[Shogun]

I just bought a SNES Powerpak. As I am a collector, I only really got it to play translations and hacks. I figured you guys would be the best ones to ask, Which snes hacks/translations work on real hardware? Which ones don't?

Thanks in advance!

[KaioShin]

Assume all work unless the readme or project site says otherwise. If you do happen to come across one which doesn't work and isn't marked, please submit a note to the description. But most entries should be fine, just give a few games a try.

[Lenophis]

Assume all work unless the readme or project site says otherwise.

Unless it's a SMW hack with custom music, then assume all are broken until proven otherwise.

[Shogun]

Unless it's a SMW hack with custom music, then assume all are broken until proven otherwise.

Yea I read about that. Kind of disappointing, as many of them looked really fun. Although the problem with most hacks seems to be that they are made to be used with savestates, and thus have insane difficulty. Oh well.

[extra_anchovy]

Assume all work unless the readme or project site says otherwise. If you do happen to come across one which doesn't work and isn't marked, please submit a note to the description. But most entries should be fine, just give a few games a try.

why would you assume that? most people don't even test their hacks on real hardware. I've been playing hacks for a while, I ALWAYS use real hardware as I'm one of the two people who hate emulators. if a hack only works on emulator than you might as well be playing a PC game. anyway I'm going to start a list here of hacks and translations which do work on real hardware. method of testing and glitches also noted

SNES HACKS

* BS Zelda: Ancient Stone Tables

SF7 Game Doctor - works fine, plays to the end
Everdrive - seems to work ok

* BS Zelda: Map 1, Map 2

SF7 Game Doctor - doesn't seem to work
Everdrive - certain modded versions works fine

* Ice Metal 1: Uninstall

SF7 Game Doctor - seems to work fine
Everdrive - seems to work fine

* Oh No! More Zombies Ate my Neighbors!

SF7 Game Doctor - seems to work fine
Everdrive - seems to work fine

* Metroid Super Zero Mission

SF7 Game Doctor - seems to work fine
Everdrive - seems to work fine

* Parallel Worlds 

SF7 Game Doctor - Minor graphic glitches (title screen, scorpion boss), up to dark world with 17 hearts and still playing. One bug in Darunia's dungeon might make it unfinishable as it seems to continuously scroll when you enter a particular door.
Everdrive - Minor graphic glitches (title screen), otherwise untested.
Comments - This the most RH compatible LttP hack, all others stuff up early or won't start at all

SNES TRANSLATIONS

* Adventures of Hourai High, The

SF7 Game Doctor - seems to work fine
Everdrive - seems to work fine

* Clock Tower

SF7 Game Doctor - Minor graphic glitches during intro, otherwise seems to work fine
Everdrive - same as above

* Dragon Ball Z: Legend of the Super Saiyans

SF7 Game Doctor - seems to work fine
Everdrive - seems to work fine

* Front Mission: Gun Hazard

SF7 Game Doctor - seems to work fine
Everdrive - seems to work fine

* Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together

SF7 Game Doctor - Minor graphic glitches (very minor mostly text and menu), works all the way until the end.
Everdrive - Minor graphic glitches, otherwise seems to work fine

[KingMike]

scorpion boss

If you mean the Helmasaur King, that's one boss I really gotta wonder if it was tested (or at least I did, before finding out it actually wasn't a fully-polished hack).
Putting that boss in a scrolling room clearly makes it extremely broken.
(I'm guessing it was one of the things they intended to fix later, but didn't?)

[Hiei-]

Something to know, the translation can work on an eeprom but not on a linker.

I got this problem recently.

The hack worked perfectly with a 29F032 chip but not with a Tototek or Everdrive linker.

For a linker, you need to tweak some things :

http://romhack.wikia.com/wiki/SNES_header (the link don't refer to the smc header/copier one),

Like if you expand the game from 16 to 24 Mb for example, you should modify what refer to 16 Mb and change it to 24.*

Fixing the checksum is also something which can often help.

[henke37]

Given that the game console is intentionally designed to refuse to run games with bad checksums, yes it kinda helps.

[Hiei-]

In fact, not really.

Games with bad checksum works if you use them as a cartmod.

But for copiers/linkers, yeah, I suppose it can help.

[MottZilla]

Given that the game console is intentionally designed to refuse to run games with bad checksums, yes it kinda helps.

You must be thinking about Sega Genesis/Megadrive which some models contain a BIOS ROM that can actually do checksum tests. The SNES contains no BIOS ROM and will happily run a game with invalid checksum. The SNES only contains a small boot rom for the SPC sound processor.

Unlike the NES, most SNES translations will work on the real console. SNES Copiers were very common. NES tended to have early translations that were built to run on Nesticle and other emulators of the day.

BS-Zelda does work on real hardware as well, but requires patches to be fully playable. It will work on whatever device you choose provided it's loaded properly.

[KingMike]

Unlike the NES, most SNES translations will work on the real console. SNES Copiers were very common.

I think the number of hackers who were willing to shell out $200+ for one are very few.
So I imagine many were only really tested on ZSNES which is known for not enforcing VRAM access limitations (though supposedly those limits weren't really understood until bsnes entered the scene and ZSNES development appears to have stagnated (coming up on the 5-year anniversary since the last public update). ).
(to say nothing of the large number of SMW hacks that utilize a non-hardware-compatible music patch)

[MottZilla]

It doesn't matter if the hackers had Copiers themselves, what matters is many people playing and perhaps testing the translation did. If it didn't work, the hacking group was more likely to hear about it compared to the NES when running such hacks on the real system was much more uncommon.

And just in general it seems most translations atleast the big ones for SNES tend to work fine.