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Author Topic: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?  (Read 6963 times)

I.S.T.

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Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« on: April 02, 2008, 02:33:32 PM »
The format is quite young, and a lot of people will be unfamiliar with it.However, putting the instructions on how to find and use the UPS patcher in the readme would negate much of the bitching that will result from people not being able to use the patch.
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Lenophis

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2008, 04:00:49 PM »
I don't know for certain. Although if things continue in the direction they do (people telling others how they should keep their roms), then I'm personally leaning towards "no." However, nothing is decided yet, and we'll see when the time comes.
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I.S.T.

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2008, 04:36:18 PM »
Did you read the rebuttals to that over at RHDN?
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Deathlike2

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2008, 04:39:17 PM »
It's ironic you ask the question given that Lenophis did reply to the thread.
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I.S.T.

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2008, 05:03:53 PM »
He didn't really say if he was or was not going to use it in that thread... >.>
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Imzogelmo

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2008, 05:09:57 PM »
I see some good and some bad to the UPS format. The places where it fails have been pointed out at RHDN, no need to rehash, but for the way I personally use ips files, it can't be used.

For instance, FF3us: There are probably 50 different patches for this game, and 3 different official versions, and so far one major retranslation hack (in 2 versions). Being able to stack patches (as this game is riddled with bugs) is essential. I do understand that knowing which version, and whether headered or not, is a big hindrance to the patch making and patch applying community. And of course 24 bit addressing is not enough for modern systems. But really, a one-size-fits-all patch format is never going to be the answer. If we can get one format per system, that should be good enough.

But back to FF3us: trying to stack patches would never work with UPS, because you'd need CRC32's for each possible combination. I'm not going to do the work of figuring out exactly how many there are exactly, but let's say there are 50 patches, and you want to apply 7 of them: that's 99,884,400 combinations (each combination needing a published CRC32), yeah, and that's just one example, actual results would be much worse, but that's realistic numbers. Having an option to ignore the CRC32 would help, but then you lose one of the main selling points, that is, the can't-cause-conflicts nature of UPS.  EDIT: In its defense, UPS would be great for a "finalized" patch when you want exactly one patch to work with one input file and intend no other modification to.


I was saying before, we need a better IPS, yes. Something tailored to the SNES would be fine. Header detection is easy for the SNES, and a patch format could easily be made to detect a header and create/apply a patch as if it was not there. A format that can handle multiple address widths is also quite easy (trying to keep with the non-complexity notion). And it really wouldn't be that hard to have a third function (create and apply being the first two)  for the potential new patch program: Merge/detect conflict. This could load 2 patches, and tell you whether they are in conflict *before* you've applied it.

OK, I'm speaking in theoretical right now, but I think it could easily be done.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2008, 07:07:55 PM by Imzogelmo »
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assassin

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #6 on: April 03, 2008, 09:48:43 PM »
It's tasteless how all of you disregard FedEx and DHL, as if they're worthless.  I'll have you know...
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Imzogelmo

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2008, 09:56:34 PM »
Having worked closely with them, I can tell you that DHL is useless... FedEx is okay though.

Maybe I should make a new format and call it FedEx?  :laugh:
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5/31/16 - I have an assembly of the battle portion of C2, relocated to the F0 bank, which has both vanilla and patch code in my dropbox. I'll be updating it with additional patches as I have time. I will *not* be releasing it publicly, but ask me for the link and I'll share.

Deathlike2

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2008, 10:21:20 PM »
Quote from: Imzogelmo on April 03, 2008, 05:09:57 PM
I was saying before, we need a better IPS, yes. Something tailored to the SNES would be fine. Header detection is easy for the SNES, and a patch format could easily be made to detect a header and create/apply a patch as if it was not there. A format that can handle multiple address widths is also quite easy (trying to keep with the non-complexity notion). And it really wouldn't be that hard to have a third function (create and apply being the first two)  for the potential new patch program: Merge/detect conflict. This could load 2 patches, and tell you whether they are in conflict *before* you've applied it.

OK, I'm speaking in theoretical right now, but I think it could easily be done.

I don't think the file format really needs to have that as part of it. Rather, a better solution is to write a specialized program that does the SNES header handling for you before (and perhaps after) running it through the patcher.

Certainly being able to ignore the CRC check is important in the patcher though.
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Imzogelmo

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #9 on: April 04, 2008, 12:40:05 AM »
I disagree. The end user is usually not a hacker, so they don't know there is such a thing as a header, or that it matters when patching. It's trivially easy to detect and thus ignore a header when reading in known file types like SNES ROMs. I can't speak for other types of ROMs, as I'm sure it's not always as cut and dry as with the SNES (it's either $200 or $0 bytes, never anything else, a simple modulo can do this).

My point being that we don't want to lose the one-step-click-to-patch simplicity of the ips format, while making it extensible, stackable, hand-editable, and mergible (with conflict detection as an option at the program level). There is one ips program that I know of which can be indirectly used to detect conflicts as it is: IPSelect, which shows you the addresses for the hunks of data that it changes. But to load 2 files, and then sort/check for conflicts  the hunks, would be so simple "a caveman could do it".

Like I said though, I do see the benefit of XOR patching. And checksums are great, so long as you can override any auto-fail set in place. XOR based patches are an excellent option for making sure that a patch is only applied to the intended ROM. I get it, I really do. But the most important features of ips are its stackability, hand-editability, human-readability, etc...  Ideally I'd make 2 formats that differ only in the choice of Overwrite vs. XOR, complete with annoying pop up warnings (which could be disabled I suppose, if I was feeling generous) telling you the drawbacks of the chosen type.

« Last Edit: April 04, 2008, 12:48:26 AM by Imzogelmo »
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5/31/16 - I have an assembly of the battle portion of C2, relocated to the F0 bank, which has both vanilla and patch code in my dropbox. I'll be updating it with additional patches as I have time. I will *not* be releasing it publicly, but ask me for the link and I'll share.

Deathlike2

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #10 on: April 04, 2008, 12:58:09 AM »
The SNES specific header stuff needs to be done in a separate program (IMO).. probably needing to run through a batch file (script).. or it could be in the form of a plugin, although, integrating it directly could be done, but it should not be part of the file format, only the application/frontend itself needs support.

The more annoying patches are the ones that directly remove a header from the file...  :tongue:
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Imzogelmo

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #11 on: April 04, 2008, 01:15:10 AM »
It probably could be contained within the front-end, now that you mention it.  My issue is this: How would the end user know if the patch was made against a headered or unheadered ROM (unless the author told him)? My thinking is to simply store that information as a bit in the patch header, so that at patch-time the target addresses could be added/subtracted/left alone as needed.
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5/31/16 - I have an assembly of the battle portion of C2, relocated to the F0 bank, which has both vanilla and patch code in my dropbox. I'll be updating it with additional patches as I have time. I will *not* be releasing it publicly, but ask me for the link and I'll share.

Deathlike2

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #12 on: April 04, 2008, 09:16:50 AM »
Quote from: Imzogelmo on April 04, 2008, 01:15:10 AM
It probably could be contained within the front-end, now that you mention it.  My issue is this: How would the end user know if the patch was made against a headered or unheadered ROM (unless the author told him)? My thinking is to simply store that information as a bit in the patch header, so that at patch-time the target addresses could be added/subtracted/left alone as needed.


My suggestion would involve port-specfic patches in a new file format, but not as part of the main patching format. This would deal with identifying all valid ROMs that should be valid for patching.. it would handle the minor, annoying, "user should not know/care" details such as the iNES header or the SNES header. Note that the detection is done by the app, and not by the format.

Putting any part of this in the main patching format is not a good idea, since it is supposed to be universal to all ROMs. The details have to be manipulated elsewhere. So basically you need to apply against two files... one for general patching and one for specific stuff/details. It's not elegent, but it should handle the agonizing issue better, w/o bloating up the spec.
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Panzer88

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #13 on: July 06, 2008, 03:56:35 PM »
how many patch formats are there? wasnt there one called NINJA? which one did byuu use for Der Langrisser? that was a nice one iirc. there is the issue of stacking patches but you guys have already provided a new script and fixed all the bugs so there isnt any real need to stack. is there?
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Dragonsbrethren

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Re: Do you plan on releasing the hack in UPS format?
« Reply #14 on: July 06, 2008, 04:17:34 PM »
We will probably end up releasing it in both IPS and UPS formats, as I just did for this
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