All Psygnosis, all the time!

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by rhester72

If I can acquire another (NTSC) copy of Red Zone that exhibits exactly the same problem, can we (including SPS) collectively agree it _is_ indeed a confirmed mastering error and move on?

PAL and NTSC have all a mastering error. pick any original you want, bad luck.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

PAL and NTSC have all a mastering error. pick any original you want, bad luck.

Define what that means. I dare you. :P

You're just re-quoting what SPS told me when I dumped the disks all those years ago.

JOTD when creating his WHDload slave believed that the game never accesses the part of the disk with the "mastering error". In which case it isn't a mastering error? Prove that is the case and then we have defined the format of Red Zone disks.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by alexh

Define what that means. I dare you. :P

You're just re-quoting what SPS told me when I dumped the disks all those years ago.

JOTD when creating his WHDload slave believed that the game never accesses the part of the disk with the "mastering error". In which case it isn't a mastering error? Prove that is the case and then we have defined the format of Red Zone disks.

The track in question in malformed. It has 3 sectors missing, those were not probably defined in the master.

Let me explain : the badly mastered track is never read. This is why JOTD doesn't need RAWDIC to read the track in question. It's unused.

[alexh]

If that is the case (big if). Then why didn't SPS come to the conclusion that it wasn't a "manufacturing defect" but actually the intended format of this game's disks and do a release? I believe they had enough examples.

The game doesn't read any of that track? But part of it is written with non-zero data?

[rhester72]

Originally Posted by alexh

If that is the case (big if). Then why didn't SPS come to the conclusion that it wasn't a "manufacturing defect" but actually the intended format of this game's disks and do a release? I believe they had enough examples.

That was kind of my point. 2 identical 'errors' (especially across regions) are extremely coincidental, a third identical example is proof.

[rhester72]

I cleaned the *hell* out of Disk 1 of Armour-Geddon NTSC (white)...and the dumps are no better. That disk is toast. Very unfortunate.

[Galahad/FLT]

With regards Red Zone, the game for WHDload and certainly when it was cracked can be cracked to files, i.e. the original files that were written to the MFM formatted disk.

If JOTD was able to rip all those files with no problems (because if any failed the checksum in the read routines, they won't rip correctly), then Red Zone is 100% working and should not be an issue with spreading, regardless of a mastering error.

I consider a proper "mastering error" to be like Crackdown/US Gold where because it wasn't mastered properly, the last level doesn't work.

In the case of Red Zone its "mastering error" is one with no consequences, i.e. JOTD has already demonstrated it works 100%

[rhester72]

The unofficial IPF of Nitro (Europe, Australia) on the IPF seems to have a problem - I can't get it to boot at all.

Does anyone have a flux dump?

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by rhester72

The unofficial IPF of Nitro (Europe, Australia) on the IPF seems to have a problem - I can't get it to boot at all.

Does anyone have a flux dump?

You sure its not PAL/NTSC protection check? Psygnosis were notorious for checking and stopping games operating on PAL machines if it was expecting NTSC and vice versa

[Retroplay]

It probably is, I wrote that very ipf to floppy and played it on my PAL A500 wayback when.

Yup, it fails to load if using NTSC A500 in WinUAE.
Zoned an NTSC version ipf, it only boots up on NTSC display.

[rhester72]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

You sure its not PAL/NTSC protection check? Psygnosis were notorious for checking and stopping games operating on PAL machines if it was expecting NTSC and vice versa

It is - I *swear* I thought I tested that, but obviously I didn't.

I was able to confirm that the high score table is in need of resetting, will work on that.

UPDATE: IPF with restored original high score track taken from NTSC dump in The Zone.

[rhester72]

Cytron NTSC (5-rev KF preservation dumps and unofficial IPFs) Zoned

NOTE: As with a few other releases, Disk 1 is marked NTSC, Disk 2 seems to be all regions

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by rhester72

It is - I *swear* I thought I tested that, but obviously I didn't.

I was able to confirm that the high score table is in need of resetting, will work on that.

UPDATE: IPF with restored original high score track taken from NTSC dump in The Zone.

Red zone PAL and NTSC are already in IPF. I uploaded them quite a while ago in the zone.

[rhester72]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Red zone PAL and NTSC are already in IPF. I uploaded them quite a while ago in the zone.

I apologize - I think they may have expired already.

[rhester72]

Globdule NTSC (5-rev KF preservation dumps and unofficial IPFs) Zoned. Both disks are marked as NTSC.

The manual says there was also a HD-installable version of this, added to the list.

[TCD]

I've added the files for Cytron, Globdule, and Nitro to the file server. Thank you for the effort to get them preserved

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by demoniac

Are you able to clear the high score modification for Leander in CTRAW format with the SPS encoder tool?

Nope, i need the kryoflux heavy dump to do so. If you can get me the NTSC version in this format, i can make an IPF (my own versions are not modified, but PAL).

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by rhester72

I apologize - I think they may have expired already.

you'll find them on the EAB FTP. This is where they go after the zone.

[rhester72]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Nope, i need the kryoflux heavy dump to do so. If you can get me the NTSC version in this format, i can make an IPF (my own versions are not modified, but PAL).

It can be done with a combination of greaseweazle (the software, not the hardware) and disk-analyse.

@demoniac, the CAPS/SPS IPFs appear to be clean (i.e. original high scores) - is there something specific you're trying to accomplish (a previously undumped release, perhaps)?

[rhester72]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

you'll find them on the EAB FTP. This is where they go after the zone.

I found the NTSC version, but not PAL. This is a complete list from the FTP:

TheZone/files/_2021/object [Red Zone game disassembly for analysis].zip
TheZone/files/_2022/RedZoneCoreDump [for Jotd].lha
TheZone/files/_2022/Red Zone (US) (1992) (Amiga) (Psygnosis) [Red Zone US NTSC in IPF. track 66.0 on disk 1 has an error one sector.].7z
TheZone/files/_2022/RedZone!PAL [Fast Red Zone final (until next update ))].zip
TheZone/files/_2022/fast_object [Red Zone fast object nth fix to avoid access faults].zip

Is there an unmodified PAL IPF (or flux dump) hiding somewhere I can't see? =)