I've also been using this Google spreadsheet for many years with success.  It's extremely useful if you have a master list/reference of player photos already in the ROM. 

It's all explained in this link: 

https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/216-how-to-player-card-tutorial-nhl94-nhl95/#findComment-169968

If you try and want to use that file and have any questions, happy to help answer.  

23 hours ago, Nuk Su Kow 90 said:

hello,

new here and hope to play with you all...thanks

Welcome!  Best place to get engaged is on our Discord server: https://discord.gg/kvYSWWC

Love your username! 😄

23 hours ago, PenguinFan1985 said:

Howdy folks,

I posted about Twitch a long time ago but wanted to know who all streams on there that hangs out on here? 

I'll drop a follow if you reply. I'm Philladelic on there. Just started streaming again so if you're on there, let's be friends, pals!

kingraph (Me)
newjerseykiller ( @newjerseykiller )
niuhuskie224 ( @niuhuskie224 )
kingofnhl94 ( @smozoma & @halifax )
94_chaos  ( @chaos)
newwhaleorder ( @BigValboski )
94dangler ( @dangler )
dantml ( @danTML7 )
1976dolfoliver ( @Adolf Oliver Nipples)
Some of these haven't posted in a while, but if you give the folks a follow you'll be notified when they do stream!  

@clockwise, try this, works for me when swapping between Gens and SNES controllers.  

36 minutes ago, Brodeur30 said:

That's the idea. What is your reaction to the topic in which a Fake Shot was implemented, and that whole engine? The strategy was to take an unused section of the rom and implement code into that area. That area is then accessed by a small edit to the button press which takes it to this separate code.

Have you tested the Fake Shot and what do you think?

I have been pretty inactive in terms of ROM hacking for quite a while now, so I haven't tested or tried it out.  I've been keeping tabs and the explosion of information that came out this last year as a result of the 92 source code find has been absolutely incredible.  @chaos and @McMarkis in particular have gone above and beyond with their time to studying, dissecting and ultimately showering us with these amazing hacks. 

11 minutes ago, clockwise said:

Kinda expected the goalie control button to be used in more leagues, and had plans to have the 'X' button be dedicated to line changes, but lost interest since I figured it would probably be used even less than the goalie control button is in online games.

Have a few big '94 projects going right now, some known, others Superunknown (great album), but when those are over and done with I think this is worth revisiting. 

For a while there were a few leagues that used the dedicated goalie button hack.  From what I remember, at the time there were some additional configurations needed to be made in GENS, otherwise there was an instant desync.  This may not be the case with RetroArch (current main emulator for leagues for many years now), so might be worth revisiting.  Second, despite the intuitive advantage of having a dedicated button for goalie control, the benefits didn't seem to translate as much in league play.  And if they did, there weren't as impactful as you'd imagine.  Might be the years of playing with "holding B", but I think that combination of tech issues and minimal gain in gameplay, is why the use of the hack eventually faded.  

I still place the hack as one of the all-time greatest ever.

 

Gents, maybe I can help point in the right direction.   A while back @clockwise worked with Kaneda to make a hack to have the "Y" button be a dedicated goalie change button for Sega.  

 

While I haven't gotten into it myself, I imagine you could find/use the information to enable the extra button.  I would guess there is a command to jump to a routine when the button is pressed, in this case switch to goalie, or more accurately the goalie control button with zero delay. 

Could this then be switched to "initiate line changes", assuming you can locate that function?   I think that'd be a good start.  Simultaneously disable holding A.  

It's probably more difficult than I am making it out to be, but I am hoping it helps.  Ideally you could improve and make the X or Z button be dedicated for the line change.  

Adding notes from Kaneda here: https://gendev.spritesmind.net/page-nhl94.html

2 hours ago, Ned said:

Hi all, new around these parts. Forgive me but I'm wondering how to change the name that appears on the team banners on the scoreboard in the pause menu? Not sure if I need NOSE or Tile Molester or what. I have used NOSE to change the team names and abbreviations just fine but am abit lost on banners. Any help would be much appreciated!

Hi there, on the 30 Team ROM, the banners in the scoreboard menu are a picture that you have to adjust in TM.  The location is 1D16CC.  

If it's the original ROM, it's a bit trickier as there are shared tiles, but the location is ABA1E.  The original also has an identical, but separate picture for the main menu at AFE1C.  The 30 Team ROM just has "Home" and "Away" on the main menu. 

16 hours ago, Griffo1979 said:

Thanks!

 

In regards to using the base rom, exactly how involved are we talking…??  I’m assuming there’s no “simple” way to free up space to where tile-sharing isn’t necessary?

From my memory, I believe there was a decent amount of free space in the base '95 ROM.   While I shuffled things around, I didn't have to expand it from 2MB so creating space should not be an issue, especially if you're keeping to 28 teams.  

If you have some experience here, you will have to find the locations and pointers of the original banners - there may be two sets, I forget -- and in '95 there is the team names on the scoreboard banner, as well as the calendar/season mode initials.  

You then have to find new space to create the new image with no shared tiles and change the pointers to the new location.  

I explain how to remove shared tiles here: https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/19978-how-to-decompress-graphics-in-sega-genesis/

So this really depends on how much experience you have here.  If you've done some graphic editing and moving, are familiar with hex editing and Tile Molestor, I think this is manageable.  Having no experience, this will take quite a bit of time to understand.  

 

If you're using the 34 team ROM, here are the references on how to change the team banners: 

 

If you're using the base ROM, that's quite a bit more involved because as you mention, the banners share tiles.  

45 minutes ago, BRCbruce said:

 

Is what im trying even possible with the nets? Im not sure where to go from here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Crown Royal Hockey Game net.bin 2 MB · 0 downloads

The net is a bit of a different animal as it part of the entire rink background.  I think this reference from @AdamCatalyst will be useful for anything regarding rink alterations: https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/26232-how-to-edit-the-rink-sideboards-more-nhl-94/

 

Having said that I don't have much experience editing the rink background myself, and I have not been doing much with '94 graphic editing in years, so I can only point you to a (hopefully) helpful direction.   

When you mean "game day", are you saying when you go attend a live NHL game?  I wear a jersey just about every time I go to a NYR game.  

2 hours ago, Soitanen said:

Tried to use search for answer, but had no luck. What is correct method to calculate team rating to display during Ron Barr speech? Is it average of all players in roster, or only players in Lines, or even startup Line?

The overall team rating is a "hardcoded" number in the game, not a calculation that the game does.  There's a number for each team, more information can be found here:  https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/1332-how-can-you-edit-the-overall-team-rating/#findComment-85846

 

It's been a while since I've really delved into hacking, but from what I remember I liked the r57shell for the VRAM and trace/hook options.  Something was missing from Kmod, I just forgot what.  I never really had feedback on emulation accuracy or reasons to look elsewhere, so I just stuck with what I knew.  

I believe with all the work that @chaos and @McMarkis (SNES, but he snoops around Genesis too) have been doing recently they are using IDA Pro, which can set breakpoints (a area of code that when triggered, pauses the game), that are extremely useful.  I'll let those guys comment as I don't have the experience of how that works or interfaces with some other emulator.

On 6/3/2025 at 1:00 PM, smozoma said:

1/2. Neat, I never noticed that!

3. It turns out whenever a stat would be "cold", it instead gets boosted to 100. So when a slow player's speed would be cold, it becomes 100. Doesn't need to be 38, it will happen to any player. (I may not have that 100% correct, but that's the idea, it can happen to anyone when they would be "cold")

Correct -- link to the reference for this interested: https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/33959-how-to-fix-hotcold-bonus-bug-snes/

 

3 hours ago, AdamCatalyst said:

@kingraph This is still my most used post. Thank-you so much for putting this together. I wanted to ask if you had any tricks or tips for finding image Headers that are not in the expected position. I'm looking for Headers for the Instant Replay controls, and other similar overlay windows.

The only way I've found headers is looking for a group of tiles in TM, and finding the first tile as best I can.  Note the hex location.  If it's a straightforward graphic, the header should be 10 bytes before that first tile, so I'll look in a hex editor around that first tile location.   

It's not foolproof, some graphics in games are not as straightforward.  I think some graphics are created during the game via some decompression routine or something I don't fully understand.  Said another way, I think there are graphics in Sega games that can't be found by tile searching in TM.  

 

SNES Balanced League (SBL)

ROM: NHL '94 (USA)_Hot_Cold_Patched.sfc

Season 01 will use an SNES ROM with the following hack applied:

Fix hot/cold bonus bug

Reference: https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/33959-how-to-fix-hotcold-bonus-bug-snes/

 

League Format

• Classic Style League (Pick one team for season)
• 40 Game Regular Season
• 16 Team cap
• 4 Divisions, 2 Conferences (assumed 16 teams)
• Single League (no A/B)
• Waitlist possible after 16
• Team Draft will be weighted based on coaches Elo (lowest Elo draft first)
• Season duration: 4 weeks (~10 games a week)

Playoff Format

• 12 Teams
• Conference winners are top 2 seeds
• Regular season points to make playoffs, seeding based on win %
• Will be same if all games played.  
• No reseeding
• Duration: To be played promptly.  Streamed live or recorded/streamed if possible.   

1st Round
Top 4 seeds get first round bye
5 vs 12
6 vs 11
7 vs 10
8 vs 9

2nd Round
1 vs (winner of 8 vs 9)
2 vs (winner of 7 vs 10)
3 vs (winner of 6 vs 11)
4 vs (winner of 5 vs 12)

2 hours ago, Lomez said:

I think they mean why not use 97/98 as the base rom instead of 94. Well, because 94 is the best!

I agree!  But in that regard it does appear some folks are also making updates to '98 as well.  

On 3/1/2025 at 1:39 PM, dzenmaster said:

Why don't you use "NHL 97/98" as base image? Or may be someone have done it already?

Are you saying convert NHL'98 player stats and teams to a '94 ROM?  Here are some examples that I found:

 @CoachMac did one here: https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/19792-1951-1970-and-1971-1999-roms/#findComment-180098

@naples39 did deadline ROMs: https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/15608-my-deadline-roms/

 

@slapshot67: https://forum.nhl94.com/index.php?/topic/4327-70s80s90s00s-roms/page/4/#findComment-180065

 

 

To be honest, I haven't played/tried them so can't speak to any specifics.  

 

On 2/12/2025 at 1:33 PM, Goldglv said:

I've used GensTracer mostly to try and debug the code, got as far as actually disabling the passing window but then it turns the QB into a running back, meaning A dives, B spins and C sprints as opposed to throwing the ball to the receiver.  This was done by changing the hex from 6700 to 6000 at a certain point in the file.  

 

The code 6700 is the instruction in the game to "Branch on Equal" and the code 6000 is "Branch Always".  

I haven't delved into the code, but I assume the game was doing a test to see if the player was supposed to have the QB functions or if it was a player after a catch/run.  

Again, this is just a guess but the code you changed was probably something like:

* Check if the active player is QB or runner.  If it's a runner (branch on equal), go to (branch) to the function to make the player a runner. 

Changed to 

* Always goto runner (branch always).  

So from it sounds like, when you press the pass button, that routine now just says "this is a runner".  Which yes, bypasses the passing window, but is not the desired outcome.  

I agree, the leading assumption would be that there is a function that calls up thet passing window routine and you can just bypass that.  I'll try to help.

 

Can you post the ROMs here, or update your original message for reference?

12 hours ago, Drezz said:

Was it proven that the letters aren't original region codes? It isn't inconceivable that the lots would be distributed to specific regions to start, with bigger retailers sending them all over to fulfill orders in areas where they sell more? Just a thought.

TBD.  It's tough to figure out since we don't have a large sample to begin with and even smaller with geographic location.  Agree that a regional distribution makes sense, but it could also be printing machine, factory, random, etc.  A little while back @McMikey asked Sean Ramjagsingh (current NHL EA Sports) if he or anyone at EA knew what the letters represented, but no dice.  

 

FYI, we have only captured afraction of the estimated first round numbers out there.  As of today, 460 copies, which is 0.13% of an estimated 350,000.  And even fewer where we captured the current location of the box.  And even then we can't determine if that was the original sale location.  

 

16 hours ago, Whalers_NHL94 said:

Wow, I can't believe I stumbled upon this! I am sending along the info and pics from my 1st Round Edition that I purchased on 10/10/93 from North Attleboro, Massachusetts #K27312

 

Absolutely LOVE the sales receipt!

9 hours ago, R0B0T_ST0P said:

 

 

Bonus question: how do you guys not let the game (including 94) get stale WITHOUT season mode?

LEAGUES AND LEAGUES AND LEAGUES: https://nhl94online.com/, and there is a '95 Discord with their own leagues: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GBDlaeQQriDsBREbpbdMsb61Ccgq9YkqcnsrW722MTA/edit

Classic league, draft leagues, different roster leagues, different rules leagues, etc.  The hardcore folks on the forums barely play any games vs the CPU.  Ironically a season mode would ultimately not be exciting for us, outside of the accomplisment of hacking it into the game.  Nothing wrong with it, and I agree a 32 team season mode in '95 would be tons of fun for the majority of people.