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Sonic in Chaotix - R3 announcement topic

Discussion in 'Engineering & Reverse Engineering' started by SGR, Jul 5, 2008.

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  1. SGR

    SGR

    Give me the gams. Member
    A reminder: If you want to play this in Kega, there is a fix for it located in this topic.

    Hello everyone!

    JJF has recently expressed an interest to try to do a R3 of Sonic in Chaotix. I've decided to go through and bug test R2. However, getting multiple people to test something produces a lot more results. So, I'm asking you, the community, to play through Sonic in Chaotix R2 thoroughly and report any bugs you may find, preferably in this topic, but PMing me or contacting me through AIM can work.

    Here's stuff we already know about:
    Huge bugs:
    -Picking Sonic in combi-catcher crashes the game.

    Minor bugs:
    -Putting two Sonics together via debug mode never lets the level load up. (not too important at the moment)

    Cosmetic issues:
    -Sonic's frames in special stage have transparent pixels where white pixels should be.
    -Special Stage frames probably need re-working in general. Using the Sonic CD special stage
    jumping sprites, for example.
    -Sonic still has Mighty's pallette(?) in Bonus Stage.
    -Monitor with Mighty's icon still needs replacing.

    Putting your reports in a style like this would help also. Thanks a bunch!
     
  2. muteKi

    muteKi

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    Well, part one is that the compressed archive doesn't seem to be valid after just downloading it.
     
  3. SGR

    SGR

    Give me the gams. Member
    Works fine for me. Have you tried redownloading?
     
  4. amphobius

    amphobius

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    It doesn't work in Kega (old).

    That needs fixed for the releases, many people will simply download the hack and start it in Kega, only to find it doesn't work.
     
  5. Puto

    Puto

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    Part of Team Megamix, but haven't done any actual work in ages.
    That isn't a bug in Sonic in Chaotix, it's Kega's fault.
     
  6. MathUser

    MathUser

    3rd top wiki contributor Researcher
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    This isn't a bug, but it's a suggestion. Redesign the ring in Sonics hand to match up with the other characters. At least draw it in a style similar to theirs anyway.

    Also, I'm wondering what happens when you get the good ending? Is there two sonics in the ending? Maybe swap the second sonic with shadow, or just remove the second Sonic altogether.
     
  7. muteKi

    muteKi

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    I did now.


    Anyway, what exactly does Kega do wrong that makes the game unplayable?
     
  8. Tweaker

    Tweaker

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    The 32x was very fussy with timing. Chaotix in particular used a different timing mode than most other games on the 32x did. What Kega does to compensate for this is check the MD5 checksum of the ROM. If it matches Chaotix, it will emulate that alternative timing. However, editing a Chaotix ROM in any fashion will cause the MD5 to no longer match, so Chaotix will be running in the wrong timing and screw up like it does.

    Gens emulates all 32x games in the same timing as Chaotix, which is why it can run Chaotix fine but not necessarily other games. It's a tradeoff, if you will.
     
  9. muteKi

    muteKi

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    Ah, a special check.


    How does the MD5 checksum work? Can it not be fixed like a regular Genesis' ROM's checksum?
     
  10. Wurly

    Wurly

    :| Tech Member
    Keep in mind, there is a fix for running the hack in Kega. Quexinos' link doesn't seem to work, so you will probably have to manually hex edit Kega (25B76: 20).
     
  11. SGR

    SGR

    Give me the gams. Member
    I'm going to find that out soon enough. As of yet there's no concrete plan of what we're going to do about that.
     
  12. Tweaker

    Tweaker

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    It's not a problem in the ROM, it's a problem in that the emulator directly checks against the checksum of the ROM. It is, in fact, easy enough to edit the Fusion executable to check against a different checksum, which is what I believe we did to get the Chaotix prototypes working correctly in Fusion.

    The executable that JJF posted is a version of Fusion that always uses the same timing as Chaotix, so you can play it regardless of the issues the public release of Fusion does. I suggest using that over, say, Gens Plus, since it can handle 32x emulation much more accurately.
     
  13. muteKi

    muteKi

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    Oh, right -- the value to check for is in Fusion itself; I don't know why but I seem to have thought that the actual value was checked against something else in the ROM.


    (I'm a moron.)
     
  14. Overlord

    Overlord

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    Is there no way for the emulator to figure out what timings to use from the ROM? I daresay the hardware itself would have to do that...
     
  15. Phos

    Phos

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    You probably know about this (you mention reworking his special stage sprites), Sonic wobbles back and forth while in a Special Stage, it seems to be a problem with his sprites. Also, iirc, someone said in this games thread on Sonic Cult that Sonic is missing his arm in some of the poses
     
  16. muteKi

    muteKi

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    Well, in the hacked Fusion the game doesn't allow you to play more than one level at a time. When you go back to the world entrance screen, the game locks up.
     
  17. SGR

    SGR

    Give me the gams. Member
    Slighty unrelated to this topic's true purpose, but:
    [​IMG]
    This is what I'm hoping to achieve in terms of sprites. Yes, this uses the palette found in the 1207 proto. As of right now, I plan to use the Crackers sprites as a placeholder, in case we can get someone to redraw Tails. Interestingly, there's quite a few matches in terms of color between Tails' palette in Crackers with the palette found in the 1207 proto.
     
  18. ICEknight

    ICEknight

    Researcher Researcher
    Does Tails' palette from the Chaotix proto have any additional inbetween colors? If not, he might have never been redrawn.
     
  19. Jenna

    Jenna

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    Strange, it worked for me. Flawlessly, too. Granted, I quit after completing my first level, as Chaotix couldn't hold my attention that well.

    Also, I've got a bug, kinda... I managed somehow to get Sonic to moonwalk the entire level, with his sprites facing the opposite direction. I couldn't replicate this on demand, but it certainly was odd. I'm not sure if this is really worth worrying about, cause I don't see a viable fix for it.
     
  20. SGR

    SGR

    Give me the gams. Member
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