SFC graphical issues(video included)

Hi, I'm having trouble with my SFC. When I pause in Super Metroid one of the background layers gets corrupted. The door animation is also mildly corrupted.



Games I can test with:

1. SFC Super Metroid
2. SNES Gradius 3
3. SNES Mario Paint
4. SNES Zelda: A Link to the Past
5. Anything a Super Everdrive with DSP can run

Note: I got it for 11.99 with 16.99 USD shipping. The retailer has offered me a partial refund but I have no idea what would be fair to ask if any. Any advice here as well would be appreciated.

 

Hello! I've stepped through your video and recorded some of my own to capture the animations for comparison - you've got a sharp eye! Here are some stills of the artifacting vs emulated (sorry no recorder hardware on hand).

You'd probably be right in that it is either a PPU or a trace leading to one of the PPUs. Any chance you could open it and have a peek, see if there's any obvious damage - corrosion, goo or gunk?

 

My large gamebit is still on order. Got it from ali instead of ebay to see if they are any faster. (contemplating getting a repro from them. ) For some reason the Zenzoo 4 doesn't have gamebit anymore and my Zenzoo 2 and 3 both vanished.

 

Hopefully it's better built than my one, hello shards of metal coming off the end of the bit! Also what on earth is a Zenzoo? Endangered species?

 

I've seen similar corruption on the backgrounds when running the game via a flash card. Usually at the beginning when the station is about to blow up. Entering the room when it starts tipping left and right, that's when it goes corrupt. Doesn't always happen though. Probably unrelated to your issue, but thought i'd mention it regardless.

 

Interesting! Was that on the SD2SNES?

 

Yes! But it happened on that other one as well. The chinese one, that I cant remember the name of to save my life.

 

Hey Stephini, didn't expect to see you here Let me know when those parts turn up for your bot

 

It's the guy from the GitHub! :O *waves*

 

I've got a snes that has some corruption like this too. The snes test cart roms helped me compare to a working one - to confirm there were graphics issues rather than trying to spot it in a game.

 

Zenzoo is a handy box of gaming related bits. Though with generation 4 they seem to be shifting towards cellphone maintenance gear too.

Will do. It's actually Shane that directed me here when I asked on a repair video he had for any tips.

Does anyone make a fairly inexpensive test cart repro by chance?

 

You just need madden 94 or any cheap lorom game. Then a programmed eprom.

I can sell you the programmed chips if you can source a cart and handle the soldering.

I suggest getting the test cart and the burn in cart

 

Do you happen to have a list of lorom games?

Edit: Found a list that is supposed to list lorom but I don't see an entry for it. Is it basically if it lacks hirom it has lorom?

 

Here's a big list I found a while back. Reported as 4mbit on that spreadsheet, although I downloaded a "test program" and it looked to be 8mbit? No SRAM, ROM only, SlowROM and LoROM! I should give this a spin sometime!

Spot on, anything that lacks HiROM is LoROM.

 

There are 2 test roms. One is 4mb, other is 8

 

Ok so looking at the list it looks like the super common Mario Paint (My local pawn shop has like 10 copies I think.) would do the trick unless having an SRAM chip is bad.

Mario Paint has SRAM, ROM + SRAM, SlowROM, and LoROM. So I'm guessing if SRAM doesn't cause any complications this could be a valid solution?

 

If there's SRAM there and the game doesn't require it, I'm pretty sure it will just ignore it - someone else can double check my maths on that though.

 

Ok I've got both roms. I googled around for an EPROM burner but I could only find EEPROM burners. Would that work or are they somehow fundamentally different? Also is there any reason not to install a zif socket on the cart so I can use one for both and if I want any temporary repros in the future to play homebrew and translations?

 

EPROM and EEPROM programmers should be the same, depends if you want to get into that game or if you'd be better off with a flash cart like the old SD2SNES or the Super EverDrive. @Bad_Ad84 is the man with the answers for this one though!
I always go ZIF when modding, just means you need to use the cart bare or with a big hole in the back.

 

I wasn't really asking about getting an SD2SNES. I was asking if a ZIF would be bad and gave my reasoning that if I have one I could burn my own games that are compatible. Would you really need to go bare? Couldn't you just dremel out a slot in the cart?

Also would there be a difference if I get an EEPROM programmer between using EPROM chips and EEPROM chips? Or would both do the trick?