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Samurai Shodown V Perfect on real hardware?

fandangos said:
So I want to give you guys some feedback on this since I've been looking and examining the possibility of having the new translated and patched version ported to rom format.

So I'll explain what I did here:
1. Dumped the game from RAM. This is easy and can be done using windows native task manager.

2. Once I had the RAM dump I started trying to find samsho5fe_maincpu on RAM.
Found it and it's split. First the game loads the file to RAM and later a patched version.
*and it needs to be swapped to work.

3. Cut
Using hex editor I've taken the p1 rom (samsho5fe that is patched) and cropped just that.

4. The result:
The patched version is almost identical to the p1 rom we have but is has 0xBBBB spread across the ROM.

5. Loaded it into mister and started playing with it so unibios could show me the crash screen.
Obviously the crash spots were the ones with 0xBBBB.
So looking at each spot comparing with our working p1 I started correcting it.

I got it to show the title screen, no PERFECT showing up.
That's a bad sign.

Continued and was able to start a fight scene.
No intro, no story mode.

So that's concludes it.
To me, it seems impossible to have the patched version into a NeoGeo, Mister or an emulator.

@ack
Since you tried the same method that I did here, I really would like to hear from you if my conclusions are correct.
Click to expand...
I saw the 0xbbbb version of the P rom too. The 0xbbbb by itself is non-sense for an 68k opcode and/or being used to load a different tiles from the C rom


trmm said:
Can the 0xBBBB Be anchor points that the patching program looks for to execute certain actions?
Click to expand...
I think this is possible. A number of the 0xbbbb locations happen right after an rts, which would imply the 0xbbbb is at the start of the next function. If you wanted to override/patch that function that would be the perfect location to do so.

When I have some time I will disassemble around some of the 0xbbbb locations to see what the code is doing before the 0xbbbb was added.
 
I don't think there's anything else I can try with the game to patch for the translation, I'll leave this for ACK and wait for the disassemble.

What I can try to do is replace the sprites in the C rom with the .png files available.

What tools can be used for that? Any recommendations?
I've already found one to extract everything but how do you put it all back together?
 
On that French NeoGeo forum mentioned earlier in this thread, they have mostly got the new title screen patched into the Neo Geo ROM. There's lots of interesting talk about the specifics of how this is being done. Worth a read!
 
kuze said:
On that French NeoGeo forum mentioned earlier in this thread, they have mostly got the new title screen patched into the Neo Geo ROM. There's lots of interesting talk about the specifics of how this is being done. Worth a read!
Click to expand...
which one emu france? can't find anything in there.
 
Very interesting read, lucky me that I still remember my French classes.

So, they are working on it already and the problem is that PERFECT can't fit into SPECIAL space and the letter T stays a line below.
Hopefully we can rebuild that but if you play the game using the official emulator you can see that the colors of the background in the title screen are the same as the one in samsho5sp and the version we have is lighter, the same as from the test cartridges used in the past.
So which one should we use?

I still think we can find the patch and apply it, if this is even possible but.. we might end up with a p1 larger than 8mb.
 
I didn't see anything obvious in the disassembly. I did find some more stuff in my ram dump.

Code: 
    A       |     B      |           C             |    D      |      E     |          F               |           G
12 12 01 00  00 00 00 00  30 BF 78 EA  F6 7F 00 00  00 00 00 00  3B 7C 00 00  52 A2 FE 1E  D8 02 00 00  00 BE 90 0F  D8 02 00 00
1C 0B 01 00  00 50 FF FF  10 CC 78 EA  F6 7F 00 00  01 00 00 00  3B 40 00 00  5C 9B FE 1E  D8 02 00 00  00 BE 90 0F  D8 02 00 00
24 06 01 00  D8 02 00 00  60 AE 78 EA  F6 7F 00 00  00 00 00 00  66 24 00 00  64 96 FE 1E  D8 02 00 00  00 BE 90 0F  D8 02 00 00
28 80 03 00  00 00 00 00  40 CD 78 EA  F6 7F 00 00  00 00 00 00  D0 40 00 00  68 10 01 1F  D8 02 00 00  00 BE 90 0F  D8 02 00 00
2C 0F 01 00  00 00 00 00  30 BF 78 EA  F6 7F 00 00  00 00 00 00  3B 7C 00 00  6C 9F FE 1E  D8 02 00 00  00 BE 90 0F  D8 02 00 00
30 13 01 00  00 00 00 00  60 CD 78 EA  F6 7F 00 00  00 00 00 00  66 2A 00 00  70 A3 FE 1E  D8 02 00 00  00 BE 90 0F  D8 02 00 00
...
A = p rom address where 0xbbbb was written
B = unknown
C = windows pointer, based on the address its a function in the exe. Multiple 0xbbbb location will point at the same function
D = some type of flag?
E = original 2xbytes that 0xbbbb replaced
F = windows pointer, location in ram where this structs 0xbbbb is located in the modified p rom
G = windows pointer, unknown, but all of the structs point at the exact same thing

I would guess when 0xbbbb is encountered it ends up calling the function and then the original 2xbytes still get run on the 68k. I suspect this has nothing to do with the logo, but might just be for saving high scores, or whatever.
 
Thank you for taking the time ACK.

After discussing here I took a file activity monitor to check my files during gameplay. Sadly I couldn't find any specifics that prove my assumption but I believe the game retrieves some data online.

At my first extraction of the mbundle files I don't remember getting the localization files and found those after extracting the mbundle files while the game is running.
Those are used for the menus and I tried to search for some text of the game's dialogue that got translated but found nothing.

Now, I know discussing empty results solves nothing but helps people avoiding wasting time doing the leg work that has already been done.

What I've found is that in RAM pbin is often retrieved as pbin.patch.
See if you find the same on yours.
Still the file is too small for a complete translation of the game isn't?

Maybe we shouldn't be looking for a patched p1 but should be looking for patch C roms on RAM?

or would be possible for a S ROM to exist in RAM and not on the files and be started during the gameplay?

I'm very intrigued but how the translation is actually placed in the ROM.
 
I was able to extract the pbin file from my ram dump a couple days ago. I'm not sure how its used or what it would be patching. The filename gives the impression it would be the swizzle file, but the unmodified swizzle file exists in ram.

I don't think the emulator converts the swizzled file into C roms, but just uses it directly in the emulator. The swizzle is a more friendly format for the sprites/tile data then the weird encoding C roms are in.

The mame source gives the impression the S rom is actually at the tail end of the C roms.
 
Thanx for your research.

Btw, if samsh5fe pbin file could be related to swizzled sprites, why aren't there other pbin files for samsho 1 to 5sp swizzled sprites files in bundleMain.mbundle container ?
 
Does this seems like a patch to you too?

https://pastebin.com/pTYN6i9a

EDIT: ACK is right, swizzle from RAM and from file are identical.

EDIT2: if you look into RAM, after the pbin file is loaded the next one is neogeo.mainbios.us.
And it's patched with 0xBBBB too.

Why this is present within the bios?
 
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Can someone let me know if this helps?

If you byteswap the unibios and overwritte the main us bios inside the mbundle you can have the emulator loading the unibios.

Like this:

IMG-20200616-130115.jpg


And... isn't the unibios capable of dumping cartridges? with PC-2-Neo?
 
If you are able to re-create the mbundles, why don't you try removing the .pbin file and see what happens with the logo.
 
I'll try that next.

And let me tell what I've found:

First the emulator is running as a MVS-6F and with every slot populated.
Every slot has the same game, CRC of every bank is exactly the same.

Running the CRC and comparing with the CRC on MISTER, it's exactly the same...... so yeah.. going to try to remove the pbin file.
 
Ok removed the pbin, basically I replaced it in mbundle with a bunch of zeros.

The title screen is the same.
But there's no English translation even if the game is set to english.

Maybe this is caused by the unibios?

EDIT:

Ok, I can confirm, with original bios but pbin file removed, japanese text only.
The pbin file is the translation or how the translation is set.

EDIT2:

So pbin was used in CS:GO too.
https://github.com/sapphyrus/panorama

But.. I remember reading this and the README saying it could be opened just like a pkzip file.
Downloaded pkzip for windows and it could not open it.

EDIT3:

And right after the pbin file on mbundle HEX it opens this:
https://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns

So, there's a software applying the pbin while the emulator is running?

Edit4:

There's something else I want to point out.
Removing pbin remove the translation BUT.. even with the game in English we still get the story mode animation.
So it's just part of the equation.
 
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Some interesting work is being done on the french neo geo system forum.
People are working on the title’s logo. With the help of the PC version’s screenshot, they managed to pick the right colors to adapt the palette.
The result is fantastic

before
palett11.png

And the result
final_10.png


From what i’ve read, the kanji from the Japanese version is using the V palette from the US version so unless rewriting that specific palette, it can’t be gold color
 
Interesting result. Have "P E R F E C T" letters been resized ?

What about the missing texts and translations in game ? Have they been added as well ?
 
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Layer33 said:
Interesting result. Have "P E R F E C T" letters been resized ?

What about the missing texts and translations in game ? Have they been added as well ?
Click to expand...
Not sure if those got resized but that's a work in progress to reconstruct the title screen.

The translation it is still unkown and according to my tests it's seems more unlikely we can get it out.
Fingers crossed for any difference in the Steam release or wait until july for the switch release.
 
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