March 29, 2024, 08:53:09 am

SNES Pirate Carts

Started by 133MHz, March 28, 2009, 10:50:27 pm

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133MHz

May 11, 2009, 04:16:40 pm #15 Last Edit: May 11, 2009, 04:26:32 pm by 133MHz
Quote from: nintendodork on May 11, 2009, 04:11:18 pm
that Pokemon SNES pirate that is only a picture of Ash in front of a scrolling background :D


That's the 'copy protection' part of this game. If the game detects it has been copied, it loops the scrolling Ash animation infinitely, preventing the game from starting up. When running on "original" hardware, Ash scrolls only once and the game starts up as normal.

You can play the protected ROM image by downloading a patch that some guy made here and apply it to the ROM.

YouTube video of the game's copy protection (again, not mine)

Rob64

I wonder what the inside of Super Noah's Ark 3d looks like... too bad I don't have one
Now you're playing with Power

133MHz

No CIC inside, that's for sure ;). (it uses the top cart slot to piggyback onto the CIC of a licensed game).
Super Noah's Ark 3D was made by a semi-reputable company, it probably uses a proper ROM chip and a discrete address decoder.

Rob64

I knew about the toploading part of it.

But I was wondering if the chip is somehow similar to Wolfenstein 3D since it's the same game but different characters. That could probably confirm the story about ID being pissed at Nintendo and giving the code to Wisdom Tree mentioned in the AVGN video.
Now you're playing with Power

133MHz

The ROM and address decoder are probably exactly the same ones used in Wolfenstein 3D, except for the lockout chip.

Rob64

Has anyone ever opened one to confirm it like how people opened Sonic 4?
Now you're playing with Power