Not sure what led you here. I would say that you're unlikely to find an active NAOMI emulation community here.

Followed the trail of https://wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/Angelo_Salese

Hah, I created that wiki content. So maybe that?

I really want to play this game online using the new netcode implemented in a NullDC package.

So I don't know how you got from MAME's Angelo Salese to NullDC, other than he's worked on NAOMI emulation in MAME (I think?), but...

What you're describing sounds like an emulation issue, not a ROM issue? So I guess your issue is with NullDC. NullDC is a dead project. Their support forum is dead, that project is over. It's open source, there may still be people hacking on the code, but I'm not sure who or where they would be.

skmp, a developer of NullDC, moved over to working on Reicast. (http://www.reicast.com). I think there's a fork or two of Reicast that supports netplay. And I believe Reicast supports NAOMI emulation.

As for MAME's support of NAOMI emulation, you're better off not asking about it. 😜

Your detective work is sound.

I'm not sure it is an emulation issue. the NAOMI rom was set to "Normal/Turbo" in arcades. This was quickly corrected by machine operators by accessing the service menu and changing it to Turbo2.

I believe this needs to happen before the rom is compiled and the rom online is a raw dump without the service mode edit.

OH okay.

If the arcade operators could fix this setting by entering the service menu, then the code to do what you want should exist within sfz3ugd.

If you cannot find the setting by entering the service menu, then it's probably NOT an emulation issue - it's likely it doesn't exist within that specific ROM revision of sfz3ugd.

So instead you might be looking for an revision of sfz3ugd which has the setting you are looking for? It sounds like it should be a manufacturer revision, but it just as easily could have been one created by hackers.

It is possible that it has not been dumped. If it is undumped, then you are better off talking to arcade game collectors and/or acquiring that revision of the game yourself off eBay or auction sites, if it exists.

VOGONS is also a bad forum for THAT.

MAMEWorld Forums, DCEmulation.org forums, KLOV forums, whatever arcade collector forums for whatever country you're in - BUT NOT HERE. This isn't a great community for that.

If you can tell me what led you here? Maybe I can fix that...

It seems odd this revision of sfz3ugd wouldn't have turned up already and been dumped, but a specific revision of a Japanese PCB only typically found in Japan? Those slip through the fingers of emulation authors and those that work with them all the time, to end up only in the hands of collectors / "hoarders" 😀

thx - im working on modifying the hex but no luck yet

trips451 wrote on 2020-06-19, 03:19:

thx - im working on modifying the hex but no luck yet

Again - if the setting "exists in the hex", either GAME software OR NAOMI SYSTEM software, then it's an emulation issue.

If the setting does NOT "exist in the hex", then it's a modification that either exists in some different revision or version, or was console only, or hasn't been archived yet. Or it's a rumor and didn't actually exist.

Your third option is to go homebrew and hack together your own modification that duplicates the effect of the setting, but that would not be accurate to history, if the story you were told about this feature is true.

And again: I really would like to know what made you think coming HERE of all places would provide you with access to people with experience in Dreamcast/NAOMI emulation and/or reverse-engineering NAOMI ROMs.

Anyhow, while I'm no slouch at arcade emulation, I pinged a few friends who know more about NAOMI than I do, perhaps they'll know what the heck you're talking about.

From what I can tell, the rom can be set to enter a test menu where the modification can occur

However it doesn’t stick when starting the ROM

yeah it looks like it's set in the test menu, but not in the actual game when i boot it without going into test menu first 🤔

- guy I’m working with on getting this rom changed.

1. How’d I get here? At one point in history on some rom listings site the gentleman I linked to made an edit to this rom. Or at least that’s what the issue tracker I saw suggested.

2. Totally appreciate that I asked a question in a forum that doesn’t have a lot of expertise in my specific issue. My bad, I was really swinging at everything.

(FWIW, for being the wrong place, you are sure are a nice and helpful person!)

3. Completely unrelated, do you happen to know if this is custom forum software or is this site built on something pre-existing? It’s a fantastic forum !

Just to quickly follow up here - we seem to have got it working (well we broke some other shit (like turning on entry mode) but we know it can save the setting change in the service menu and now boots with the change.

Just a final update that we did get this working!

Appreciate the soundboard that and kindness here. I am still curious about #3

Yeah, so I checked with one of my Internet friends who works on Demul and MAME.

He's at least 90% sure what you guys ran into was an old emulation bug that's been fixed in other emulators, probably an issue with NullDC being unable to save setting to EEPROM, (and/or both players EEPROM/SRAM/etc. not being synchronized for netplay). He confirmed for me that entering the service menu, that setting does appear in service menu for sfz3ugd in other emulators and changing that setting does save and function in more mature emulators.

Ergo: you should have started up your Windows box (I assume you have a desktop or laptop?) and tested functionality on other emulators like Demul (which is, if I recall correctly, closed source) or Reicast before leaping to making guesses. Step one being "What keys do I need to press to open the service menu of a NAOMI game on something originally designed as a Dreamcast emulator?"

BTW: He also recommends rebasing your project to Reicast, which is very similar to NullDC but a much newer codebase and a much more active project and optimized more for low power hardware (including an ARM recompiler).

Working off a Sony PSP fork of NullDC, huh? My detective skills continue onward...

---

As for Angelo... I've known him for easily a decade or more. He probably wouldn't have "edited a ROM" as that isn't the MAME way - we don't hack upon the ROMs if the game is properly dumped to make it fit to broken emulation code, that runs antithetical to software preservation. So what he probably did was fixed the emulation code. Can you point me at what you saw that led you to believe he "edited a ROM"?

You need to learn to improve your terminology, buddy. Maybe you're all still new to this?

"Editing a ROM". "Fixing a ROM"... A ROM is a binary dump from the game software that functioned on the original arcade hardware. Assuming all went well in the dumping process, you KNOW that software worked on the original hardware. Therefore, if emulation is broken, there's no reason to edit the ROM binary dump, unless you're severely hacking upon game behavior (yuck).

"Editing the game emulation". "Fixing the game emulation" == BETTER. Now you're describing that the issue is a problem of the emulation framework itself, NOT the game's original software.

I think what you and I had here was a problem to communicate. I dunno, maybe I'm just old and not keeping up with emulation slang.

---

[EDIT] I think the comment you may have seen was "Angelo Salese did some maple fixes, now Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper should be fully playable."
That has nothing to do with "editing a ROM" and instead was fixing emulation code in MAME, a ton of years ago: https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/9899c1 … 469329780a6d409
In fact, I am pretty sure his fixes there are also completely unrelated to what is fixing the issue for you in NullDC.

Anyhow, I'm still trying to process the flailing around for help. The only process that brings me HERE is, well, me.

So far I've pieced together something like this:
1. Emulator user: "I can't get SFZ3UGD to change to 'Turbo 2' speed setting..."
2. trips451: "I maybe can't fix the emulator, but I can help google that!"
3. trips451: Googles something generic like "SFZ3UGD emulation"
4. trips451: Finds comment somewhere that at one point Angelo Salese fixed emulation in MAME.
5. trips451: "I don't even know, maybe they can help - how do you contact MAME team developers?"
6. trips451: Finds MAMEDev wiki page about Angelo, which has no direct link to contact him.
7. trips451: Ignores all links to "MAME Community" at top of website
8. trips451: Ignores link to contact MAME team in website top menu
9. trips451: Instead, discovers wiki page about Angelo was created by guy named Stiletto
10. trips451: Finds wiki page about Stiletto, which mentions one of his internet homes as being VOGONS.
11. trips451: Ignores all other possible ways to contact Stiletto and/or Angelo (MAMEWorld Forums, Bannister.org Forums, MAMEDEV.org Forums) and starts new thread in Console/Arcade Emulation section on VOGONS to try to attract Stiletto's attention.

If I'm right, then there's a few places in that search path where you completely went off the rails 😆

Unless there's some topic on VOGONS within this subforum about Dreamcast/NAOMI emulation to get VOGONS high in Google results that I've long forgotten about? 😆

Sorry to tease you - but I got my start with helping emulator users and developers in your fashion over twenty years ago. I WAS ONCE IN YOUR SHOES.
Then I leveled up my Internet research skills (there's way to become more efficient and more accurate!). And I read EVERYTHING.
After many months of trying to help both emulator users and developers alike and having many successes, the MAME team asked to add me to their team as a mere research assistant in late 2000.
Time passed, and now I am one of the MAME team's main administrative members and the team trusts me with practically everything from server maintenance to secrets and intra-project communications and negotiations.
Have I learned how to code an emulator myself from scratch in that time? Not at all 🤣 (well, in general I know the basics...)

As for the forum software, VOGONS is originally based on phpBB open-source forum software, but has seen some significant modifications and plugin installation to enhance things like anti-spam, moderator ease of use, and many other features. Significant work has also been recently put into the "theme" or "skin" of the software to improve usability and readability on mobile devices. Due to VOGONS' main focus of 90's PC gaming, some effort was also put into maintaining compatibility with ancient web browsers, though recently that's suffered a little due to the march of time. For a taste of what went into the latest version of VOGONS, pop open all the sections of this post: Welcome to the updated VOGONS

Working off a Sony PSP fork of NullDC, huh? My detective skills continue onward...

No PSP fork. This is just the netplay fork of nulldc.

Your detective skills were correct and I agree that my lexicon is not quite right for this. I mean, I'm basically a 15yr web technologies developer - so I can understand a fair amount of the known knowns but there are a lot of known unknowns i completely miss.

In any event, we were able to change the hex values to get what we wanted as a better default.

Re: phpBB being updated: this is a really really nice forum and design. I have a feeling the team at VOGONS don't necessarily have the interest in repackaging an open-sourced version or even a for-profit theme, but I none-the-less wanted to say this is great.

Thanks again for your time and thought. Really do appreciate it and I've passed the feed back on to others that might be interested.

Cheers,

I'd like to peep in that Flycast's another option for the Naomi emulation, but I don't know whether that is the same regarding SFA3U here. It's also way off limits regarding PSP support anyhow (PSP'ing a dreamcast's arcade relative is a tall order to begin with given the quirks of the PVR2 that even high-end desktop dc emulators can't fully do yet)