I recently discovered this site and have a few questions.

[Banana-Cyanide]

For more proper introduction I'm rather new to the Metroid series with the first game I played being Metroid Fusion. Looking to acquire the other Metroid games I soon discovered this site and was very interested in the content it could provide but I have a few questions.

First off I'm not new to emulators but I only ever used ZSNES and just now learned about Higan and Snes9x. I tried Higan but it was clear that my laptop wasn't fast enough to run it well. (only has a 1.3ghz processor) so between ZSNES and Snes9x which one am I better off with?

Second how do I apply patches and hacks? and what patches and hacks can I safely use together? For example say I want to play the Phazon Hack with the Justin Bailey patch. would this work or not?

Third do any of you have any recommendations on what hacks to play and patches to use? I know I definitely want to use this Auximines' Justin Bailey patch.

[Zero One]

While some people will defend the use of ZSNES, I'm personally in the SNES9x camp, due to it simply being the more accurate emulator. That, and not having a godawful UI.


For applying patches, I highly recommend the use of Lunar IPS, or LIPS, which can be found with a quick Google. As for mixing patches, it depends. You MIGHT be able to patch Phazon with Justin Bailey, but really, the only way to be sure is to find out. Sometimes, two patches affect the same space in the ROM and will conflict. This could result in nothing unusual happening, or the entire game failing to work. Since JB is purely graphical, you'll probably get away with it. The only thing you need to check is whether or not a patch is Headered or Unheadered. If you try and patch a Headered hack to an unheadered Super Metroid ROM, or vice versa, it's pretty likely it won't work. However, most patches are for an unheadered ROM, so you should be fine there.


As for hacks, I'm afraid I don't play enough to know, but Hyper Metroid is an incredibly popular hack.

[TheAnonymousUser]

You beat me to it, zero

First off I'm not new to emulators but I only ever used ZSNES and just now learned about Higan and Snes9x. I tried Higan but it was clear that my laptop wasn't fast enough to run it well. (only has a 1.3ghz processor) so between ZSNES and Snes9x which one am I better off with?

ZSNES is...viable? Not the best, but usable. From my perspective: if you're speedrunning, snes9x (because more accurate emulation). Casually, ZSNES can be an option (although there's mixed opinions on using ZSNES)

Second how do I apply patches and hacks? and what patches and hacks can I safely use together? For example say I want to play the Phazon Hack with the Justin Bailey patch. would this work or not?

Grab Lunar IPS (should be on the main site, if not google it) and a patch (.ips file) and apply the patch to the rom (eg. launch lunar ips > apply patch > phazon hack.ips > super metroid.smc). As for which patches can be used with others...I'm not so sure on. Last I patched over a patch it went horribly wrong. Like what Zero said, there's only one way to find out.
It's also worth checking whether the patch uses a headered [3073kb] or unheadered rom [3072kb]. As Zero said, most hacks now are unheadered.

Third do any of you have any recommendations on what hacks to play and patches to use? I know I definitely want to use this Auximines' Justin Bailey patch.

This is an ideal place to start?

[Banana-Cyanide]

How do I check if a rom is "headered or "unheadered"? Never heard of these terms before and have no idea what they mean.

[Zero One]

You can tell by the filesize. An unheadered ROM is 3,072KB in size. A headered ROM is 3,073KB in size. The ROMs may also have [H] or [UH] in the filenames, representing Headered and Unheadered respectively.

[thedopefish]

In general you can assume everything is unheadered unless it specifically says otherwise.  You can use a tool like snestool, NSRT, ucon64, Smile itself, or even just a hex editor to add or remove a header as appropriate.

[begrimed]

http://metroidconstruction.com/hacks-howto.php

Be sure to sort by rating on the beta site.

[Banana-Cyanide]

I seem to be having issues with SMILE.

When I go to open the rom there's nothing there. any way to fix this issue?

[TheAnonymousUser]

Be sure to sort by rating on the beta site.

Well ahead of you. The link I posted previously did just that.

When I go to open the rom there's nothing there. any way to fix this issue?

Smile won't show anything when you load up a rom initially. Stuff will show when you click the drop down box in the top right. (unless more runtime errors)

[Banana-Cyanide]

I applied Auximines' patch but when I loaded the rom all I get is the messed up sprite then nothing.

[TheAnonymousUser]

I applied Auximines' patch but when I loaded the rom all I get is the messed up sprite then nothing.

Have you checked on both headered and unheadered roms? Actually by the looks of things, the patch is headered, looking at my copy

[Banana-Cyanide]

Have you checked on both headered and unheadered roms? There's an off chance that the patch might be headered (correct me if I'm wrong)

The rom I have is 3072KB which is supposed to be "undeadered" and it's the only one I have.

Super Metroid (Japan, USA) (En,Ja) is the name of the file and I haven't changed since I first acquired it.

[thedopefish]

If your rom is unheadered but the patch is designed for headered, there's your problem.  You can either find a headered rom, or use one of the tools I mentioned previously to add a header to your existing rom (and you'll probably want to save a pristine copy of both headered and unheadered for the future).

[Banana-Cyanide]

Apparently my rom is of an .sfc file type.

It's difficult to find out now since I started using Snes9x because now all rom files are renamed to "Snes9x ROM" which is annoying and don't know why it did this or how to undo it.

[TheAnonymousUser]

It's difficult to find out now since I started using Snes9x because now all rom files are renamed to "Snes9x ROM" which is annoying and don't know why it did this or how to undo it.

To show file extensions (on windows 7) Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> Uncheck "hide extensions for known file types"
(for some reason, snes9x affiliates itself with common snes rom extensions when you launch it)

Apparently my rom is of an .sfc file type.

Not sure if there's a difference between sfc and smc. Is there?

[Banana-Cyanide]

Not sure if there's a difference between sfc and smc. Is there?

I think as far as emulation goes there isn't but it probably explains why I can't open it in SMILE. It seem to only be able to read .smc files.

[Banana-Cyanide]

I'm aware that I'm not supposed to double post but I found the Super Metroid (JU) [!].smc rom file that is supposedly the file of choice for rom hackers.

Also I briefly ran into a runtime error problem but fixed that so now I need to figure out how to add a header to the rom file.

[Smiley]

To add a header, just open the rom in SMILE, then find Add Header in the menus and click it (it's Edit -> Add Header if I remember correctly).

As for .sfc and .smc, they are exactly the same. They're just different extensions because reasons.

[Banana-Cyanide]

To add a header, just open the rom in SMILE, then find Add Header in the menus and click it (it's Edit -> Add Header if I remember correctly).

As for .sfc and .smc, they are exactly the same. They're just different extensions because reasons.

It worked. Just applied the patch too and now everything is as it should be. Thanks for all the help everyone.

[snarfblam]

As for .sfc and .smc, they are exactly the same. They're just different extensions because reasons.

Technically a SMC file is "supposed" to have an SMC header (a super magicom requires the header to use the ROM), while an SFC ROM should definitely not have a header. There are other header formats such as SWC (super wildcard), Game Doctor, and Super UFO, but most of them use the same size headers and the headers are irrelevant for emulation, so that's all academic.

Simply put, SMC = might have a header, SFC = no header.

[Banana-Cyanide]

Got a few more questions about patches.

Lets say I want to combine several patches strictly for personal use. How would I go about doing that? Also how would I go about editing a patch if it's not "headered" or "unheadered" compatible? Again strictly for personal use.

[Quietus]

For your first question, I'd say there's no need. There are numerous programs that will apply multiple patches in one hit for you, though you will need to check manually to see if any of them clash.

For editing patches, there shouldn't normally be a need. Almost all patches are created the for unheadered ROM, with the exception being .asm files, which are applied differently, but you can use a program such as SNEStuff, which can do all of them together. :^_^:

[begrimed]

Headered or unheadered only means that there are 512 extra bytes at the very beginning of the ROM, which is useless for emulation. SMILE can remove/add a header to a ROM with no hang-ups, so just fidgeting with it will work eventually. Kinda like switching out batteries and not being told where the -/+ sides go.

To combine patches, first determine for sure which patches are headered/unheadered, then patch all of the unheadered patches to the ROM, then add a header to the ROM with SMILE, patch the headered patches to the now-headered ROM, remove the header from the ROM with SMILE, then use Lunar IPS to create an IPS by comparing it with an unedited unheadered Super Metroid ROM. This outputs a new .IPS file that applies all of the different patches at once to an unheadered ROM. Now, whether the patches you choose to combine are actually compatible is another story (usually they are), some of them might just share the same free space usage, and would need to be adjusted before they'll work together.