Messy bridge animation in Garou

[geektanic]

Hi,

(i've searched around, but could not find anything about this specific problem i have)

To get my predecrypted Garou, i used winkawaks, 'enable save decrypted c's' method to decrypt Garou.
There was a "how to get Metal Slug 3 to work" tutorial on xbox scene.com and it listed specific files within MS3 to copy into a 'final' folder to then zip up and rename it correctly so kawax can read it.

However, instead of using selected files (like in the tutorial) i just unzipped Garou set 1, set 2 and got all the decrypted files winkawaks gave me, and just zipped them all up.
Do i have to use selected files?
if so, could someone give me the list of filenames that i need in the .zip

Here is my predicament:

So far using kawax v.011 and i have a predecrypted garoun.zip, and used the neogeo.zip containing these files:

000-lo.lo E09E253C 6553
asia-s3.rom 91B64BE3 131072
sfix.sfx 354029FC 131072
sm1.sm1 97CF998B 131072
sp-e.sp1 2723A5B5 131072
sp-j2.rom ACEDE59C 131072
sp-s.sp1 C7F2FA45 131072
sp-s2.sp1 9036D879 131072
usa_2slt.bin E72943DE 131072
vs-bios.rom F0E8F27D 131072

Also i've tried using a neogeo.zip containing these files listed below instead of the one above, but it still makes no difference to the bridge animation:

000-lo.lo E09E253C 65536
aes-bios.bin D27A71F1 131072 ***
asia-s3.rom 91B64BE3 131072
neodebug.bin 698EBB7D 131072 ***
sfix.sfx 354029FC 131072
sm1.sm1 97CF998B 131072
sp-e.sp1 2723A5B5 131072
sp-j2.rom ACEDE59C 131072
sp-s.sp1 C7F2FA45 131072
sp-s2.sp1 9036D879 131072
uni-bios.12 4FA698E9 131072 ***
usa_2slt.bin E72943DE 131072
vs-bios.rom F0E8F27D 131072
(the ones i've *** are the new files i added)

When i get to the 3rd round of Terrys stage the bridge animation looks very suspect and not animating like normal.

However, when i use the garou.zip set 1 (not decrypted) in FinalBurn Alpha Beta 4.1 and the second neogeo.zip the bridge animation looks normal, and scrolls across the screen like usual.

Has anyone experienced anything like this? and has anyone got a solution to fix the bridge animation in kawax?

Any help would be much appreciated/
Thanks for your time.

[Daaren]

Your rom files are quite strange, if they were the usual ones, i would have said that one the files is corrupted
Looks like i lack of knowledge for this one

[hullcityfcmad]

i take it your using kawa-x the neo geo xbox emulator.....have you tried using the prototype rom instead of the garoun.zip,using a different neogeo.zip shouldn't make any difference at all.i don't use kawa-x so i'm not really sure what the solution is.......ask at x-box scene and see if the can help.
hullcityfcmad

[geektanic]

RE: Daaren.
I think i didn't make myself clear enough before. I apologise.
Those files i listed were the files within the neogeo.zip

The game works fine, since i can load it up and plays fine with no corruption and no music glitching out.

It's just 'that' 3rd round stage where the bridge animation goes messy.

RE: hullcityfcmad
At the moment, i havn't got the prototype Garou, since i read that the Garou set 1 is better.
I've posted the same topic on xboxscene.com, and i've got 2 more replies here than i have over there.

I would rather use kawax for Garou since with FBA beta 4.1 it takes a while to load it up, plus i'd have to configure the buttons everytime i want to play SNK stuff, where kawax has seperate button configs for cps1/ cps2/ neo geo.

I'm still at my wits end as to how to solve the problem...
Thanks anyway for the replies.

[darkschneider]

The only difference with the prototype and the normal version that I find is... two characters have different names. And the story text between three of the characters, and Kain is slightly messed up.

The bridge animation looks fine in the prototype though.

[geektanic]

Hmmm intriguing...

Must try out the prototype one day.

Anyway, just used romcentre to test out the validity and whether all the roms are correct and fine, and the results were, that all the files within Garou set 1 were there, and no corrupt files.

Also used romcentre with:

garouo.zip (set 2)
garoun.zip

and both turned out ok, with everything present, and no corrupt files.
The mystery still deepens...

[hullcityfcmad]

it might be a kawa-x problem.....are you using a hacked version or the proper version?
hullcityfcmad

[geektanic]

Yeah, i'm beginning to think it might be the emulator.

At the moment i'm using the proper kawax v.011.
I know there are a few kawax hacks of that version. I've never used those versions however.

[darkschneider]

I think it is a slilght framerate issue personally.

In order to save memory and space on the cart, it would have been easier for SNK to make 6 or so small sprites of the girders, the only difference being that they are slightly more to the left in each pic. (Basically: the bridge is not one sprite moving to the left and repeating, but 4 or 5 sprites staying in one place, and flashing between the animation -get what I'm saying? ???Maybe not I'm finding it difficult to describe)

Anyways, if the game is going at a slightly slower framerate than it should, the bridge is literally going to miss frames, thus giving it a choppy, and in some cases "backwards" look. I just tested this by tweaking some settings.

I think I may have to rip some sprites to explain better.

[geektanic]

I know what you mean.

it looks like those 2 frame animations like from the old 8/16 bit days where it would 'flash' on/off to denote movemet, or something along those lines.

As far as i know, the game is running at it's normal framerate, since no other stages have this 'issue'

The fact that the encrypted Garou bridge animation looks smooth and fine on FBAlpha beta 4.1, leads me to believe it might be the emulator.
Since there is only one proper version of kawax (that i know of) it's kinda hard to actually prove the emulator is the root problem with Garou.
It's not a huge problem (since the main meat of the game is flawless) it's just a small niggling thing that i want to resolve.

[darkschneider]

Okay. Super possible explanation time!

(images rescaled for bandwidth issues)

These are 6 sprites ripped from Terry stage 3rd round (the problamatic bridge I believe) Tehre are actually 7 sprites before it repeats, but -that didn't fit as well into a rectangle.

Anyways

I think, it is less stressful for the neo, to flip through 6/7 sprites, than it is for the neo to do continuous scrolling of one large sprite. As my evidence, see the picture above.

Anyway, if the game is not going at the normal FPS, it may drop a few frames. Sure you won't notice it when terry loses a frame of his kick, but you sure as heck will notice it when the background starts "chunking" (to invent a word) because it is skipping frames.

Now. Garou is a large rom, the prototype I have, once it is in the ram is something like 88Mb. How much ram does the Xbox have? I think I remember reading 96Mb. Having the Garou rom taking up so much space in the ram, coupled with the emulator doing CPU intensive emulating. I would not be surprised if it dropped some frames.

PS: I find PC Kawaks to be one of the more CPU intensive neo emulators.

[geektanic]

That is most definitely the bridge that's been glitching out on me.

The bottom section seems to scroll normally.

but the mid and higher portions of the bridge seem to flick between, say, frames 1 & 2 repeatedly

[Kazuya_UK]

What I am saying might be completely fubar, but I always thought the bridge animation problem was due to unemulated raster effects, similar to the problems we used to get in Super Sidekicks?

Kaz

[geektanic]

Yeah, i thought that might be problem. That's why the bridge animation is normal in the latest FBA Beta 4.1, since i heard it had better emulated Raster effects.

However i really like it in kawa-x, since i don't get none of the slowdown/ some borked sound effects in FBA beta 4.1 Garou.
I know it's the only minor niggle in kawa-x, but still.

Just got to wait until there is another revision of kawa-x.