ToToTEK.COM

[ychh0]

Hi everyone.

I ordered SF7, Blue dsp and two 64MB expansion rams a couple of days ago and I receieved it today.

But there are some problems.

1. I received SF7 and blue dsp but with only one 64MB ram. Probably Tototek missed one! I checked system information of SF7 after I put the extra ram into SF7, it shows that it equips only 96MB ram. If Tototek properly sent what I ordered, it equipped 128MB ram and one 32MB ram unplugged should remain.

2. I tested SF7 until now but it do not operate properly. Always it shows disk error message whenever I try to load game. Of course I tested several disks including the disk that originally come with SF7 but it failed to load all of them just showing disk error message.

My thinking is that SF7 has some erros for diskdrive or something and Tototek did not send one 64MB ram among those what I ordered.

Of course I sent email to Tototek about 12 hours ago but I didn't receive any mails or messages from them. So I write this topic now. What should I do? Now I live in Korea and it costs more than 15$ from here to Hongkong to send this for repair........Have you ever exprienced these phenomena? If so, how did you figured it out?

I'm so embarrased and disappointed because this is the first time that I ordered from foreign country.

Please tell me what should I do. If there are some errors for my test or something, please let me know about it. I will do test of it.

Ah...I tested SF7 with 9V, 1.5A adaptor in English mode. The images are originally in the form of SMC. Also I converted it to FIG image and tested it also. In all cases, SF7 could not load the images.

[acem77]

they are bad about emails. try to get them using icq.
did you go to cherryroms.com this is a site with a nice forum about
backup devices.
the roms need to be in a gd3 format. down load ucon64 to convert them.
i use ucon64 to send to the sf7 with the parallel port. makes things much easier.

type
ucon64m -gd3 romname (to convert)
ucon64m -xgd6 newromname (to send)
you have to hold the right shift button on the snes pad and turn on the sf7 to let it send using the parallel port.

[Mozzie]

Be sure to use the correct file names for your roms, or else your GD7 won't accept them.
A typical GD7 rom is named SFXXXXX. Splitted roms are named SFXXXXXA, SFXXXXXB...etc

Check this online manual for the GD7(PROFESSOR SF II):
http://www.emucamp.com/red/SNES/psfiiman.htm

[rippin snare]

hi there and welcome to the board.

Do you worry yourself my friend. There is nothing wrong with your SF7. I just got mine last week and it is operating the same as yours, but that is nothing to worry about it.

To start, when you load up the system it automatically searches the disk drive to load an image. This will not change unless it detects a parallel port connection to a computer at which point it will read "linking".

To get rid of that annoying disk error message simply press select on the snes controller to clear it. By holding down the R button on the controller upon start up of the unit you can access all the menus.

Now.. as for file formats that do work. you cannot unfortunately simply put a .smc file on the disc and have it load. It has to be in a VERY specific format to work. You will need ucon64 as the previous posts stated. The file name must be as so.

let us say you were loading contra and the image was 16M. After converting to GD3 (game doctor 3) using Ucon64 it would read

SF16CON

SF being the unit, 16 being the file size in M and CON being the first three letters of the game. That should all work fine. It will take some getting use to but trust me its good and worth it in the end.

As for the missing RAM that must be simply a mistake. I can vouche as well as many other people that Tomy and tototek are very reliable and trustworthy. His msn and icq are on the homepage contact him that way. I was charged for something on my credit card for something he didnt send and he refunded my money back in full the next day. Just keep on him.

I hope it all works out for you in the end and myself and I'm sure mozzie are here to help you. He has helped me wonderously as well over the past week.

all the best

[ychh0]

Hi there.

Thanks for all of your replies.
Now I am in the office so I will test it at night.
Anyway, what I mean is that my SF7 cannot load games from the floppy disks. Of course I didn't try converted roms so I will do it later but my guess is that the rom disk that TOTOTEK sent to me in the package should work fine because they must send proper image, but it did not.
What I have done is as follows.

- plugged 64M expansion ram to SF7
- plugged DSP connector to SF7
- inserted SF7 to Super famicom
- connected 9V 1.5A adaptor to SF7
- inserted rom disk (File name is SFFF4A, 8M images in the type of SMC and FIG. Also I tried the disk which TOTOTEK sent)
- Turn on Super famicom pressing R button of pad
- Select "loading disk" (I cannot remember the label exactly)
- Try to load disk (Yes. SF7 showed that it found SFFF4A but after reading by pressing X or Y, it did show error message (Disk error)

I tought that it must work it alone although it is not connected to parallel port. Is SF7 not able to work alone by loading from disk? Should it be connected to PC even when loading from 3.5' disks?

I guess there is one error among what I have done, the type of disk image. Please tell me what is wrong with my SF7 or my procedures.

[rippin snare]

hi there again.

I am unsure of the disk they sent you. I just got my SF7 from tototek last week and I was never given such a disk so I can't comment on that. However with your description of .fig and .smc those will not work. you must convert those first. Yes you should be able to load off the floppy alone (just a lot slower and more inconvenient) though the GD7 is VERY picky on its format. Put your mind to rest though that there is nothing wrong with your unit. Every thing you are saying sounds right on par and just needs some work to be done to get it to work.

I too only have 96 of ram in mine for now.

[vcdfan]

[rippin snare]

one thing I am really hating about this unit is the problems it seems to have with save games. I have 3 full games loaded into memory (96M) all of them RPG. Am I able to have a save game for each of these games saved into memory at the same time so that I could play all 3 games continuously from the GD7?

Another thing I am noticing is the fact that the reset button just resets the game and doesnt bring you back to the menu. Reading the manual for the SFII it states that if loading from cartridge there is an option called "try mode" in which you can have the menu reload upon reset instead of the game. Why was this not included when loading a file from the unit itself?!

I am a little concerned about this because to play it safe I want to backup my save game to a disk cause it seems whenever I shut the unit off and back on later the save games are gone! What a pain in the ass yet I can't save them to disk unless I shut the power off cause the reset just brings me back to the opening of the current game being played.

=/

anyone else have problems where once in a while when loading a game you just get a black screen until you reset it? It then loads second time around?

[Mozzie]

Guess who?

About saving BRAM or BBRAM (Battery Backup RAM).
Every new game you play which uses BRAM, will erase the BRAM of the GD7 unit. So, you won't be able to keep the save games of multiple games in the memory of the GD7 at the same time.
Further more, cutting the power to the GD7 (not the SNES) will erase SRAM and BRAM of the GD7. So, turning your SNES of doesn't matter.
The safest way is to save the BRAM on a floppy (or hard disk, using ucon64 or TSF3) every time you finished playing a game.
To backup the BRAM, turn the SNES off. Turn it back on again, while pressing the R-button on controller one. This will bring up the GD7 menu (or the Professor SFII menu, if you did the jumper mod ). Press "select", select "Play disk", select "Write BRAM". That's it!

Cheers!

[vcdfan]

[ychh0]

Hi there.

It's bad day today.
I tried for hours with this SF7 but I could not load games.
Just as you told me, I downloaded ucon64 and I used it as follows

- Coverting : ucon64 -gd3 filename

Ucon64 automatically created new files named sfxxx.
First, I copied it to 3.5" disk and loaded but SF7 showed "disk error !"
Secondly, I tried parallel port to send game image to SF7 as follows

- Sending : ucon64 -xgd3 filename

Of course I turned on pressing Right SHIFT and SF7 showed "LINKING". In this state, I sent image through parallel port using above command.
After loading completed.....it did not show any difference! It just showed "LINKING" message and in all menus, I could not play the game.

What is problem of SF7 or my procedure?
I am so disappointed now..

[Mozzie]

What's the game your using? What's the size of the ROM? And what's the exact name of the file that is generated by Ucon64?

Make sure the file is no more that seven letters/numbers. Eight digits is only used if the ROM is split.

[ychh0]

The file name is sf8dtw, sf8pp_, sf9ff4_
They are created automatically by UCON64 and the exact file sizes are 1025KB, 1025KB, 1033KB respectively. The game name is Super Darius, Poppn' Twinbee and Final Fantasy4 respectively.

I guess there may be problems in Adaptor or the Cable. Is it possible that SF7 works properly except for disk loading if there are any problems in the adaptor? And how about the cable? Is possible that it shows "LINKING" even if the cable is not proper for SF7?

[Mozzie]

The sizes of the first two games look okay, about the third I am not sure.
What kind of power supply are you using? Volt and Ampere please.
About the parallel cable. You'll need a straight through cable. This means pin 1 on one end is connected to pin 1 on the other end. The same thing for the rest of the pins. Ordinary printer cables won't do the trick.

1) Have you tried to format a floppy with the GD7 unit. Just to make sure the floppy drive works okay.
2) Another test: take an original game cartrigde, put it in your GD7. Choose "Back Up Card", this loads the ROM into the memory of the GD7.
Next choose "Write Game", this writes the game to the floppy.
Turn the SNES off, remove the cartidge. But don't cut the power to the GD7. Turn the SNES back on. The game should still be in the memory of the GD7. Run the game. Does this work?
3) If this works try this: Turn the SNES off and cut the power to the GD7 as well, wait a few minutes. Turn both back on. The memory of the GD7 should be empty. Now load the ROM you just backed up from floppy. Does this work?

Good luck!

[rippin snare]

thanks mozzie for the response about backing up BRAM. I figured this out last night myself. Only problem is with some games regardless of leaving power on to the GD7 and only shutting off the snes upon re-power of the system my save game is gone, before I even get a chance to backup the BRAM from the GD7 menu. I really hate that.

Reading the manual like I stated earlier if you play a game from a cartridge there is a 'try mode' along with normal mode and super mode which upon presssing reset of the snes will bring you back to the GD7 menu.. not the current game being played. This would be awesome if it was implimented into ROM image mode too while playing game. I have no clue why they didn't incorporate this. All they would have had to do was duplicate the code for that option into rom mode as well as cartridge mode to select whether you want to reload the game or the menu on hitting the snes reset button.

Say mozzie.. what is the command string to get BRAM transfers from the GD7 into my comp? I want to try this out. In the meantime I formated a floppy to 1660k and have been saving my games to this as soon as im done playing so if i start a new game and it erases the current one in memory I can just load it back from disk at another time when I want to play.

One last thing... I heard a rumour someplace that some games need a file called SAVEFIX.IPS... what exactly is this? How do I know what games need this applied to them to make them save properly in the GD7 and would it hurt to just apply them to all my saved style games to ensure I won't lose them?

Thanks.