Homebrew Saturn emulation using Cotton/Guardian Force testing and debug

Purple_Shyguy

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How were you able to get Bulk Slash to work?
As I stated in my compatibility list on Page 1, it hangs on a black screen when trying to start a game
Odd. I booted it up and sure enough it froze on a black screen.

I reset and tried again and it froze on the "Now Loading...." text.

But I tried one more time and it worked. And the game plays just fine. I got to level 3. You have to just brute force it I guess.
 
Last edited by Purple_Shyguy,

bootmonster

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BIG Update... IT WORKS!!! @ZER-O @cucholix

Changing WideScreen="0" to WideScreen="1"
AND
Changing CartridgeID="5a" to CartridgeID="5c" ENABLES 4MB RAM AS I EXPECTED!!!

Here is Shadows of Mystara (a 4MB required game) playing in the stretched widescreen it outputs!!

https://lewd.pics/p/xjMV.mp4
Very nice! Any way to hide the option button, assume it's a stored texture somewhere?
 

Levine91

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@Levine91 could you take a screenshot of your .nsp cotton2 and boomerang standalone title folders? Please. 🥺

Can't get ROMs running in the standalones.

Hope this helps... and again, the Cotton2.cue file you see here was originally Shadow of Mystara's .cue file

1633679386733.png
 

Deleted member 323844

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CardridgeID
00 = none
21 = Backup RAM Cartridge
5a = 1MBytes RAM Cartridge
5c = 4MBytes RAM Cartridge

Areacode
1 = Japan
2 = Taiwan, Korea, Philippines
4 = America, Canada, Brazil
c = Europe, Australia, South Africa

Emulator is very likely just SSF
Probably, since there's the same mess transparency option, to transform the Saturn dots into transparent polygons.
 

cucholix

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ZER-O

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BIG Update... IT WORKS!!! @ZER-O @cucholix

Changing WideScreen="0" to WideScreen="1"
AND
Changing CartridgeID="5a" to CartridgeID="5c" ENABLES 4MB RAM AS I EXPECTED!!!

Here is Shadows of Mystara (a 4MB required game) playing in the stretched widescreen it outputs!!

https://lewd.pics/p/xjMV.mp4
okay, ill take a look at the text file and see what i can fiddle with, this looks alot like the old emulators on PC, the developer must be using a source code from Saturn SSF
Yabause/Yaba Sanshiro emu doesnt have that kind of config file

i notice it has the same problem with the stand alone emulator, Laud Sounds, no Screen filters
this is a direct port of that emulator
 

cucholix

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I would assume the Option window/assets are in Texture.tex

Could also be part of main, since the menu overlays everything. I don't have the standalone copies so I can't look there for how it structures assets in the first NCAs
Texture.tex is just an encrypted png containing buttons image pieces.
 

Thorhax

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Thank you for all the instructions however some things are a bit unclear for me.

How do we decrypt the .ini file?

Also after dumping the romfs, so we just drag and drop out roms .cue .bin
into/contents/0100A18015268002/romfs

Only renaming the .cue file to cotton2.cue but keeping the .bin the same as whatever game we're injecting?
 

Deleted member 323844

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Thank you for all the instructions however some things are a bit unclear for me.

How do we decrypt the .ini file?

Also after dumping the romfs, so we just drag and drop out roms .cue .bin
into/contents/0100A18015268002

Only renaming the .cue file to cotton2.cue
Just paste de ini text into a text file. The emulator seems to load encrypted and decrypted files. Throw it, along with the untouched bin files and renamed cue file, into atmosphere/contents/0100094014BE4006/romfs.
 
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JRoad

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Attached Texture.tex with hidden menu.

0.- Exifstool data - https://exiftool.org/
1633692906334.png


1.- To edit Texture.tex you remove the Texture header (before png magic)
1633692384796.png

2.- Edit and save with same exifs data type, use exifs tool to check.
3.- Readd the Texture header.
4.- Original has trailer data after IEND so just copy it back.
1633692489396.png

5.- Add 000 till IEND matches the offset in the original file, so it can read correctly the positions of the assets. If not done properly it won't show the menus.
1633692566072.png
 

Attachments

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Last edited by JRoad,

cucholix

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Attached Texture.tex with hidden menu.

0.- Exifstool data - https://exiftool.org/
View attachment 278846

1.- To edit Texture.tex you remove the Texture header (before png magic)
View attachment 278842
2.- Edit and save with same exifs data type, use exifs tool to check.
3.- Readd the Texture header.
4.- Original has trailer data after IEND so just copy it back.
View attachment 278843
5.- Add 000 till IEND matches the offset in the original file, so it can read correctly the positions of the assets. If not done properly it won't show the menus.
View attachment 278844
You get rid of the whole Texture.tex content?
I edited the .png to only hide the Options menu when playing in widescreen.

Haven't tested on my Switch though.
 

Attachments

  • Texture.rar
    547.1 KB · Views: 109

JRoad

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@cucholix no, i just deleted the menu icons, the thing is when saved via gimp for example the file gets smaller even after reading the initial and final data. So what you do is add "000" till the IEND tag is in the original offset which is B4EB7
 

cucholix

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@cucholix no, i just deleted the menu icons, the thing is when saved via gimp for example the file gets smaller even after reading the initial and final data. So what you do is add "000" till the IEND tag is in the original offset which is B4EB7
Must be the difference in size when saving the .png I'm using photoshop :P (high compression slow saving)
 

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