AdamCatalyst

I posted a new version of my ROM tonight, with the following menu modification. Steps to reproduce… 1. Start with clean original code. 2. Go to 0xF8AB0 and 0xF8B2C. 3. Verify that they read 4EB9000F98C6 and 4EB9000F9AAC respectively. 4. Change them to 4E714E714E71 and 4E714E714E71. (thanks to @smozoma via @seamor!) 5. Go to 0xF8A8E, 0xF8B0C, and 0xF8B42 6. Verify that they read 4E at each of these three locations. 7. Change the value to 20 at each of these three locations. This will inject a space at the beginning of the first, third and fourth line of data display for the player in the menu. These lines will not show the data that is meant to be displayed there, and instead only the players number and name is displayed on the second line. Doing this means that your player preview can no longer show any stats or user records for any player on any team, it will only show names and numbers. EDIT: While this does seem to work, I misunderstood what I was doing and how it worked. Looking back at the code, here is what I recommend now… 6. Change 4EB9 to 4E71 at each of these three locations. 7. This will stop the first line of text from loading, getting rid of the double-name instances, and only showing the single vertically centred name instance. Has been tested with User Records turned on and populated with data, using emulation with memory errors and 68k errors simulated. That's as close as I can get without original Genesis/Mega Drive hardware.

New version uploaded tonight, highly recommended bugfixes. Previous versions had an error that was screwing up player ratings for Nashville and New Jersey. That's been fixed now, along with all the Washington glitches and crashes.

Considering that the error so severe that no-one noticed or bothered to report it in over eleven years, I think you can sleep easy on this one. Hopefully no-one else brings it up for at least another decade.

Thanks. I will tinker with this, and share if I come up with anything useful. I did notice that the 3-stars hack can potentially crash a ROM. I have a ROM set to 1-second periods for testing purposes, and applying the 3-stars hack will crash it when it goes to load the three stars. I haven't done a deep dive, but I imagine it might have to with zero shots on net or saves, etc. I've not seen this crash in any normal play through, but I thought I should mention it.

No prob! And just a heads up, if you download the Roster tool I mentioned, you can use it to inject modified ratings from the spreadsheet into the ROM.

No prob! I'm very glad to hear you are enjoying it. I have many improvements in the works, and I hope you'll be willing to try those out when I publish them. Now, I'll try to succinctly answer your questions… 1. First, please note that the ratings you see in-game are modified by a random fact each match, by the game itself. Actual underlying ratings have been assigned from a scales of 0–6 for each attribute. However, to achieve the gameplay I want, the actual range of assigned values is even smaller than this. 2. Take a look on this site for the NHL Roster Tool, which will allow you to export the ratings from any ROM. I've dumped the ratings from my v2.1 ROM here for you. 3. How I've rated each individual attribute is way too difficult to explain, but the end goal is for each player to play accurately, regardless of what the numbers say. 4. Overall ratings are not assigned, but are in fact calculated from the attribute values, using a custom proprietary formula. My formula was specifically made to give very similar results to EA's NHL 22. Don't take that number too seriously, it means very little. All the players you mention have great ratings. The goal is for them to play relatively accurately compared to the other players in the game, not to rank them in real life, or even in the game. FYI, I will be lowering the level of randomization in the next version of my ROM. Still play-testing through the next version.

There is a single 16 colour palette used for the in-game banners, arena, ice, audience, scoreboard, time clock, player starts, arena… you get the picture. A teal banner could absolutely be done, but it would require a ripple effect of other substantial and changes that I just don’t think anyone wants to take on.

It took me forever to wrap my head around this, but now that I have, I am very grateful for this. This sounds like exactly the “right” amount of variance. Looking forward to play-testing.

Thanks for pointing out your Three-Stars hack! I implemented it last night, and will play test it today. I do have a question for you… Is there documentation anywhere on how that hack works? I'd love to try my own formulas… Lastly, I wanted to share that on macOS 11.6.1 I could not get the script to work, getting errors that it could not find the "weightscale.txt" file. I put copies of this file *everywhere* it could conceivably be referenced, but no luck. In the end I edited the PY with a manual path, and that did the trick. HOWEVER, I did figure out a solution for those who don't want to edit the file manuually.. If you are on a Mac, and experience this problem, put a copy of the "weightscale.txt" file in the root of your home folder "~/" . That'll do it!

No prob! As for what is everyone's favourite version, I'd suggest taking some time to read through some more posts, get to know some of the personalities and vibe here. There are certainly some ROMs that are more popular than others, but I think you'll find lots of different people appreciating different ROMs for different reasons, and not much discussion, let alone consensus as to what's best. As for the default playing online, I've never played online, so I can't speak to that! I'm new here, but I've only been treated with respect, and I hope you have a similarly positive experience. Let's leave The Sauce's thread here for comments and questions about this ROM, and head over to the other forums to chat about this other stuff where I'm sure people who know more than me will help you out.

Hello @inthequantum, I know why it’s not working… the BIN *is* the ROM! Just drop it in OpenEMU, and it will work fine. I believe The Sauce’s ROM is uncompressed and ready to go. But even if it were zipped, no need to unzip it with OpenEMU, just drop it in. cheers, -Adam p.s. FYI, OpenEMU, is not an emulator, but a front end for various emulator cores, sort of like Retroarch. Last I checked, it uses GenesisPlus 1.7.4.14 to play Genesis/Mega Drive ROMs.

I can confirm, it is exactly as described in the post above. I do now have a potential fix that I'm beta testing.

This is nuts! SNK Forever!

I think I found the answer: I’m going to test this out, as well as a potential fix. Will report back if I come up with anything worthwhile.

I’ve been searching for this same answer. I’m not getting any errors, or crashes, and records are saved for me on GenPlus GX with memory and 68k errors simulated. Going to keep using it and see if I can figure it out…

I can verify that playoffs and related stats are completely unaffected by this. Really all it does is effect the first thing displayed on line #2 of the player cards on the menu screen. Any unintended effects should be limited to the menu. So The Sauce has tested it on Kega Fusion, and I've tested it on Gens and Gen-Plus GX, with simulated hardware errors enabled. I'm told the memory and 68k error reporting on the version Gen-Plus GX is very good, but I would still love it if someone could verify that they are getting the same behaviour on real hardware as well.

YES!!!! I was wondering where that original severed leg went… that was you! Thank-you for that! I would be very interested in the pixel art for the Rewind centre ice logos in particular. Honestly, I ran out of time on the work I was doing on those, and was thinking of re-doing it, with that wider sense of faux perspective. If you were able to get me that artwork at a 1:1 pixel aspect ratio, that would be amazing, but even just seeing it any any form would be helpful.

LOL - ok let's try again. 1. If you have previously applied any fixes for the Washington freeze bug, revert to the original code. Do not do anything in this thread, other than the following… 2. Go to 0x00F8B2C 3. It should read: 4E 4. Change it to: 20 5. Save and test and please report back!

To be clear, don't make the full hex edit at the top of the post, or apply any other modifications to address this problem. Only change that one, single, bit. Can you confirm with only that one bit changed, you are still seeing the names repeated?

I found this post, and read what @seamor was quoting from @smozoma. I tried it, and it worked as described. Meanwhile, my fiancée was binge watching a television show that I really dislike, and wanted to ignore. So I started experimenting by modifying each bit to see what was doing what, with a hope of getting the doubled names to disappear. I was hoping that with strategic use of the space character (20), I could get the duplicate names to disappear. Of all the variants I tried, this seems like the best trade-off, with the absolute minimum changes to the code. I have no idea if there are unforeseen consequences from this approach, or if it is truly universal. I can only say that in my limited testing, it seems to do the trick.

Thank-you for the feedback! Yes, I plan on doing a trade deadline version. There is still more work to do, and I want to move away from depending on The Sauce's rosters and line combinations to make it more fully original. The only issues are that life is unpredictable, and I am crazy busy the next few months. But I will try my best to get it done.

OK, I might have a solution. Original @ 0x00F8B2C 4E Revised @ 0x00F8B2C 20 I have used this in my ROM I posted yesterday, and am awaiting feedback to hear if it works. I don't have any Genesis/Mega Drive hardware to test it on, but it passes muster on both of my emulators, with memory errors and 68k error crashes enabled. What will end up happening is that you will still get the cosmetic error pulling up junk stats, but it won't crash, no names will be doubled, and playoffs will work as expected.

Thank-you so much for your kind words! Seriously, that made my morning. As for the Pens, I can't speak for anyone else, but I can share my rationale. I started with exactly what you said, trying to accurately map the official colours onto the limitations of the system. Then testing and revisions were done focusing on how the players look in motion. I found that if shoulder patch was white on the road jerseys, the overall impression of the uniforms was way too black and white, without enough yellow presence. However, I found if the shoulder patch was yellow on the home jerseys, the overall impression the uniforms was too white and yellow to my eye. But that's just my personal opinion. I'd love to get yours. Here is a version with the ROM, where the Pens shoulders have been set to yellow, and black and white have been swapped for road and away. As a pens fan, does this play better for you?

p.s. Here is that aforementioned cover artwork. I did one very faithful to the layout of the original Genesis release, and one with the front slightly re-arranged in order to have an image frame better suited to the official EA photo for this year. If anyone wants my original 60 meg Photoshop file to edit their own way, just send me a note.