ano_guy
Beginner
Roger thanks.
Konami GX Conversions?
- Thread starter Sjlewis78
- Start date
Tailsnic Retroworks
Grand Master
No, but the mainboard is donor for any game. The only known convert is Lethal Enforcers II to Gokujou Parodius
theoretically several other games could be used for donors for Gokujou Parodius you just need to remove the security chip, I think one of of the Puzzle Dama games even uses the exact right PCB.
Tailsnic Retroworks
Grand Master
Yeah, I forgot that one. Winning Spike romboard is also very alike if you quit the protection
Hammy
Enlightened
Got winning spike now fully de-protected, and sexy parodius at about 80%
"cracking" most the games needs the sprite system re-written...
However , i don't think the "snow" effect will be easy to do for level 1 (it's missing on mame too, there's no example code for it in other games.)
When there's a bit more ready will look into printing romboards
When I looked at this last comparing G-Parodius (which has no security chip) to Fantastic Journey (which does), the etc chip equation and tables seemed to simply be implemented in code. Last time I was looking at this I was considering pulling the etc equations out of MAME and implementing somewhere in the program ROM to simulate what Konami did on the unprotected games.
but it sounds like you're patching out all the etc calls completely?
Hammy
Enlightened
It's a very long and complicated process, basically code needs to be re-written to build the sprite list and gather all the info from work ram.
The best thing to compare it with, it's similar to porting CPS1 > CPS2
Sadly, the program to do the "snow effect" on sexy is not in any other game (the "param" for parallax starfield, missing on level 3 of in mame IS however possible to do with goku ref)
I was working with @nnap on it and we got it mostly figured out but it needs to be fully re-written at this point. When the weather cools down again and the crazy number of new dumps slow down i'll get back to it
The best thing to compare it with, it's similar to porting CPS1 > CPS2
Sadly, the program to do the "snow effect" on sexy is not in any other game (the "param" for parallax starfield, missing on level 3 of in mame IS however possible to do with goku ref)
I was working with @nnap on it and we got it mostly figured out but it needs to be fully re-written at this point. When the weather cools down again and the crazy number of new dumps slow down i'll get back to it
Hammy
Enlightened
Original on the right, cracked version on the left.
Thanks to @nnap for the video
View: https://youtu.be/Z-pamZ66dCk
The only way to do this is with guesswork , it will be more or less impossible to make the snow identical if working at all.
Thanks to @nnap for the video
The only way to do this is with guesswork , it will be more or less impossible to make the snow identical if working at all.
I wonder if any of these GX games have been made available on console through emulation? if so they may use a build without the protection.
The Gradius Origins release has Salamander 2 included, however that has been implemented.
Hammy
Enlightened
I have not looked at the code for these, it also looks like the world version "life force 2" is in there too.
I have not looked at salamander 2 yet, it uses a "different work ram format" ...
Twinbee and sexy are the easiest to do, the newer games get more funky.
Winning spike was different , it did I.O protection, so i managed to crack it quite easily.
Also, i have a cracked version of violent storm , still needs testing on an original board with the 55550 removed.
It should be possible to convert those games (mystics, violent storm etc) to the romboard hardware, however the "GX BIOS" means all code needs to be bumped, and the "handover" from bios to game program needs to be figured out.