Super Metroid Phazon Hack 0.3 pause screen question

[Mornwood]

Hello everyone, I'm a new member of this community. I recently downloaded the Super Metroid Hack 0.3. I applied the IPS thing to my existing Super Metroid ROM, started playing the hack like normal, was having a great time and everything, but soon I realized that, whenever I paused the game, I couldn't get to the Dark Samus subscreen (the one you access by pressing R), because the screen would simply fade to black and the game would automatically freeze. At first I thought it was a one-time glitch, so I didn't pay much attention to it; I just restarted my game and resumed playing. But then I tried it again, and the same thing happened: I pause the game, press R to go to the Dark Samus subscreen, the screen blacks out and that's it, I can't do anything else (the music would still play, though). The control is completely unresponsive, effectively forcing me to reset the game or use my most recent savestate.

Now, I wouldn't mind so much about that particular screen, but then I read about how you need to switch on and off certain power-ups such as the dark beam to make the gameplay actually easier. Well, I just got the dark beam, and I can already tell it's kinda lame for attacking certain types of enemies. So what can I do? Has this happened to any of you guys before? Is there anything I can do to fix this or am I just screwed?

[mrrichard999]

I played this with Snes9x and never had problems. Did you apply the patch to a ROM with no Header?

This tool can help remove or add headers if you are unsure about the original ROM you patched to.

http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/841/

[Mornwood]

Thanks for the input. I downloaded the utility and removed the header; unfortunately the problem persists. I have a small doubt, though: does the header have to be removed from the original Super Metroid ROM before applying the IPS patch or can I directly remove it from the Phazon hack ROM once it has been created? Am I gonna lose all my progress if I create a new (unheadered) ROM hack? (I'm relatively new to hack playing, so all this header and unheader stuff confuses me a little bit- sorry  ).

[NERV Agent]

You will not lose your progress as long as the ROM and the ".srm" files have the same name.

[kerberos7]

Hello everyone, I'm a new member of this community. I recently downloaded the Super Metroid Hack 0.3. I applied the IPS thing to my existing Super Metroid ROM, started playing the hack like normal, was having a great time and everything, but soon I realized that, whenever I paused the game, I couldn't get to the Dark Samus subscreen (the one you access by pressing R), because the screen would simply fade to black and the game would automatically freeze. At first I thought it was a one-time glitch, so I didn't pay much attention to it; I just restarted my game and resumed playing. But then I tried it again, and the same thing happened: I pause the game, press R to go to the Dark Samus subscreen, the screen blacks out and that's it, I can't do anything else (the music would still play, though). The control is completely unresponsive, effectively forcing me to reset the game or use my most recent savestate.

Now, I wouldn't mind so much about that particular screen, but then I read about how you need to switch on and off certain power-ups such as the dark beam to make the gameplay actually easier. Well, I just got the dark beam, and I can already tell it's kinda lame for attacking certain types of enemies. So what can I do? Has this happened to any of you guys before? Is there anything I can do to fix this or am I just screwed?

What happened here is that you patched to a headered rom and have thus produced a bugged rom. And you are now playing a bugged, which of course will eventually lead to problems.

does the header have to be removed from the original Super Metroid ROM before applying the IPS patch

Yes, this is mandatory.

or can I directly remove it from the Phazon hack ROM once it has been created?

Of course not, this will not change a thing, since the header of the patched rom is ignored by the emulator anyway.

Am I gonna lose all my progress if I create a new (unheadered) ROM hack? (I'm relatively new to hack playing, so all this header and unheader stuff confuses me a little bit sorry

You will not lose progress.

This is what you need to do. Delete the bugged rom. Get the Original Super Metroid hack. Do not blindly patch. Check the info first. On the hack's page where you download on the left, under Patching info, it says No-Header. Under ROM/ISO info it says CRC-32= D63ED5F8.

There is no sense in patching or playing if these numbers don't match. First load your original rom in TUSH utility. If it says: file is headered, press remove header. If it says: file is not headered, do nothing.

Tush utility:
http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/608/

Next is CRC. Open your Original rom in a hash program to verify the ID of the original rom:
http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1002/

Under ROM info, under CRC, it must say, D63ED5F8, when your original rom is loaded into this program. If the number matches, you have the correct rom.

Now apply the patch using Lunar IPS. You should then be able to come to the subscreen. If you can't, the hack has a bug (since you patched correctly).


To continue your progress, rename your correctly patched rom/hack, to have the same name as your SRM save file, which should remain the same (although to be on the safe side, you might want to start over, since you produced a SRM safe file based on a bugged rom - it all depends how much you false patching bugged the rom; so the SRM safe file might still be normally usable).

[Mornwood]

I've finally managed to solve the problem. What happened was that I've been playing the game on an old Snes9x version (Ver. 1.40 IIRC), so I downloaded a more up-to-date version (1.52) and the glitch got fixed immediately. What a relief it is being able to finally turn off that much maligned dark beam 

I've gotta say, though, the sound quality of Ver. 1.52 is vastly inferior to that of ver. 1.40. Both music and fx sound all muffled and drowned-out in comparison. I've tried switching on and off every possible option in the sound settings and there's not much of an improvement. Oh well. Gameplay-wise it's as good as usual 

Thanks guys for all your help. Much appreciated!

[KingMike]

kerberos7, I thought about the header too.
But the thing is that sort of error usually causes games to crash much sooner than what it sounded like. Usually not even playable at all.

[kerberos7]

But the thing is that sort of error usually causes games to crash much sooner than what it sounded like. Usually not even playable at all.

Yes I never though of that. It should crash on site.

What happened was that I've been playing the game on an old Snes9x version (Ver. 1.40 IIRC)

That is very old. The recomended version of snes9x is 1.55, which I believe also supports MSU-1, the advanced external sound.