adding support for SFII-2nd and decapping

Hi,

This is a small update on the status of the breaking process.

I used the sygnal analyser without much luck, so before putting much of my time into something that I'm not sure if it will pay off, I contacted a colleague that has previous experience in the retro-engineering  ICs and we'll try to decapp a couple of custom SH2 and find out how to reprogram them or at least narrow down the number of pins that are accessing the encryption module.

Regarding the support for SFIII-2nd I have tried to creat a new version of MAME that will just 'printf' each address (PC) that is being executed by the SH2 but I I can't get to have them all printed out.

For that reason and following Alex's propositionI'm asking for support of the experts around there to provide new C files that need to be changed in order to get printed all the addresses that are executed. An improved version should ideally generate a table that sets to one te value of an address if it was exectued, so we avoid getting laaaarge output files. This is not critical, as a little script in Notepad++ could do the job.

When we have a working C version, then I'll ask you to run it, send me the output files that you get, so I can integrate them all and put them in the latest version of the tool.

We'll (hopefully) set up an open code environment for this, so meanwhile please send your files via  www.mediafire.com

Waiting for your feedback....

The Spider is ready

With the help of Raf, I've managed to get replace the 29f400 with a socketable 28f400. The result can be seen in the pictures below.

Good news is that it works perfectly and that means several things:
* Both 29f400 and 28f400 can be used
* I changed the BIOS from a Mexican one to a USA one and worked perfectly.
* This is an SF2 cartridge, which might be even better given the peculiarity of the encryption in this game (data not encrypted, code encrypted).
* It´s much easier and safer now to attach the probes from the signal analyser.
* Nope, I can't get back to life dead cartridges yet....

I will setup everything this weekend and let's start seeing what's going on.

Stay tuned.

Small off topic

There are still two main things to do in order to completely break the CPSIII system: One of them is adding support from/to 2nd Giant. The other one is taking back to life dead cartridges. Both things will take a loooot of time and any support I get will certainly motivate me moving forward.

Besides the donate button, there are two other ways you can support for free this project if you like it:

* If you find it interesting, click on any of the ads that are shown on the blog.
* If you come from France, please tell all your friends about my other french site: www.quipeutlefaire.fr (I really hope this works out so I can definitely move to France :)

Hope you didn't mind this little off topic and expect more CPS3 news very soon!!

Cheers.

Christmas Release v0.3

And a new version is available.....as usual rename to RAR and extract.

http://netload.in/dateigIMHBcJ3d8.htm



Some bugs have been fixed, but the biggest improvement is....REGION SELECTOR!
You can now choose the region that you want it to run, regardles of the cartridge version that you have. Nice isn't it??

This time, supports all ISOS available of SFIII 3rd strike and JoJos adventure. No SFIII 2ndImpact yet :(



Enjoy Christmas y'all there.

Do you know these versions??

See below some links of some "special" versions of Warzard/Red Earth.

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=vhcos4&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=nr0i2g&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=208xyxc&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=21b56z8&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=15n5c8n&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=kcymur&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=6efakn&s=5
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2rw45j4&s=5


The new version of the tool (coming soon) will let you choose the target country code of the ISOS generated. They will work independently of the country code of the cartridge.

@Ian: It will support Warzard country code.

Comments about the tool

The v0.2 of the tool, that works with ISOS, for the moment supports all ISOS except  JJK-160 and 33S-2 which have different CD structures than JJK-140 and 33S-1 respectively. This will be updated soon.

Regarding what contains every CD, CD2 contains always what can't fit in CD1 following this rule:

20 --> 10

50 --> 30

60 --> 40

That means that IF target CD has no file 20, 2nd CD will have file 20 in the position of 10. However if target CD has 20 it will go in CD1.

i.e. if we want to play JOJOBA on a JOJO cartridge, the 1st CD will have correct files 10,20,30,31,40 and 41 (meaning SIMMS 1,2,3 and 4).
From the 2nd CD only interest us the files 50 and 51 which will be located in position of 30 and 31 (SIMM 3).
To make it correctly, install first CD2 (will update SIMM3) replace SIMM3 with an new one, update using CD1 and place the SIMM3 extracted in the 1st update into position SIMM5. Notice that in both updates we should keep something in SIMM5, for the BIOS to let us upgrade.

I hope it's clear now :)

Apparently there is A 2nd revision of JOJO Bizzarre adventure with date 990927. If you manage to get it please let me know.

Darksoft.

The Tool v0.2

See below link for new tool ready to work with ISOS. Rename to RAR and extract.

http://netload.in/datei9skZL9FSh0/phprmVY5Z.htm

The tool will automatically generate 2 ISOS if needed and recognizes all CPS3 CDs.

Regarding SFIII-2nd the tool is prepared to support a decryption table so it can be reconverted for each cartridge.

No time yet to release a proper TXT file. As stated in the source code, this is released as GNU General Public License. If you release a new binary, you also have to release the source code so others can enjoy your change.


A new version with nice menu for Windows in Visual C++ will be available soon.



Enjoy!