Help writing SD2SNES manual

I would like to create a SD2SNES manual. It seems there really isn't a lot of documentation that I see. If there is please let me know. Ikari_01's blog doesn't really offer a lot of information. So I am asking the people who already have their's to maybe offer up some information. Here are some main points we normally hit with manuals, maybe people can offer information on these.

• System Compatibility
• ROM Compatibility
• Controls (what buttons do what)
• Menu System break down
• Errors and what they mean
• Enhancement chip file information
• FAQs (Questions people frequently ask or you believe will frequently ask)
• Any other information

This manual will be made into PDF and available to community. Also full disclosure it will also be used for our printed manual that comes with the Deluxe Editions. I have asked for Ikari_01's help on this, but he is slow to respond sometimes to e-mails (probably busy). So I figured the community would be a good source of information.

Also for those who know other languages (besides English) I can it available for translation as well.

 

Sorry for being slow. Here's some information.

System Compatibility:
I have tested sd2snes on:
JP SFC 1/1/1
JP SFC 2/1/3
EU SNES 2/1/3 (several)
EU SNES 2/1/3 1CHIP (several)
US SNES 2/1/2
US SNES 2/1/3
without issues. Unfortunately I didn't get the chance to test on any type of clone hardware yet.

ROM Incompatibility:
This is compiled as an incompatibility list.
Any ROM should work (headered and non-headered, non-interleaved), except the following:

• Carts with BS memory pak slots, other than BS-X BIOS (e.g. Derby Stallion 96, any Tsukuuru)
• Sufami Turbo games:
  • Car Ranger
  • Crayon Shin Chan
  • Gegege No Kitarou
  • Gekisou Sentai Carranger: Zenkai Racer Senshi
  • Poi Poi Ninja
  • Sailor Moon Stars Panic 2
  • SD Gundam Generations: part 1
  • SD Gundam Generations: part 2
  • SD Gundam Generations: part 3
  • SD Gundam Generations: part 4
  • SD Gundam Generations: part 5
  • SD Gundam Generations: part 6
  • SD Ultra Battle: Seven Legend
  • SD Ultra Battle: Ultraman Legend
  • Sufami Turbo hardware
  • Tetris 2+ Bombliss
• SuperFX games:
  • Dirt Racer
  • Dirt Trax FX
  • Doom
  • Star Fox 2
  • Star Fox / Starwing
  • Stunt Race FX / Wild Trax
  • Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
  • Vortex
  • Winter Gold / FX Skiing
• SA-1 games:
  • Daisenryaku Expert WWII: War in Europe
  • Derby Jockey 2
  • Dragon Ball Z: Hyper Dimension
  • Habu Meijin no Omoshiro Shōgi
  • Itoi Shigesato no Bass Tsuri No. 1
  • Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius
  • J.League '96 Dream Stadium
  • Jumpin' Derby
  • Kakinoki Shogi
  • Kirby's Dream Land 3
  • Kirby Super Star
  • Marvelous: Mouhitotsu no Takarajima
  • Masters New: Haruka Naru Augusta 3
  • Mini 4WD Shining Scorpion Let's & Go!!
  • Pebble Beach no Hotou: New Tournament Edition
  • PGA European Tour
  • PGA Tour '96
  • Power Rangers Zeo: Battle Racers
  • SD F-1 Grand Prix
  • SD Gundam G NEXT
  • Shin Shogi Club
  • Shogi Saikyou
  • Shogi Saikyou 2
  • Super Bomberman Panic Bomber World
  • Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars
  • Super Robot Taisen Gaiden: Masō Kishin - The Lord Of Elemental
• S-DD1 games:
  • Star Ocean (unhacked version)
  • Street Fighter Alpha 2 / Zero 2
• ST-011 games:
  • Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shougi
• ST-018 games:
  • Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shougi 2
• SPC7110 games:
  • Far East of Eden Zero
  • Momotaro Dentetsu Happy
  • Super Power League 4
• OBC1 games:
  • Metal Combat

BS support is not feature complete (does not simulate lots of different satellite packet streams) so some BS games might not yet run as intended.


Controls:
Controllers 1 and 2 can be used.

• In the file browser:
  • A button: Select / Enter directory
  • B button: Back / Leave directory
  • X button: open main menu
  • Y button: open file context menu (not yet implemented)
  • Start button: open ROM history (recently played ROMs; only one entry is saved at the moment but will be expanded)
  • D-pad left/right: browse one page's worth of file entries forth/back
  • D-pad up/down: move cursor up/down
• In menus:
  • A button: Select
  • B button: Back / Leave menu
  • D-pad left/right: (where appropriate: change value. This does not occur yet)
  • D-pad up/down: select menu entry
• In the clock setting dialogue:
  • A button: confirm input and set clock
  • B button: leave without setting the clock
  • D-pad left/right: select date/time field
  • D-pad up/down: change value
• Ingame:
  • SNES Reset button: Hold until all LEDs turn on to reset to menu. Also saves SRAM content to card.

Menu System:
After power-up, if the clock isn't set the clock setting dialogue will be shown. Otherwise the file browser is shown, with the root directory of the card.
The file browser currently supports the following extensions:

• SMC, SFC, FIG: SNES cartridge ROM
• BS: BS memory pack ROM. Note that BS ROMs with SMC, SFC, or FIG extension can be loaded as well.

The X button brings up the main menu, which currently consists of only two entries:

• Set Clock
  • Allows setting of the on-board real time clock.
• System Information
  • Shows various information, such as firmware version, detailed SD card information, some file system statistics, CIC state, and the measured SNES master clock for kicks.
  • CIC states:
    • Original or no CIC: The host console either has an original CIC or none at all, or it was modded with the simple CIC pin mod.
    • Original CIC(failed): The host console has an original CIC and the unlock sequence failed. This should never be visible because the console is shut down.
    • SuperCIC enhanced: The host console has a SuperCIC inside, and sd2snes is utilizing its enhanced feature (set the 50/60Hz video mode via software). This mode can be enabled in the future.
    • SuperCIC detected, not used: The host console has a SuperCIC inside but its enhanced feature is not used. This is the current default state for SuperCIC consoles.
  • SD access time provides measurement of the SD card's maximum and average access times. Not to be confused with throughput, short access times (< 1 ms) are crucial for MSU1 audio+data enhanced games to work reliably. For all other games the access times are completely irrelevant.

Errors
Errors can occur on several levels. They can be signaled by LEDs, or on screen.
Currently implemented LED error codes are:

• Power LED is blinking at ~1Hz: No firmware was found on internal flash, and there is no firmware image on card that can be flashed. This only occurs on freshly shipped sd2sneses if they only have the bootloader flashed.
• All LEDs are blinking slowly (~1Hz): CIC unlock sequence failed. Push reset so the CIC clone can retry with another region.
• All LEDs are blinking rapidly (5Hz): FPGA communication failed. This should never happen. It can be caused by a corrupted FPGA configuration file. Reformat the SD card and re-extract a freshly downloaded firmware on it. If the problem persists contact your vendor.
• [TODO Write LED turns on and stays lit during gameplay: The automatic save feature cannot be used because RAM contents are constantly changing (the game uses the battery RAM as working RAM). sd2snes must be reset to save the current SRAM contents.]
• [TODO Write LED blinks rapidly during gameplay: A write error occurred while trying to save the SRM file.]

On-screen errors on bootup:

• "No SD Card found!": No SD card was detected. Verify that the card is properly seated in the SD slot and that its outer shape is unaltered. Try another card. If the problem persists there is a contact problem with the card slot -> contact vendor.
• "/sd2snes/menu.bin not found!": The menu ROM was not found in its expected position. Verify that the firmware was properly extracted on the card. A folder "sd2snes" should exist in the root directory. Also see Files.
• The menu does not show up after the loading screen: Most likely one or more required files are missing. Verify that the firmware was properly extracted on the card. A folder "sd2snes" should exist in the root directory. Also see Files.

Files
Sd2snes needs several files on card to work properly. Some are created at runtime. All sd2snes related files reside in the "sd2snes" directory in the card's root directory.
Required files:

• menu.bin: The menu ROM
• firmware.img: (Only needed once per firmware upgrade) contains the firmware that is written to internal flash.
• fpga_base.bit: Contains the FPGA configuration for most features. The menu will not run without it. RLE compressed.
• fpga_cx4.bit: Contains the FPGA configuration for the Cx4 core. RLE compressed.

Files created at runtime:

• sd2snes.db: Contains a file system footprint checksum (to detect file system changes) as well as all file names and directory names
• sd2snes.dir: The file and directory tree structure
• sd2snes.cfg: Various configuration settings
• lastgame.cfg: List of recently played games

Supplementary files are required to support enhancement chips with embedded ROMs. These files are not distributed with the firmware. They can be found on the internet, e.g. http://caitsith2.com/snes/dsp

• dsp1.bin: Data and program ROM dumps for DSP1 (optional, for Pilotwings. If dsp1.bin is not found sd2snes will fall back to dsp1b.bin, breaking the attract mode - Airplane demo)
• dsp1b.bin: Data and program ROM dumps for DSP1B (all DSP1 games except Pilotwings)
• dsp2.bin: Data and program ROM dumps for DSP2
• dsp3.bin: Data and program ROM dumps for DSP3
• dsp4.bin: Data and program ROM dumps for DSP4
• st0010.bin: Data and program ROM dumps from ST-010
• cx4.bin: Data ROM dump from Cx4. This file is supplied with the firmware due to the trivial nature of its content.

I'll try to compile some FAQs next (as I have received numerous).

 

Ahh thanks.

 

Didn't know about the ingame reset
Now i can stay in my couch :victorious:

Sorry for off topic,
but Ikari, what's the progress status concerning SFX emulation? After that is SA-1 your next step?

 

Many thanks for the details ! :smile-new:

 

I don't think the in game reset is referring to a controller reset. I think it is just explaining how to return to the menu with the reset button on the console. I absolutely love this feature on my NES Powerpak and would kill for it on the SD2SNES.

 

You're right i noticed it while trying to press all buttons, bummer, i think i misread it ...
Would love to see it implanted in a future update thou, if possible.

 

Here's hoping that the incompatibility list gets shorter.

 

SAG I've send you a pm, I can translate it to spanish.

 

I can also help translating to spanish and french.

 

Ho oui en français

 

I don't know if you noticed this or not, but in the printed manual under Basic Controls, it says "(X) - Open Mein Menu" instead of Main.

 

Where are these file supposed to be placed on the SD card in the sd2snes folder. Also where do the files from the 'In Game Reset' mod go?

thanks

 

I don't know about the in game reset files, but all the special chip .bin files go right in the sd2snes folder itself.

 

At the moment there's no in game reset mod, because some people are against it and some still want it (like me)
I asked ikari to make it possible for those who want it, don't know if it's on his to do list though ...
Since most people are waiting for SFX support instead of In game reset. Although i would prefer in game reset as top 3 priority

 

I'm very indifferent about it. It would be convenient for sure, but if it does get implemented, it should be an option that can be turned off. SuperFX support is definitely more important, though. At least, it is to me.And if SA-1 is possible, I'd like to see that before an in game reset. Unless its so easy it wouldn't take away from research on those two chips.

Also, multiple saves would be really cool, and I feel like it would be relatively easy to implement.

 

The in game reset files (http://sd2snes.de/blog/cool-stuff/in-game-reset) are not for use with sd2snes. It's a separate chip based mod for SNES consoles. It can be used together with sd2snes of course but it's independent of it.

 

translation to Spanish completed

 

I will get PDFs to KRIKzz and Ikari_01 to post on their sites shortly.

 

is it possible to get the manual somewhere? or not yet?