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Thread: DVD players with built in "game function"

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    Insert Coin (Level 0) majinbuu's Avatar
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    Default DVD players with built in "game function"

    Hi there

    I have recently aquired a Maya DVD-402 DVD/VCD/MP3/WMA etc... player with a so called built in "game function" that emulates the NES. It comes with a VCD which you use to chose from about 100 NES games.

    The problem is that the emulation is pathetic. The speed is 1/4 speed of the normal nes speed and the sound quality is so bad you need to mute the TV. The games are unplayable.

    Do any of you guys have one of these systems or one like it. There seem to be many cheap DVD players with this "game function". What are your experiences of it?

    Thanks
    Sam

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    Alex (Level 15) InsaneDavid's Avatar
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    Let's not forget the NUON project.

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    Insert Coin (Level 0) majinbuu's Avatar
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    I'm just wondering, looking through the game disc that came with the player, there is a directory with all the games. However they are in a .bin format. They won't play through my NES emulator "nestopia".

    Is there a way to play these games on PC at full speed, as some seem to be hacks and could be interesting. Or is the .bin a proprietary format for the built in "game function" of the player?

    I know this question is way out there, but any info will help

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    Have you tried renaming the .BIN files to .NES? Most emulators (most programs, in general these days, I guess) will try to run any file anyway, so I doubt that'd work, but worth a try.

    Or maybe they're .NES files without a header. I reckon if you uploaded one here, we'd be able to figure out how to turn them into .NES format. Seems unlikely that it would really be a proprietary format.

    In this vein, there's also that DVD player from Shinco that came out about 7 years ago that could play Genesis ROMs burned to CD. I never had one, but I heard they worked pretty well. In fact, I think they used a Genesis-on-a-chip, not emulation. I'm sort of surprised that ths player you have does use emulation instead of just having a NOAC. Seems like that would have been a lot easier and produced better results.


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    If someone were to ah, upload an ISO, maybe we could figure things out.

    But that's kind of illegal so I'm not asking you to do it. Maybe someone else could.
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    Insert Coin (Level 0) majinbuu's Avatar
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    I tried renaming the files to a .nes extension, didn't work.

    I would gladly upload some rom files if anyone knows a good filesharing site.

    Or if someone PM's me their email addy, i can send it as an attachment
    Last edited by majinbuu; 10-09-2007 at 11:11 PM.

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    Ryu Hayabusa (Level 16) rbudrick's Avatar
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    The guys at the forums on nesdev.parodius.com could figure that shit out instantly. The Lostlevels.org guys could too. Talk to them and let us know!

    -Rob
    The moral is, don't **** with Uncle Tim when he's been drinking!

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    I loaded one of the files he sent me in a hex editor and a tile viewer... and the games are definitely NES roms, but they lack the header info, so emulators won't run the games.

    G060.bin appears to be a hack of The Little Mermaid. I saw the title screen near the end of the file.

    Also, it looks like all the games I've checked out so far have a bunch of extra stuff at the end. Letters? Very interesting... If I knew the mapper I would possible be able to hack a header onto these...

    Edit:
    Aha! The roms are a strange mixture of code that doesn't have anything to do with the game, as well as game code. One of the games I'm checking out has a bunch of non-NES code in it. Whatever they're using, they hacked the roms so they would play on their system, and nothing else. I can't figure out anything other than that; this is waaaaaaaaaaay over my head.
    Last edited by Kitsune Sniper; 10-10-2007 at 11:52 AM.
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    Insert Coin (Level 0) majinbuu's Avatar
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    The mystery deepens

    Seriously, thanks for your help.

    What I am really looking for is if I am sitting on some new/undiscovered hacks, or roms that are already freely available.
    Last edited by majinbuu; 10-10-2007 at 07:04 PM.

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    So majinbuu, what is the menu like for selecting games to play? Do you browse the disc and select games with their generic filenames (G001.BIN, etc.) or do the games have their proper names when you're browsing?

    There's a lot of that non-ROM code in the binaries. More than I would expect if it just had to contain the mapper info and maybe a name to display in the list. I wonder if it's actually the emulator code? Could be interesting to look at for someone who knows more about that sort of stuff than me I didn't even know this sort of stuff was possible...low level coding for DVD players? Yikes!

    Anyway, the ROMs are indeed just regular .NES files minus the iNES header. It's pretty easy to reconstruct them if you know what mapper they use and since I don't actually know that info off the top of my head, of course, there's various lists online that can be consulted. The only odd thing about the files is that if there's separate PRG and CHR sections of the ROM, the PRG section is there and then the ROM starts over with the PRG section again and then the CHR section at the end. So you can just chop off the first case of the PRG section along with all that extraneous stuff at the beginning that Kitsune mentioned.

    I got a few of the files you sent me into proper working .NES ROM order and checked them out. The Little Mermaid hack has an opening menu screen that says EIGHT IN ONE and you can select any starting level or one of various power-up hacks, it's probably just a straight rip from some Little Mermaid 8-in-1 Famicom cart that was available at some time. I also noticed that for some reason all the Ns in the game are changed to Xs--PRESS START BUTTOX, says the title screen. Lode Runner has a level select. I didn't notice anything different about Mappy or Mario Bros.

    If there's specific games on the disc that you'd like me to turn into playable ROMs, send them to me. The files seem to listed in alphabetical order since the ones you sent me numbered 60-70 were all L or M games.

    I'll try packaging up a couple games into this format and sending them to you so you can burn them to a disc and see if they work on the machine. It's possible that the reaosn the ones on there run so poorly is that that disc you have is shitty and hard to read from, like you said.

    This brings up an interesting question that I hadn't considered before with machines like this. Does this DVD player (or other simialr players like the one from Shinco that played Genesis ROMs or one of those NOAC VCD players that you used be able to buy) actually have some small amount of RAM that the ROM is loaded into? I guess it must since running a ROM straight of a disc wouldn't really be possible. Or do all DVD players have RAM? Maybe they do and I just didn't know it.


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    Insert Coin (Level 0) majinbuu's Avatar
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    Thanks for taking the time to look into it.

    The cd is actually a VCD and boots to a screen containing a list of the first ten games with some artwork on the side of the screen. The games are listed as their actual names, not the generic file names. To play a game on that screen you press a number on the DVD remote corresponding to that game. To move to the next ten games you press the next chapter button on the remote. The controllers are non functional at this stage, they only work during the games.

    As for any games I would like converted so I can play them on PC, I'll need some time to look at the games on the disc and I will get back to you.

    And as for the game being loaded into a small amount of ram to be played or streamed from the disc, as far as I can tell the cd is only accessed once to load the rom and then all disc activity stops as you play the game. I could be wrong though. If you could package a few games and send them to me to burn to a blank cd I can test this theory.

    Thanks
    Sam

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    Ryu Hayabusa (Level 16) rbudrick's Avatar
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    PRESS START BUTTOX
    Uh huh huh huh. He said Buttox.

    Oh, BTW, I believe all DVD players have RAM. A direct stream from the laser would be impractical. My guess would be there's a buffer area that takes info from the disc/laser. I would think there'd be a whole lot of skipping going on otherwise.

    You know how CD players have that skip memory? Well, It's probably just some kind of SRAM.

    -Rob
    Last edited by rbudrick; 10-12-2007 at 10:54 AM.
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    Imo the ps3 is a movie player with a built in video game function. However the video game playing function was thrown in at the end and they didn't give much thought to it.
    www.MoorGames.com - Buy/Sell/Trade New & Used Video Games. Great place to deal with.

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    Insert Coin (Level 0) majinbuu's Avatar
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    To those that I sent ROM images to, here are the actual game names of each rom file. If anyone is still interested, I'd like to see what can be done with the ROMs or is it just not worth the time. I'm still hoping to find a new hack

    Here is the list from 60 to 70. The names given are the ones given on the game list sheet, so some may be in chinglish


    60- The Li We Lady Mermaid
    61 - Lode Running
    62 - Lode Running 2
    63 - Lot Lot
    64 - Lunar Ban
    65 - Magmax
    66 - Mahj4
    67 - Majong
    68 - Mappy
    69 - Mr mary
    70 - Millipede

    Thanks
    Sam

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    Sorry for dredging up an old thread but it does have quite a bit of good info. I bought one of these DVD nes emulators the other day, with the same game disc as stated above 150 games/ 150 duplicates. The unit MXT-999 came with two nes pads with an extra set of A/B buttons used for autofire, when both autofire buttons are held down and select pressed it will exit the game but while not visible the menu can be manipulated using the pad. The images that display the gamelist can be moved using the dpad L/R while U moves down the list and D moves upj and a game can be selected with the A button.

    When it first boots up the osd lists it as a vcd 2.0 disc, I've been wondering has anybody tried using this disc in a standard DVD/VCD unit to see if the emulation is reliant or independant of these game units. I havent got another machine to test it with.

    I wouldn't say that the games run at 1/4 speed, basic games run at about 75% with something like super mario or Mega Man at about halfspeed with extreme frameskipping.

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    Great Puma (Level 12) Steve W's Avatar
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    Actually I'm interested in those 'interactive' DVD players that were hitting the market around the time Nuon DVD players were just rolling out. There were a few of these on the shelves, but I only ever saw one model for sale in a store. They were supposed to play games, let you websurf, karaoke, and so forth. But I can't remember the names of any of them to Google info about them. Anyone able to dredge up any names for these?

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    Default MXT MCD-999 NES on VCD

    Hey all,

    I bought one of these last week. Took a while to work out the menu on this - you get a menu of 10 games, then fast-forward to the next page of 10, etc. till you go thru all 300. althought it's not really 300. you'll see the same game listed four times or more. Also, it seems to take a while to load whatever it's loading (perhaps the emulator?)so if you hit the forward and go to another menu of 10 games, it can be out of sync wth the numbers it's expecting.

    Would love to know if anyone's worked out how to make a VCD with different games for it. I did the obvious, renamed a .NES file to the .BIN format that I thought the emulator would want and just put it on a CD, but no go. Haven't tried anything else yet.

    Cheers,
    e.

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    Strawberry (Level 2) phreak97's Avatar
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    pulling up a waaay old thread here, but I just bought a dvd player today which came with the same disc, I'm keen to continue testing with replacement rom files
    anyone wanna help?

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