Origins of Zelda Master Quest Debug Rom?

I think the answer is simpler than this perhaps. It seems to be a repackaged OoT with alternative (dungeons) files, hence why they have two different executables, no?

 

If you are cen and are saying that in an ironic jesting fashion then please understand that I can understand why you'd hold on to it for the time being.

 

Presumably Ura Zelda was being worked on along around the time Majora's Mask was being planned, but merged into one final product. I don't really think it [Ura] had any additional new content like is constantly rumored besides possibly a unfinished "beta" dungeon (and only in conception) due to the fact maps 120 and 121 were included in the Master Quest developer builds.

If you look at maps such as the one that is in the Giant Cutscenes after you complete a dungeon -- it's just a modified version of the Chamber of Sages.

I think Zelda Gaiden was intended to be the '2nd Zelda game' used in the 64DD and at the end of it you could return to Hyrule [if you had the OOT cart inserted into the N64 itself] and recomplete the dungeons if you got the Adult Link mask (which was turned into the Fierce Diety Link Mask) but since the 64DD failed they removed that aspect of MM due to space and other constraints such as not being able to access the original content such as model data (from Ocarina's cart due to how the 64DD worked) eventually just ended up recompiling OOT with the alternative maps and releasing it as a standalone game.


The initial release of Zelda OOT JP has 64DD 'hooks' built into the level select itself; however they were removed in later versions of the N64 carts.

 

Well, this sure is some interesting stuff. Something I have to wonder, is the clean, original OoT Debug rom still floating around out there, or is it just the modified one?

 

interesting stuff.

 

REVIVE THIS THREAD!!!!!

 

Just a few days short of a year and no one has anything new on the Debug Rom, or URA Zelda?????

 

What makes you think that a year passing means new content will magically appear?

 

Heh, well, if you want hacking info just google around or check this site called Maco. Other than that I really dunno what to tell you all. I'll try to pop it into a disassembler myself and start converting code to OS2.0 functions, but that'll be a while... especially since IDA wants to freeze when I load a 64MB rom into it X_X

 

I'd imagine because pretty much every year for the last 7 years something new has been discovered/released?

Anyhow what's the problem with asking 'are there any updates?' or words to that effect?

 

It usually isn't a problem. But with a title as popular as Ocarina of Time, if anything new was found it would already be posted.

 

Since this thread has been bumped I would just like to say thank you to everyone who replied to this thread, there was some really great information posted about the release of this ROM which was exactly what I was hoping for when I posted

I actually have one more question, which I hope wont break any forum rules - Does any one still have a copy of the original ROM with a last modified date of the 22/03/2003 in its original "ZELOOTMA.zip" file? The ROM's file modified date is not long after it was compiled, and since this ROM didn't become publicly available until 2005 it presumbly is the original zip file straight from the developer. I have scoured the internet and I cant find it available anywhere. You can see this ROM in a picture posted by zidapi on page 1:-

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=358732#post358732

However due to a hard drive failure that copy is lost. Every version I have found has later file modified dates, or has been altered/changed. I only ask as I want to know what the original ROM header was, especially since HyperHacker said:-

also, Knuckles500:-

Please keep in mind i'm not specifically asking for the ROM, only information about it. It would be a shame if the original file has been completely lost.

Thanks again for any info ;-)

 

AFAIK I have the original. It doesn't have the original timestamp (it's like 2006 or something) but it has the original THE LEGEND OF ZELDA header and it's 64 MB.

 

I have found copies that also have the same header, but they can't be the original ROM as they have rooms 120/125 working normally when according to Knuckles500 they should be "behaving irregularly and crashing".

To be honest if the ROM is not still in the original zip file with the same last modified date (22/03/2003) then it is probably going to be impossible to know if its the original file or not :banghead:

 

Yes, I have ZELOOTMA.rar, with the 3/22/2003 1:44 PM timestamp.

In a hex editor, the header reads "HT EELEGDNO FEZDL A", which comes out to be "THE LEGEND OF ZELDA."

 

Just dropping in for some comments...

Either Knux is wrong, or he's refering to a different version of GoodN64 than the one I have, because in mine it's certainly a (mostly?) unfixed ROM. It's "THE LEGEND OF ZELDA", Game ID "NZLE", version 0x0F; it crashes when loading syotes (120) because of its missing room header, it exhibits graphic errors in hairal_niwa2 (125), it exhibits texturing errors in general when used with Jabo's v1.6 graphics plugin. I'm not 100% sure about the NZLE ID, tho, considering the PAL60 stuff - "CZLE" is most likely a hacked ID, but that shouldn't be the PAL60-related edit. The "C" denotes a 64DD-compatible game after all; this one is not, as far as I'm aware, and the regular Master Quest ROM also is "NZLx", not "CZLx".

Hope this made sense and helped somehow.

(Also, Kao, cool to see that there's still someone with the original archive out there, if I still have mine, it's on some really old backup CD or something )

 

Thanks for the replies

Thanks to Kao I have now had a chance to examine this version, curiously the file is called "ZELOOTMA.rar" instead of "ZELOOTMA.zip" like the one shown in zidapi's picture, both contain the ROM labelled "ZELOOTMA.V64" with a last modified date of 22/03/2003. I am guessing that later on someone else uncompressed the ROM and recompressed it into a rar/zip, but we will probably never know if either the zip or rar is the original file (Not that it really matters)

The ROM is a V64 file so is bytewapped, hence the header Kao mentioned, when converted into a Z64 file using a program like Tool64 the header is:-
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA .......NZLE
I did a checksum compare on the ROM with the one in the GoodSet, and there is good or bad news depending on how you look at it - this debug ROM is exactly the same as the one in the GoodSet :redface: I can only guess Knuckles500 was mistaken as xdaniel suggested in the last post.

The interesting thing is thats not quite the case...
Here are the Zelda OoT Master Quest GoodSet names and their internal header and build dates:-
JPN
Zelda no Densetsu - Toki no Ocarina GC URA (J) (GC) [!]
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA .......CZLJ
[Date:02-10-30 00:15:15]
USA
Legend of Zelda, The - Ocarina of Time - Master Quest (U) (GC) [!]
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA .......CZLE
[Date:02-12-19 14:05:42]
EUR
Legend of Zelda, The - Ocarina of Time - Master Quest (E) (GC) [!]
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA .......NZLP
[Date:03-02-21 20:37:19]
Debug Version
Legend of Zelda, The - Ocarina of Time - Master Quest (U) (Debug Version)
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA .......NZLE
[Date:03-02-21 00:16:31]

This leaves me wondering if anything was even changed to make the Debug ROM run in 60Hz? From what I understood the last letter in the header sets the Hz rate when running on an N64 (E, J for 60Hz, P etc for 50Hz) I know the European GameCube Master Quest disk is '60Hz only' so presumably the N64 emulator can only run in 60Hz and disregards the header setting.

A few things I find interesting:-

- The Debug ROM has the same build date as the final European GC Zelda OoT/Master Quest ROM's (21/02/2003) but it doesnt have a "P" at the end of the header to denote a European version, yet it still has English, French and German text like the European version. All other region Master Quest ROM's were built at the end of 2002 so I guess this confirms the Debug ROM is probably a European version with a changed header.

- The GC Master Quest disk ROM internal build dates all date from 2002/03, this implies that the development/emulation team might have been given the source code to Zelda OoT, and perhaps even Ura Zelda. Previously it was thought that Nintendo just sent them final builds and they only handled the emulation, but considering that we now know there are multiple unfinished builds of Master Quest like the one shown in ASSEMbler's video here:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yo_HET5tWc
I think we can safely assume that isnt the case. or at the very least Nintendo was frequently sending updated builds to the emulation team.

- What happened to the 'tool' used to fix the debug ROM? Knuckles500 mentioned:-

I'm assuming this was some sort of patch that fixed rooms 120/125 and also changed the ROM's header to "THE LEGEND OF DEBUG".

 

Are we absolutely sure that the 120/125 bug wasn't just due to the status of emulation at the time and that this could still be it. I'm not doubting you I'm just wondering more about the rooms themselves :B

 

I guess I was under the impression those rooms didn't load because they were in an older room file format that was incompatible with the final engine without modification.

I believe if link83 were to try running the unmodified ROM on a modern-day emulator, those rooms would still crash.

 

Little explanation: Each level in the N64 Zelda's is made up of at least two files, one scene file and at least one room file. The former contains cutscene information, collision data, transition actors (ex. doors), Link's spawn points, often textures, basically global stuff used by the whole level. The latter contain display lists (= model data), and room-specific actors, textures, things like that.

Now, 120's scene header is a perfectly normal header, similar to what all the other levels have. The room file is a different story, because it starts directly with what looks like (what we call) the mesh header - points to the list containing the display list addresses used, and it's a valid one at that -, after which you get the room's display lists and textures. It doesn't have a valid room header, which the game expects and which is the reason why the game crashes. It's possible that this really is an old room format, and they originally just had this mesh header, but that doesn't explain why the scene file is fully valid, and how this room would've had ex. any actors (like the Stalfos in the ancient official screenshots of this room).

I'm not sure about 125, it's probably trying to jump to undefined/incorrectly defined RAM segments and ends up interpreting "junk" as graphic commands. Don't quote me on that tho, I just saw a DL call to segment 0x08 in there, which in-game usually contains either textures (ex. Kakariko's windows of all things) or display lists - maybe there's texture data loaded there which the game tries to execute as a display list, dunno.