MD Everdrive - Official "game doesn't work" Thread

[Bboydocument]

Hi all,

This thread is for those who want to report non-working Gen/MD games on the Everdrive MD.

I am running a megadrive 1 (pal/ntsc modded) with Everdrive MD specs:
OS v28, Cart Rev 2.2, Firmware v12

If a game doesn't work, chances are it's an EEPROM or SRAM game and a
patch/fix may be out there - check the romhacking.net site or google.

As mentioned by greg2600:

...Seems almost all EEPROM games have some type of hack/fix to allow them to run..

Also, quoted from the Everdrive MD manual:

Q: Which games are not supported by the EverDrive-MD?
A: Virtua Racing, Mega Man Wily Wars, and some EA sports game titles.

Note: Mega Man Wily Wars is reported working with a patch (See below).

Roms with special chips (ie. virtua racing (md/genesis version) ) are not supported.

Below is a current list of reported MD/Genesis non-working games, with symptoms and fixes (if they exist):

Beyond Oasis (re-translated version?)
Symptom: red screen
Fix: Master code for Beyond Oasis (game genie required): AABT-AA7R

Budokan (U)
Symptom: doesn't run on TMSS consoles
Fix: use the (E) rom, as the (U) rom has a bad header

College Slam (U)
Symptom: not mentioned
Fix: Find hacked/fixed rom exists (GOODGEN code [h2]).

Darxide (32x) (U)
Symptom: "This was made for PAL systems only"
Fix: Change the "A" in the rom header to a "U" for US systems. Changing it to an "F" should make it playable by any system. You can use any hex editor to do that..(http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...sh-Cart/page10)

Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing (U)
Symptom: blank screen
Fix: Find hacked/fixed rom exists (GOODGEN code [h1]).

Forgotten Worlds (JUE)
Symptom: When starting new game at title screen, the "cutscene" plays then immediately shows game over screen.
Fix: Check your controller. Apparently this game only works with official red text 3-button Sega controller.

Golden Axe II
Symptom: Can't move with the dpad
Fix: You either have to use a 3 button pad, or hold the MODE button in on your 6 button controller when powering on the game to get it to work.

Greatest Heavyweights of the Ring (U)
Symptom: blank screen
Fix: Find hacked/fixed rom exists (GOODGEN code [h4]).

Mega Man Wily Wars (UE)
Symptom: doesn't start?
Fix: Visit link to patch - http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/514/

Might and Magic I and II (UE)
Symptom: Error on screen about SRAM...
Fix: Patched versions exist out there - check GOODGEN codes.

MLBPA Sports Talk Baseball (U)
Symptom: blank screen
Fix: Find hacked/fixed rom exists (GOODGEN code [h1]).

NBA Jam Tournament Edition (REV 00) (JUE)
Symptom: blue and black bars
Fix: Find hacked/fixed rom exists (GOODGEN code [f1]).

NFL '95 and NFL'98 (U)
Symptom: blank screen
Fix: need to find if hacked roms exist

NFL Quarterback Club (JUE)
Symptom: blue and black bars
Fix: Find hacked/fixed rom exists (GOODGEN code [h1]).

NFL Quarterback Club 96 (F)
Symptom: blue and black bars
Fix: Find hacked/fixed rom exists (GOODGEN code [h1]).

Ninja Burai Densetsu (J)
Symptom: blank screen
Fix: Find hacked/fixed rom exists (GOODGEN code [h1]).

Rambo III
Symptom: (not starting?)
Fix: Requires reset after loading the game into the Everdrive MD. Or leave the auto reset option on.

Sportstalk Baseball
Symptom: Loads title screens then crashes
Fix: none offered

Starflight
Symptom: doesn't save.
Fix: none

Wonderboy in Monster World
Symptom: Loads title but also freezes on start.
Fix: a patch exists which fixes this problem (link?)

Special thanks: greg2600, modsbox, eke, krikzz, goombakid

-----------------------------------------------------
SMS GAMES

It has been reported that there are numerous SMS games which give a black screen, crash etc.
zaffo256 has posted the following fix for SMS games not working:
-Try to fix the ROM with SMS Checker :http://www.smspower.org/maxim/Software/SMSChecker
-Explanation here:http://www.assemblergames.com/forums...ce-Harrier-SMS

[BM-Viper]

correct only .bin files will work, the extension isnt really the worry, but rather the format the data in the file is in.

[Bboydocument]

Thanks

NBA Jam T.E. symptoms ('blue bars on black screen' upon boot) seem to be a known problem in emulation.. can't even get an emu to run this. Tried getting another copy of it, still same problem.

Does a fix/patch exist for this game?

[link83]

Dont some of those games use EEPROM for saves? The Everdrive-MD and some emulators dont support EEPROM saves. Its discussed in more detail in this thread:-

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums...ad.php?t=27630

Some games can be hacked to use SRAM saving instead, although I dont know if any of the games you listed have already been done.

[Greg2600]

NBA Jame T.E. maybe a bad rom dump. If it doesn't work on an emulator, it's not an SRAM/EEPROM problem, as most current emu's have those issues fixed.

[Bboydocument]

I've done some further research guys. Here is what i've done so far:

-I have a folder of .GEN files
-I have renamed all to .GEN to .SMD, so I can run smd-to-bin.exe tool from krikzz.com
-smd-to-bin.exe reports '0 files converted'. I assume this means that all the files were okay and that they were already .bin files (?)
-I started up the everdrive,
-I chose the NFL 95 (and later the NFL 98 rom)
-The flashing process showed the file type as "SMD"(??) But I thought it was recognised as a .bin file in the smd-to-bin tool?
-Autostart proceeded to run game. Gave me the same problem (black screen).

NFL 95 and NFL 98 seem to work fine in my emulators.

I believe these two games do not use EEPROM saving. I refer to the list of EEPROM games:

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5965

NBA Jame T.E. maybe a bad rom dump. If it doesn't work on an emulator, it's not an SRAM/EEPROM problem, as most current emu's have those issues fixed.

I've tried two different versions of NBA Jam T.E. rom and both give the blue and black bars startup glitch. I can also confirm, using 3 different versions/variations of Gens32, that it gives the same symptoms in these emulators. To further confirm, would it be possible for someone out there to give this a try in their emu (or even with their Everdrive?)

To add to this list, NFA Quarterback Club roms give the same symptoms (in both the emu and the everdrive) as the NBA JAM T.E. roms (blue and black bars).

There isn't much out there on the net about a fix for NBA JAM T.E. I've googled for a fix or patch or something, but all i've found is people complaining in random forums that the roms don't work in their emus..

But anyway, i'd really like to know why NFL 95 and NFL 98 don't work.. quite odd that the emu starts them without issues..

EDIT:
I just read the following in the Everdrive MD Manual:

Q: Which games are not supported by the EverDrive-MD?
A: Virtua Racing, Mega Man, and some EA sports game titles.

Well that explains why the NFL games don't work..
Maybe I can go through the EA sports games and list the ones that do and don't work.

[goombakid]

Correction on Megaman not working with the Everdrive MD. It will work. However, you will need to apply a patch to the original ROM. I have got it to work with my Everdrive MD (OS 20, FW 9) on my US Genesis 2.

Link to patch.

I'm not sure if the patch will also work for PAL consoles, however, this patch will work for NTSC consoles.

[BM-Viper]

when it refers to SMD in the flashing portion, it is saying it recognized it as a Sega MegaDrive rom, not to the file format. If it was a mastersystem rom it'd refer to it as SMS.

[Eke]

Here's my current list of games using serial EEPROM for saving.

ACCLAIM mappers

24C02 (old mapper)
NBA Jam

24C02
NBA Jam TE
NFL Quarterback Club

24C16
NFL Quarterback Club '96

24C65
College Slam
Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball

EA mapper

24C01
Rings of Power
NHLPA Hockey 93
John Madden Football 93
John Madden Football 93 (Championship Ed.)
Bill Walsh College Football

SEGA mapper

24C01
Megaman - The Wily Wars
Rockman Mega World (alt)
Evander 'Real Deal' Holyfield's Boxing
Greatest Heavyweights of the Ring
Wonderboy in Monster World
Sports Talk Baseball
Honoo no Toukyuuji Dodge Danpei
Ninja Burai Densetsu

CODEMASTERS mapper

24C01
Brian Lara Cricket

24C08
Micro Machines 2 - Turbo Tournament
Micro Machines Military

24C16
Micro Machines Turbo Tournament 96

24C65
Brian Lara Cricket 96
Shane Wane Cricket

Backup feature won't work for any of these games and some of them (ACCLAIM ones mostly but also Wonderboy & Rockman) that have some kind of internal memory checks on startup will fail to boot, as already explained in the other thread.

[Greg2600]

I tried out NFL 95 and 98, neither work, get a blank screen. Both of those games are SRAM games though, so I'm surprised they don't work. I tried with SRAM off, didn't help. NFL 94 (not SRAM) does work. I turned all options (SRAM, hard reset, region patch, autorun) off and it's still a black screen. I presume the games actually are using EEPROM mappers like the other SEGA sports games.

I went through Eke's list and can report the following (I did not test saving, only gameplay):

ACCLAIM
Works: NBA Jam
Nope: All others load vertical blue lines (College Slam, NBA Jam TE, both Quarterback Club's, Frank Thomas).

Electronic Arts
Works: Bill Walsh, Madden 93, NHLPA 93, Rings of Power.

SEGA
Works: Mega Man Wily Wars will work using a custom patch. Wonderboy in Monster World loads title but also freezes on start. However, a custom patch was created and works!
Nope: Evander Holyfield, Greatest Heavyweights get blank screen.
Partial: Sportstalk Baseball loads title screens then bombs on start.
???: Can't test those Japanese games, don't have the roms.

Codemasters
Works: All three Micro Machines games.
Partial: All three Cricket games run however the screen just keeps scrolling vertically like the vertical lock/hold is busted. Maybe a PAL thing?

I think those Mega Man/Wonderboy patches allow for SRAM saving (didn't test). The other SEGA games can probably be patched to work by ignoring the EEPROM search. Not sure about the Acclaim games.

[Eke]

I tried out NFL 95 and 98, neither work, get a blank screen. Both of those games are SRAM games though, so I'm surprised they don't work. I tried with SRAM off, didn't help. NFL 94 (not SRAM) does work. I turned all options (SRAM, hard reset, region patch, autorun) off and it's still a black screen. I presume the games actually are using EEPROM mappers like the other SEGA sports games.

No they aren't. I think I remember some EA sports game are using word write to access SRAM and maybe even 16-bits SRAM (most genesis games only use 8-bit SRAM and access it to odd OR even addresses) so maybe Everdrive is not supporting this.

All three Cricket games run however the screen just keeps scrolling vertically like the vertical lock/hold is busted. Maybe a PAL thing?

Yes, those games use the extended video height mode (240 lines instead of 224) which is only supported by PAL hardware, NTSC consoles lose vertical sync in this mode.

[Greg2600]

Good to know about the video mode, not that I'm a cricket fan!

Those NFL games are not EA, they are SEGA sports. Don't know if that changes your thoughts on them. Not a big deal to me, as the SEGA football games were pretty lousy compared to Madden.

[Eke]

Just verified and indeed those games seem to access SRAM with word writes, not bytes. Maybe it's the reason they don't work with Everdrive, Krikzz would know better about that ;-)

[KRIKzz]

cart supported only with byte access to sram

[Bboydocument]

Greg and Eke - You guys have been awesome, thanks for your work and for verifying with me!

[modsbox]

First off, great thread. We've needed this for a while.

I think I have some news, I found a working NBA Jam TE rom for genesis!

I really wanted this game to work, so I took the time to extract all of the variants of it from the goodgen set that I have. The goodgen naming legend indicates the roms with [f] in them have some sort of fix applied, so that's where I started after both [!] versions ([!] means definitive clean rom dump) gave me blue bars. Lo and behold the (W) (REV00) [f1].gen version works great!

I didn't take the time to try saving or anything, I was too excited and went ahead and played a full game instead. I assume that it doesn't work, and whatever fix this rom has just helps it get past the check at bootup. But I know that version of the rom definitely works great on my everdrive so I wanted to share.

What could be interesting is, for NBA Jam TE at least, to try the couple other versions of the rom in the goodgen set. I only tried [f1] there was also [f2] and [f1 + C]. The [f1 + C] is interesting, as I assume the rom title should have been [f1 + c] to indicate a crack applied, since an uppercase C is used to indicate China region.

Another interesting thing to do would be to diff the [f1] version of nba jam with the non-[f1] to see what the differences are, then potentially apply the same tweaks to other acclaim ROMs that do the blue bar thing but do not have fixed roms in the goodgen set (if those exist).

[Karny]

Anyone had any joy getting Ranger X to run? I've tried a bunch of different roms and the result is the same: black screen :shrug:

[Karny]

Never mind! I found one that works! :redface:

[Greg2600]

On modsbox's recommendation, I found a NBA Jam TE rom with the [f1] on it. And yes, it did work! So I started investigating some others. Obviously, roms are often renamed when placed on certain websites or in different archives. So I'll list the names I have, but I don't remember where I found the archive:

College Slam (4) [h2].bin
Evander Holyfield's Real Deal Boxing (U) [h1].smd
Greatest Heavyweights of the Ring (U) [h4].bin
MLBPA Sports Talk Baseball (U) [h1].bin
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (REV 00) (JUE) [f1].smd
NFL Quarterback Club (JUE) [h1].smd
NFL Quarterback Club 96 (F) [h1].bin
Ninja Burai Densetsu (J) [h1].smd

*note I had to run Igor's smd-to-bin on some.

Haven't found a hack that works yet for Frank Thomas. Like I said, due to all the naming, finding the exact roms might be a bit troublesome, but I think the key is to find ones with the [h] that were hacked, often several years ago.

[Bboydocument]

Glad to hear that there are hacks and fixes out there. I'm going to try the fix for nba jam t.e. Thanks modsbox and greg