) I can hear it properly.

Anyway, the change is very interesting: PSG channel 3 was used for a steady bassline (with out-of-range errors) in Toto World 3. In Cave Dude, however, it's used to augment the noise channel to make a fuller drum track. In the first stage, that means that a lot of the most strident discords are gone, since some of them were caused by the PSG being asked for a number that's out of range (or that's my guess, anyway).

World 2 is more interesting, since that one had the egregious data error that left all three melody patterns out of sync with each other. Now PSG 2, PSG 3 (as part of the drums), and the noise channel are all in sync -- at first. However, PSG 2 has a couple of "extra" notes that I'm almost sure are errors, since it adds an extra beat or two to the 4/4 pattern and throws things out of sync, though at least it's going at the same BPM as the drum pattern. In addition, PSG 1 is still out of sync with the rest of the music.

Anyway, that's what I've found so far. I don't know who was responsible for preparing Cave Dude for the English-speaking market, but it looks like that person realized that the music was in serious disrepair, and did what they could to fix it.
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:40 pm
I've never looked but has anyone successfully dumped the X-in-1 Brazil carts? They rely on bank switching via resetting the console, so dumping it may be tricky.
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:48 pm
Carts that switch on power cycle (Master Games 1, Game Box Série Esportes) just have concatenated roms with some hardware to switch the upper address lines; so the dump is typically just existing data concatenated, possibly with some padding. When played in an emulator, you just see the first game.
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Post Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:48 pm
Maraakate wrote
I've never looked but has anyone successfully dumped the X-in-1 Brazil carts? They rely on bank switching via resetting the console, so dumping it may be tricky.

You can dump them with a SMS Reader. Cycling power or unplugging the cartridge will get you a different game each time. It is a bit unpredictable but still easy to dump.
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Post Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2012 2:08 pm
Did you ever check if the games are stored on a single ROM chip or on seperate ones? If one, correct redumps should be done using some sort of EPROM reader. Does only Esportes Radicais use a title screen?

Are the dumps exact matches of the korean versions (Aladdin 3 in 1) if you own these as well?
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 12:55 am
Bock wrote
Maraakate wrote
I've never looked but has anyone successfully dumped the X-in-1 Brazil carts? They rely on bank switching via resetting the console, so dumping it may be tricky.

You can dump them with a SMS Reader. Cycling power or unplugging the cartridge will get you a different game each time. It is a bit unpredictable but still easy to dump.


Were you able to build a true ROM of it with all 4 games in it so you can power cycle it in an emulator?
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:27 am
It would be possible to create such ROM if the emulator desired to support it. Pretty pointless ihmo seeing how the software has no control over this switching and it isn't totally reliable in the first place.
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 5:41 pm
I got bored one time and opened up those brazil multi carts and there's a lot more stuff in there than usual. Pretty neat stuff. Is the 4 PAK the same way?
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2012 6:07 pm
Maraakate wrote
Is the 4 PAK the same way?

http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=69782#69782
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Picky little game plays great on my NTSC SMS II only.
Post Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 3:32 am
I seriously love the game especially the cover art sold me. I wouldn't work on my SMS or my Genesis. This Alstrailian import wouldn't even play on my Aulstrailian SMS II. This picky little cartriage plays consistantly well on every NTSC SMS II system I own and try. My son loves power block but not aware where it came from. This Rom isn't woking on my master everdrive either as hitting the pause button does not start the game,,, arrrrrr.
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Cave Dude
Post Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2014 3:44 am
Yea this game is picky but I love it. I'm so happy that I found a SMS II that plays my original game cart. Let everyone know that I have tried game on many systems and the best result is ironically the NTSC SMS II system. Very odd that this game won't play on PAL Sega systems closer to home. Love the cover of Cave Dude for those who can get past the racist undertone of a very pale cave dude clubbing an ape with XL eyes and exaggerated human like resemblance. It plays very much the same as the Korean version only with Cave Dude start screen. I read that Power Block has a different name under it's Korean release does anyone have dump for that one I feel I own it since it part of 4 pak all action (same game correct).
cavedude.jpg (32.31 KB)
cavedude.jpg

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 1:38 pm
Maxim/Bock any way to make these standalone? If it's not too much trouble. :)
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Sega mapper hacks for stand-alone versions of Adventure Kid, Cave Dude, Power Block, and Twin Mouse
Post Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2023 10:28 pm
If you'd like to play Adventure Kid, Cave Dude, Power Block, or Twin Mouse from an emulator or flash cartridge that does not support the 4 PAK All Action mapper, it is actually fairly straightforward to make the individual games work with the Sega mapper.

Here are patches, in two different flavors: BPS and IPS.

The BPS patches can be applies directly to:

1.0M 4 PAK All Action (AU).sms
Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO
sha256:fe2ef2e550b5ca4ecf81786cda858e0f3e537dd3cdf70316c8453320ea4e6957 4 PAK All Action (AU).sms
sha1:2f8b5a66381dbbe7524af7af6372fbb6a6575ac5 4 PAK All Action (AU).sms
md5:4ea64e3b2ad57ef7531890583c51de30 4 PAK All Action (AU).sms
mekacrc:4EB5F14E8488C9E9 4 PAK All Action (AU).sms
crc32:a67f2a5c 4 PAK All Action (AU).sms

Applying any of the BPS patches will produce a smaller, standalone version of one specific game with its mapper writes modified to work with the Sega mapper.

On the other hand, the IPS patches are meant to be applied to the already-separated games. Each game can be separated out of the overall 4 PAK All Action ROM dump as follows using the dd command (present in Linux, Cygwin and macOS):

dd bs=16384 skip=16 count=8 \
    if="4 PAK All Action (AU).sms" \
    of="Adventure Kid [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms"

dd bs=16384 skip=48 count=16 \
    if="4 PAK All Action (AU).sms" \
    of="Cave Dude [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms"

dd bs=16384 skip=32 count=16 \
    if="4 PAK All Action (AU).sms" \
    of="Power Block [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms"

dd bs=16384 skip=24 count=8 \
    if="4 PAK All Action (AU).sms" \
    of="Twin Mouse [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms"


This will produce separated copies of the individual games, but they are still coded to use the 4 PAK All Action mapper. Meka is able to directly run the unpatched versions of the separated individual games other than Adventure Kid (which requires a different initial paging configuration for 0x4000…0x7FFF than the others do.)

ROM fingerprint info for these separated individual game files:

128K Adventure Kid [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO
sha256:36de8cba102e55ddb6cf02fa6725dbd6f268eda1fc50e2caa89649e415a79f85 Adventure Kid [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
sha1:f7cb64d20be64ee55c745c3f966f6f746a32be8d Adventure Kid [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
md5:eb2f2ec94edb488b42e8a2f6380c6aa2 Adventure Kid [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
mekacrc:FCD2923DE3D49A12 Adventure Kid [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
crc32:90351d44 Adventure Kid [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms

256K Cave Dude [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO
sha256:b288c36eb37aadf26b0cf14762c78214cf3f03ec38bc5297c49d6bdcf632410d Cave Dude [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
sha1:53a11862a21a142f06d41489198175561b37f649 Cave Dude [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
md5:cc3a518efdd1dff4439a8299d4558682 Cave Dude [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
mekacrc:10D51E5BAA8AE18D Cave Dude [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
crc32:b76efd3b Cave Dude [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms

256K Power Block [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO
sha256:9ccb56abd5071a24fbba7bc3010aa756caf3b33d11bcd1fd29ddab1a1ccace4a Power Block [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
sha1:12b2f64feec02394d885ce13861bf2edace84382 Power Block [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
md5:a0643e8064d7b3945a42d4d3f509d45d Power Block [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
mekacrc:1CC819C7B5826F96 Power Block [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
crc32:5bfb7bb9 Power Block [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms

128K Twin Mouse [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO
sha256:9a24e041604777b4c2987eead164a8c4f3d1577b86eaeef846240ce2feeb2313 Twin Mouse [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
sha1:ffde37dfdd00514d5410d314972407bff50cf941 Twin Mouse [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
md5:5423de86165a681a0e635ba7863511fd Twin Mouse [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
mekacrc:871F2D4A2C25D3BF Twin Mouse [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms
crc32:f5ba0052 Twin Mouse [4 PAK All Action] (AU).sms

Once you have the separate individual game files, the IPS patches can be applied to the individual games to produce versions using the Sega mapper.

Separate BPS patches are also provided for producing separated ROM images from the original with no mapper conversion
4 PAK All Action (AU) [HACK+MAPPER].zip (3.04 KB)
All patch files (BPS and IPS) in one ZIP file

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Post Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2023 1:27 pm
Thanks! I can confirm them working.
Here's the pre-patched, standalone roms for convenience:

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Post Posted: Sat May 13, 2023 1:12 am
Has anybody here tried playing the ROMs using a Power Base Convertor?
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Post Posted: Sat May 13, 2023 4:20 am
The Unlicensed Game Otaku wrote
Has anybody here tried playing the ROMs using a Power Base Convertor?


Adventure Kid uses a TMS video mode that is not implemented by the Mega Drive VDP, so it won't work. You can perhaps enjoy the soundtrack but you won't be able to see anything.

The other games should work.

The original cartridge is very picky about hardware, so I don't know whether it will work. The rest of this is instead about running the dumps using an EverDrive:

The other three games should work provided you are using the HACK+MAPPER patched versions (if you use EverDrive.) So far as I know the Everdrive does not support any multicart mapper schemes natively, so only the separated games will work. This is partly because the ".sms" file format does not store any mapper information, and partly because non-standard (i.e. non-"Sega") mappers are fairly rare overall I think.

They seem to start fine from a Mega Everdrive X7, which is pretty similar to using a Power Base Converter. I also verified them in Master EverDrive X7 using a third-party converter equivalent to Power Base Converter (but physically smaller)
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