Space Harrier SMS

[lnx64]

For some reason, I can't get the Space Harrier SMS game to load on my EverDrive.. It's the (UE) ROM from the GoodGen set. Works fine in an emulator, and this Genesis plays other SMS games just fine (for the most part). I also tried another SD card.

[zaffo256]

Same here. Most of the games work, except some that should but don't, like Space Harrier, Shinobi and Outrun. I have an EverdriveMD with firmware V.13 and OS V.33 on a Model 1 American Genesis without the "High definition graphic" marking.

[Azathoth]

I've ran into this a few times myself. Is this an issue with the Everdrive or the console? In other words, do these games work on a SMS Everdrive + PBC + Mega Drive?

[lnx64]

I don't have this game on SMS to try.

But I just thought of something, don't some games require authentic SMS controllers to work?

[zaffo256]

Yeah, some game like WonderBoy:Monster Land (which work fine on my EverdriveMD by the way) need Master System controller but if you use a Genesis controller the game will still boot. It will only have glitchy control. Also you can mod Genesis controller to act like a Master System one so it can play those game, by simply cutting a wire inside. But then the "A" and Start buttons won't work anymore. But you can install a switch on that wire if you don't want to dedicate that controller to Master System game only.

[KRIKzz]

space harrier (j) works fine

[zaffo256]

Thanks! I just tested and indeed it work but more importantly Shinobi (J) work too. I don't have Outrun (J) (does it exist?), so I can't test that. But I'm curious as to why only the Japaneses version work?

[KRIKzz]

unfortunately, i have no idea. may be need some extra initialization for this games. i wonder if original cart works via power base

[Lum]

As far as I'm aware SMS games do obey the Genesis internal English or Japanese setting.

I recently got a VA2 JPN Megadrive. With my Everdrive on it, Cloud Master becomes Chuka Taisen, and Power Strike becomes Aleste.

It'd be interesting to try an SMS adapter with JPN Game Gear...

[Azathoth]

unfortunately, i have no idea. may be need some extra initialization for this games. i wonder if original cart works via power base

I have an original Enduro Racer Mark III cart and it works fine on my MD with PBC, but the same game crashes on Everdrive.

[phoenixdownita]

Found the problem.
Outrun/Space Harrier/After Burner UE from goodset seem to have a header that messes up MegaED.
Try redownload the single roms (their size should be exact on a power of 2, like exaclty 256KB not a byte more).
I found them googling and they all work fine.
Most likely other sms roms have the problem as their size is sometimes very weird, a few bytes more that the exact power of 2 size requested.
Anyway no problem with MegaED.

[phoenixdownita]

I found out some more in the GoodSet with bad headers (DoubleDragon, Shinobi, SuperTennis, GoldenAxe, AlteredBeast ...).
It seems a constant 512bytes filled with 0.
The way I fixed it is to download sfk (swiss file knife) and use partcopy with offset 512 and size the correct size of the file (usually 262144 for 256K or 524288 for 512K, there's also a couple of 32768 for 32K). Example for a 32K game with 512 extra header: sfk partcopy "file1.sms" 512 32768 "file1.fixed.sms" -yes

I noted the MegaED shows the size in KB rounded down, so these files with the extra 512 bytes at the beginning will look like being the exact size.
If you put both the bad and the .fixed. file on the cart you'll see what I mean. I think cart software should either round up or in the bottom line show the size in bytes, that way it will be obvious.

On a side note I noticed a couple of games in the GoodSet that have odd sizes like 800KB which turns out to be 512KB + 256KB + 32KB, mainly (B) region (Brazilian). They work fine just wanted to mention that not ALL games are a perfect power of 2 in size, but if they are off by 512 bytes you can almost be sure they have a useless/bad header.
To see the header you can use sfk hexdump, it will show you the file in hexadecimal and you can see the first 512 bytes of 0s in those cases.

I think in the GoodSet I had to fix say 20/25 sms files total. They all worked fine after the treatment.

Anyway happy fixing your roms.

[KRIKzz]

oh shit, i did not know that some sms roms have those headers

[Retro-Nerd]

You can use the SMSChecker to remove the header. Just tried with Space Harrier (UE) from the GoodRom set. Should work with all others too. Use the Scan and Fix options.

http://www.smspower.org/maxim/Software/SMSChecker

[zaffo256]

Thank you, both of you! Everything works now! SMSChecker fixed everything.

[BlockABoots]

Thanks for this!

[sdekaar]

thanks :)