[Zynk]

I've just submitted a hack a week ago, then I just found out in my email that it was rejected because (quoted from email):

Your patching process got screwed up and has the entire ROM in it, plus most of the text was not translated.

I'm confused by this remark. I'm completely sure that I submitted a zipped file containing a readme file and the ips patch fileonly. Isn't it easy and simple to create a Lunar IPS patch? How can I put an entire ROM in my submission when I clearly submitted an ips patch & readme file?

[Pikachumanson]

try zipping it with another IPS program or that new BPS and see if you still get that error.

[Jorpho]

How can I put an entire ROM in my submission when I clearly submitted an ips patch & readme file?

As I understand it, if you start out with, say, a 1 MB ROM, and then do some crazy expansion stuff and end up with a 4 MB ROM, and subsequently use the 1 MB ROM to generate the IPS, then yes, the IPS patch will pretty much include most of the ROM.  (Of course, it won't really be in a form that is actually useable as a ROM, but this is a rather sub-optimal result when the whole process is supposed to avoid distributing copyrighted data.)

So, yes, you may have screwed up your patch creation process.  To make sure you're doing it correctly, maybe try taking a ROM, changing a single byte, and generating an IPS file.  If you don't end up with something teensy-tiny, you're doing something wrong.

[Zynk]

^does it mean that the ips patch should have smaller size vs the game rom size? Or both ips patch and ROM should have the same size? Afaik, I didn't do any rom expansions or altered anything to expand the rom, except hacking the game's texts. Btw, my hack is an English translation of Rockman 7.


I just reviewed my hack... I may really have screwed up on making my hack. Because the original copy of the ROM is a hacked copy & not a fresh original copy. Is this might be the reason? I'm re-making my hack again, this time with a fresh ROM.

[Gideon Zhi]

You can end up with something like this if one of the two roms you're basing your IPS on has a header and the other does not.

[Zynk]

^I tried this SNES ROM Utility to try removing headers.
But when I load Rockman 7, the Task\Remove Header is not lit. Does this mean the game has no header?
(On a side note, I had tried loading Megaman X, and the Remove Header is lit.)

[Azkadellia]

This is all you need for header crap.

[Zoinkity]

To answer the largely rhetorical question, if an ips contained the entire ROM it would actually be larger than the original file due to the format's overhead.

Also, if you shifted things in memory, such as extending a block of text and pushing whatever comes after it back, the ips will be quite large.  It simply does 1:1 comparison.  To avoid coping a lot of original code in hacks like that, use a delta patch creator like xdelta or bps.
Not only is the filesize smaller but it avoids any possible copyright issues.

[Nightcrawler]

You can end up with something like this if one of the two roms you're basing your IPS on has a header and the other does not.

to Gid and Zionkity. The result of making a patch (in any format except those handling data shifts) with mismatched header/no-header between source and modified ROM results in the ENTIRE ROM ending up in the patch as a result. The icing on the cake is the fact that due to the patch's overhead, the patch becomes even LARGER than the original ROM! Double Whammy!

If this is your problem, you can either:

1.) Recreate the IPS patch ensuring that both your source and modified ROMs match up with or without a header. Preferably, ROMs should have no header as SNES headers are old copier relics that aren't necessary. Additionally, Un-headered SNES ROMs are the SNES and ROMhacking community's preferred 'standard'.

2.) Ignore this and use a different format that more intelligently handles data shifting such as those Zoinkity suggested.

[MathUser2929]

Ok, I just created a patch which was bigger than the original rom and the patch is bigger than the hack itself! I don't know what to do about it. I tried UPS and NINJA patch creators and both of the patches were about the same size. The hack is a Genesis ROM in Bin Format.

I'd appreciate any help in this area. Thanks.

[Gideon Zhi]

Two possibilities.
1) You're comparing an SMD-format ROM to a Bin-format rom. This is a no-no.
2) You're working off of a Sonic The Hedgehog disassembly, which means you've basically recompiled the entire game and all the addresses are going to be different anyway.

[MathUser2929]

Both ROMS are in BIN format so that ain't the issue. I know that Sonic hackers are fond of shifting data tho. I thought there was a patch creator that would take shifted data into account but it sounds like not. Oh well.

[Gideon Zhi]

You could try xdelta. That's supposed to account for moved data.

[MathUser2929]

That worked fine! Thanks! I hate to use a lesser known format but I can't be creating patches as big as the roms are.