[HOW TO] "Winnipeg Freeze Bug" Work Arounds

[seamor]

EDIT: @Sauce has shared a solution that was deep within the depths of another thread, also found by Smozoma, just below this post. It's much better, and doesn't double up on the player names. Basically, if you'd like to keep the player records, which already are broken for the most part in 32-team ROMs, use this one. If you'd rather the names only appear once, use his!

Let me just start this off by saying 99.99999% of the credit here goes to @smozoma. All I'm doing is sharing the code!

If you'd like to prevent the freeze on Team 31 and 32, follow as so:

Find offset F8ABO, and change the ensuing set of 6 hex values to 4E 71, 4E 71, 4E 71. After this, find F8B2C, and do the exact same.

Once you boot up the game, the player card screen should act as so (also, a nice sneak peak of my big ROM I'm working on!):

The names will be doubled up, but I definitely view this as the lesser of 2 evils.

Edited November 30, 2020 by seamor

[Sauce]

Nice find!

There is another way to "fix it" without the result of double names in the player portrait cards... disable the reading of the player card records.  

@smozoma discovered this fix back in 2016 (11/7/2016 post).  It makes it so the player cards can't be read/reviewed in game mode.  You can still see them in the Team Selection mode and in the Team Matchup page.
 

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Sauce

[smozoma]

14 hours ago, Sauce said:

Nice find!

There is another way to "fix it" without the result of double names in the player portrait cards... disable the reading of the player card records.  

@smozoma discovered this fix back in 2016 (11/7/2016 post).  It makes it so the player cards can't be read/reviewed in game mode.  You can still see them in the Team Selection mode and in the Team Matchup page.
 

 

I totally forgot about this!

[von Ozbourme]

Just wanted to post this here as a possible drawback to the "Player card breaking fix".  I've noticed that when using the card disabling fix, the inhibiting of player card data also seems to inhibit saving of playoff series data. Not an concern if you only plan on playing exhibition matches, but worth noting.

What happens is that once completing a playoff game, when the game returns to the main menu, the "Continue Playoffs" will show Team #1 vs Team #1 instead of whatever teams you should be playing. And if you ignore that and try to play the next game, it just starts a new best of 7 playoff bracket from the beginning.
Also, if you accidentally change the play mode, your Continue Playoffs option is just erased and you can't access it anymore when scrolling through the play modes.

Visual aid in case I'm bad at explaining:
Complete Game in single elimination playoff.
Continue screen shows Anaheim intra-squad game instead of Winnipeg vs St.Louis quaterfinal.
Continuing results in starting a new best/7 playoff as Pittsburgh. Well shucks...

[seamor]

On 1/12/2021 at 12:38 PM, von Ozbourme said:

Just wanted to post this here as a possible drawback to the "Player card breaking fix".  I've noticed that when using the card disabling fix, the inhibiting of player card data also seems to inhibit saving of playoff series data. Not an concern if you only plan on playing exhibition matches, but worth noting.

What happens is that once completing a playoff game, when the game returns to the main menu, the "Continue Playoffs" will show Team #1 vs Team #1 instead of whatever teams you should be playing. And if you ignore that and try to play the next game, it just starts a new best of 7 playoff bracket from the beginning.
Also, if you accidentally change the play mode, your Continue Playoffs option is just erased and you can't access it anymore when scrolling through the play modes.

Visual aid in case I'm bad at explaining:
Complete Game in single elimination playoff.
Continue screen shows Anaheim intra-squad game instead of Winnipeg vs St.Louis quaterfinal.
Continuing results in starting a new best/7 playoff as Pittsburgh. Well shucks...

That's quite odd. I really only use the ROMs with this fix on my computer or arcade stand, so it's either short play sessions or I grab save states, so it's nice to have some additional information. Someone smarter than me will have to investigate.

[AdamCatalyst]

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. 

[chaos]

1 hour ago, AdamCatalyst said:

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. 

Care to explain how you figured this out?

[AdamCatalyst]

6 minutes ago, chaos said:

Care to explain how you figured this out?

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.

[Sauce]

3 minutes ago, AdamCatalyst said:

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.

CONFIRMED: It works IF you use @seamor's hex edit.  Not if you use the one that I posted (credit to @smozomafor that find).  But, it still doesn't solve the bug issue, within seamor's hex edit, of player names being repeated (see his screenshot in one of the above posts).

I didn't get to check out playoff mode to see if it still has the reported bug or not.  

[AdamCatalyst]

5 minutes ago, Sauce said:

CONFIRMED: It works IF you use @seamor's hex edit.  Not if you use the one that I posted (credit to @smozomafor that find).  But, it still doesn't solve the bug issue, within seamor's hex edit, of player names being repeated (see his screenshot in one of the above posts).

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?

Edited December 27, 2021 by AdamCatalyst
unclear

[Sauce]

8 minutes ago, AdamCatalyst said:

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?

First, I made this edit:
Find offset F8ABO, and change the ensuing set of 6 hex values to 4E 71, 4E 71, 4E 71.  Per, your (original, pre-edited note) above, I edited the first set of hex at F8AB0.

Second, I made this edit:
Revised @ 0x00F8B2C
20

It didn't work.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Sauce

[Sauce]

9 minutes ago, AdamCatalyst said:

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?

Since you edited your posts, can you please re-post (one all-compassing post) with the correct steps of what to do vs not do.  That will alleviate any confusion and allow for someone to properly test.  Thanks!

[AdamCatalyst]

1 hour ago, AdamCatalyst said:

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. 

[Sauce]

4 minutes ago, AdamCatalyst said:

That's about as clear as mud!  LOL

How about this, can you, in one post, write, step-by-step, where to do what edits?  That will alleviate any guessing as to what you mean.  If you can do that, I am happy to check it out and confirm.  Things like "Only change that one, single, bit" aren't always clear.

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by Sauce

[AdamCatalyst]

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!

[Sauce]

5 minutes ago, AdamCatalyst said:

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!

Much better and, good news, it worked.  Tested it on GENS and no freeze for Vegas, Washington or Winnipeg.  The only glitch is, the Washington player cards, on the Team Selection page, for GENS, show the 33333 glitch.  It does that, for all 3 teams, on Kega Fusion.  However, IMO, it's not a big deal if it is isn't freezing.

Nice find/job!!!

I haven't, and won't at this time, have/had a chance to test out playoff mode to ensure no issues as previously reported (with certain hex fixes).  However, since this was such a simple change, and only in one spot, my guess is that it shouldn't impact that mode.

[chaos]

3 hours ago, Sauce said:

Much better and, good news, it worked.  Tested it on GENS and no freeze for Vegas, Washington or Winnipeg.  The only glitch is, the Washington player cards, on the Team Selection page, for GENS, show the 33333 glitch.  It does that, for all 3 teams, on Kega Fusion.  However, IMO, it's not a big deal if it is isn't freezing.

Nice find/job!!!

I haven't, and won't at this time, have/had a chance to test out playoff mode to ensure no issues as previously reported (with certain hex fixes).  However, since this was such a simple change, and only in one spot, my guess is that it shouldn't impact that mode.

@Sauce, can you test this on real hardware? Do you have a Mega Everdrive?

[Sauce]

23 minutes ago, chaos said:

@Sauce, can you test this on real hardware? Do you have a Mega Everdrive?

Hi @chaos I would but, I don't.  If someone else has that hardware, hopefully, they can volunteer.

[AdamCatalyst]

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. 

 

[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.

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.

 

[8bittheologian]

Hello all,

I apologize for resurrecting a stale thread, but I was reviewing your findings and was curious about implementing them into the current NHL '22 ROM that @Sauce put together. I'm not expert ROM modifier by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have an Everdrive and a few different Genesis models, so if I can be of assistance testing fixes, I'm happy to do so.

As it stands, I have the modifications from @AdamCatalyst's post above implemented into the vPO ROM. I did make one small adjustment by changing 0xF8B2C from 4E to 20, as that was the value for that offset in the already modified ROM.

I currently have this running on a real Genesis, and everything seems to be rendering properly with player stats turned on. I am not sure how to test further beyond verifying that the player stat messages are formatted correctly with no displayed errors and without doubled names. If there is anything else I can do to test or help the effort to fix this bug, please let me know.

[AdamCatalyst]

@8bittheologian Thanks for testing it out! I really appreciate it. I don't think there is anything else you need to do. I was able to locate a bit-perfect emulator, plus its been months and no-one has reported an issue, and now with your contribution, I feel secure enough to say this safely works. Also, welcome to the site!I hope you have fun here.