Konami Arcade ROMs

[krat0s]

Hi,
I am trying to do something and I need some answers regarding the Konami arcade system or systems in general. I tried googling for didn't get far. Basically I have some ROM dumps and none of them is in a standard format.

[DackR]

In general, the file extension for MAME ROMs refer to the ROM chip's position on the game PCB. If the position isn't labeled on the board, it will sometimes be named exactly what is shown on the ROM chip's label. They aren't really "split" so much as the equivalent of unique data files meant for different things. It's true that some of the data could potentially be split between ROM chips in certain games, however I wouldn't expect to see this very often.

Just do a google search for pictures of the original arcade PCBs. Here is a picture of Konami 88's PCB on ebay:
http://www.ebay.de/itm/Konami-88-Hyper-Olympic-3-Original-Konami-PCB-Jamma-1988-like-New-Neo-Geo-/272141460802?hash=item3f5ce52542

Not all Konami games use the same PCB. If fact, most are different unless we are talking about games made in the same time frame.

If you want to find more information about how the these games work, download the MAME source code and search for the game in the question. It can usually give you a better idea of what information is stored on which ROM chip. Graphics data are usually stored separate from program code and even SFX data, for example.

[AWJ]

Those are just example, I have more roms but I can't find any info about the dump/rom structure.

Each file corresponds to a single EPROM or mask ROM chip on the printed circuit board. Cartridges for home consoles generally have all the code, data, graphics and sounds for the entire game in a single chip (two on the NES) but arcade boards have many ROM chips because they didn't have to cost $50 and fit into a box on a store shelf.

The MAME source code is the best place to see what each of the ROMs is--which ones are code (and for which CPU type), which ones are graphics and which ones are audio data. Find the ROM_START() macro for the game you're interested in and look from there.

There's a thread in the newbie forum where I've been helping a guy understand arcade hardware (specifically CPS1, which is reasonably similar to 1980s Konami hardware), check it out if you're interested.

Other than that I want to combine this files into one single file if possible.

Why?

[krat0s]

@DackR thanks for the info.

[AWJ]

@DackR thanks for the info. I managed to read such things scattered through the web and I used different sites, but many were down, thank god we have Wayback machine.
@AWJ , thanks aswell. I looked through your post and you are the right man for my questions , it seems you a MAME dev. That's really lucky.
Now to explain it to you. If you don't mind take a look here: http://ps2home.freeforums.net/thread/640/haunted-castle-ps2-mame-emulator
Someone has used MAME , was it a library , driver, code snippet dunno. Do you remember when you can find that specific string?
Now, I said that the rom was embed inside the ELF files(which is like a main exe file.) I got my hands of a rom dump of the japanese game and there were two files. By searching for the bytes of the first dump I found the start offset of the rom in the ELF file. The first file dump was a complete match. In the ELF file, right after the first file dump , the second would start. Comparing that with the second file rom I acquired , the size was the same but there were some differences.
So my question would be:
Is each game differently treated by MAME?
Does MAME(in our case) , needs something like a bios for this arcade?
If they really ported MAME , any idea for finding which version they might have used?
*Is it possible to replace the rom with another one and having it boot?
Now , I made some work on this. I used gyruss (total filesize less than the original rom in the ELF file) and I though it would be a good idea since it was a konami arcade rom of the same year as haunted castle.
With gyruss I have made files so I think I have made a dumb move, I opened all the files in a hex editor and manually joined them starting alphabetically. In fact the game did boot, the main screen but then it displayed just one tile and froze. Well, at least its a start. Any ideas or the answer to the first question is yes and dead end? Thanks for all the help.
Regards,

Sorry, what you're trying to do definitely isn't going to work. You're not going to be able to run arbitrary arcade games on the PS2 by replacing the ROMs in that emulated collection. Yes, different arcade games run on totally different hardware, even games from the same manufacturer. MAME is a multiple emulator like Mednafen. Mednafen can run both TurboGrafx and PSX games, but that doesn't mean you can run TurboGrafx games on a PSX, see what I'm saying? The developers of that PS2 collection may have started with MAME, but they almost certainly stripped out all the code except the parts needed to run the specific games in the collection.

[krat0s]

Sorry, what you're trying to do definitely isn't going to work. You're not going to be able to run arbitrary arcade games on the PS2 by replacing the ROMs in that emulated collection. Yes, different arcade games run on totally different hardware, even games from the same manufacturer. MAME is a multiple emulator like Mednafen. Mednafen can run both TurboGrafx and PSX games, but that doesn't mean you can run TurboGrafx games on a PSX, see what I'm saying? The developers of that PS2 collection may have started with MAME, but they almost certainly stripped out all the code except the parts needed to run the specific games in the collection.

Worth a try I suppose. I already "knew" it won't work the moment I saw the roms and they strange way it was dumped. I am little familiar with MAME and therefore all this questions. Clearly it won't work. Whats the chance that they haven't stripped all the code? I agree they have optimized and used it , but let's suppose they didn't. What would you suggest to search/look for?
Thanks again for the help. It's ok, I got the point that it won't work , now I am going to play around and see if I can find something interesting.
Regards,

[AWJ]

Worth a try I suppose. I already "knew" it won't work the moment I saw the roms and they strange way it was dumped. I am little familiar with MAME and therefore all this questions. Clearly it won't work. Whats the chance that they haven't stripped all the code? I agree they have optimized and used it , but let's suppose they didn't. What would you suggest to search/look for?
Thanks again for the help. It's ok, I got the point that it won't work , now I am going to play around and see if I can find something interesting.
Regards,

When you run MAME (I mean regular MAME on a PC), you tell it what game to load and MAME itself knows what files to look for, how to load and combine them, and what hardware to emulate (that's the answer to your question "Is each game differently treated by MAME?") The ROM files themselves don't have any headers or other information that says what game they're for or how to load or emulate them. They're just raw data dumps. So there isn't anything you can do to the ROM data embedded in the ELF to make the PS2 emulator magically recognize it as Gyruss (or whatever game) and run it, even in the unlikely event that the MAME code to emulate that game is still there.

[krat0s]

When you run MAME (I mean regular MAME on a PC), you tell it what game to load and MAME itself knows what files to look for, how to load and combine them, and what hardware to emulate (that's the answer to your question "Is each game differently treated by MAME?") The ROM files themselves don't have any headers or other information that says what game they're for or how to load or emulate them. They're just raw data dumps. So there isn't anything you can do to the ROM data embedded in the ELF to make the PS2 emulator magically recognize it as Gyruss (or whatever game) and run it, even in the unlikely event that the MAME code to emulate that game is still there.

Well explained, you have well convienced me    Now, for the last question: Is there any interest in the original embedded rom and if yes where to submit it?
After do some reading on the roms and the tools used(just taking a quick look) I see that there can be different revisions of the rom , corrupted rom dumps(due to dust etc on the hardware) or different version. Forgive me if I get the terms wrong.
The dump I download has two dump files. The first is a complete match and the second is equal in size but the contens are different. This makes me believe that either the rom in the emulator is a different revision, different version , or the correct dump. The reason I say the correct dumb is because Konami oficially gave rights to this HAMSTER company to emulate and I highly doubt that they used tools to make dumps but Konami supplied the rom, so it must be a correct dump. Other than that there is also a SOUND folder which I suppose that contains music and effects. The files in there are in .ADP format(not sure if familiar to you). Although it is possible they are in another format and the extension means nothing and the sounds were optimized and played differently from the emulator. I can play them with some tools but I have to  tweak around to find the right frequenzy.
Regards,

[AWJ]

Well explained, you have well convienced me    Now, for the last question: Is there any interest in the original embedded rom and if yes where to submit it?
After do some reading on the roms and the tools used(just taking a quick look) I see that there can be different revisions of the rom , corrupted rom dumps(due to dust etc on the hardware) or different version. Forgive me if I get the terms wrong.
The dump I download has two dump files. The first is a complete match and the second is equal in size but the contens are different. This makes me believe that either the rom in the emulator is a different revision, different version , or the correct dump. The reason I say the correct dumb is because Konami oficially gave rights to this HAMSTER company to emulate and I highly doubt that they used tools to make dumps but Konami supplied the rom, so it must be a correct dump. Other than that there is also a SOUND folder which I suppose that contains music and effects. The files in there are in .ADP format(not sure if familiar to you). Although it is possible they are in another format and the extension means nothing and the sounds were optimized and played differently from the emulator. I can play them with some tools but I have to  tweak around to find the right frequenzy.
Regards,

There are two different Japanese versions of Akumajou Dracula supported by MAME, "version N" and "version P". Have you compared the data in the PS2 ELF against both versions?

[krat0s]

There are two different Japanese versions of Akumajou Dracula supported by MAME, "version N" and "version P". Have you compared the data in the PS2 ELF against both versions?

I wasn't aware of this. I download both P and N version and can confirm that the emulator rom is in fact the "version P". Both k8 and k12 file dumps match 100% with those extracted from the ELF. The version was taken from the first link in after googling "Akumajou Dracula version p" (don't want to post links.), , akumajou.zip And the MD5 of the zip archive is:
dfd87605c0531b25c5048f199ac7f212
This became quite interesting. The only thing left are those audio files. Any ideas about those?

[AWJ]

I wasn't aware of this. I download both P and N version and can confirm that the emulator rom is in fact the "version P". Both k8 and k12 file dumps match 100% with those extracted from the ELF. The version was taken from the first link in after googling "Akumajou Dracula version p" (don't want to post links.), , akumajou.zip And the MD5 of the zip archive is:
dfd87605c0531b25c5048f199ac7f212
This became quite interesting. The only thing left are those audio files. Any ideas about those?

They probably play the audio from those files rather than emulating it for performance reasons.