Chrono Trigger Comparison

[smog]

I've tinkered and gotten chrono trigger up to almost perfect playing speeds except that the initial intro of the game slows down just a bit too much. (The ticking clock and the floating 'C' scene, I'm sure most are familiar)

I pull down 57-58 // 5-7 during that sequence. Anyone able to get a good deal more? If so, any advice? (This game is the primary reason I went to the trouble of reading up on all of this and personally getting my system modded, up, and running, thus why I'm being anal about this specific title)

Im using the latest speedhacks, and .4.2 me on a slim.

Thanks in advance.

[dantheman]

Which speedhacks exactly are you using? The ones that have been in the database for months/years are useless since the game never ran in SNES Advance past the game's opening. Try these instead:
2D206BF7|Chrono Trigger (U)|0|0|0|0|0|0|2034A=42FC,EC74=42DB,3DEAEF=42FC,D3E47=DBAB,D3B98=42D8,11C47=42D3

Just open up the snesadvance.dat file in Notepad and turn off Word Wrap to easily edit and replace game entries.

If this screws up any part of the game, then remove each hack one at a time and try again until you find the culprit. Each hack is separated by a comma.

EDIT: Hm, actually, looking through the intro here, there appears to be a loop here that wasn't hacked. My attempts to hack it appear to have broken the game. You can try adding the 31343=42 (ignore now, see edit 2) patch to the end of the above entry if you want, but it will probably stop it from booting. I'll keep trying to see if I can hack the loop somehow.

EDIT 2: Well, I found a way to hack it so it's blazing fast now, but the game then breaks after the logo sequence. Add 3133D=EAEA,FF1C=428A to the end to see what I mean (if it performs the same way on the PSP that is). If you don't get anything, try the following code that has a few extra hacks:
2D206BF7|Chrono Trigger (U)|70478=80,703E5=80,7042A=80,704F8=80,705d9=80,7069B=80,2034A=42FC,EC74=42DB,3DEAEF=42FC,7094B=80,D3E47=DBAB,D3B98=42D8,11C47=42D3,3133D=EAEA,FF1C=428A

[smog]

2D206BF7|Chrono Trigger (U)|0|0|0|0|0|0|2034A=42FC,EC74=42DB,3DEAEF=42FC,D3E47=DBAB,D3B98=42D8,11C47=42D3

is what im using right now

edit: as I don't actually know how the code itself works, could you explain what the difference is between the first and the second you listed?

[dantheman]

Just take the code you currently have and add 3133D=EAEA,FF1C=428A to the end of it (be sure to add a comma when separating patches). If it's anything like Snezziboy, it will make the intro animation crazy fast but crash immediately thereafter.

To be honest, I'm getting myself confused about this game. There are different patches for SNES Advance, Snezziboy, and SNES9xTYL. I believe the ones that include "=80" are for Snezziboy only, but I'm not positive. Removing those patches from my second one gives you the first one, minus the intro ones I just mentioned.

If you're curious as to how speedhacks work, the premise is pretty simple. SNES games run at a fixed 60 fps, and when all the work is done in a frame, it goes into an idle loop that flips back and forth between two instructions until the next frame comes along. We can skip the loop by patching in the 42 or DB opcodes, which tell the emulator exactly where to skip to. The emulator has to be hard-coded to interpret the 42 and DB opcodes correctly though, so only 3 emulators support the speedhack database as far as I know (SNES Advance, Snezziboy, SNES9xTYL).

EAEA is a "no operation" opcode also known as NOP that prevents an instruction from running. In this case, I used it to blank out an instruction that jumped back to the beginning of a huge loop, after which point I found a speedhackable loop to skip. However, whatever I blanked out is apparently needed for correct execution right after the intro, so the game crashes right after.