I finally could get my hands on a Gamegenie for SNES.
Unfortunately, all the games I tried, except Super Mario World and Dragon Ball Z just gave me a black screen after entering the codes.
I 've looked around and seems I have a v1 gg, since it already have the traces on the code intro screen, the board says SNESV 1.0, it has 8 ICs and in the chip I suppose is the ROM it says GALOOB V5.8.
Is there anything I can do to make it work?
A ROM update maybe? Anyone knows the pinout?
Thanks in advance.
I took a look at the chip, seems to be using a standard 64KB EPROM pinout.
All the pins are connected to the respective address and data lines, except A15 that is plugged to BA16. (LoRom mapping?).
The /OE pin is connected to /RD and the /CE pin is connected to the PAL pin 2.
Looks like it's possible to piggyback a Flash ROM on it with the new bios and test.
I'll just need to find a way to pull the /CE pin out of the circuit and pull it high, connecting the test flash on the PAL IC.
I think I can leave the /OE pin as-is, since the chip will be disables I don't think I'll get any kind of conflict.
Has anyone reverse-enginereed this before?
I just don't want to go all the way to rev-eng it, just want to make it work.
There's some info in fullsnes.htm (including a link to Charles's page with more info).
Knowing your ROM's CRC32 would help to get an idea which of the different hardware versions you have.
And which & how many (non-working) games did you try?
And are you sure that you didn't do something like using unencrypted PAL Action Replay codes for NTSC games?
I think a picture can help a little on identifying it:
Attachment:
20170304_125854.jpg [ 635.88 KiB | Viewed 4809 times ]
Just forgive my crappy cellphone pic.
The tests I've done are just plug the game and enter no codes.
They should at least boot, don't they?
Here is the list of tested games:
Super Mario World (US oficial) => Booted
Super Street Fighter 2 (US oficial) => Black Screen
Tiny Toon Adventures (JP oficial) => Black Screen
Donkey Kong Country 2 (US official) => Black Screen
Street Fighter 2 Turbo (JP pirate) => Black Screen
X-Men Mutant Apocalypse (US oficial) => Black Screen
Dragon Ball Z - Super Saiya Densetsu (Pirate with added SRAM/battery combo) => Booted
StarFox (US oficial) => locked on code screen
Megaman X (US oficial) => Black Screen
Super Turrican (Repro test) => Booted
Looks like only the 4mbit games are booting...
I looked at the board and the address lines are given continuty to the connector's end.
I'll take a look on the links, thanks for pointing.
Edit: I took a look at the links.
I only could see the genie.txt on the Wayback Machine.
This possibly explains why Google couldn't find it.
Tested the ASIC connections, all are fine.
I'm just out of ideas...
This may be a dumb question, but have you cleaned both the cart slot and edge connector? I've had some NES Game Genies where one or both ends were really dirty.
Ah, yes, Charles moved all his stuff to some new URL, that is... here:
http://dreamjam.co.uk/emuviews/txt/genie.txt - going by that info, the game genie should be even having some (limited and probably unintended) support for HiRom games. And I can't find notes about problems with bigger or faster games, or games with SRAM. Though also no notes about support for such things.
Better make sure that there are any existing codes for your games at all; if the codes exist, then that should imply that the game
can be used with the game genie hardware. I would assume that Game Genie is pretty old (and older than Action Replay PAR2/PAR3), and so, it might lack support for newer game carts.
Just for curiosity, if you have some snes-cart dumping tool around... what's your CRC32 for the ROM?
PS. You've plugged StarFox into that 46pin connector? Time to improve your continuity checks ; )
Yes, I've cleaned the edge connector with an eraser and the slot with a piece of paper.
Both were very dirty at the beginning, the paper even became dark gray.
Should I try another cleaning method?
A friend suggested sandpaper, but I don't think it's a good idea.
Maybe a toothbrush with alcohol?
I've read some incompatibilities issues from around the Web, but most of them just sound like urban legends, like the newer games purposelly not working and newer SNES board designs even disallowing the genie to boot.
Are these stories real?
@Nocash: I looked at some Gamegenie manual scans and they have codes for newer games, as DK2 and even Chrono Trigger.
I had made a SNES dumper some time ago with an old PC motherboard. I'll see if I can find it and make it work again, or, just remove the ROM and dump as I did with the others.
As to Starfox, I've built an over clock circuit inside this game, but after disassembling it looks like I removed it.
I'll sure try to add the missing slot pins as soon as I solve the black screen problem.
Ive cleaned up connectors before using a magic eraser and rubbing alcohol. Just be careful. I would not recommend doing more than a pass or two at a time with the eraser wet with the rubbing alcohol. Too many passes will result in the chips being worn down because of the magic eraser being similar to a very fine grade of sandpaper.
Also for a little peace of mind: Yes I have personally cleaned several NES/SNES/Sega connectors in this way and the only game that made it worse was Nightmare on Elm street which had issues to begin with. Also I have used these personally on my pinball machines to take off some scuff marks from the playfield without damaging the clear coat.
You shouldn't use anything abrasive as you'll wear off the gold plating. Use some (strong)solvent and toothbrush, or regular soft pencil eraser.
Well, I tried this one:
Attachment:
spray_limpa_contato_inflamavel_130g_waft--47047_440_001.jpg [ 19.1 KiB | Viewed 4676 times ]
I'm afraid to start overdoing it and cause more damage than fix.
@NYMike: I dont't remember to have seem this magic eraser around.
Maybe with another name...
What grade of sandpaper should I use?
I'm inclined to use a 10 000 grade. It seems almost like a regular paper.
@TMEE: That's the eraser I used. A very soft pencil eraser I use to correct my drawings on paper.
I really like the one I use, since the others tend to make holes on the paper after a couple of corrections (yes, since I'm a beginer on the art of electronics, I usually do a lot of mistakes on my drawings).
I use only anhydrous alcohol and Q-tips, or cloth material. Never use sand-paper.
I used to have a pack of medical prep wipes that was almost 100% alcohol. They worked great.
EDIT. Interesting side note. I also used alcohol wipes, once, to clean road salt off a windshield when it got so cold that the windshield fluid froze. Alcohol freezes at a much lower temperature than water. Would have worked better if they weren't so damned small.
Fisher wrote:
@NYMike: I dont't remember to have seem this magic eraser around.
Maybe with another name...
Magic Eraser is a trade name, the material itself is melamine foam. It's extremely cheap to order the stuff from China through ebay ($5 worth is almost a lifetime supply). I have used it on cart connectors sometimes, if it's a really bad one, but I'd prefer not to. The stuff is amazing on scratch-resistant surfaces such as a polycarbonate overlay (arcade control panels, membrane keypads), refrigerator door, etc. I don't know what it's actual hardness is VS gold.
That contact cleaner should be fine, if it's for electronics, I doubt you could use too much of it. But if you've cleaned it and this GG has never worked, it's not sounding too hopeful. It was interesting to see that SNES GG has a replaceable ROM (only half of NES Game Genies do, I've been doing stuff with those).
dougeff wrote:
I used to have a pack of medical prep wipes that was almost 100% alcohol.
I had some of these in the penultimate job I had. They're great!!
I just didn't remembered them.
Thanks for making me recall of it!
Memblers wrote:
I've been doing stuff with those
What nasty things have you done with the Game Genie?
I just got curious.
Maybe the way to fix it would be to replace the ROM.
Memblers wrote:
this GG has never worked
Well, I wouldn't say it never worked.
In fact, my kids loved to play Super Mario World with the codes.
The Dragon Ball and Super Turrican also booted on it.
In fact, it seems to boot only older/512KB games, which seems very strange.
The kids are just crazy to play Donkey Kong 2 on it with codes... I feel gulty for not had fixed it yet
I tried both master codes that are on the GG book but no deal, just black screen.
I talked to the old owner and he said it worked perfectly, but it was kind of lost in his things for around 10+ years.
It doesn't have any traces of oxidation.
I'm just puzzled... it seemed to be something related to dirty on the connectors or bad contacts but not.
What about the incompatibilities histories?? Urban legends?
Fisher wrote:
In fact, my kids loved to play Super Mario World with the codes.
The Dragon Ball and Super Turrican also booted on it.
In fact, it seems to boot only older/512KB games, which seems very strange.
[...]
I'm just puzzled... it seemed to be something related to dirty on the connectors or bad contacts but not.
It sounds kinda like the higher address lines aren't being passed through, for whatever reason?
I just don't understand.
I made continuity tests and all passed.
Tested them on the 74LS30 too, fine.
Even put a disassembled cartridge and tested at the ROM pins and it's fine.
Maybe if I bridge the inputs to the outputs?
I'll try that tomorrow...
I could bridge all the B bus and if it works I can disconnect them one by one.
When it stops working I have my guilty!
What chances I have to fry the thing by doing these kind of tests?
Fisher wrote:
Memblers wrote:
I've been doing stuff with those
What nasty things have you done with the Game Genie?
I just got curious.
Maybe the way to fix it would be to replace the ROM.
The original plan was to release an upgrade for it, I fixed bugs in it and optimized the ROM enough so a tiny bootloader that blargg wrote could fit in it (NES GG has 4kB ROM and it's full).
Bugs fixed:
1: fixed screwed up sound in Capcom games (initialize the the sweep registers)
2: fixed title screens being skipped (wait for start to be released instead of pressed)
3: changed color $0D to $0F, $0D possibly screws up on certain TVs
Since I haven't written proper PC-side server for blargg's bootloader, that project has kinda stalled out. Instead I've just taken over the whole ROM with an XMODEM-based bootloader. And I use those to program and test my
GTROM boards.
One fun thing I did with the Game Genie was create a new type of code, I joking call it Gameshart because it will break many games, but is neat when it works. It's a way to patch RAM instead of ROM. The GG can patch 3 bytes, 2 for the NMI vector, and 1 to disable code that clears RAM. This way you can insert code into unused part of the game's RAM and it will be called every frame. The patches have to be really simple though because the NES GG can't be accessed anymore once you've enabled the external cartridge. It would be fun to make my own modernized cheat cart device, just too many projects lately.
I have several of the SNES Game Genies. The older version won't work with certain games. I think the Version 2.0 is the later version with better compatibility. Maybe I should get around to looking into them sometime. I know I have a corrupt 2.0 that could use some fixing.
I feel like the thread is already past the topic of cleaning and abrasives but I figure Ill throw this out there just for some food for thought.
Around me you can buy the Magic Erase cleaner at Wal-Mart in a 2 pack for less than $5. I can also find a single piece at the local Dollar Tree for $1.
I just picked up a steal of a deal on a Nintendo 64 and several games for practically nothing. I thought the system was toast. Super Mario 64 kept resetting every 15-20 seconds. I cleaned it 5 times with rubbing alcohol and q-tips. Still nothing. I tried another game and it worked perfectly so I knew it was the Super Mario 64 cart giving me issues. I disassembled the cart and lightly buffed the connector on both sides with a magic eraser and rubbing alcohol for 10 seconds each side. Then I went over it again with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol just to clean off and of the magic eraser and now it works 100% for 20 minutes and climbing.
@Memblers:
Really nice stuff!!
Capcom's games' sound get really annoying.
Although my NES GG is made of a single epoxy blob, I'm lookin forward to see this released!
I think I have an older version that has a ROM on it but I never tried o fix it.
Maybe it's the time to go for it!!
skaman wrote:
The older version won't work with certain games.
Any ideas if it's possible to convert a V1 into a V2?
Maybe (hopefully) it's just the software.
@NYMike:
I'll sure search and got some of this.
I think I'll make some kind of scalonated routine, like trying first a dry cloth, them paper, them a soft eraser them alcohos with qtips...
Or just go forward in he worst cases.
I also got a nice N64 deal from a army's guy that was leaving.
It had 5 games, I remember 3 were Goldeneye, Mario Kart and Mario64.
In the end it was just the AV cable.
Me and the kids played a lot and still play a little these days.
Finally I could dump the GameGenie's ROM.
I'm sure it's a bad dump. Should it be 32k?? 64K??
The file I got is 128K!!
Edit: File deleted to avoid possible future problems.
If someone needs or wants it just PM me.
Code:
md5sun: a1b28457f2ed7104cbfba5aedb22eec1 BACKUP.BIN
But I think this should be enough to be sure of what version I have and if a ROM upgrade would solve my problem.
I will sure delete this ROM as soon as I can get an answer, just to avoid problems.
Thanks in advance!!
Seems like there's both a 32 KiB and a 64 KiB version?
The first and second halves of your dump are very similar, but a few bytes change for some reason. What you have is very similar, but differs in a different few bytes from what GoodSNES calls "Game Genie BIOS [a1][!].smc"
Seems like there's still some problem with the dumper.
Guess what?? I soldered a SNES cart slot on an older motherboard.
I think that's the quickest (and uglyest) way I could do this.
Would a ROM upgrade possibly be THE fix??
I dumped Game Genie Versions 1.0 and 2.0 and the dumps match those in GoodSNES.
The Version 1.0 matches "Game Genie BIOS [a1][!].smc" (65,536 bytes with CRC32 of 58CBF2FE). The Version 2.0 matches "Game Genie BIOS V2.0 [!].smc" (32,768 bytes with CRC32 of AC94F94A).
Here are pics of one of my Version 2.0 Game Genies:
My Version 1.0 uses the same PCB that was posted earlier in the thread.
Good Luck!
Interesting. Please, correct me if I'm wrong:
Seems that the hardware differences are limited to the resistors.
The ones on the B bus changed from 470 Ohms to 100 Ohms.
It also have added 10K pulldowns to the circuit.
Seems like an easy enough hardware mod to try!!
Thanks for the info!! I'll try this mod as soon as I can and post the results.
Hi there...greetings from Brazil...Sorry my bad english...
I am following the post (thanks Cleverson Almeida - Cle Alm for show me) and the idea of modifying Genie's bios encourages me, I would like to report my experience with the Game Genie rev. 5 - 8/18/1992 - SNES V1.0.
+ GG only works well in 1993/below SNES REV. (the best is the first version). From 1995/above NINTENDO prevents its use. Snes Clones works fine too.
+ In my tests only original games works, most of them lo-rom.
+ I discovered, unintentionally, a way to bypass blocking of some games like Super Metroid, Mario Kart, Super Mario All Stars (SNES 1993) that usually did not work. It's a hardware modification. You need to lift leg 6* of the IC on pcb game, I can not explain the reason, but it worked.
*with "PIN 6" i mean 6th PIN from mask ROM down side , from left to right direction.
+ Another way to make GG work on ANY SNES REVIEW and pirate carts is use it coupled to the flashcart SUPERUFO PRO 8, as shown in my video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBH-X-tm_RQSkaman, is this your GG a GALOOB GG? There is no name printed or integrated circuit, just globtops...curious..
Yes, it is a Galoob GG.
I actually have a couple 2.0s on hand and opened them both up.
Here's pics of the other Version 2.0 with a slightly different PCB (and missing the top chip):
I'm not an admin here, but I'd like to say: Welcome Thiago!!
tbfa wrote:
Hi there...greetings from Brazil...Sorry my bad english...
That's great!!
I'm brazilian too!!
The people here are very kind, and usually the language barrier is not a big issue.
There are some other brazilian guys here, the most actives seems to be Tokumaru, l_oliveira and Zepper.
tbfa wrote:
Game Genie rev. 5 - 8/18/1992 - SNES V1.0.
That's exactly the GameGenie version that's giving me trouble!!
I'm not sure of my SNES' version...
But I think it's the one with the S-CPU chip on the mainboard, from about 92 or 93.
tbfa wrote:
You need to lift leg 6* of the IC on pcb game, I can not explain the reason, but it worked.
Thanks for sharing this info!!
The pin's function seems to be /CART, and the pin mumber 49.
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1451860020706.png [ 28.2 KiB | Viewed 2936 times ]
I think that disabling it inside the GameGenie should be a better idea.
I'll try this as soon as I can!!
Again, thank you very much for sharing the info!!
That pin is the ROM enable. Cutting it implies that the ROM should always be driving its output, and insinuates that the Game Genie is causing timing problems.
É um prazer ajudar, Fisher. Pode me procurar no FB, Thiago Barrios. É muito bom saber que há brasileiros aqui! Realmente é melhor fazer a modificação no game genie ( como eu não pensei nisso antes?) mas, se for aventurar, veja se funciona primeiro no cartucho...nem Mario World pega?
Skaman, Nice Cart, rare!
About PIN "6"
I don't know how and why it's working for me. My SNES rev is 93.
One of my fisrts videos:
https://youtu.be/ZZsbNfnxP1Y
Cara, o Mario World está funcionando perfeitamente.
O que não tem funcionado parecem ser jogos com mais de 4megabits.
Acho isso bem estranho!!
A maior pressão aqui é por parte das gurias, que não vêem a hora de Jogar Donkey Kong 2 com os códigos.
É ótimo ver mais brazucas por aqui!!
Vou adicionar no Facebook sim, mas infelizmente não tenho usado muito ultimamente.
Praticamente todas minhas "gambiarras" estão compartilhadas lá.
Edit: Vc é o cara da engenharia do trabalho?
Translated to english:
Man, the Mario World is working perfectly.
What doesn't work seems to be games with more than 4megabits.
This is very weird!!
The pressure here is because of the kids, that really want to play Donkey Kong 2 with the codes.
It's excelent to see more brazucas here!!
I'll sure add you on Facebook, but unfortunatelly I have not used it lately.
Almost all my "workarounds" are shared there.
Edit: Are you the work engineering guy?
Haha great!
Super Mario World is easy to work. So your SNES rev may be 93 below.
PIN 6* from picture is not a /CE real PIN?
Possibly it is.
Sure it is!!
Usually it's connected to /CART.
Maybe it should be pulled low...
Okay!!!
About DK2, it is one of Champions in cart protection. SRAM checks, and others. It Will be hard to do It works. I have dk3 and never works
Well, pin 6 in your picture is actually pin 22 (since the pin 1 key is at the other end). And pin 22 is /CE... so ... yeah, you're disconnecting the signal from the cart edge "/ROMSEL" and since the game is always working it must float low when not driven.
This isn't a good thing; it means that whenever the CPU is reading from RAM, PPU, or APU it'll get in a fight. (But it looks like the Game Genie has some resistors in the way causing the ROM to always lose the fight?)
Sorry , with "PIN 6" i mean 6th PIN from mask ROM down side , from left to right direction.
I don't undestand much about snes hardware and logic.
lidnariq wrote:
This isn't a good thing; it means that whenever the CPU is reading from RAM, PPU, or APU it'll get in a fight. (But it looks like the Game Genie has some resistors in the way causing the ROM to always lose the fight?)
Isn't this called sort of a race condition?
The bus arbitrer that would solve this problem just can't because of the missing control pin.
This can lead to a program crash, or an exception, if I'm rememebering my architecture classes right.
Yeah, my best guess is that leaving the ROM enabled all the time speeds things up by enough to compensate for the resistors slowing things down.
It's an answer that I'm not terribly comfortable with, but... I'm not up for tracing the SNES Game Genie PCB at the moment, so I don't have any better data to work with.
Try connecting /CE to ground and seeing if it still works. If it does, then lidnariq is right about what's going on: grounding /CE and using /OE for all decoding makes relatively slow ROMs respond faster at the cost of more power consumption. I've even seen games that leave /CE and /OE asserted all the time and use a separate 3-state bus transceiver for decoding, such as
Holy Diver for Famicom.
Is there a separate /OE on that ROM, and if so, what's it connected to?
I had put a piece of paper on the /ROMSEL pin.
No success.
But exchanging the resistors to 100 Ohms did made it boot.
Should I care for the 10K pulldowns??
Edit:
Here is the Charles McDonald's notes about the SNES GameGenie Nocash pointed me at the begining.
Attachment:
genie.txt [26.79 KiB]
Downloaded 136 times
It doesn't have the full schematics, but has most things explained like "this connect in there" stuff.
I'll do some more tests and see what happens!!
Fisher wrote:
The pressure here is because of the kids, that really want to play Donkey Kong 2 with the codes.
In that case use an emulator.
So, if I understand Mr. MacDonald's notes correctly ... the GG passes through, or fails to pass through, the /ROMSEL signal to the cart depending on whether there's an address match. If there's a match, it drives a specific value onto the 16-bit data bus (of which only half is exposed on the SNES). If the cart (for whatever reason) ignores /ROMSEL, then the resistors ensure that the GG wins instead of the cart.
I still don't have a better working theory than "timing issues, possibly because a lot of SNES carts swapped /ROMSEL and /RD" as to why cutting pin 22 sometimes helps. Maybe differences in 68k vs 5a22 timing??
For no good reason I'm uncomfortable with the GAL.
creaothceann wrote:
In that case use an emulator.
That was the first thing I tried.
But they just don't liked to play on the small computer screen, even with the original SNES joysticks.
Now they're very happy with DK2's invincibility code.
lidnariq wrote:
"timing issues
Other than swap these pins functions, maybe Nintendo did some funny stuff with Pin 57 (CPU_CLK).
If I understood correctly the GameGenie uses this pin to sync.
Does any game uses it??
Most special chip games I saw used the Pin 1's clock.
lidnariq wrote:
For no good reason I'm uncomfortable with the GAL.
I can try to dump it's contents as I've done before with the other PAL ICs, if needed.
Fortunatelly, you're the man who interpreted it.
Fisher wrote:
Other than swap these pins functions, maybe Nintendo did some funny stuff with Pin 57 (CPU_CLK).
If I understood correctly the GameGenie uses this pin to sync.
Does any game uses it??
I don't think so. I
think pin 57 is redundant with /RD and /WR; i.e. if pin 57 is high one of /RD or /WR are low.
In contrast, pin 1 is the ≈21.5MHz master clock.
Quote:
I can try to dump it's contents as I've done before with the other PAL ICs, if needed.
Fortunatelly, you're the man who interpreted it.
I, uh. Gosh, I don't think there's really a good reason to bother dumping the PAL until someone's bothered to trace the PCB photos of the rev1 SNES GG.
Fisher wrote:
But they just don't liked to play on the small computer screen, even with the original SNES joysticks.
PCs have VGA, DVI, or HDMI out, and HDTVs tend to have HDMI and often VGA in. What inputs does your TV have, and what video outputs does your PC have?
lidnariq wrote:
I, uh. Gosh, I don't think there's really a good reason to bother dumping the PAL
Ok.
since I really can't desolder and resolder that LSI chip, I won't be able to do a nice scan either.
It was very cool to dump the PAL. Unfortunatelly, the last one was used by a GPL violator, wich threw a thread I tought was a suicide note... How fool I was!!
I tried to understand his reasons, but Zepper seemed to have got really angry!!
tepples wrote:
What inputs does your TV have
That's a really nice idea!!
Unfortunatelly the PC is a little too far from the TV.
I think I'll try to get a 15m cable. That should be enough to be nicelly installed though the attic.
Would this size give some noticable problems?
I'll try to get wireless gamepads too, so the party'll be complete!!
I'm posting a picture of the mod I made, just if someone finds necessary:
Attachment:
File comment: Finished modification
IMG_2206.JPG [ 1.47 MiB | Viewed 3546 times ]
I just ignored the pulldowns, since I got no trouble up to now.
Again, many thanks for helping me!!
My kids also say thanks!!
Nice job, Fisher and all. Thanks for share. Soon , I will try your resistor mod!!!
Thanks again!
Thanks!
But without the help of NESDev's members I just wouldn't have achieved this.
So thanks again for everyone!
You guys are great!
Fisher wrote:
lidnariq wrote:
I, uh. Gosh, I don't think there's really a good reason to bother dumping the PAL
I'm posting a picture of the mod I made, just if someone finds necessary:
Attachment:
IMG_2206.JPG
I just ignored the pulldowns, since I got no trouble up to now.
Again, many thanks for helping me!!
My kids also say thanks!!
Hi everyone
Can someone give me the value of each resitors for this mod ?
In the picture it can't see some colors.
I want to do the same mod for my Game Genie.
Thanks !
Sure!
All the resistors are 100 ohms X 1/8W.
Some of the ones I used have different tolerances, probably that's what's confusing you.
Hope you have a good time with your mod. Please, share the results.
Thanks a lot for your answer
.
I have ordered the 100 ohms 1/8W resistors from ebay (china seller).
I will probably get them in 3-4 weeks then i will post a video on youtube of the mod done.
Best Regards.