Struggling with dumping Mario Kart 64 & Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire

[DragonQuarter]

Hi all,

Been using my N64 plugin with my Retrode 2 to dump and back up all of my N64 NTSC-U games. It's been working great so far, but for some reason I can't get a good checksum out of my Mario Kart 64 and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire dumps, even with 2 sessions of scrubbing the contacts with 91% isopropyl alcohol on several q-tips.

Has anyone had similar issues with their NA copies of these 2 games? Is there a limited compatibility list with the Retrode 2? Every time I copy the rom to my PC and click-and-drag it into the ROM Hasher tool, it shows a checksum that doesn't match No-Intro and says that it can't find this ROM in the database.

Appreciate any help!

[dreimer]

Did you switch the Retrode to 3.3V? There is a small switch in the upper cart port. Otherwise you are grilling the cart with 5V

[Hiccup]

What are the hashes you are getting? You should look them up directly on datomatic. I don't really know what tool you are using, but Iit might not have up-to-date hashes.

[BigFred]

Does the data you receive stay the same with every attempt? Could also be a size issue. Did you check if the ROM size matches the db?

[Aringon]

Considering they're both 12MB carts and the retrode doesn't support that size by default, it's probably just a case of overdumping with a retrode.
Y'know, like it is literally every single time? I wonder how people forget this so often.

I'm guessing the dumps are coming out at 16MB then, so either go in to the settings and force it to dump 12MB or trim your dump manually.
Plenty of people here can help you do either of those, I don't use a retrode though so I can't.

[DragonQuarter]

Did you switch the Retrode to 3.3V? There is a small switch in the upper cart port. Otherwise you are grilling the cart with 5V

Yes the Retrode 2 is on 3.3V.

Does the data you receive stay the same with every attempt? Could also be a size issue. Did you check if the ROM size matches the db?

I'll have to double-check but I believe I kept getting the same checksum each time.

Mario Kart 64 SHA-1: 3157A8A16F762A27A94E4B97FFF6DA306A8AA7ED
.Z64
16MB / 16,384KB

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire SHA-1: 56183FD520958418555115EF1D85148706FE5829
.Z64
16MB / 16,384KB

What are the hashes you are getting? You should look them up directly on datomatic. I don't really know what tool you are using, but Iit might not have up-to-date hashes.

This is what I've been using. I guess it's old? Then again, a lot of the dump checksums in the database are also from like 2013 - 2014. Is there a better tool to use? https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1002/

Considering they're both 12MB carts and the retrode doesn't support that size by default, it's probably just a case of overdumping with a retrode.
Y'know, like it is literally every single time? I wonder how people forget this so often.

I'm guessing the dumps are coming out at 16MB then, so either go in to the settings and force it to dump 12MB or trim your dump manually.
Plenty of people here can help you do either of those, I don't use a retrode though so I can't.

Thanks I'll try updating the settings to 12MB.

[dreimer]

Mario Kart 64 SHA-1: 3157A8A16F762A27A94E4B97FFF6DA306A8AA7ED
.Z64
16MB / 16,384KB

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire SHA-1: 56183FD520958418555115EF1D85148706FE5829
.Z64
16MB / 16,384KB

Yeah, had the same on a few of mine, too. Trim it down by hand or by forcing the size and you are fine.

[DragonQuarter]

Forcing the Retrode config to 12 did the trick. Thank you!

Something tells me that's the reason why some of my SNES and SFC dumps weren't working out. Sometimes the auto-sizer just doesn't work on this thing. With those I ended up just dumping via Analogue Super Nt.

[Aringon]

Perfect! Best of luck going forward to you. Just try to check the filesize of your dumps against DoM on No-Intro before you worry about checksums, the Retrode has a bad habit of this unfortunately.

[KingMike]

Forcing the Retrode config to 12 did the trick. Thank you!

Something tells me that's the reason why some of my SNES and SFC dumps weren't working out. Sometimes the auto-sizer just doesn't work on this thing. With those I ended up just dumping via Analogue Super Nt.

The newest firmware seems to be better about detecting SNES ROM sizes.
But otherwise I look at the dumps in a hex editor and check around the common mirroring points in ROMs to see if it looks like mirrored (and thus overdumped) data.
Like if it dumps a 4MB ROM (size $400000 in hexadecimal), I would check around the 3MB mark ($300000).
If it still matches, I'd check around 2.5MB ($280000), then 2.25 ($240000)
That is how odd-sized (non-power of 2) SNES ROM mirroring goes. The ROM up to the fullest power-of-2 size is stored normal (such as the first 2MB in a 3MB game), and then the remainder (1MB in that example) gets duplicated until it fills to the next power-of-2 (in that case, to the 4MB mark).

[dreimer]

Good point.... which firmware do you have on your Retrode?

[DragonQuarter]

Good point.... which firmware do you have on your Retrode?

Just checked and it's the Retrode .25a-beta. Is that the latest? The Retrode site is completely down so I can't verify what the latest Retrode firmware is, nor how to actually update the firmware.

So dumping Super Bonk for SNES on my Retrode, with the switch flicked back to 5V, I'm not getting the correct checksum, either. I'm getting a 2MB ROM. DAT-O-MATIC gives a 1572864 byte size, so should I manually edit the Retrode's CFG to force size? Not sure what exact number to put, though. 1.6?

[dreimer]

I recommend to remove the overdump data with a good HEX editor like HxD Hex Editor.
Yes, firmware is the most recent afaik. I have the same.

[BigFred]

The hint for the newer retrode firmware is good. However I still can't manage to update my retrode 1 anymore. After pressing the HW/RESET buttons it will simply automatically recognize the device as retrode again and never announce an unknown device. It's also very unstable when reading carts and will produve random results most of the time. I guess the first model wasn't made for eternity. I guess I will have to order a retrode 2 as replacement.

[Hiccup]

The hint for the newer retrode firmware is good. However I still can't manage to update my retrode 1 anymore. After pressing the HW/RESET buttons it will simply automatically recognize the device as retrode again and never announce an unknown device. It's also very unstable when reading carts and will produve random results most of the time. I guess the first model wasn't made for eternity. I guess I will have to order a retrode 2 as replacement.

Or maybe a Sanni cart reader