Author Topic: Final Fantasy IV Namingway Edition (updated to Version 1.98b) (Read 238232 times)

mziab · « **Reply #200 on:** December 21, 2015, 02:20:29 pm »

Looks like uninitialized memory to me. Should be pretty easy to fix.

Rodimus Primal · « **Reply #201 on:** December 21, 2015, 09:29:29 pm »

Interesting. This bug only seems to be on the Japanese like title screen, not the Project II Title screen. I checked it in bsnes and ZSNES as well, just to be sure. While ZSNES barely works right on my Windows 10 machine, the bug wasn't there but it was in bsnes, so it leads me to believe that emulators that are more accurate, and most likely happens on actual console as well.

Going to have to do some digging to see what's causing it. If anyone wants to take a look on a fix, I'd appreciate it.

mziab · « **Reply #202 on:** December 22, 2015, 06:29:25 am »

Newer versions of bsnes/higan even randomize memory on boot-up to shake out such bugs more efficiently. Basically, you should zero out the memory before using it, since on real hardware it shouldn't be expected to be filled with zeroes on boot. This is without going into the nitty-gritty, but it never hurts to initialize memory, unless you're sure it was already initialized by the game before you do your stuff.

chillyfeez · « **Reply #203 on:** December 22, 2015, 06:56:38 am »

Quote from: mziab on December 22, 2015, 06:29:25 am

Newer versions of bsnes/higan even randomize memory on boot-up to shake out such bugs more efficiently. Basically, you should zero out the memory before using it, since on real hardware it shouldn't be expected to be filled with zeroes on boot. This is without going into the nitty-gritty, but it never hurts to initialize memory, unless you're sure it was already initialized by the game before you do your stuff.

So just so I'm clear on this, the bug likely would be present on actual console hardware?

And to fix it, add an instruction to overwrite all RAM with zeroes on startup, or would it be enough to just zero out VRAM?

mziab · « **Reply #204 on:** December 22, 2015, 05:24:03 pm »

Yes, some old splash screens are known to do that on real hardware. Like the one in Gulliver Boy, which I made a fix for. And the fix is to indeed zero out the VRAM or RAM, depending on the game. I'd start with RAM first.

chillyfeez · « **Reply #205 on:** December 22, 2015, 06:06:51 pm »

Quote from: mziab on December 22, 2015, 05:24:03 pm

Yes, some old splash screens are known to do that on real hardware. Like the one in Gulliver Boy, which I made a fix for. And the fix is to indeed zero out the VRAM or RAM, depending on the game. I'd start with RAM first.

Cool. Thanks!
So, Rodimus, I'll get on it. No ETA at this time, but assuming the fix is easy, I should be able to take care of it pretty quickly once I find the time.

Rodimus Primal · « **Reply #206 on:** December 23, 2015, 12:07:11 am »

Cool beans chillyfeez.

Merry Christmas!

chillyfeez · « **Reply #207 on:** January 08, 2016, 05:04:38 pm »

Ok, I've got a fix for the title screen reset bug.

In case anyone's wondering, there's an interesting story to tell about it...
So, first of all, this problem exists when playing the ROM on snes9x v5.3, but for some reason not on Geiger's snes9x debugger, which is built on v5.1. Not quite sure why that is...

So the first thing I tried to do was, as planned, initialize RAM when the game loads... Except I discovered pretty soon that the ROM does, in fact, do this already.

So then I tried to figure out how to initialize VRAM. It turned out that figuring out how to do that would take quite a while...

So, I did a bit of experimenting to try to figure out why these odd tiles were appearing at all. First step, look at the tile layout in ROM.
Well, that was about as far as I needed to go. Turns out the tile I was using as a "blank space," 01 3B, isn't actually a blank space at all. Well, that was clearly silly of me, as the tile screen data contains loads of blank spaces that I could have used. So, I replaced every instance of "3B 01" in the title screen layout (between 46000 and 467FF) with "64 00," because tile 00 64 actually is a blank space.

Tested it out in snes9x v5.3 and voila! Works like a charm!

So, anyway...
here's the patch
Apply to an unheadered copy of Namingway Edition v1.6

Knowing what I know now, I still don't know why the weirdness doesn't appear on all emulators right from the get-go...

Rodimus Primal · « **Reply #208 on:** January 09, 2016, 05:28:13 pm »

Awesome. It works like a charm. I'll have to make an update patch for Namingway and release it tonight. I'm curious if that was the reason importing the original title screen that we tried earlier didn't work.

vivify93 · « **Reply #209 on:** March 02, 2016, 02:17:06 am »

Hey Rodimus, how come Cid's airship tutorial dialogue is still in the game? Remember that FFII US added that. Further, Cid still references pressing the L Button for slow mode, when it's the B Button by now.

Edit 1 - So, uh, Rodimus... what the hell happened?

I'm watching someone stream Namingway Edition on Twitch and he just came across this in Troia. The nurse and doctor are now black mages and the guard is a sleep bubble.

Do you have any ideas here?

Edit 2- Also, it looks like you didn't fix the item menu spillover issue with job titles; go to use an item on someone from the main menu and you'll see it.

chillyfeez · « **Reply #210 on:** March 02, 2016, 05:59:12 am »

So that's why Edward takes so long to heal - the guard fell asleep and two black mages snuck in and are casting spells on him!

Rodimus Primal · « **Reply #211 on:** March 02, 2016, 06:52:46 am »

When I changed the characters that should be free for the Developers Room it's possible I didn't change the right ones. The problem is that FF4kster doesn't tell you what number NPC you are using when you change one. I'm going to have to look into this.

March 02, 2016, 09:19:06 pm - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

I was right. It was caused by me adding the Developer's Room, but the issue was when I wasn't sure about what NPC I was messing with. Fortunately, I can easily fix them. If you come across ANY misplaced NPCs be sure to let me know. This has been fixed.

I'm keeping the tutorial since there isn't really a reason to remove it, BUT I did fix the dialogue to B instead of L. I also fixed a spot where Rosa says Cure2 when casting a spell instead of Cura.

I didn't realize there was a bug with overspill using an item until now. It doesn't seem like a game breaking bug but I'm also not sure where to fix it.

I've submitted the changes made so far.

chillyfeez · « **Reply #212 on:** March 02, 2016, 11:33:07 pm »

Quote

I didn't realize there was a bug with overspill using an item until now. It doesn't seem like a game breaking bug but I'm also not sure where to fix it.

What's the bug, exactly? Is it something limited to Namingway Edition or is it a FFIV bug. If it's the latter (likely, as NE doesn't have many assembly hacks that might have screwed up item usage), then it's likely someone on slick already made a patch for it...

Rodimus Primal · « **Reply #213 on:** March 03, 2016, 12:16:29 am »

It's caused by expanding the job classes to 8 characters instead of the normal 7. When you go to use an item, in the left column there is no issue:

But if you use an item on the right column, this happens:

Like I said it's not game breaking, but it would be worth fixing.

chillyfeez · « **Reply #214 on:** March 03, 2016, 12:30:40 am »

Oh! It's because I didn't even notice the window appeared on different sides depending on which column the source item inhabits. Hence there's a different routine (or at least different parameters) for drawing the window. Pretty sure I can solve that quickly once I get to look into it.
I'm gonna say Saturday, tentatively.

Rodimus Primal · « **Reply #215 on:** March 04, 2016, 11:38:07 pm »

Quote from: chillyfeez on March 03, 2016, 12:30:40 am

Oh! It's because I didn't even notice the window appeared on different sides depending on which column the source item inhabits. Hence there's a different routine (or at least different parameters) for drawing the window. Pretty sure I can solve that quickly once I get to look into it.
I'm gonna say Saturday, tentatively.

chillyfeez · « **Reply #216 on:** March 05, 2016, 04:50:51 pm »

OK, Rodimus, got it.

To widen the Left-side Item target window by one tile (thus fixing the overflow issue), open your ROM in a hex editor and jump to 00D94C (assuming no header, which seems to be the norm for Namingway Edition). The byte there should be "0E." Change it to "0F."

That should do it.

Rodimus Primal · « **Reply #217 on:** March 05, 2016, 09:25:54 pm »

Quote from: chillyfeez on March 05, 2016, 04:50:51 pm

OK, Rodimus, got it.

To widen the Left-side Item target window by one tile (thus fixing the overflow issue), open your ROM in a hex editor and jump to 00D94C (assuming no header, which seems to be the norm for Namingway Edition). The byte there should be "0E." Change it to "0F."

That should do it.

Very cool! Thanks a million chillyfeez. I've submitted the updated version now.

Special · « **Reply #218 on:** March 06, 2016, 05:07:04 pm »

Is that version updated now? It still shows v1.65 despite the note "2016-03-05 21:24:49 Bugfix for using an item in the left column on a character."

Rodimus Primal · « **Reply #219 on:** March 06, 2016, 05:45:01 pm »

I didn't change the number but added that current fix. So it's still 1.65 but the fix for the items used on the right column are fixed now.