[Knucklez]

I do like the look of that Sonic & Knuckles Collection disk but that small space surrounding Knuckles' right arm is white rather than yellow like the rest of the disk.

[Graxer]

I haven't had much luck running the games except for Sonic & Knuckles Collection, but I have successfully installed them. The game select screen in Sonic & Knuckles Collection is translated, for example here it is when Sonic 3 & Knuckles is selected:


Sorry about the weird characters at the top of the window and on the buttons, it is due to my version of Windows 7 not being able to display Chinese characters.

Other than the game select screen, Sonic & Knuckles Collection isn't translated, but this doesn't surprise me because it isn't in the Japanese version on the Mega Drive either.

Also, each game now displays a splash screen unique to the specific game before starting. (or not starting, in most cases) For some reason I was unable to get print screen to work while the splash screens were being displayed, but I will see if I can get them somehow.

This post has been edited by Graxer: 22 October 2013 - 04:23 PM

[GerbilSoft]

Graxer, on 22 October 2013 - 04:20 PM, said:

Sorry about the weird characters at the top of the window and on the buttons, it is due to my version of Windows 7 not being able to display Chinese characters.

It's actually caused by the game not being written/compiled for Unicode Windows. Back in the "bad old days" of Win9x, each language version of Windows had its own codepage, e.g. cp1252 for Western-European and cp932/Shift-JIS for Japanese. Windows NT added Unicode, which covers everything, but the Windows implementation requires programs to be specifically written for it. Add to that the fact that Win9x didn't support Unicode, and you end up with a huge mess.

Fast forward to 2013, where 9x is pretty much dead, and you'll still find Windows developers who refuse to use Unicode for inane reasons.

tl;dr if you manage to set your system to use a Chinese code page (gb2312 or similar), the text would probably show up correctly. Alternatively, transcribe the characters displayed as cp1252 and convert the raw bytes from gb2312 to Unicode.

This post has been edited by GerbilSoft: 22 October 2013 - 04:27 PM

[Graxer]

GerbilSoft, on 22 October 2013 - 04:24 PM, said:

Graxer, on 22 October 2013 - 04:20 PM, said:

Sorry about the weird characters at the top of the window and on the buttons, it is due to my version of Windows 7 not being able to display Chinese characters.

It's actually caused by the game not being written/compiled for Unicode Windows. Back in the "bad old days" of Win9x, each language version of Windows had its own codepage, e.g. cp1252 for Western-European and cp932/Shift-JIS for Japanese. Windows NT added Unicode, which covers everything, but the Windows implementation requires programs to be specifically written for it. Add to that the fact that Win9x didn't support Unicode, and you end up with a huge mess.

Fast forward to 2013, where 9x is pretty much dead, and you'll still find Windows developers who refuse to use Unicode for inane reasons. />

tl;dr if you manage to set your system to use a Chinese code page (gb2312 or similar), the text would probably show up correctly. Alternatively, transcribe the characters displayed as cp1252 and convert the raw bytes from gb2312 to Unicode.

Ah, I see. Thanks for explaining!

The splash screens have now been added to the wiki if anyone is interested.

[GerbilSoft]

Graxer, on 22 October 2013 - 04:53 PM, said:

The splash screens have now been added to the wiki if anyone is interested.

Were the splash screens originally in JPEG format, or are they screenshots taken manually? If the latter, can you retake the screenshots and upload them in PNG format? (PNG's preferred for screenshots since it's lossless.)

This post has been edited by GerbilSoft: 22 October 2013 - 04:57 PM

[Graxer]

GerbilSoft, on 22 October 2013 - 04:54 PM, said:

Graxer, on 22 October 2013 - 04:53 PM, said:

The splash screens have now been added to the wiki if anyone is interested.

Were the splash screens originally in JPEG format, or are they screenshots taken manually? If the latter, can you reupload them in PNG format? (PNG's preferred for screenshots since it's lossless.)

Sure, I will just get onto it. I'm not sure how they were originally encoded as I can't find the file they came from, so I just took screenshots. I will make some PNGs from the bitmaps instead.

[GerbilSoft]

Graxer, on 22 October 2013 - 04:57 PM, said:

Sure, I will just get onto it. I'm not sure how they were originally encoded as I can't find the file they came from, so I just took screenshots. I will make some PNGs from the bitmaps instead.

That works. I'd like to see the disc images sometime as well to figure out what changed, but you don't have to upload those immediately. (That and it'd be too big for the wiki anyways.)

[Graxer]

All the splash screens are now PNG format.

GerbilSoft, on 22 October 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

I'd like to see the disc images sometime as well to figure out what changed, but you don't have to upload those immediately. (That and it'd be too big for the wiki anyways.)

Sure, I will get that sorted some time in the next few days.

This post has been edited by Graxer: 22 October 2013 - 05:38 PM

[Neo]

GerbilSoft, on 22 October 2013 - 04:24 PM, said:

It's actually caused by the game not being written/compiled for Unicode Windows. Back in the "bad old days" of Win9x, each language version of Windows had its own codepage, e.g. cp1252 for Western-European and cp932/Shift-JIS for Japanese. Windows NT added Unicode, which covers everything, but the Windows implementation requires programs to be specifically written for it. Add to that the fact that Win9x didn't support Unicode, and you end up with a huge mess.

Fast forward to 2013, where 9x is pretty much dead, and you'll still find Windows developers who refuse to use Unicode for inane reasons. />

tl;dr if you manage to set your system to use a Chinese code page (gb2312 or similar), the text would probably show up correctly. Alternatively, transcribe the characters displayed as cp1252 and convert the raw bytes from gb2312 to Unicode.

Hasn't Windows had an option to set the default codepage since time immemorial, though? Under Windows 7 it seems to be under Region and Language > Administrative > Change system locale. Try setting that to one of the Chinese options and give it a whirl.

[ICEknight]

Wow, thanks for taking your time to make those great scans!

This reminds me, do we not have a high resolution Sonic 3 & Knuckles logo, like, anywhere?

[Graxer]

Neo, on 22 October 2013 - 06:11 PM, said:

Under Windows 7 it seems to be under Region and Language > Administrative > Change system locale. Try setting that to one of the Chinese options and give it a whirl.

I can confirm that that works, thanks!

ICEknight, on 23 October 2013 - 01:03 PM, said:

Wow, thanks for taking your time to make those great scans!

No problem!

[MathUser]

Get whatever screenshots of you can of stuff related to the compilation, not really gameplay though, I doubt the games are different, just menus and stuff. PNG format.

[Sploit]

MathUser, on 22 October 2013 - 01:53 PM, said:

That was quick work. Looks good. Feel free to scan the poster I see in the first post, with the anime girl.

Pretty sure the Anime Girl, is from the Japan only series of SEGA games, Sakura Wars!

[Graxer]

MathUser, on 24 October 2013 - 03:40 PM, said:

Get whatever screenshots of you can of stuff related to the compilation, not really gameplay though, I doubt the games are different, just menus and stuff. PNG format.

I will see what I can do, although I have had difficulties getting anything other than Sonic & Knuckles Collection to run so far.

[Graxer]

Ok, I have had some success running Sonic 3D and Sonic CD while using my Windows XP partition. Nether of them have translations within the games. The only difference is that the menu bar at the top of the window in Sonic CD is now in Chinese. I have still been unsuccessful with running Sonic R though. At some point I may try it on my old computer if I get the chance.