The Supaboy - New SNES handheld from Hyperkin

[JSnake]

I don't want to say JSnake is lying, but he's definitely not correct in saying that EarthBound plays fine on the Supaboy. EarthBound employs all of its anti-piracy measures when played on a Supaboy. Expect enemy encounters to be increased by a factor of four, making the entire game an absolute grind. Just go to the part in the beginning of the game with the town gang thugs. There will be so many of them onscreen it will cause slowdown! And of course, the horrible delete your SRAM final boss.

If you want to play EarthBound, the only system that's suited for it is a real SNES or Super Famicom.

For more on the Supaboy, check out my video review. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAxAu6kx7Zg

I'm not sure then. But I do know my EB cart works fine on my Supaboy. If your game is affected by the anti-piracy measures, you should see Spiteful Crows outside of the arcade after defeating the sharks. There are plenty of other examples where enemies appear in areas where they shouldn't. And also I was able to walk all the way from Twoson to the pencil statue in Peaceful Rest Valley without seeing a single enemy. Considering the encounter rate in Peaceful Rest Valley is typically very high in normal circumstances, I should have been seeing a shitload of enemies if the anti-piracy was engaged.

I also was not playing on a flash cart.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

does your supaboy have the horrible audio screech? You might have a different revision than the one I do. Doubtful, but possible.

[kedawa]

Why would any developer code their game to not function on clone hardware?
Clones didn't even exist when the game was programmed, and even if they did, why would they care what sort of hardware it was used on?

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Clones didn't exist, but copying devices did. At the time, there were many third party copying devices that would dump any SNES or Super Famicom game that didn't require special chips to a floppy disk and therefore allow for illegal copies, sort of the predecessor to burning CD based games.

To get around this, many later SNES games began to include anti-piracy measures into their games if they detected any latency from the lockout chip to the system. For example, this happens with Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country 2, Megaman 7 and many others.

In the case of EarthBound, Nintendo was heavily promoting the game, and since Final Fantasy II and III were common targets of copying devices, they wanted to ensure EarthBound wouldn't be in the similar position. So rather than refusing to boot, EarthBound would place 2-4x more enemies in EVERY AREA making the game no fun to play, and if you did manage to get your way through the whole game, you'd have your game save erased by the final boss. Nintendo: the original trollface.

[kedawa]

I see. So it does some kind of timing check, and if the result is anything other than the expected value, it sets off the anti-piracy measures. Is that about right?
I guess none of these clone systems are cycle exact.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

That's correct, but it doesn't usually matter. That's why I simply told Coreykun667 to keep trying and he should have no problem getting DKC2 to work on the clone.

EarthBound is a special case. In addition to its anti-copy device measures, it also checks for the SNES CIC lockout chip. Since Nintendo still holds the design patients for that, clones can't include it in their system designs, which means that EarthBound will NEVER be work correctly on clones.

The game rom has been hacked to remove the anti-piracy measures, so yes, you can use the powerpak or some other flash cart to play it correctly on a clone using that, but not the original cart.

[JSnake]

As far as I know, EarthBound only checks the cart to make sure it has the right amount of SRAM. Bootleg carts and cart copiers add more, so the game throws up an anti-piracy screen. Then the game checks to see if the SRAM check was removed. If so, then it spawns more enemies. Earthbound does check to see if you're playing on a PAL system, but the result of that check is just another anti-piracy screen. In order to get more spawned enemies and the final boss crash, you would have had to see checks #1 and #2, which are just anti-piracy screens, and then purposefully remove those, triggering checks #3 and #4.

You might just be seeing a higher amount of enemies than you have on your previous playthroughs and mistaking that for 4x enemy spawn. The best way to check is see if Spiteful Crows are spawning outside the Onett Arcade after defeating Frank and his robot. If they are, then yeah you're screwed. But if not, you're safe and you're just being paranoid.

[nusilver]

As far as I know, EarthBound only checks the cart to make sure it has the right amount of SRAM. Bootleg carts and cart copiers add more, so the game throws up an anti-piracy screen. Then the game checks to see if the SRAM check was removed. If so, then it spawns more enemies. Earthbound does check to see if you're playing on a PAL system, but the result of that check is just another anti-piracy screen. In order to get more spawned enemies and the final boss crash, you would have had to see checks #1 and #2, which are just anti-piracy screens, and then purposefully remove those, triggering checks #3 and #4.

You might just be seeing a higher amount of enemies than you have on your previous playthroughs and mistaking that for 4x enemy spawn. The best way to check is see if Spiteful Crows are spawning outside the Onett Arcade after defeating Frank and his robot. If they are, then yeah you're screwed. But if not, you're safe and you're just being paranoid.

who knows when my supaboy is coming back - hyperkin doesn't even have any in stock right now (though they had 'em at their booth at CES....grrr) - but my Pokefami DX is arriving in a few days (it arrived in Los Angeles yesterday, but I'm in the Bay Area) - as soon as I get it, I'll run up to the last boss fight and see if my save gets erased. No biggie.

[theMot]

[QUOTE=Satoshi_Matrix;

In the case of EarthBound, Nintendo was heavily promoting the game, and since Final Fantasy II and III were common targets of copying devices, they wanted to ensure EarthBound wouldn't be in the similar position. So rather than refusing to boot, EarthBound would place 2-4x more enemies in EVERY AREA making the game no fun to play, and if you did manage to get your way through the whole game, you'd have your game save erased by the final boss. Nintendo: the original trollface.[/QUOTE]

!

I have been following all things SNES for 20 years and never knew this. Thanks for that!

[Satoshi_Matrix]

who knows when my supaboy is coming back - hyperkin doesn't even have any in stock right now (though they had 'em at their booth at CES....grrr) - but my Pokefami DX is arriving in a few days (it arrived in Los Angeles yesterday, but I'm in the Bay Area) - as soon as I get it, I'll run up to the last boss fight and see if my save gets erased. No biggie.

be careful, I'm fairly sure it erases ALL sram, meaning you'll loose ALL your saves. make sure you're prepared for that.

[nusilver]

be careful, I'm fairly sure it erases ALL sram, meaning you'll loose ALL your saves. make sure you're prepared for that.

I'm prepared. Gives me another reason to play through it next time

[Zombisaurus]

Well, after not being able to contact hyperkin, the amazon reseller told me I can return the supaboy to them for a refund.

Hopefully the poor manufacturing will get sorted out and I'll be able to purchase another one.

[Genesaturn]

To anyone interested IGN just posted a review of the machine this morning and gave it pretty lackluster reviews.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/01/...ble-nes-review

[Steven]

To anyone interested IGN just posted a review of the machine this morning and gave it pretty lackluster reviews.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/01/...ble-nes-review

I'm as big a SNES fan as the next guy, but am I the only SNES fanatic who doesn't give a care about the Supaboy?

Don't get me wrong, more power to ya if you went out and bought one and you enjoy it. But I don't have a burning desire to play SNES games on a small screen on the go. Give me a comfortable chair, the classic controller and the old fashioned TV screen any day of the week.

[Leo_A]

EarthBound is a special case. In addition to its anti-copy device measures, it also checks for the SNES CIC lockout chip. Since Nintendo still holds the design patients for that, clones can't include it in their system designs, which means that EarthBound will NEVER be work correctly on clones.

I thought patents expired after 15 or so years? Why is this lockout chip still covered by patent laws while the rest of the system architecture is in the public domain?

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Without going into too much technical detail, its because the lockout is in the software and the hardware as a sort of lock and key. Since only the hardware patients expire after twenty years, the SNES CIC lockout is still under patient by Nintendo. The same is true of the N64, so it'll be interesting to see how N64 clones end addressing this issue in the coming years - because you just know there WILL be clones.

[MarioMania]

IGN sucks donkey balls

Did they fix the D-pad for shooters??

[Leo_A]

Without going into too much technical detail, its because the lockout is in the software and the hardware as a sort of lock and key. Since only the hardware patients expire after twenty years, the SNES CIC lockout is still under patient by Nintendo. The same is true of the N64, so it'll be interesting to see how N64 clones end addressing this issue in the coming years - because you just know there WILL be clones.

I believe it's 15 years for patents, not 20.

If we're talking about code here, it's covered by copyrights, not patents. And copyrights are all but indefinite these days (For all intents and purposes). So you're saying the lockout chip has some code attached to it to function, which is why it's left off (It doesn't matter what's programmed into the cartridge that interacts with it, you can replicate the lockout chip and distribute it as long as it's just hardware and the copyrighted code that functions with it resides on the game cartridge)?

The fact that systems like the PSOne and N64 had embedded code necessary for the system to function is going to prevent legal clones ever appearing, I suspect. You can do something like freely create a N64 emulator these days, but you can't legally distribute the system bios necessary for it to function. That's going to remain protected by copyright laws for many years to come.

Unless they're able to legally reverse engineer it and program something that does the same things without infringing on any copyrighted code, we're never going to see legitimate clones appear for later systems (Especially more recent consoles that have full fledged operating systems).

[nusilver]

Pokefami DX is out for delivery today! Supaboy is nowhere to be found...Hyperkin has had it for three weeks, and I've stopped expecting emails from them to let me know when the situation updates. I'm hoping to get some videos of the Pokefami DX up tonight, but unfortunately since I don't have my Supaboy with me, I can't post photo comparisons, which I think might show the difference in screen quality a bit more. Either way, I'm excited to finally get ahold of this thing.

Should I post links to my Pokefami DX coverage here, or make a new thread? I feel like there should be one megathread comparing the three portable SNES clones....I guess that would be more appropriate once the RDP comes out.

[nusilver]

IGN sucks donkey balls

I am going to have to agree with you. I love their video coverage, and enjoy some of their podcasts in a buttered popcorn kind of way, but their writing is almost universally horrible, particularly when they try to editorialize. I don't think it's necessarily (most of) the writers' faults, though...IGN is a huge commercial operation that serves a million masters. I'm surprised 1UP hasn't become horrible since the acquisition.