Castlevania II (Simon's Quest) - Multilingual enhancement

[Bregalad]

@ninn: AFAIK UOROM is a mapper 2 with 256KB ROM, while UNROM is the same mapper with 128KB of ROM. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.

Basically you're right, but the real picture is abit more complex. Mapper 2 can be realized by any hardware, the most common of them being the nintendo made UNROM board. However there is boards manufactured by anyone else, such as Konami, Jaleco, or you could make your own board, that are also mapper 2 without being UNROM. In addition to that, the game Crazy Climber uses a Nintendo-made UNROM board but is not mapper 2.

UOROM is a very rare board, I think only 3 games ever used it, period. It would however be very easy to make your own oversize mapper 2, and not necessarly limited to 256k.

[Fisher]

Cool!! 
So, UNROM is the name of the board, not necessarily their components.
They just follow the same working principles as UNROM, and may change the fixed bank as done on Crazy Climber.
If I've done right the math, adding a latch to all 8 CPU bits would allow up to 4 Megabytes of ROM!! WOW!! And even more can be done if we also latch PPU bits!!
I confess that when I read 74161 mapper I thought it would use the same mapper as Battletoads. I think it's one of the simplest mappers ever done.

So, back on topic: I have flashed the game and put on my testboard. Excellent!! Looks and plays very smooth!! Congratulations Bisqwit for your excellent work!!
When I tested on the emulator, I had the option to save. Is the mapper 2 save feature I've suggested already implemented? Looks like I'll have to try adding a PRG RAM and see if it works.
Many thanks guys!! You're Great!!

Edit: corrected the math, should be 4 megabytes instead of 8.

[Bisqwit]

When I tested on the emulator, I had the option to save. Is the mapper 2 save feature I've suggested already implemented? Looks like I'll have to try adding a PRG RAM and see if it works.

Yes, if you select the save/load feature, the game will try to use PRG RAM and save/load in it. If the board does not have PRG RAM, you will get a buzzer error sound when attempting to enter the save/load screen. If the PRG RAM is not battery backed, the game cannot detect that and will still attempt to save there.

I've done right the math, adding a latch to all 8 CPU bits would allow up to 4 Megabytes of ROM!! WOW!! And even more can be done if we also latch PPU bits!!

Yep, sounds about right. Although the present version of Simon's Quest's UNROM patch assumes a maximum of 256 kilobytes of ROM. More works only if the board is not prone to bus conflicts in bankswitching commands.

[Fisher]

Well... looks like I've found a small bug:
In the town of Veros, if you stand on the front of the singpost and a male NPC crosses you, the screen goes black, and the sound plays slower. The game goes back to normal as soon as the NPC gets away from the signpost. Interesting that the female NPC does not activate this bug.
Not a terrible bug that renders the game unplayable, just a weird one that perharps are related to the mapper 2.
Any chance I can help make a Brazilian's Portuguese translation? Where should I start??
Thanks again for this great work!!

[Bisqwit]

Well... looks like I've found a small bug:
In the town of Veros, if you stand on the front of the singpost and a male NPC crosses you, the screen goes black, and the sound plays slower. The game goes back to normal as soon as the NPC gets away from the signpost. Interesting that the female NPC does not activate this bug.
Not a terrible bug that renders the game unplayable, just a weird one that perharps are related to the mapper 2.

Yes, it is related to mapper 2. Cluebooks and signposts are rendered in a different font from the rest of the dialog. When you are near one of these, the game switches to a ROM page that contains that font, and switches back when you are near some other object. An NPC that passes by can apparently cause a pingpong effect where the game keeps switching ROM pages. With other mappers this does not cause problems, because switching ROM pages is fast, but with mapper 2, switching "pages" involves actually copying data from ROM into graphics memory, which is really slow. This causes lag. There may be more details to it (that explain why some NPCs do not trigger the problem), but this is the gist of it. Thank you for the report. I'll see if I can think of a more efficient solution some day.

Any chance I can help make a Brazilian's Portuguese translation? Where should I start??
Thanks again for this great work!!

Helping create a new translation is actually quite an involving process that requires commitment. The instructions can be found in an earlier post by me in this thread. Thank you in advance.

[CVReynolds]

Hoi, Bisqwit. :3

The Castlevania II patch maker on your site has been down on my end for a while now. I just get the site's 404 page when I try it. Is it down for you as well? I'm using Google Chrome, by the way.

[Bisqwit]

The Castlevania II patch maker on your site has been down on my end for a while now. I just get he site's 404 page when I try it. Is it down for you as well? I'm using Google Chrome, by the way.

Coincidentally the same was just reported to me by e-mail an hour ago or so. It has been broken for several days apparently. Thank you for the report. I will fix it.

[CVReynolds]

There are still some problems on the site. Some options output an IPS that is broken (it has a "PK" header instead of a "PATCH" header). Some options just lead to the 404 page still.

If you haven't yet done work on the site, I apologize for this redundant post.

[Bisqwit]

There are still some problems on the site. Some options output an IPS that is broken (it has a "PK" header instead of a "PATCH" header). Some options just lead to the 404 page still.

If you haven't yet done work on the site, I apologize for this redundant post.

You get a "PK" header if you choose to pack the patch in a ZIP file. That's an option given by the patch vending machine.
Which options give a 404?

[CVReynolds]

I get the "PK" header, but I never download zips. I always pick "just the file".

I choose the following in order:

EN/Englanti
NTSC (USA)
IPS
Just the file, thanks.
MMC4
No
Yes
No
Whips
No
No
No
Yes
No

I get the nonworking IPS with "PK" header from that.

I was going to try all of the options to report accurately on the 404 issue, but it seems the server is down right now.

[Bisqwit]

Thank you. The problems have now been fixed.

[Bisqwit]

To keep better track of the translation projects for various languages, I created this spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iLdpkvMbamVaXhId5u0usfs6vLAkrWjD-nPMvT2pQmw

EDIT: Forgot to make it publicly viewable. Should be fixed now!
EDIT 2: Sheet 2 in the same document shows the character sets / fonts used in each translation. Translators, take note. This may help you in understanding the character budget.

[ShadowOne333]

To keep better track of the translation projects for various languages, I created this spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iLdpkvMbamVaXhId5u0usfs6vLAkrWjD-nPMvT2pQmw

EDIT: Forgot to make it publicly viewable. Should be fixed now!
EDIT 2: Sheet 2 in the same document shows the character sets / fonts used in each translation. Translators, take note. This may help you in understanding the character budget.

You never got back to me about the last message I sent you.
I think the only part left was about three characters unaccounted for (ñ, ú & é I think), either that or that they were still going over the character limitation.

Let me know if you need me to resend you the email.

[Bisqwit]

You never got back to me about the last message I sent you.
I think the only part left was about three characters unaccounted for (ñ, ú & é I think), either that or that they were still going over the character limitation.

The last message I have received from you is in March 5, saying "I know som stuff might get in the way some times, but don't worry, take your time.", in response to "Progress report", after I had already sent you an update in March 2. If you have sent other messages, I have not received them. I could not find them even in the spam folder.

[MathUser2929]

If your language is like english then there might be letters that aren't used much. Type out your script and do a search for each letter and see how many are used. You might have letters that are unused or used very little. If you got letters like X or Z you can just disgard them and rewrite stuff that might use them.

[ShadowOne333]

The last message I have received from you is in March 5, saying "I know some stuff might get in the way some times, but don't worry, take your time.", in response to "Progress report", after I had already sent you an update in March 2. If you have sent other messages, I have not received them. I could not find them even in the spam folder.

Yeah I think that was the last message, although I don't have it stored in my Inbox anymore due to a mistake, but I do have the message before that one
I haven't sent any others that I recall at the top of my head.

I would like to finish the translation, since there are but a few things remaining I think.
Could you let me know what is left to be done in detail through email so that I can finish the remaining stuff up, please?

[Bisqwit]

Yeah I think that was the last message, although I don't have it stored in my Inbox anymore due to a mistake, but I do have the message before that one I haven't sent any others that I recall at the top of my head.

I would like to finish the translation, since there are but a few things remaining I think.
Could you let me know what is left to be done in detail through email so that I can finish the remaining stuff up, please?

So my chart was correct after all, and I did get back to you about the last message you sent me. I will resend my last message then. As for catching up, I think the responsibility of keeping track of which parts are done and which are not lies with you. (Well, ultimately for quality control it is also my responsibility, but I'm delegating because I can )
EDIT: Please confirm you received my message this time.
EDIT 2: I'm seeing neither a confirmation nor a reply.

[Decerebrado]

Hello Bisqwit!
First of all, thanks for this wonderful work you've been doing with Castlevania 2!!
It's great!!
I'm having trouble trying to create a patch with the vending machine, I would like a patch in english, NTSC, with MMC1, No CHR-ROM, SRAM saving and password support. The other options are the vending machine's default ones.
Could you please generate this to me?
Thanks in advance!!

[ShadowOne333]

So my chart was correct after all, and I did get back to you about the last message you sent me. I will resend my last message then. As for catching up, I think the responsibility of keeping track of which parts are done and which are not lies with you. (Well, ultimately for quality control it is also my responsibility, but I'm delegating because I can )
EDIT: Please confirm you received my message this time.
EDIT 2: I'm seeing neither a confirmation nor a reply.

I did send it as soon as you replied back the first time, I don't know why you haven't received it yet.
I'll send you another copy of my last sent mail again today. Let's hope it reaches :p

[Bisqwit]

I did send it as soon as you replied back the first time, I don't know why you haven't received it yet.
I'll send you another copy of my last sent mail again today. Let's hope it reaches :p

I did receive the message you sent today, but once again, it is a copy of the same message that I already replied to on March 2. And I re-sent my reply on May 30. Neither of which you have confirmed. I sent my messages to the j.pedroza1489@hotmail.com address, that we successfully roundtrip first on Sep 14, starting with your message titled "New email and questions", and from which I last heard of you on March 5. I see you have now reverted to the old address shadow_one666@hotmail.com. Maybe you better check the address you told me to use?

July 25, 2016, 05:06:37 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

I'm having trouble trying to create a patch with the vending machine, I would like a patch in english, NTSC, with MMC1, No CHR-ROM, SRAM saving and password support. The other options are the vending machine's default ones.
Could you please generate this to me?

Can you please clarify the kind of problem you are having? I tried your options and I got a download link to http://bisqwit.iki.fi/cv2fin/ips/cv2eng-2_9_8_19-ntsc-stm1mwfmFuVp4-ips.zip just fine.