How to Install Previous Version of mupen64plus to get Super Mario Star Road working

dankcushions

see https://github.com/mupen64plus/mupen64plus-core/pull/541#issuecomment-368684641 and the comment after

it looks like an accuracy improvement broke this rom hack. i'm afraid that for the most part emulator authors aren't willing to to forgo accuracy in order to keep rom hacks working - it's up to the rom hack authors to make hacks that work on real hardware.

clippercm

Thank you for the link and quick explanation dankcushions. With that info I went back to searching and found this: https://github.com/gonetz/GLideN64/issues/1745

SuperToad64 talks about a fix for a bad "setcombine" you can perform with any hex editor. I do not know what that means, but apparently there is some bad data in the rom. I opened the rom up in ghex and replaced a certain sequence of hex values and now lr-mupen64plus runs Super Mario Star Road with all textures loaded and no blacked out areas! A little slow but it's playable. This same fix can be used for Last Impact and maybe some other SM64 rom hacks could benefit from this also.

clippercm

If anyone could offer any advice I would be very interested in installing an older version of mupen64-gles2rice and mupen64-gles2rice-highres, maybe renaming them if possible, alongside the most up to date versions and just having them as extra emulator options selectable in the menu when running a game.

mitu

@clippercm You can get an older RetroPie release image and extract those old emulators or just modify the source install script to pull out an older release from github and build from source again.

clippercm

@mitu The file that has been changed seems to be this one.
https://github.com/mupen64plus/mupen64plus-core/pull/541/files
I have copied all the mupen64plus files and reverted the linked file. What I want to do now is modify the install script to install mupen64plus from my local copy.

It looks like this is the file, and area, I need to change.
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/emulators/mupen64plus.sh

for repo in "${repos[@]}"; do
    repo=($repo)
    dir="$md_build/mupen64plus-${repo[1]}"
    gitPullOrClone "$dir" https://github.com/${repo[0]}/mupen64plus-${repo[1]} ${repo[2]}
done
gitPullOrClone "$md_build/GLideN64" https://github.com/gonetz/GLideN64.git

I am not very familiar with bash...
How would I go about changing the
gitPullOrClone "$dir" https://github.com/${repo[0]}/mupen64plus-${repo[1]} ${repo[2]}
and the
gitPullOrClone "$md_build/GLideN64" https://github.com/gonetz/GLideN64.git
lines to pull from my local files?

AdamBeGood

@clippercm

Did you ever get this resolved? I've been struggling with Mario Star Road on mupen64plus, lots of black textures. On paralleln64, I can't pause without getting booted out and it just sometimes randomly boots me out. The textures do load though.

quicksilver

@AdamBeGood are you running it on a raspberry pi? You'll need to use a hex editor like cygnus (do this on your PC) and must edit the rom. Use the find and replace function to replace all instances of FC 12 7F FF FF FF F8 38 with FC 12 18 24 FF 33 FF FF. This will fix the black texture issue. Then use the old lr-mupen64plus core to run the game. It's the only N64 emulator that will run these old ROM hacks properly. The above solution will also work for the "last impact" ROM hack as well.

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver

I am getting "Search Pattern not found". Am I doing something wrong? I am typing the Hex string in as you gave it I think...

quicksilver

@AdamBeGood

doesnt look like your typing it right see the above photo

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver

There is a left hand pane within the search and a right hand one, neither of which I am having any joy with. Sorry for being such an absolute noob. Here are screenshots of both, I think I have the string entered correctly.

quicksilver

@AdamBeGood are you sure you are editing the right rom? You are editing a patched mario 64+star road rom right, not just a vanilla mario 64? You are editing the file directly right not a zipped file?

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver Yeah, really sure! It's a .z64 file for one thing. I don't think I have any of them apart from these Patched ROMs. Also, the file has Star Road written in it.

I have tried Last Impact also, same result. I am sorry to mess you about, I don't know what is wrong here.

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver - and the file is unzipped, it must have been for me to expand the ROM and apply the patch. Like I say, I have used this ROM on my Pi previously (without too much luck).

Having the free Cygnus version should make no odds should it?

quicksilver

@AdamBeGood no the free version is fine. Its what I used. Its odd though that the name of your rom is Super Mario 64. When I patched my rom it renamed it to Super Mario Star Road.z64. Did you patch the rom yourself? Perhaps you are using an older version or something? Also can you go to line 00123530 and post a screenshot of that area?

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver Thanks for the feedback - I'll have a look in the morning and get back to you.

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver

I got the hack from https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/873/

I am unsure why it isn't renamed, aside from the "ext" part. I guess it wasn't required for me to do that. Last Impact did rename itself.

Here is the screenshot of the file:

Thanks again,
Adam

quicksilver

@AdamBeGood https://github.com/project64/project64/files/1804787/Super.Mario.Star.Road.Enhanced.Edition.zip

Try patching your rom again using the files from the link above. Youll need to supply the original Mario 64 ROM as it does not include that. Read the included readme file as it includes instructions on how to apply the patch. I used the test version as I found that version 1.1 added the 3d coin models and it really slowed the game down. Once you get it patched, try the hex editor again.

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver I am kind of thinking this is not meant to be! I am using M64RomExtender and then Beat to apply the patch and I am getting a Patch Failed message (I downloaded the version of Mario 64 that was stated in the Notepad ReadMe, and then the version I already had also).

I had made my peace with this not working anyway previously - I should just enjoy Mario 64 and all the 2d hacks of Mario games I have.

quicksilver

@AdamBeGood the readme says to use flips.exe to apply the patch. Link included in the readme, did you see that?

AdamBeGood

@quicksilver Saw it and then disregarded it... But I have done that now and I get a message saying that the Rom is not appropriate for the patch. It's really okay, I'm going to play the original - I haven't played it for years and years!

But thank you so much for trying to help - you've been amazing.