smozoma

if i may suggest.. it'd be nice if the icons at the top were easier to read. i have to squint and put my head right next to the screen to figure out what they are. they are just dark blobs to me (though i lean far back, my monitor is dark, and i am slightly red/green colour-blind, so with the darkness of teh screen the red is hard to differentiate from the black. ok this sounds like it's all my fault. still, i'd like to see them with a little bit of white between the letters!) also, changing the text size between the buttons is blah.. dunno why it needs the say NHL in "NHL Standings", either. but it's still awesome.

2 more weeks to finish round 2 (sun aug 31) 2 weeks to finish rd 3 (sun sept 14) 2 weeks for finals (sun sept 28) 1 week break NHL season starts.. start up the draft!

nah, it won't do much.. i never see those guys online, except for a couple. big leagues just don't work in the summer. maybe next year i'll have a separate, smaller, summer league.

Everyone is expected to play all their games eventually. I think it'll warm up when it gets cold outside : )

Due to the new hack I did where I got the game to record the number of checks per player and ignore checks after the whistle, I'd like to put a hold on the A League (which still has no games played) so I can update the website/uploader to take advantage of this new stat. So, hold off for a week or so! Not that anyone's playing anyway... thanks

wow, pretty nice

Pretty neat. Same gameplay as the classic 8-bit version, but updated graphics and sounds (and cheerleaders). Waiting for updated NHL94... http://www.gamesradar.com/ds/tecmo-bowl-ki...501114437707060

blah, these rating suck. most of the ratings have lower bounds of like 70!! The lowest speed I saw in 5 teams was 65, and the next lowest was 70. They really need to stop trying to make everyone happy by making them all good. Bring back the variety! fast guys, slow guys, shooters, hitters, etc! they're all cookie cutter now! the goalie ratings are even worse. http://sports.ign.com/nhl09/senators.html Auld and Gerber are no more than 6 points apart in any part of their game? Ridiculous. Boring.

When SEGA couldn't get EA a development kit (they ran out I guess), what could EA do? Why, make their own! http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars...development-kit

eehhhxcellent use p2p! record! post on youtube! (or send me the record files)

It'd be tough to do.. I wouldn't know where to look. AI is pretty mysterious..

New ROM with 3 new features: 1. Check ability is calculated as (6*wgt + 10*chk - 12) instead of (8*wgt). Ability to take a hit is still (8*wgt). This formula scales well for players of different weights. Heavy guys: Bourque (wgt=10, chk=6): his checking ability is no longer (8*10)=80, it is now (6*10+10*6-12)=108. He could check himself, because his checking rating is good. He can now usually check guys up to wgt=13. McSorley (wgt=14,chk=3): (6*14+10*3-12)=102 compared to (8*14)=112. He can't check himself because he's no good at checking (3 is bad if you're that heavy!). He can usually check guys up to wgt=12. Light guys: Fleury (wgt=3, chk=4): (6*3+10*4-12)=46 , (8*3)=24. He can check himself, and guys up to wgt=5 (usually). When you're light, a 3+ in checking gives you bonus, whereas if you're heavy, a 3 actually makes you less effective! neat! Even if Fleury's checking were just 3, he'd have a checking ability of 36, so he could check guys with wgt=4. I'll make an excel table some time... There are 3 'crossover' points, where guys hit like normal. wgt=4,chk=2. If a guy has wgt=4 and chk=2, he checks like normal. If he has chk=3+, he gets bonus. wgt=9,chk=3. if a guy with wgt=9 has chk=4+, he gets bonus. 2 or less, penalty. wgt=14,chk=4. 5+ = bonus. 3 or less, penalty 2. Checks after the whistle no longer count in the stats. 3. If you go into the Player Stats page in the pause menu... You can see how many checks each player has dished out! Updated patcher to come eventually... NHL94_ChkStats080811.bin

nope. i just gave it a try, but i couldn't see it (well, i have an idea for how it would work, but the cpu speed is too fast to make it easy to find.. i narrowed it down to about 20 ram values and narrowing it further would take time. it's not a priority right now)

ok i found something.. you need to look at 2 values (8-bit each) ($ffb8ec) is -1 during most play stoppages, but not goals or when the puck leaves the rink. when the play is on, it's 0. Sometimes it's briefly -1 during gameplay, but this is very rare and only happens for a fraction of a second. ($ffc2ec) is 80 after a goal and when the puck is out of the rink. There is some other situation where it's 64 when the play is stopped. when the play is on, it's 0, 16, or 24. When you're in a menu screen or instant replay, it's usually a negative value. You never see ($ffb8ec)==-1 and ($ffc2ec)>=64 at the same time, which is important... so to know if the game is currently stopped for a whistle, goal, end of period, etc: if (($ffb8ec) == -1) XOR (($ffc2ec) >= 64) then the play is currently stopped if (($ffb8ec) == 0) AND (($ffc2ec) < 64) then the play is currently going In my checking stat hack, i checked to see if the game is running like so: (D0 is a general purpose CPU data register) D0 = value from ($ffc2ec) (which might be 0,16,24,64,80...) D0 = D0/32, discard remainder. if D0 was 0,16,or 24 it'll now be 0 (game on). if it was 64 or 80, it'll be 1 (game off). D0 = D0 + value from ($ffb8ec) If (D0 == 0) then the play is on, so record check stats since you never see ($ffb8ec)==-1 and ($ffc2ec)>=64 at the same time, you never get -1+1=0, which would be a false-positive. EDIT: found that 64 is also a 'game not on' value for ($ffc2ec). added a pseudo-code method to check for gameplay running.

I've been unable to figure this one out: How can you tell, in the RAM, if the game is 'on' or 'off'? By 'on' I mean the clock is running, by 'off' I mean a whistle has gone, or a goal has been scored, or the period is over etc... I want to prevent checks after the whistle from counting in the Game Stats. it'd be easy to do, if only I knew how to detect that the play was going or not!

It should work with any 94 rom, as long it has been through NOSE at some point. you can take, say, a GDL rom, and apply the patch to that.

The 93s etc? Nope, I haven't looked at them at all. Maybe some day...

I think this tells you how? http://nhl94.com/html/editing/edit_bin_playerstar.php

cool stuff

dumb microsoft. i'll recompile it next week with something non-microsoft! no time right now anyway, i've been working on an even better checking algorithm.. no time to get it done this weekend, though.

can you get me the actual error message? thanks (sighh i think this has to do with the new versions of microsoft visual studio.. they have some dumb new 'feature' that makes it hard to share programs..)

edit: patch program is now in original post above

NHL94 was the first NHL game to have a writable memory chip in it, I think. 93, you'll have to make a save-state with the emulator, then reload that later.

was about to upload it, but then noticed, whoops, i'm not setting the checksum so the rom doesn't load if you apply the checking fix. i'll fix it tomorrow..

i think this would crash the ron barr hot/cold screen, not the main menu screen? not sure, though.