seems kinda odd that it wouldn't work in nestopia, out of curiosity what is a suitable donor board type for this anyway?

^ I think Return of the Joker

Batman: Return of the Joker, the only FME7 US game.

It works fine with real hardware, Batman ROTJ FME7 and PowerPak. I have tried both. I have no idea why NEStopia does not like it, FCEU works fine.

It seems like it still uses mapper 69, so it looks like ROTJ is sill needed. Someone correct me if I'm wrong though.

So, for the sake of people who actually care about properly PRESERVING this stuff, does anyone have the actual clean ROM that came straight from the prototype? Do we know for a fact that it wasn't modified for the repro release? I understand that this IPS patch will turn the PAL version into a 100% identical copy of the ROM that you managed to procure, but do you know the history of that file at all?

I have read somewhere that the ROM was modified for the repro release so it wouldn't work in emulators, so I think that's why it's not working in Nestopia.

But all that could just be heresay, not sure on the credibility of the source.

Now that the game is easily downloadable and is being sold by multiple repro makers, is there any particular reason the clean ROM has to be hidden away anymore? I'd really like to be able to cross this one off my mental checklist and know it's safe!

The repro/ROM that RetroZone had was from the official NTSC proto that came from DreamTR.

Unfortunately I don't, I'm merely a second-hand source. For the information on that you'd have to go ask Bunnyboy, if he knows anything about your reputation he'll be sure to help you out. As for the information about the clean rom being modified, I'm pretty sure that's conjecture, but there's no way to be certain. If I had any more information I'd love to help you out, but there's not much more I can say.

OK, I've got it. Phins email me so you can compare files, [email protected]

Just patched it and it plays perfectly. Thanks for the patch!!!

Scott

updaaaate

why not just post the rom why the patch it is a prototype after all

I tried and mods removed it anyway. You got a problem with it, take it up with them.

Thanks Frank!

To clarify, the version I posted initially had about four hex strings difference from this original version.

Thank bunnyboy, all I did was ask him for the file. Phins' patched version was like 99.9% correct, but for the sake of preservation I wanted to make sure the ROM floating around is the actual clean one straight from the prototype, which this is.

Well thanks Brian (bunnyboy)!

I am also an owner of the Retrozone repro, but wanted this for my powerpak prototype folder.

Just patched it last night and it plays just fine on my powerpak.

Scott

Im curious as to how general these four hex strings are, would they be similar or maybe the same for other PAL titles that have no NTSC counterpart? Would this be a good example or starting point for people to hex edit other PAL games?

You're misunderstanding, apparently the prototype I originally posted had four strings modified from this new, original prototype I posted. In other words, there's apparently two NTSC-U Gimmick proto roms posting around, this original prototype I posted, and one that appears to have been altered for some reason or another.

While I'm not sure about what dumps are floating around, when I got a dump of the Retrozone prototype reproduction it had certain mapper writes altered and it would not work on the normal FME7 mapper. I imagine these changes to writes were to prevent people from making their own US/NTSC Gimmick cartridges. Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Hopefully if people want this game they will buy the retrozone version or get a new pcb rather than butchering Batman RotJ.

There may be more than one "fixed" version. The only bad thing is this means the unmodified prototype rom is not preserved.

The gimmick was discontinued. So the joker carts will be more scare now.

That's no excuse. There are new boards that support the same mapper.