For any data they wanted to read from the S2 rom they had to worry about calling from different locations for different revisions, had to obtain the correct locations for all the revisions, and it just generally makes the process more complicated, and introduces a whole set of potential problems. They wouldn't do it unless there was a significant space advantage. Like Puto said, they had 256kb to play with. Not much point reducing size if they were already under the target.
This was also in 524 but Knuckles is also called Sonic on a level clear. Sorry to bump for such a trivial fact, but yeah.
Build 0608 is the first to contain the KiS2-specific codes (01 09 09 04 01 00 01 08 and 01 06 07 07 07 02 01 06). The full 0524 build contains the original S2 codes and it gives Super Knux the yellow Super Sonic pallet and star trails. Pic coming soon. Edit:
Stupid question, but what happens if you try and patch one of the proto's we have? Will it give us anything playable, or (and this is most likely) leave us with a little less HD space and an unplayable ROM?
It's my belief that all the UPMEM protos will work with any S&K ROM that supports lockon, since all S&K does is a JMP $300000, so it doesn't matter which UPMEM build is there. Edit: Also, in 0524, when Knuckles reverts from his Super form, he uses Sonic's palette. Due to the change in how his Super form is activated, there is no Super bug after the endpost.
Ok well, is it known which ROMs the prototype UPMEMs work with? Are they pretty much tied to the same builds on the S&K side? Because we have build numbers for S&K to match all the UPMEM protos. Edit: Ok, I just built prototype KiS2 ROMs using matching S&K and UPMEM builds. The cheats vary between the ROMs. 0524, of course, has level select enabled by default. 0606 uses UDDDU, 0608 uses UUDDLRLR, and 0610 and later use UUUDDDLRLR like the final. 0606 has the proper Super Knuckles pallet, and he reverts back to the proper Knuckles pallet after the endpost.
I don't know the S&K rom very well, but I do know they have lots of segments in the rom padded out to particular boundaries. This prevents minor, or even fairly significant changes to the rom requiring a change to the base locations of any of these segments. I would suspect they worked out these boundaries early on in the piece, so that all data they need to load from the S2K upmem is accessible at a known base, which doesn't change beetween revisions of the S&K rom. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I would think it likely that you would be able to combine S2K with any version of the S&K rom and have it work.
So if you combine a proto S2, with a proto S&K/plain S&K and use a proto patch, will the patched rom inherit the bugs from both proto rom/patches or just one or the other?
The 256kb S2K upmem rom contains all the code for S2&K, so everything that determines how the game works is contained in this rom. That includes bugs. The S&K and S2 roms are only used for their data. For example, all the tiles and mapping data for Knuckles come from the S&K rom, while the tiles and maps for the levels come from the S2 rom. Note that while you should be able to combine any version of S&K to build the S2&K rom, the same is not true of the S2 rom. You can only combine one of the final releases of the S2 rom to build S2&K. This is because the data in the S2 rom is not based at known addresses like in S&K, but is in slightly different locations for different builds of the game. The startup code in the S&K rom which checks for locked on games reads the serial number of the game from the header, to determine whether it is a known build of S2, and if it is, which locations to read from when loading data from the rom. Beta versions of S2 will have a different serial number, and won't be recognised as S2 at all. It would be like you locked on any random non-sonic game. Even if the serial numbers did match, the game would just crash horribly due to the data not being in the places where the S2K upmem tries to read it from.
Knuckles remains frozen in the last frame of animation he was playing, rather than resetting to his standing pose. This is true for protos 0524 and 0606.
The locations in the final S&K ROM (taken from my S2K disassembly): Code (ASM): SK_ArtUnc_Knux: equ $1200E0 SK_Map_Knuckles: equ $14A8D6 SK_PLC_Knuckles: equ $14BD0A
0524 Casino Night 1 - game crashes every time you use the first flipper to go to the top left og the map where the hidden rings/ bumpers etc are.
So, I added this info to the wiki. But I think if anyone wants to make good on their promisse of uploading mounted versions, or at least some IPS patch, that would be good. Maybe it might get people finding differences and adding to the empty wiki pages.
It only seems to freeze as you are about to hit the farthest-right bumper from the top. If you hold left all the time while rising, you'll fly over that bumper and it won't freeze. EDIT: It freezes when you come near it while walking on the right (use Debug Mode to place monitors to walk on). It freezes when you walk right under it when coming from the left. Flying over it as I said above works.
