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HDD Versions on Non-Working CHD Games?
#363691 - 02/19/17 11:41 PM
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I inquire, as since preservation is one of the big end goals, is there any information on the revision of any HDDs in MAME where the game is currently unemulated? [Like Rush 2049 for instance] Or is it one of those unknowns until the game is finally in a bootable state and information gleamed from it at that point?
With more and more of these replacement drives coming up, figured I would put that through in case of even the most minimal of hope, and in case someone who is on the side of preserving goes "Oh, they have this version in MAME but it won't go past booting. Well I have this version, I might as well dump it so it can be added one day" without everyone trying to preserve HDD's and finding out they're all the same Versions sitting unemulated [Though I guess the bonus is, if the one in MAME is for some reason screwy, a second fresh copy may prove to be a saving grace]
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Re: HDD Versions on Non-Working CHD Games?
[Re: TknoMncr]
#363692 - 02/20/17 12:56 AM
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> I inquire, as since preservation is one of the big end goals, is there any
> information on the revision of any HDDs in MAME where the game is currently
> unemulated? [Like Rush 2049 for instance] Or is it one of those unknowns until the
> game is finally in a bootable state and information gleamed from it at that point?
>
> With more and more of these replacement drives coming up, figured I would put that
> through in case of even the most minimal of hope, and in case someone who is on the
> side of preserving goes "Oh, they have this version in MAME but it won't go past
> booting. Well I have this version, I might as well dump it so it can be added one
> day" without everyone trying to preserve HDD's and finding out they're all the same
> Versions sitting unemulated [Though I guess the bonus is, if the one in MAME is for
> some reason screwy, a second fresh copy may prove to be a saving grace]
it's not always easy to know unless somebody writes down ALL the details from the original machine when booting up.
I'd say in at least 95% of cases the actual drives for these things have incorrect labels on because drives were updated with software updates and the labels never changed, so even in cases where the chd has a date in the filename it might not be accurate for this reason.
Even in MAME several were mislabelled for many years because it was assumed the drive label was correct and nobody checked service mode.
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Re: HDD Versions on Non-Working CHD Games?
[Re: Haze]
#363700 - 02/20/17 04:33 AM
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> it's not always easy to know unless somebody writes down ALL the details from the
> original machine when booting up.
>
> I'd say in at least 95% of cases the actual drives for these things have incorrect
> labels on because drives were updated with software updates and the labels never
> changed, so even in cases where the chd has a date in the filename it might not be
> accurate for this reason.
>
> Even in MAME several were mislabelled for many years because it was assumed the drive
> label was correct and nobody checked service mode.
That makes total sense. I just wish there was a way with existing ones that there could be some kind of data extrapolated from them without it having to be booted. Guess it will simply be a waiting game until someone can emulate some of these beasts enough to show a boot-up and go from there.
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Re: HDD Versions on Non-Working CHD Games?
[Re: TknoMncr]
#363770 - 02/22/17 10:00 PM
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> That makes total sense. I just wish there was a way with existing ones that there
> could be some kind of data extrapolated from them without it having to be booted.
> Guess it will simply be a waiting game until someone can emulate some of these beasts
> enough to show a boot-up and go from there.
If you extract the data from the chd then you may see it in a hex editor, it's likely that people haven't bothered to do it.
You could also write it to a hard drive and boot it on real arcade hardware. This is a good test of whether the dump is good as well.
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Re: HDD Versions on Non-Working CHD Games?
[Re: smf]
#363771 - 02/22/17 10:30 PM
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> > That makes total sense. I just wish there was a way with existing ones that there
> > could be some kind of data extrapolated from them without it having to be booted.
> > Guess it will simply be a waiting game until someone can emulate some of these
> beasts
> > enough to show a boot-up and go from there.
>
> If you extract the data from the chd then you may see it in a hex editor, it's likely
> that people haven't bothered to do it.
>
> You could also write it to a hard drive and boot it on real arcade hardware. This is
> a good test of whether the dump is good as well.
there tend to be leftover files / data from previous versions, so finding the correct version information can be a bit trickier than you might imagine, also for some games there are plenty more build date strings in files, sometimes newer than the build date that is displayed / the main code build date simply because of how the build / deployment system worked.
in other words, without them booting, it's not actually that easy to know which dates will be shown for a decent number of the hdd based games.
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Re: HDD Versions on Non-Working CHD Games?
[Re: TknoMncr]
#363772 - 02/22/17 11:25 PM
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Brian Troha tries to note in drivers when we see a revision of a game exist and we can't get it / lose an auction to note they exist. As for actual changes between revisions in games it's extremely rare to see anyone document the changes other than in really popular games like Mortal Kombat. Specifically with Midway updates they sent out paperwork with revision updates stating what they changed and fixed but you virtually never see the paperwork these days, it was almost all thrown away.
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Re: HDD Versions on Non-Working CHD Games?
[Re: Haze]
#363794 - 02/23/17 03:23 PM
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> > > That makes total sense. I just wish there was a way with existing ones that there
> > > could be some kind of data extrapolated from them without it having to be booted.
> > > Guess it will simply be a waiting game until someone can emulate some of these
> > beasts
> > > enough to show a boot-up and go from there.
> >
> > If you extract the data from the chd then you may see it in a hex editor, it's
> likely
> > that people haven't bothered to do it.
> >
> > You could also write it to a hard drive and boot it on real arcade hardware. This
> is
> > a good test of whether the dump is good as well.
>
> there tend to be leftover files / data from previous versions, so finding the correct
> version information can be a bit trickier than you might imagine, also for some games
> there are plenty more build date strings in files, sometimes newer than the build
> date that is displayed / the main code build date simply because of how the build /
> deployment system worked.
>
> in other words, without them booting, it's not actually that easy to know which dates
> will be shown for a decent number of the hdd based games.
I didn't say it was easy. However given dumps of two hard drives, you could make a stab at working out whether they have different revisions or not.
It's also possible that different revisions will display the same version number. It's not conclusive even if you can boot them.
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