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Corrupted graphics in Terranigma
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Sat Aug 27, 2022 11:19 pm    Post subject: Corrupted graphics in Terranigma Reply with quote

Hi,

I have a Double Pro Fighter and I’m trying to play Terranigma.

The game boots and attract mode runs just fine. However, after the game and dialogs start, the dialog font and the graphics start to get corrupted.

I tried many good dumps of the rom. Japanese and European version.

Is this a known issue? Can somebody confirm that Terranigma works on a Double Pro Fighter?

Thanks
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Sun Aug 28, 2022 12:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The game should work. There isn't anything unique to it. You should try playing another 32 megabit HiROM game, incase you have a memory related problem. There are a number of other 32 megabit games you could try. Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3, Super Street Figher 2, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country.

Let us know if those other games work without issues.
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Sun Aug 28, 2022 4:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MottZilla wrote:
The game should work. There isn't anything unique to it. You should try playing another 32 megabit HiROM game, incase you have a memory related problem. There are a number of other 32 megabit games you could try. Chrono Trigger, Seiken Densetsu 3, Super Street Figher 2, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country.

Let us know if those other games work without issues.


Thank you for your answer MottZilla.

I tried several games:

- Donkey Kong Country 2 (freezes after playing a bit)
- Killer Instinct (corrupted graphics after first stage)
- Chrono Trigger (works perfect)
- Seiken Densetsu 3 (works perfect)

Also checked the memory board with a multimeter and the soldering looks fine.

I noticed the capacitors are leaking and generally they are not in the best shape. Could this be the issue?

I replaced the floppy drive with a Gotek floppy emulator a couple of days ago, but that can’t be the problem.

Regards
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Mon Aug 29, 2022 1:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Absolutely bad capacitors could be causing the problem. If you're comfortable doing the work yourself you should get that taken care of.

Once the capacitors are replaced you should retest. Chrono Trigger and Seiken Densetsu 3 while you say they work perfect they really might not. It may just be that you haven't reached a part of the game that fails.

You could still have either a bad DRAM chip or a bad connection between the main board and the memory. You could look for any cold solder joints or damage like cracks.

The hardest thing will be if you have a bad DRAM chip since there won't be any obvious sign you can see. You could potentially make some test ROMs to check the memory for errors. It would help you identify what area of the emulated ROM space is bad, though you'd have to figure out on your own how the DRAM chips map to that if you wanted to use it to figure out which DRAM chip is bad, if that is what is wrong.

I agree the floppy emulator doesn't seem like a likely cause of the problem. But if you still have the floppy drive and the problem only existed after you changed it you could try swapping back. It's an easy troubleshooting step.
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Tue Aug 30, 2022 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MottZilla wrote:
Absolutely bad capacitors could be causing the problem. If you're comfortable doing the work yourself you should get that taken care of.

Once the capacitors are replaced you should retest. Chrono Trigger and Seiken Densetsu 3 while you say they work perfect they really might not. It may just be that you haven't reached a part of the game that fails.

You could still have either a bad DRAM chip or a bad connection between the main board and the memory. You could look for any cold solder joints or damage like cracks.

The hardest thing will be if you have a bad DRAM chip since there won't be any obvious sign you can see. You could potentially make some test ROMs to check the memory for errors. It would help you identify what area of the emulated ROM space is bad, though you'd have to figure out on your own how the DRAM chips map to that if you wanted to use it to figure out which DRAM chip is bad, if that is what is wrong.

I agree the floppy emulator doesn't seem like a likely cause of the problem. But if you still have the floppy drive and the problem only existed after you changed it you could try swapping back. It's an easy troubleshooting step.

Something I noticed during troubleshooting:
My DPF is PAL. In order to make it work with a Super Famicom, I have to put a Japanese cart on top. I tried with another cart and the games still crash/glitch on the long run, but they work better.

Also, I redid the soldering on the two RAM chips I installed myself to expand from 24 to 32 Mb. Again, the games work better, but still crash/glitch.

Before replacing the 2 RAM chips (good I have 2 spare ones!) I will recap the copier. Hopefully I’ll do it by the end of the week.

Will post my results here. Any ideas new ideas are welcome!

Thanks again
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 12:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ackman wrote:
MottZilla wrote:
Absolutely bad capacitors could be causing the problem. If you're comfortable doing the work yourself you should get that taken care of.

Once the capacitors are replaced you should retest. Chrono Trigger and Seiken Densetsu 3 while you say they work perfect they really might not. It may just be that you haven't reached a part of the game that fails.

You could still have either a bad DRAM chip or a bad connection between the main board and the memory. You could look for any cold solder joints or damage like cracks.

The hardest thing will be if you have a bad DRAM chip since there won't be any obvious sign you can see. You could potentially make some test ROMs to check the memory for errors. It would help you identify what area of the emulated ROM space is bad, though you'd have to figure out on your own how the DRAM chips map to that if you wanted to use it to figure out which DRAM chip is bad, if that is what is wrong.

I agree the floppy emulator doesn't seem like a likely cause of the problem. But if you still have the floppy drive and the problem only existed after you changed it you could try swapping back. It's an easy troubleshooting step.

Something I noticed during troubleshooting:
My DPF is PAL. In order to make it work with a Super Famicom, I have to put a Japanese cart on top. I tried with another cart and the games still crash/glitch on the long run, but they work better.

Also, I redid the soldering on the two RAM chips I installed myself to expand from 24 to 32 Mb. Again, the games work better, but still crash/glitch.

Before replacing the 2 RAM chips (good I have 2 spare ones!) I will recap the copier. Hopefully I’ll do it by the end of the week.

Will post my results here. Any ideas new ideas are welcome!

Thanks again


Ok, so here goes nothing:

I recapped the copier. That didn’t help. Then I tried to replace the two RAM chips I added myself a while ago. I did a big mess and the pads are destroyed Evil or Very Mad

Anybody knows how to fix this?

https://postimg.cc/gallery/QD951kv
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Mon Sep 05, 2022 11:29 pm    Post subject: Back to square #1 Reply with quote

Hi back,

After the mess I made, the board was back to 24 Mb (as it came from the factory). I tried to play some 24 Mb Mega Drive games that used to work not too long ago and they glitch/freeze/reboot after a while (even Street Fighter 2 gives me an “Address error” screen of death). 24 Mb Super Famicom games SEEM to work fine. Could the factory RAM chips be faulty? :/

The only weird thing I noticed about the RAM board is that is a bit bowed on the side of the pins that connect to the mainboard. I tested with a multimeter and I got continuity from RAM board to Motherboard on all the pins. I can take a picture if you want to see..

Nevertheless, I managed to install two brand new memory chips and I got continuity on all the legs (I tested the whole circuit). So now I’m back to square number one: 32 Mb copier with memory errors after recapping.

The issue can’t be the new memory chips (and probably never was), as I could reproduce the issue in “factory mode” with just 24 Mb.

I tried the RAM checker tool for Super Wild Card and the test passes ok.

Does anybody have a proper Super Famicom or Mega Drive RAM test program compatible with the Double Pro Fighter that can help me finding the issue? I don’t know what else I can do…

Thanks
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2022 3:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bending on boards with surface mounted components is not good. Just because you have continuity when tested doesn't mean the connection is very good. You could have bad signal integrity.

So you installed 2 more chips on the pcb with the broken traces/pads? Did you use wires for those pins? If so did you use the shortest amount of wire you could for each one. Too long could cause problems.

You could post pictures of what it looks like right now.

One important thing to know is that the SNES uses an 8-bit bus and the Genesis uses a 16-bit bus. So the way the DRAM is arranged is different. And again games aren't necessarily the best test for your DRAM being ok. And for test ROMs you would need multiple ones. Just because the RAM tests good in one state doesn't mean that another state will too. And since you can only load ROMs to test the RAM it sure slows things down.

I wish you'd mentioned in your first post that you did your own 24mbit to 32mbit modification. You can get yourself in a lot of trouble soldering things if you aren't really good at it.

Definitely take some close up and clear pictures of both sides of the RAM board.
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2022 6:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MottZilla wrote:
Bending on boards with surface mounted components is not good. Just because you have continuity when tested doesn't mean the connection is very good. You could have bad signal integrity.

So you installed 2 more chips on the pcb with the broken traces/pads? Did you use wires for those pins? If so did you use the shortest amount of wire you could for each one. Too long could cause problems.

You could post pictures of what it looks like right now.

One important thing to know is that the SNES uses an 8-bit bus and the Genesis uses a 16-bit bus. So the way the DRAM is arranged is different. And again games aren't necessarily the best test for your DRAM being ok. And for test ROMs you would need multiple ones. Just because the RAM tests good in one state doesn't mean that another state will too. And since you can only load ROMs to test the RAM it sure slows things down.

I wish you'd mentioned in your first post that you did your own 24mbit to 32mbit modification. You can get yourself in a lot of trouble soldering things if you aren't really good at it.

Definitely take some close up and clear pictures of both sides of the RAM board.


Yes, I used the shortest amount of wire I could.
I’m missing a picture of the bowing. Pictures of the board can be found here: https://postimg.cc/gallery/mtRBTs9

I’ll post more pictures tonight.

In my 4th post I mentioned that I did the modification myself. After that first modification (the one I removed) I played and beated Chrono Trigger without issues.

The issue might be the bowed memory board or its capacitor (that’s the only capacitor I didn’t replace, I’ll do it tonight). Also could be the original memory that came from the factory, since the copier failed with just 24 Mb installed.

Do you have some test ROMs you can share?
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2022 8:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Chrono Trigger is working, but is Terranigma?

What do you mean it failed with 24 Mb installed?

I just want to be clear, before you did anything it had 24Mb and games like Street Fighter 2 Dash for Genesis worked fine? But after doing your mod to get to 32Mb it stopped working and that is also when you tried Terranigma and had problems?

I don't have any test ROMs handy but it wouldn't be that hard to write a simple Genesis ROM that would just read through ROM for different expected patterns. Some Genesis games actually do a checksum and basically already do this sort of integrity check. But that wouldn't help for identifying where the problem is.

Each of those chips is a 4 megabit DRAM, or 512K x 8. So if one of them is defective when dealing with the Genesis memory map it would actually be an area of 1024K that would have every other byte potentially bad.

I noticed your RAM board doesn't label each chip spot but I've seen others that do. The top left chip would be U1, then U2 is below that, U3, U4, then U5 starts one over to the right of the first chip in the top left. So something like this.

U1 U5
U2 U6
U3 U7
U4 U8

Anyway, in the Genesis mode I suspect U1 and U5 are used together with one being the Even and the other being the Odd bytes for the first 1 Megabyte of ROM, U2 and U6 being the next megabyte, u3 and u7 the third megabyte, and u4 and u8 being the fourth.

So in theory if from running test ROMs you found that a particular area of ROM was not reading correctly you could maybe replace those DRAM chips.

Have you tested 16 megabit games and had no issues? Sorry if some of this was all over the place, it's late here.
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MottZilla wrote:
Chrono Trigger is working, but is Terranigma?

What do you mean it failed with 24 Mb installed?

I just want to be clear, before you did anything it had 24Mb and games like Street Fighter 2 Dash for Genesis worked fine? But after doing your mod to get to 32Mb it stopped working and that is also when you tried Terranigma and had problems?

I don't have any test ROMs handy but it wouldn't be that hard to write a simple Genesis ROM that would just read through ROM for different expected patterns. Some Genesis games actually do a checksum and basically already do this sort of integrity check. But that wouldn't help for identifying where the problem is.

Each of those chips is a 4 megabit DRAM, or 512K x 8. So if one of them is defective when dealing with the Genesis memory map it would actually be an area of 1024K that would have every other byte potentially bad.

I noticed your RAM board doesn't label each chip spot but I've seen others that do. The top left chip would be U1, then U2 is below that, U3, U4, then U5 starts one over to the right of the first chip in the top left. So something like this.

U1 U5
U2 U6
U3 U7
U4 U8

Anyway, in the Genesis mode I suspect U1 and U5 are used together with one being the Even and the other being the Odd bytes for the first 1 Megabyte of ROM, U2 and U6 being the next megabyte, u3 and u7 the third megabyte, and u4 and u8 being the fourth.

So in theory if from running test ROMs you found that a particular area of ROM was not reading correctly you could maybe replace those DRAM chips.

Have you tested 16 megabit games and had no issues? Sorry if some of this was all over the place, it's late here.


Thanks for your help!

Terranigma doesn’t work today (never tried before). But many 32 Mbit Super Famicom games are failing today.. I played Chrono Trigger 100% one year ago.

24 Mbit like Street Fighter 2 Dash always worked with Mega Drive (before and after the first time I expanded to 32 Mbit). The expansion just gave me problems with 32 Mbit games (because of the Mega Drive memory usage, according to GamesDoctorHK).

24 Mbit Mega Drive games stopped working after installing the Gotek (I guess I forced/bent the board while struggling with the long floppy data cable).

Just in case the issue was caused by my soldering, I removed the chips I soldered. The issue persists while using the stock 24 Mbits. This makes me think it is the capacitor of the memory board, the board being a bit bent or the stock memory chips became faulty. The two new chips I soldered last night are irrelevant.

8 Mbit Mega Drive games work fine. Will try tonight with 16 Mbit and report back.
24 Mbit Super Famicom works fine (I haven’t spot any issue).

You are right. The problem is to use games to try this..

Thanks again. Will report back tonight
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2022 10:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

All pictures uploaded here https://postimg.cc/gallery/QBFCtBc

I replaced the capacitor on the memory board.

16 Mb roms seem to work with Mega Drive.

Regarding Super Famicom, I got a freeze while trying Saturday Night Slam Masters (24Mbit) Evil or Very Mad

You can see a loose trace between the legs of chip U5. I isolated it as I could with insulation tape and there’s no continuity, but that could be messing with that chip…

Any ideas?

If I wanted to remove and resolder all the “factory” chips, what would be the best method to do it given the fact I just have a soldering iron?

Thanks!
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2022 4:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If the trace is actually loose it could be broken, in which case you'd want to check that the signal path isn't broken somewhere.

I wouldn't recommend removing the chips with your current soldering setup and skills. Don't take this the wrong way, but you have damaged pads and traces while soldering. If you continue to work on the board you may cause more damage as well as maybe damaging working DRAM chips.

You may want to practice soldering on something less important and easier to replace first. And maybe invest in better equipment. If you're using a very basic and cheap soldering iron the temperature may be too high for this kind of work and might be why you burned the board.

Assuming it can be done safely, removing all the chips and inspecting the PCB for all the damage that has been done wouldn't be a bad idea. In theory you should be able to fix any broken connections with some wire either to a point on the board or to the connector.
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ackman



Joined: 01 Mar 2019
Posts: 35

PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2022 6:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

MottZilla wrote:
If the trace is actually loose it could be broken, in which case you'd want to check that the signal path isn't broken somewhere.

I wouldn't recommend removing the chips with your current soldering setup and skills. Don't take this the wrong way, but you have damaged pads and traces while soldering. If you continue to work on the board you may cause more damage as well as maybe damaging working DRAM chips.

You may want to practice soldering on something less important and easier to replace first. And maybe invest in better equipment. If you're using a very basic and cheap soldering iron the temperature may be too high for this kind of work and might be why you burned the board.

Assuming it can be done safely, removing all the chips and inspecting the PCB for all the damage that has been done wouldn't be a bad idea. In theory you should be able to fix any broken connections with some wire either to a point on the board or to the connector.


That loose trace goes to pin 20 U5. The path starts from U4 Pin 6. Lower half of the path trace is bad and that’s why I put the cable. Half way up is fine until it ends in U1.

What do you think about the bowing, pins and the rest of the memory board? In my opinion it’s not too bad.

I agree my soldering skills are very basic, but so far everything I’ve done works fine. I’m asking how to remove the chip safely in order to reuse it. The other option is to buy 6 chips and replace all the factory chips (the mess I did won’t happen again, believe me). The good point about replacing the factory chips is that all the chips would be exactly the same.

The error I got with Super Famicom 24Mbit game might be a bad romdump or a bad connection of the cartridge adapter. I couldn’t reproduce the issue.

It’s a problem with memory, but sometimes I think the problem is not the memory board itself.. I’m thinking on reflowing the cartridge adapters soldering points on the motherboard and also reflow the points where the memory board connects.

Thanks
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MottZilla



Joined: 08 Sep 2004
Posts: 765

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2022 6:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The bowing isn't necessarily a problem. Some boards can be significantly bowed and still work fine. Honestly the board doesn't look that bad from the pictures I've looked at. I would not remove all the chips, particularly the ones that seem to be working fine.

I just noticed that cap looks like the solder isn't very good. The leg that is closer to the memory chips.

After you fix that it wouldn't be a terrible idea to carefully reflow the solder, though I'd look very carefully to see if it looks like it's actually needed anywhere. It's possible that capacitor isn't connected very well on the one leg and maybe that is causing your odd inconsistent problems.

If you were actually going to remove the chips it can be done with lots of flux, desoldering braid, and careful use of the soldering iron. But again I wouldn't recommend it. It might be better to have someone experienced with working on surface mounted parts take a crack at it.

You might be able to do it yourself. Just remember you need temperature control on your soldering iron, be mindful not to overheat things as that is how you damage pcbs. And again use plenty of flux so solder will flow correctly and do what you want it to do. Also there is a difference in desoldering braid/solder wick so get the good quality stuff. Same with flux and tools in general. Get decent quality tools and materials and it'll make a good difference.

A long time ago I made some reproduction cartridges where I was desoldering and soldering in EPROMs in Genesis cartridges. I had very little idea what I was doing. I know I burned and damaged traces on one of the cartridge pcbs and I remember having a heck of a time desoldering. It really isn't that hard though if you get the right tools and watch some instructional videos.

But once again, I recommend practicing on something unimportant/replaceable. The Double Pro Fighter RAM boards aren't very common. I'm not sure if anyone has copied the PCB. It should be pretty simple though so in theory we could have more manufactured. I'm not sure how common the old DRAM chips needed are. Though maybe it is possible to use more modern parts on a new custom RAM board.

Before doing any reflowing on the main pcb I'd clean all the cartridge connectors.

If you feel like it, maybe trace the pinout of the RAM board connector to all the IC signals. I would do this but my Double Pro Fighter is in storage currently. But in theory it shouldn't be that hard to just make a new RAM board. It wouldn't be the cheapest thing but all you need is the right signals going to that 50 pin connector.
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