Damnable track ball

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 5:32 pm

Hey, so what's the deal with Sonic on mame? I played it a few months ago and the protection had been emulated somewhat, so I was able to make it to Icy Isle before encountering any major problems. When I try it now, though, (on a slightly more recent version of mame), the controls are all fugged up. I guess there's some weirdness involved in the way mame is trying to emulate the analog controls, but I didn't have this problem a few months ago, and toy with the options as I may, I can't seem to get around it.

So, y'know... what's up with that?

Post by **Crazy Penguin** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 5:39 pm

I don't know, but whilst we're on the subject here's a scan of a flyer courtesy of Solly: http://dreamav.cjb.net/share/Segasonic1.jpg

Post by **Segaholic2** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 5:53 pm

Here's something even more useful:

<A HREF="http://www.nathantsui.com/random/samquote.txt">Gay quotes from my friend Sam</A>.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 6:10 pm

Awesome, I've been looking for that for a while. (Referring to the flyer, not quotes from NT's friend.)

Still would like to be able to play the damn game, though. If it's not one thing, it's another...

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:37 pm

"I'm not gay, I just like to touch men."

*points to Richie's crotch* "Hey, Richie! Are you building a tent there?"

Fuck! That dude had better be gay. If we have dirty straights stepping on our territory like that, there will be hell to pay! We'll have to take it up another notch!

Oh, and Nate? The fact that you remembered all of that so accurately?

That's not saying much for your own sexuality. *cough*

Post by **Segaholic2** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:41 pm

It wasn't just me. Our whole group of friends compiled those quotes over the course of the entire past school year. We'd add to it every time he said something so memorable.

And no, he's not really gay. It's just funny.

Post by **G.Silver** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:42 pm

I tried it recently (you know, maybe six months ago) and the controls were messed up right from the start with no analog at all, the characters were either not moving or moving at top speed with terrible cornering. I don't know how to fix it, I just wonder if it was the same problem?

Cuckooguy · Post by **Cuckooguy** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 5:22 am

The first time I've ever played the game, the controls were messed up for me. I can press in a direction and the characters will move, but they don't seem to want to move at a decent speed and I'll find myself being harmed by lava, falling off the edge, not getting across the bridge fast enough, etc. all the time, which lead me to believe that something about the controls weren't quite right.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:36 am

Yeah, that's the sort of problem I had when I'd tried it this summer, but that's really easy to fix, you just go into the options menu and adjust the analog sensitivity. It was way too slow for me, so I had to kick up the sensitivity considerably to make them move at a decent speed. Like I said, I was able to make it to Icy Isle, then the game would freak out and reset everytime the avalanche hit me.

It's a different problem now, though, I just plain can't get them to move anywhere at all without having them screech to a halt and reverse their direction. It's the same way when I test the ball control in the F2 service menu. I've messed with all the control options they have and nothing seems to fix it...

Protodude · Post by **Protodude** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:44 pm

I never played SegaSonic Arcade, as I could never find the rom. Anyone know where I can get it?

Oh, and GG!, I know mame is a good emulator and all, but maybe the only way to play that game now is to get another emulator.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 2:56 pm

You can find that (and just about any other rom you can think of) at http://www.playagain.net. It blows my mind that those guys can afford to stay online.

Also, I don't think there's any other emulator that will play SegaSonic. The only other emulator I know of for System 32 games is Modeler, and as far as I'm aware, that hasn't been updated in years.

Protodude · Post by **Protodude** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:02 pm

System 32 was the one I was thinking of, I just couldn't remember the name at the moment.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 5:36 pm

Okay, I got the control problem sorted. I actually had to disable the control pad so that the analog options would switch to "n/a". I have to play it with the keyboard like this, but I'm completely negating the experience without the track ball either way, so whatever.

The game still shuts down randomly during the latter half of Icy Isle, it doesn't seem like I'll be able to get any farther than this right now. Wasn't there a level select hack that somebody came up with a while back? Where can I get that again?

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 8:16 pm

I did some searching around, and supposedly it's not even the protection that's causing the crash in level 2, but some video emulation bug. Nemesis (who was the guy who cracked the protection in the first place) created that cheat to get around it, but it's not in the cheat.dat file and I'm having a hard time finding it...

firemario1001 · Post by **firemario1001** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 9:52 pm

Didn't he make a special build of MAME awhile back to get around that? I think it was used to access the level select. Does Beta still have his sever running because I believe Nemesis uploaded it on that.

Psxphile · Post by **Psxphile** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 9:54 pm

Naw, that came down quite a while ago.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 10:32 pm

You shouldn't need a special version though, should you?

Solly · Post by **Solly** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 5:37 am

Crazy Penguin wrote:I don't know, but whilst we're on the subject here's a scan of a flyer courtesy of Solly: http://dreamav.cjb.net/share/Segasonic1.jpg

Where did you manage to get that link ??? o_o
There's a spy between my friends I guess :p
Since I gave that link to 4/5 persons

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 1:40 pm

Well... so does anyone have Nemesis' hacked mame or know where it can be found?

Can I get help from somebody, you indolent heathens?! This is for posterity!

Psxphile · Post by **Psxphile** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 7:25 pm

Forget it. Nemesis never got around to finishing it. As for the level cheat (culled from an old CulT archive):

Ok, here's the deal. I haven't hacked out the copy protection (yet). What I've done is gotten around it. You see, the protection only interferes in two places: When you try and start a game, and when trying to load the next level. Well, the solution is to take over an already running game (the demo), and then change the level manually.

Do the following:
1. Load up the final SegaSonic arcade rom in mame (sonic.zip).
2. Wait until the game reaches a demo, and when it does, make a savestate by pressing shift+F7, then any number or letter on the keyboard (the slot you want to save in).
3. Open up the savestate in whatever hex editor you have. If you don't have one, get one. The savestate will be in the "sta" folder of your mame directory, and will have the name "sonic-<n>.sta", where <n> is the character you pressed after shift+F7.
4. Change the byte at 0x10FC34 in the savestate from 0x00 to 0xFF.
5. Change the two bytes at 0x10FC6E from whatever they are to 0x0000.
6. Change the byte at location 0x10FC98 to the level number of the stage you want to go to (list below).
7. Load the savestate back in by pressing F7, followed by the character you pressed to make the savestate.
8. Press 5 to insert a coin, and 1 to start a game.

After some slightly unpredictable screwups, the level you want should load. Pressing the action button usually makes the screwed up level you'll see to start with disappear, and the level reload. Here are the level numbers:

0x03: Trap tower start area?
0x04: Landslide limbo (5)
0x05: Level 1 start area
0x06: Game intro
0x07: Trap tower (4)
0x08: Icy Isle (2)
0x09: Volcanic Vault (1)
0x0A: Desert Dodge (3)
0x0B: Robotnic
0x0C: Eggman's Tower 1 (7)
0x0D: Eggman's Tower 2 (7)
0x0E: Eggman's Tower 3 (7)
0x0F: Eggman's Tower 4 (7)
0x10: Wild Water Ways (6)

I've tested it with both (MAME) versions 0.78b and 0.64b.

I've found a stage select! The protection in the final is causing problems, but it works in the beta. To enable it in either game, make a savestate in level, and change the byte at 0x10FC8B to 0x08. I've only just found this a minute ago, so I haven't tested it much.

Ok, here's the guts of what I know about these games at this time. First of all, the levels are as follows:

Level numbers:
0x03: Trap tower (4)
0x04: Landslide limbo (5)
0x05: Starting area (0)
0x06: Game intro
0x07: Control tutorial
0x08: Volcanic Vault (1)
0x09: Icy Isle (2)
0x0A: Desert Dodge (3)
0x0B: Robotnic (7)
0x0C: Eggman's Tower - 1 (7)
0x0D: Eggman's Tower - 2 (7)
0x0E: Eggman's Tower - 3 (7)
0x0F: Eggman's Tower - 4 (7)
0x10: Wild Waterways (6)

Any level numbers outside of this crash the game. The numbers in parenthesis after some of those levels indicate the order in which those levels occur in the final game.

The final level, Eggman's Tower, is actually divided up into five parts. The first part starts inside, after having entered the building at the end of the previous level, wild waterways. This first inside area leads to an outside area that runs aruond the building on some railings, then back inside to the next level of the tower. The next level of the tower is very similar to the first, and consists of an inside area followed by an outside area on some railings. This then leads into the top of the tower, and the faceoff with Robotnic. Put simply, level numbers 0x0C, 0x0D, 0x0E, 0x0F, and 0x0B are, in that order, all parts of the same level.

Now it appears that all the levels that exist in the final are present in the beta. While several of the levels are just totally blank, and the camera just scrolls through them with no objects, the level maps themselves are all complete. In the beta, level 0x10 (wild waterways) is not normally accessable through the level select, as it only goes up to 0x0F, but if you change the value at 0x10FC98 to 0x10 while level select is active, you can select and see this level in the beta.

On the technical side, there are three primary values I have identified that are of interest. They are as follows:

0x10FC31: Core engine state (byte)
0x10FC8B: Game engine state (byte)
0x10FC98: Level (short/le)

The level is straightforward, and all those values have already been posted. The core engine state value is a value that the engine keeps to allow it to keep track of what it is suppost to be doing. It has a few simple modes, which are as follows:

Core engine state:
0x00: Warning
0x01: Test menu
0x02: Ranking mode
0x03: SEGA screen
0x04: Demo 1
0x05: Demo 2
0x06: Game
0x07: Unknown

Also attached to this state value is the preceeding byte at 0x10FC30. This byte lets the engine know if it has been in the same state for a cycle already, and hence, if all the data for what it is suppost to be executing has already been initialised. If this is set to 0x00, the game engine will start executing the function it is set to do from the start. You should always set this byte to 0x00 if you change the engine state value yourself.

The game engine state vaue is just another value that the game engine keeps that lets the game know what it is doing, however this value is only used when the core engine state value is set to 0x06, which is the mode it is set to while a player controlled game is running. This value has a lot of settings, and a lot of them are hard to figure out. Here are the ones I know the function of so far:

Game engine state:
0x03: Normal level
0x04: Level map
0x08: Stage select mode
0x09: Ground check mode (beta only)
0x0E: Game over
0x10: Unknown (shows lightning from intro)
0x17: Level complete
0x1B: Character select
0x1C: Unknown (Camera autoscrolls)
0x1D: Level results screen
0x1E: Unknown (level fades and restarts)
0x1F: Fade out to "You Failed"
0x20: "You Failed"
0x49: Unknown (drops back to warning)
0x4E: Unknown (Interesting lockup)

The ground check mode is a mode that only exists in the beta it would seem. When in ground check mode, the character disappears, and the screen scrools over the level. There are many other ways to achieve this, but in ground check mode, pressing the player 2 action button a few times gets you past obstacles where the game is waiting for an event that is never going to happen like that, like for the character to walk somewhere. This allows you to get right to the end of any level. Pressing the player 1 start button quits this mode.

There's another tidbit in the test menu too. In the final, there's a lost menu option in the space just above the "exit" option. It's something to do with moving the seat or some other crap. To access this menu, make a savestate in the test menu and change the byte at 0x10D648 to 0x09, and the lost menu will be selected.

Here are a few other miscellaneous values I've locked down too:

0x109164 - 0x109166: Rings player 1 has (short/le)
0x10F282: Time remaining for boss
0x10FC34: Character control status (set to 0xFF for full control)
0x10FC6E - 0x10FC70: Time remaining in demo. Set to 0x0000 for infinate. (short/le)
0x10FD04 - 0x10FD08: Pointer to level sprites (long/le)
0x10FCA4 - 0x10FCA8: Pointer to level collision boundaries (long/le)
0x10FE09: Level transparency

In addition to all this, the final at least has quite a bit more to unlock. There is apparently a "Fence Set Mode", and a "Scroll skip mode", as well as some kind of general debug feedback to be enabled, and who knows what there is in terms of lost tiles and objects and whatnot.

Someone else:

Ok, so I found a slightly different (easier) way to do this with the final. Instead of saving state in a demo, do so at the title screen. Go to 0x10FC98 (the level reference) and enter whatever level you want to go to. Reload the state, insert coins, select your character, and you should be at the level just fine.

It works fine for me. Any problems with this Nemesis?

Just an update on what's going on with this thing. I am still working on it constantly, and I've now figured out exactly what is causing the final version to crap out. With a little bit more work, I think I can figure out what that protection device did to stop this happening, and once I've done that, I'll make the nessicary additions to the mame system32 driver, and send them off to mamedev. We may just see the full version of SegaSonic arcade functional in the mext release of mame if things keep up.

Oh, and BTW, there's evidence that a few levels were cut from the game during production. If I find anything concrete or of interest, I'll post it here.

...

That's all she wrote. I'm not even sure this is what you're looking for, but... well, there you are.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 7:41 pm

Okay, yeah, that last one actually happened. That's why the game is playable in the last couple versions of mame. The crash in level 2 is suspected to be from a graphics bug and not related to the protection at all.

I remember doing the whole hex editing level select thing with the beta version, but it was still a mess. I wonder if it'll work with the complete game? I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 8:13 pm

No, it isn't working, but I found this in a cache of the mame.net forum:

Hi folks, I just have a question regarding SegaSonic the Hedgehog Arcade. I know that the game is not working perfectly, as the game crashes in the middle of the ice level, but I just wonder, has anyone been able to reach further than the ice level? The reason I wonder is that I have seen screenshots from other zones that appear later in the game, and these screenshots have undoubtedbly been taken by some sort of emulator (mame I guess).

So I wonder, has anyone been able to reach further in the game? If yes, how did you do it?

Many thanks in advance!! Magnus

And the reply:

Yea ive finished the game; how?
use nemesis's level select hack on version .78 with nonamemame

So do you think he was referring to the demo version?

The GHZ Forum

Damnable track ball

Damnable track ball

Lazy bastard.