I also tried it on another card, and it seems to be largely fine with the stuff I tried. It even saves if I hold reset; it just won't read the saves.
I noticed that afterwards. The 2 maps of the Zelda remix worked with the real hardware hack. Now, I just have to put the save patch on them and I'll see if they still work.
There seem to be some timing related issues up to firmware 0.1.3 which appear only on some of the sd2snes cartridges. I think I have fixed them in the meantime but want to give them some more thorough testing before an official release. If you are keen on testing feel free to grab http://sd2snes.de/files/sd2snes_firmware_v0.1.4pre4.zip - any feedback regarding possible glitches and stability issues will be greatly appreciated. This is a newer version than the one KRIKzz posted recently, saving should work as expected. There's less data delay now (~30ns) and the SNES signals are filtered to avoid glitches; this should improve overall reliability as well as compatibility with plug-in adapters, cheat cartridges and the likes. The FPGA configuration file for Cx4 support has not been updated yet (and is in fact not included in the firmware) so you might still be experiencing issues with MMX2/3. Oh, and it has the SPC player. There's a potential issue with saving concerning FAT12 and FAT16 file systems, and I'll look into that. However, as saving works for you using the reset method, I don't think that is the problem here. Maybe you're turning off the SNES right after saving in game without waiting for the write LED to turn on and off again after saving. If you turn off the console immediately you might interrupt power while the file system is updated, resulting in corruption and in most cases truncation of the .SRM file to 0 bytes.
I just loaded v0.1.4pre4 firmware into my SD2SNES sd and it works great! Some minor issues I had with the occasional freeze or game not loading don't seem to be happening anymore. I also tried it out on my home built SNES portable and everything works fantastic on it. Funny, I could not get and actual cart of Top Gear 3000 to play correctly on my portable but it seems to work fine on my SD2SNES. Many thanks and I look forward to the official firmware release.
I downloaded the beta that you put up, Ikari for the new firmware. I tried the music player and it's a great addition. However, I don't know if anyone trying the beta experienced this, but after going through a directory sometimes, especially in the music player, the text will become dark and unreadable. Or sometimes it's mixed. It looks like one of those word signs and the letters burned out. I know it's not final, so that's why I'm bringing this to your attention. As a side note, to anyone with an SD2SNES who wants to play the BS Zelda remix, I found one that saves and works on real hardware. Go to the BS Zelda homepage and get the rom or patch from the MottZilla Project on the sidebar. Works like a charm!
Hi ikari_01 I had a similar issue with saved game with a spare 2GB SD card that I had lying around when I first started using my SD2SNES cartridge (from Krikzz/retrogate shop). My issue was due to the SD card being formatted to FAT/FAT12, and having about 120 odd game roms with LFN in the root directory. the first few games I tried created save files okay using the reset method (eg Super Punchout, Super Mario Bros + World, and also some Satellaview games), but after that I wasn't able to reload my save files of Tales of Phantasia (translated), Final Fantasy 3 or Secret of Mana - the save files weren't even created on the SD card. Anyways - the clue came when I tried renaming Tales of Phantasia using Windows 7 Explorer - it kept failing that it wasn't able to rename the file as the filename already existed (probably due to 8.3 filename overlap).. a quick reformat to FAT32 and I haven't had any issues with saved games since then.
That is why I made it. The existing BS Zelda patches were developed using emulators such as ZSNES which allowed for alot of incorrect behavior that passed on emulators and failed miserably on a real console. I'd noticed this long before the SD2SNES, Super EverDrive, and even before the Super PowerPAK existed. I used a Game Doctor SF III (and later SFVII) to play many games and noticed how BS Zelda had such trouble. So eventually I made my own patch from scratch to get all the desired features but without any bugs causing it not to work on a real console. The patch finally being basically finished happened in the past few months, and mostly finished I guess within the last 6 months to a year. I hope you enjoy it.
Okay, I found a glitch. This happened after playing an SPC file (specifically the Gilgamesh theme from FFV run from folder SPC\Final Fantasy V\) and trying to go back with B. Edit: This seems to happen more or less randomly when the screen refreshes after playing something. Edit #2: Playing another song and pressing B will sometimes fix it.
@JohnnyBlaze, Eyedunno: fixed, I goofed up at the order of SNES initialization where I moved around some stuff last minute. Here's a new menu ROM (put it in the sd2snes folder).
Wow, fast response. I thought I was just being nitpicky. Okay, now I will be nitpicky then. There is a piece of homebrew (originally presented as a SMW hack, and it seems to work in bsnes) that does not work on either the PowerPak or the SD2SNES. A bit of fair warning: it is a Rick Roll, and I think it would be neat to run it on real hardware for a goof. Here is the rom: http://www.4shared.com/archive/StHtFYvr/Xka_Shack.html Here's the deal. On the PowerPak, its behavior is to play the video just fine, but the audio just comes out as static. On the SD2SNES, its behavior is somewhat more complicated. So far, I've had it do one of the following: 1) Video plays fine, but audio is messed up (just like the PowerPak) 2) Video is a garbled mess, and audio is messed up. 3) Video is a garbled mess, but the audio plays perfectly! This third thing is tantalizing, and gives me hope that I may one day be RickRolling people on a 16-bit console. Any idea why these three behaviors seem to be happening at random? BTW, I included two files: The one with the "[!]" is just the regular file that resulted from the patch. The other one is a file I padded out to get it to even run on the PowerPak. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I included both.
Ofcourse it could, as it is running on flash carts and copiers which just simulate cartridges. However I've never tested it on an original Nintendo PCB. It's possible there may be issues with SRAM decoding on some boards. But it certainly could be in a cartridge with the right circuit. But the building of such cartridges is not encouraged and the building of such for profit or even as a paid "service" is very much discouraged.
Also, wouldn't you need the BS-X(either emulated like the SD2SNES or on a real BS-X cart) to play it correctly or can it be played by itself?
No. The BS-X contains various hardware features such as additional RAM but many games, including BS Zelda Remix, do not need any of it and will run like a standard cartridge. Sometimes minor or maybe major patching is needed to get them to work, but most games that can still be played, do not need the BS-X hardware. Games that would need it are ones that had live data downloaded, either data in PSRAM and/or the live streaming audio during the game.
Everything seems to work just perfect right now! I noticed that my 2Gb microSD card was formatted in FAT16. I changed that to FAT32 and everything works great and my old save files keeps on my SD-card when I exit just using the shut down button!
I tried it a few more times again for fun, and I finally got possibility #4! Yeah, everything ran perfectly! Now if only I could have it run perfectly EVERY time.
@Eyedunno: I always seem to get 2). Either way the ROM will have to be fixed to work on real hardware, it was not coded with the SNES's restrictions in mind.
Hrm, okay. Yeah, the author apparently never tested it on real hardware, but the fact that parts of it work for me sometimes, and the whole thing apparently works on rare occasions made me think it might be a timing issue.
