NES/SNES Classic hacking, mods, ect.

[pbj]

Thanks in part to malenko's patience, I got my snes dual booting to Nes.  It's pretty terrific, to be honest.

Was unable to get snes going on my Famicom.  Undoing that attempt was a PITA, but got it back how it was eventually.

[Malenko]

Thanks in part to malenko's patience, I got my snes dual booting to Nes.  It's pretty terrific, to be honest.

:facebook thumbs up:

The dual boot is pretty great and Im glad you didnt lose your Dragon Warrior save.   

[gamepimp]

Is the dual booting something Hakchi can do easily? Or it is a little more involved?

[pbj]

Is the dual booting something Hakchi can do easily? Or it is a little more involved?

No, Hakchi can't do it easily.  You have to download a special debug copy of Hakchi, FTP the NES file onto the SNES, add a blank text file as a game, modify it's command line, and download a nice image of the NES Classic box.  Then you fire up the system, and select the NES Classic Game you've just created.  This effectively makes the system an NES Classic.  Then you turn it off, take the system back to your PC, add another blank text file as a game, modify the command line to point to the SNES files, and get an image of the SNES box.  Now you can just select the icon like it's a game.  The system goes dead for about 15 seconds and boots into the other mode.

Took me a couple hours to figure it all out.  Process would probably take me 5 minutes now.

[smass]

Is the dual booting something Hakchi can do easily? Or it is a little more involved?

No, Hakchi can't do it easily.  You have to download a special debug copy of Hakchi, FTP the NES file onto the SNES, add a blank text file as a game, modify it's command line, and download a nice image of the NES Classic box.  Then you fire up the system, and select the NES Classic Game you've just created.  This effectively makes the system an NES Classic.  Then you turn it off, take the system back to your PC, add another blank text file as a game, modify the command line to point to the SNES files, and get an image of the SNES box.  Now you can just select the icon like it's a game.  The system goes dead for about 15 seconds and boots into the other mode.

Took me a couple hours to figure it all out.  Process would probably take me 5 minutes now.

This is the method I used:

https://www.reddit.com/r/miniSNESmods/comments/75uqq7/release_tool_to_convert_an_nes_classic_firmware/

This simply adds a folder to the snes standard game list that switches you to the NES classic mode.  You can then switch back to SNES using a shortcut folder from that menu.  Works like a charm.

[pbj]

That method is easier but breaks a lot of functionality. 

Use the dantheman version:

https://www.reddit.com/r/miniSNESmods/comments/76fr80/release_nessnes_classic_dualboot_mod_v03_no_more/

You need to use this version of Hakchi:

https://github.com/ClusterM/hakchi2/files/1404545/hakchi-2.21d-dantheman827-2c93f77.zip

[pbj]

New version of hakchi, which fixes the constant NAND writing issues, breaks dual booting.

 

EDIT: Got it going again.  I had to restore the console back to stock and redo everything.

 

EDIT2: The controller reset doesn't work with multi-boot and the new version of Hakchi.  Back to the hacked 2.21d version...

 

[Grasshopper]

New version of hakchi, which fixes the constant NAND writing issues, breaks dual booting.

 

EDIT: Got it going again.  I had to restore the console back to stock and redo everything.

 

EDIT2: The controller reset doesn't work with multi-boot and the new version of Hakchi.  Back to the hacked 2.21d version...

 

You should've bought a Pi..... 

[gamepimp]

Does anyone have a good source that explains what all the mods do that are available in Hakchi? I downloaded everything from Github, but the description of each mod doesn't really give much information. For example, the copyleft mod says it's an "Engrish Fix". I'm modding the Famicom mini and it sounds like maybe this fixes the way the titles display perhaps? At any rate, I haven't been able to find a site that explains all of these thru Googling. Please share if you have a good source for these.

[pbj]

You should've bought a Pi..... 

I've got 2 of them collecting dust.

 

[Howard_Casto]

So I noticed that nobody had mentioned the fact that you can use external storage now. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPmjPr23NFs

My internet has been down, so I'm just now catching up.  Once I get time I'll post some relevant info. 

[pbj]

It's in the other thread.  Looks like a complete pain in the ass for now, and you can already get the entire NES library and everything worth playing on the SNES onto internal storage.... Too much hackery and console drift and you might as well go into Pi-doucher territory.

[JDFan]

It's in the other thread.  Looks like a complete pain in the ass for now, and you can already get the entire NES library and everything worth playing on the SNES onto internal storage.... Too much hackery and console drift and you might as well go into Pi-doucher territory.

Have to agree with PBJ  -- still don't see why everyone seems to want to add every console emulator to these things rather than keeping them as Snes (Nes) consoles.

[Howard_Casto]

Mostly because pis suck interface wise and running one of these is far less painful to setup than using a pc.  And there are systems like the turbo-grafx...... Am I ever going to pay the high cost of a tg16+cd+all the games?  Probably not... and the NES classic uses a gamepad that is damn close. 

I'm far more interested in the gamepad options it opens up.  Retro-arch already supports USB mice and generic HID gamepads, so Lightgun games can now be playable, as can other games with odd-ball specialty controllers.  I wrangled an old crt tv into the house this summer to play some zapper games and let me tell you, totally not worth the effort.  It makes more sense to just plug in a dolphin bar or a mouse when you have the urge to play those. 

[pbj]

Do not want.

[opt2not]

I'm far more interested in the gamepad options it opens up.

+1

All I want is a way of adding 2 more controllers for the multi-tap games.

[Grasshopper]

Yeah, for once I largely agree with pbj. Once you start heavily hacking these devices, you undermine the plug and play simplicity which is their main usp. When I eventually get round to hacking my SNES Mini, I intend to just add a handful of extra games, and maybe the option to activate reset from the controller. And that will be it.

That being said, I can kind of see the appeal of adding more flash memory. The onboard memory is extremely tight. Unfortunately, if you add too many games, you rapidly lose the ability to use save states, as SNES save states are apparently very memory hungry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCvSTVgT0mE

So I think adding extra external flash memory probably makes sense as long as it gets incorporated into Hakchi, and thus becomes trivial to do.

[pbj]

I've got the entire NES library and roughly 90 SNES games on mine (I thumbed through some "best 100 games" list and whittled it down).  There's around 200MB leftover, IIRC, so I'm not really anticipating issues with the save games.

The hell else do you people need?

 

[yotsuya]

Too much hackery and console drift and you might as well go into Pi-doucher territory.

Can I put this on next year’s ZapCon shirt?

[Grasshopper]

Well, it would be quite neat if you could have one external memory stick that ran only NES games with the NES front end, and another that ran only SNES games with the SNES front end, etc.

That makes more sense to me than a clunky and memory intensive dual boot setup.

[pbj]

Can I put this on next year’s ZapCon shirt?

Yes.

Well, it would be quite neat if you could have one external memory stick that ran only NES games with the NES front end, and another that ran only SNES games with the SNES front end, etc.

The 15 second reboot time kills the urge to rapidly switch consoles.  What I find humorous these days is it's much cheaper to buy an SNES Classic, strip the guts, and slap it in a Pi case.  Boot that thing into NES mode and don't have a link back to SNES and few would notice it wasn't legit.

[smass]

I satisfied my burning desire to have "one machine that plays them all" with my first Mame build.  Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, and that is the way I feel about my SNES classic.  I have the best games from both SNES and NES on mine and that is all I want on it.  I don't need the entire commodore 64 library and every other console since the invention of the video game.  I like the idea of a portable, easy to use Nintendo 8/16 bit console.  Seems like the zen balanced way to go - at least for me.

I realize some folks just enjoy tinkering for tinkering's sake - if so more power to ya.  But I agree with PBJ (doh!) on this one.  Enough is enough. 

[gamepimp]

One of the main reasons I don't really want to put a ton of games on the mini SNES is that it would take forever to scroll thru all of them. Has anyone figured out a faster way to skip around in the menu? Or is there a way to setup folders for "A" games, "B" games, etc. and then put all the corresponding titles in those?

[JDFan]

One of the main reasons I don't really want to put a ton of games on the mini SNES is that it would take forever to scroll thru all of them. Has anyone figured out a faster way to skip around in the menu? Or is there a way to setup folders for "A" games, "B" games, etc. and then put all the corresponding titles in those?

This setting pretty much does that - It leaves the original games on the main listing along with a folder for each letter for the added games !

[gamepimp]

That's awesome. I should have known there would be options for that. Hakchi is the bomb! Thanks for the heads-up JDFan. 

[Grasshopper]

I’m kind of on the fence over this issue.

If you want to run a very large number of games on your device, and/or emulate other more powerful systems, and/or have a wider choice of controllers, then a Pi is clearly a better option. It’s hardly worth arguing about at this point.

However, some people around here have an irrational hatred of the Pi, and no argument you present will persuade them to buy one. There are also some people who already own a NES/SNES Mini, and who understandably can’t justify purchasing yet another system to play the same games. For those people, the ability to add extra storage through an OTG splitter cable is an incremental non-invasive upgrade that makes a lot of sense.

And the other point is that hakchi makes hacking the NES/SNES Mini so easy that part of me thinks, why not?

[gamepimp]

I'm more interested in adding all SNES/Super Famicom games to my device. In order to do that though, I would need to expand the memory with the USB hack. I would then want to be able to make navigating the large list of games easier with the folder option.

[smass]

I'm more interested in adding all SNES/Super Famicom games to my device. In order to do that though, I would need to expand the memory with the USB hack. I would then want to be able to make navigating the large list of games easier with the folder option.

The folder options work really well.  That is the default way Hakchi handles menu structure, so when you add new games that is the way they are formatted.  Only the default games show up on the main menu, and then you have a folder labeled "other games" that takes you to another menu with all of your additional games.  30 games or so are displayed in that new menu and other folders are created alphabetically for the rest of the games.  Click on a folder and all the games in that folder are now displayed on the main menu, so you don't have to scroll through 200 games to get to the one you want.  Just open the alphabetical folder that corresponds to your game name and scroll through a shorter list to find the one you want.

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah despite what some people on this forum might make you think, the classics are more than capable of handling a lot of games without overly long lists.  Eventually I'll have a go at writing scripts to change the background images and such for when you go into folders for other emulators.  It is possible... it'll just take some clever scripting. 

[Malenko]

If you want to run a very large number of games on your device, and/or emulate other more powerful systems, and/or have a wider choice of controllers, then a Pi is clearly a better option. It’s hardly worth arguing about at this point.

However, some people around here have an irrational hatred of the Pi, and no argument you present will persuade them to buy one.

The issue isnt so much the Pi itself, but people who post that you should buy a Pi in threads that have nothing to do with debating choice; like a thread dedicated to the hacking of a (S)NES classic.

[opt2not]

I have more of a hatred for the people that promote the Pi, rather than the Pi itself.

[Howard_Casto]

Now see I had a big long post explaining, in more detail what you guys just said, but I deleted it in fear of de-railing the thread. 

I am so scared/proud. 

[pbj]

Bitching about people posting about Pi has officially become more tiresome than people posting about the Pi.

[Malenko]

Bitching about people bitching about people posting about Pi has officially become more tiresome than people posting about the Pi.

FTFY

[yotsuya]

Bitching about people bitching about people posting about Pi has officially become more tiresome than people posting about the Pi.

FTFY

Is the KADE still available?

[pbj]

On that note, WTF happened to KADE?

[yotsuya]

Everyone bought one

[pbj]

Yeah, but the console version that was going to support everything.... what happened?

[yotsuya]

Yeah, but the console version that was going to support everything.... what happened?

Scott? You want to take this one?

[Grasshopper]

I'm truly shocked. This thread is only for discussing NES/SNES Classic hacks, and you have the effrontery to mention the KADE.

I'm reporting you guys to the off-topic police.