the unreleased code veronica x for dc

as i promised the new 1st bin is the japanese x version or second version if you like with translated vmu saves in english. i just beat the hole game just to be sure everything is ok. so any new modifications in the japan bin must be done in this new bin. the old 2nd version bin can be deleted

 

Great

 

i found a way to patch the game but requires a lot of patience and a lot of testing maybe its a theory but worth a shot. lets compare the usa bin with the japan 1st version bin. both vesions are the same. maybe we can find the strings that will fix the spacing issue or the files. also from what i saw from the past the japan 1st vesrion bin is bigger than european and usa one. because the japanese version both 1st-2nd version the characters in the documends are inside the 1stbin. as i said in the past thats explains why the sysmes.ald in usa and europe is 83mb and the japanese one is 17mb. the usa european versions take the characters for the files from sysmes.ald. to get you out of trouble to find the bin heres the japanese 1st version bin

 

If the euro and usa version take the caracters in the sysmes.ald, the size of characters stay the same in the 1st_read.bin or was removed...
In grandia 2 the system is like this :

in the XLS_DATA.AFS at line 45000 with hex edit you have :

The first number is the space between the left and the letter and the second is the large of the letter. In the font file we have :

If we select the ! :

We have two empty pixel before the beginning of the letter from the left and 2 pixels of large.

I found it because the succession 00 18 for a lot of huge caracters in the font or else I problably still continue to search it...
I try to find a font with the software of yzb without result in RE 1st_read.bin... And probably because the letters are in PVR format and not in grandia 2...

So for me two possibilities, you have exactly the same "area" in each (usa and japanese) 1st_read.bin instead the little differences you can see all inside the file. Or it's the only "area" you can find in the 1st_read.bin usa, you don't have in the japanese one because removed for read in the sysmes.ald in the usa 1st_read.bin.
Of course the "areas" (don't know how I can call them exactly) you'll find in the japanese 1ST_read and not in the usa one, are the adds for the complete version.
Remember the french letters have a strange issue with the usa 1st_read.bin the é,à, ç etc... there are above the letter before. Maybe it's a clue ?


Which way capcom has chosen in his lazy habit for changing japanese to english letters display ?

 

looks like you use a tool outside hexedit to fix issues with charcters in gradia 2. that was i said a page before. maybe we need more advance tool-s and not only hex editor for the patch. also if the sting that points in the sysmes.ald its disable in the japan bin, which it is. but the string is there even if disabled it can be patched. if its removed completly and in its place is a string for a complete different task we screwed. or a different approach is needed.

 

now that i remember back in the days i start this project i put the usa bin inside a data folder with the japanese files. after i found that the rdx files need to changed from RM_0000.RDX to R0_0000.RDX for the usa bin. i booted the game and what i found was the japanese characters are very near with each other, or the were in top of the other like what happend in the non english versions with the usa bin, that meens that there is a string in all the bins usa,all pal, and the jap one that calculate the spacing at least the spacing issue im sure it can be fixed with 1st bin hacking. the files in the other hand seems more difficult

 

What a good new ! Well done.
Still continue to search in the 1ST_READ.BINs
Maybe it's more simple to search between PAL and US version but with the no vga in the PAL versions, I' m afraid to confound the vga missing or patching and the spacement between letters...
For now I'm prefering to search between US and JAP and when it will be locate, add the others spacements from european releases.

 

call it crazy but the usa bin which is 1st version with the jap 2nd version bin look more identical than comparing the usa bin with the jap 1st version, lol. they are supposed to be identical because are both first editions

 

I see ^^
Maybe a Pal release compare with the french and english or spanish original version without vga patch will be less difficult.
lazy capcom had to change the less things as possible for europe. They had even remove the vga...

 

i haven'd made any progress with the 1st bin's. but i have fix one small issue. and make some small additions. have you tried to load the game with the japan 2nd version bin? if yes im sure you had seen a game manual without a font well no more here the fix the new item.afs
http://frd.li/b89f6b290004c23a1fd356f37a3d85e9

 

I have no tried yet, just see your screen capture.
Thanks for the patch.
I have download the english pal, french pal and spanish pal version original release. I'll have a closer look this week end.
Hope I'll find something.

 

this afs file is for use in the first disk. the second disk is ok

 

I found this :



but a search of 1E 88 22 or 22 88 1E gives nothing...

 

i can find the same values in all bins, but are a little upside down. also before some pages i mention that the game can be hacked and with a little gameplay you can reach the end of the game and all the x videos will be played too now im thinking @Esppiral. he create his widescreen paches by using a debbuger and by changing values in the memory addresses he creates codebreaker widescreen codes and hex values that replace the original ones in the 1st bin. so if 2 discs are made 1 disk with usa 1st bin and one with japan bin is made the debugger will show the diference between the 2 same scenes in the memory addresses and a codebreaker code or ahex value can be made. but heres a catch because we call some events earlier that suppose to happen some sound maybe heard strange for example footsteps so the target value is the one that correct the effects and not the sound ones that have messed up. if that theory turns to be correct the gdi with usa bin can have the miising effects either with find replace value with hex edit or a cheat code. the problem here is i never use any debugger so @Esppiral or @megavolt85 can help a little. any news @fafadou from your end

 

I had sent some bottles in the sea, to dreamcast developpers and @Esppiral but no answers for now...

But still conitnue to find by myself.

 

I have found something new but not that we are looking for :
There is a pvr picture a little different between US, FRENCH and ENGLISH version and very different than the japanese complete version :


It's at 0x12F190 for the US and 0x131050 for the japanese complete version.
I'll try to replace the little differences between US and French in your french release of RECVX but I have still the same letters problem for french letters displaying. and finally I replace the US pvr by the japanese one and I notice no differences at the beginning of the game, the config menu and the Claire's status menu...

I am not sure but I remember you had talked about a menu problem maybe it's the issue for it.

I asked for help at an other informatician but I have no answer from him for the moment.

Of course no give up, I want to find the issue

 

looks like its not the value for the texts. no i dont remember saying anything about problems in menu. exept you mean the main menu when i use the us adv.afs with the japanese 1st bin the letters that said capcom are a little disorderded and yes the main menu is in pvr format

 

Ok, thanks to refresh my memories.

almost all the differences between 1ST_READ.FR are with pointers finising by the same things (8C). I check a lot of them and they point toward the same "area" in the file. So in my opinion your issue doesn't finish by 8C :


And here the vms icon data (probably in the bios vmu manager) if you want to change it :

 

Still follow the investigation for finding is damn space size.

I keep the hypothesis the hex XX XX XX 8C are pointers and can't be modified (I try to change some and the game crash directly almost each time).
They locate in each version almost every time at the same location in the 1ST_READ.BIN
But some times there are locate beyond this 1st_read.bin not a lot but it's really strange...

I have compare the 1ST_READ.BIN french and english from their original release. The english one has the same issue with accent as the US 1S_READ.BIN but those 2 files are very close. I notice some little differences and I try to import in each other without have nothing change at the first screen :

I can share a list of differences I'll do it in a edit.
Nothing happen but I don't know how replace when a area is huger than the other... May I have to add some 00 00 or some FF FF or some 00 09 (nop in assembler coding) ?

After all that replacement, no change excepting some crashes ^^ I'm starting to search about the SHift JIS table like I share the beginning for grandia 2 above. In hex code I found nothing and in "letter mode" I found no complete list of letters or numbers except recently I have find this :

I can count around 6 alphabets in shift-jis code list order. This whole area is the same for all the 1ST_READ.BIN version so for me there is a "region size" pointer which locate a letter list different for each version (jap, english, us, spanish, french, german).

Maybe there is a other letter list in the file somewhere else. I try to change some thing and finally remplace all this area in the japanese 1ST_READ.BIN complete by hex AA but nothing change at the beginning at least :-( but I didn't try for now the game maybe the result will be different (in grandia 2 you have many different shift jis list using in dialog and menu) but at the beginning always this for the complete version :

I can notice the letters are more nice in this version than other. Hope we can keep them.

Anyway could you give some idea for following the investigation of space issue ?

I have a look in sysmes.ald, all the text is not in this file do you know where I can find the rest ? Maybe there is something interesting in those files. I wish to compare the sysmes.ald either particulary at the begining there is maybe something to change here too.

 

as far as i can remember the usa and the pal english 1st bin are the same thing at most, they are using the same language after all. i see you make a pack in the francaise version using the japan bin. mmm big spaces but the texts are more clear but like in the english one some characters get out of the screen. system.afs have language characters too but unlike sysmes.ald all characters are in hex format. we cant read anything clearly like we can in sysmes.ald. also sysmes.ald and system.afs are always different between versions. i had saw in another fan made translations from japan to english the project zero 4 game and i found is real pain to do so but its done another thing i see is even that fan made translation have spacing issues more or less like ours. at least i would like to know where are the characters for the files documents, we know that for the japan version those characters are inside 1stbin instead of sysmes.ald that all the other versions use. i bet in the japan version are in hex format too inside the 1st bin.if we can locate the place i can start translation using text to hex conversion (i hope). about the extra strings you try to zero out try the 20 instead of 00. but i will state it again there is no project as this one that is done by 2 people we need help from people with experience in translations-codding