PCEngineFans.com - The PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 Community Forum
Tech and Homebrew => Turbo/PCE Game/Tool Development => Topic started by: SamIAm on January 27, 2015, 02:16:47 PM
-
Time for yet another translation thread.
Esperknight told me recently that translator Tom (not to be confused with hacker Tom) seems to be MIA. Tom had wanted to do the translating for the PCE Tengai Makyo games, and you might remember him from the Ziria translation project announced...was it several years ago?
Actually, Tom has already finished two other Tengai games on other systems, and I think he basically wanted to be the Tengai Makyo guy. He actually requested me to let him do Tengai Makyo 2 even though I had already started it, and I gave it to him. He seemed to be pretty passionate about it, for one thing. For another, TM2's script is an utter goliath, so it was kind of a relief for me. I don't know where he went or if he will be back, but it's too bad he's gone.
Anyway, after not hearing from him for a long time, Esperknight sent me the script and toolchain he made for it, and lo and behold...the hacking side is mostly done. How much really remains, I can't say, but I was stunned to see that that there is a complete insertion system in place and text displaying in the game. Since this is a 2.0 game, I think it's all around much easier to work with.
The English translation, however, is only about 5% complete.
Now, I've got a lot going on at the moment, and I fear taking on too much and not getting anything done. But I think it would lift Esperknight's spirits to see the work he put into this pay off, and I was just saying that I would love to be in a position where the only thing in the way of a finished project is the J-E translation. So, I guess I ought to take a good look at the game itself. It's not so huge, assuming that the current dump has all of the text.
I can't promise anything yet, but if anyone else wants to help with this...for example, playing through the game to give us a savestate library...please let me know!
-
Good to hear!
-
...
I can't promise anything yet, but if anyone else wants to help with this...for example, playing through the game to give us a savestate library...please let me know!
That i can help with. PM me the details.
-
Woo-hoo! The more translations the merrier, especially when it's a goody like Ziria. :mrgreen:
-
I'm curious about what the other two Tengai Makyou games are that Tom translated. I'm assuming that one is Zero (does it actually work in emulators yet?) Did he do an unofficial translation of Shinden? If Namida has been done, that would be very impressive.
-
STATUS: I am delighted to hear the promise of more progress. Even if I have to wait a few years, it will be well worth it!
-
I remember all too well
-
Fantastic news. I've wanted to play these games in English for a very long time.
-
This is great news !
I recall giving whatever info I had to EsperKnight, but didn't expect a full insertion system to exist before the bulk of the script. Good Stuff !
As I mentioned to NightWolve for the other projects, I'm happy to chip in whatever information I have, and to assist with hacking (and play testing) when I have time, but I won't be able to take the lead in any area. But hopefully my contributions could cut the time and effort.
Probably a good place to start is to test the script inserter - the obvious first spot would be the subtitles which show over top of the opening cinema. Then, the dialogue in the first town, and the whole bestiary/weapons and equipment/status menus, and then it's largely a text/edit/playtest exercise.
-Dave
-
Hi Dave !
Nice to see you post here and see you're still around in the PCE hacking scene ;)
Have you had time to work on the Dead of the Brain script lately or is it something you've totally given up ?
-
I'm curious about what the other two Tengai Makyou games are that Tom translated. I'm assuming that one is Zero (does it actually work in emulators yet?) Did he do an unofficial translation of Shinden? If Namida has been done, that would be very impressive.
Should be the GBA opus, Oriental Blue.
-
Wow... Tengai Makyou is one of my all-time faves. I have collected every game and I would LOVE to play this in English. I was so excited to read this, I piddled.
-
Same for me buddy, I don't want to die before having done TMII. And IV.
-
Hi Dave !
Nice to see you post here and see you're still around in the PCE hacking scene ;)
Have you had time to work on the Dead of the Brain script lately or is it something you've totally given up ?
Hi Shubibiman !
I haven't had time, but I also haven't given up.
Actually, I had an idea while discussing with NightWolve about Emerald Dragon: since the main issue with the insert was that the print function had a small but progressive bug, I was thinking about trying to 'avoid' the bug rather than fix it.
That is to say, force the variable-width font definition to specify that all characters are 8 pixels wide. In that case, a much simpler path would be taken through the code. It might prevent the display corruption, and allow more progress on the insert.
If this works, the decision about variable-versus-fixed-width font, and what font looks best, can be deferred until later when the insert is more play-tested.
When I get a chance, I'll try to look at this again - at least to see if this tweak will help. Maybe in a week or two, we'll have an answer.
-
f*ck yeah! I'd love to see Dead of the Brain completed; it has some awesome art work, but I'd like to get more of the story.
-
Thanks for all the details Dave ;)
-
Sheesh.
Most of the dialogue in Tengai Makyo games is basically your ordinary modern Japanese, but the subject matter can be pretty esoteric to non-Japanese people, and for some lines there just aren't any great translation options.
There's one scene where Ziria (that's the main character's name) is at an inn where some haiku poets are having a gathering, and some of them tell you their poems. Looking up an archaic word, I found out that one poem in the game is a reference to an actual poem written in the 18th century about mating frogs. Specifically, the poet is cheering on the weaker male frogs during what is basically a springtime frog orgy.
And this is at the heart of a joke, which is all contained in a just a couple of text boxes. It's not an amazing joke or anything, it's just like "Times are tough, but we poets are cheering for you, like we cheer for all living things. [haiku]".
Now, if anyone can come up with a good original haiku to fit this context that preserves the intention of the original poem, I would be glad to credit you in the readme as "Frog Sex Haiku Composer".
-
Frogs like to have sex
Multiple partners are had
They do not feel shame
-
Weak frog wants to cum
We poets want frog to cum
...and Ziria, too
-
A weak frog wants in
survival of the fittest
I wish him good luck
I took something of a 16 bit Nintendo approach to this and rather than make it explicit. For the 3rd line, I think "god speed" sounds better than "good luck" but that particular idiom seems out of place in a Japanese Haiku for some reason...
-
In springtime, frogs are mating in muck,
but the weak ones are down on their luck.
Though I tried for Haiku,
I guess a limerick will do...
And to the weak frogs, I say "Have a good ... screw."
-
Dave wins I think!
-
Agreed. That's quite clever.
-
Closer to the original meaning (but still a limerick):
It's springtime, and creatures will mate,
So their bloodlines don't meet a cruel fate,
The dominant do,
And the weaker should too....
Go on, get some - before it's too late !!!
It is possible that a limerick among haiku could create a moment of fun. Not sure whether it would be suitable for the situation though.
-
The original poem by Kobayashi Issa from the 18th century, translated straight and without forcing the 5-7-5 structure, is like this:
やせがえる 負けるな一茶 これにあり
Weak frogs
You must not give up. Issa
is here for you
So it's kind of subtle, and that's something I'd like to be reflected in the translation. A lot of Japanese people have no idea what the original poem is really talking about until they research it. I might put the original in as-is and credit the actual poet, and leave it to the curious to google it.
Alternatively, this is something I came up with:
Despair not, weak frogs
for courage is rewarded
with springtime peaches
I like this because peaches are a very common metaphor in Japanese poetry for...well, I'm sure you can guess. Also, it doubles as a kind of encouragement for Ziria, which I think is ultimately the point of the dialogue.
I do like the limerick idea. Granted, they're so long that it would have to be literally one line per text box. Anyway, there are several poems, so I might keep that idea in mind for another one.
-
Weak frog wants peaches
We poets want frog peaches
...and Ziria, too
-
So it's kind of subtle, and that's something I'd like to be reflected in the translation. A lot of Japanese people have no idea what the original poem is really talking about until they research it. I might put the original in as-is and credit the actual poet, and leave it to the curious to google it.
Alternatively, this is something I came up with:
Despair not, weak frogs
for courage is rewarded
with springtime peaches
I like it... it reminds me of the "Frog and Peach" by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuE_a1pTsO4
-
The original poem by Kobayashi Issa from the 18th century, translated straight and without forcing the 5-7-5 structure, is like this:
やせがえる 負けるな一茶 これにあり
Weak frogs
You must not give up. Issa
is here for you
So it's kind of subtle, and that's something I'd like to be reflected in the translation. A lot of Japanese people have no idea what the original poem is really talking about until they research it. I might put the original in as-is and credit the actual poet, and leave it to the curious to google it.
Alternatively, this is something I came up with:
Despair not, weak frogs
for courage is rewarded
with springtime peaches
I like this because peaches are a very common metaphor in Japanese poetry for...well, I'm sure you can guess. Also, it doubles as a kind of encouragement for Ziria, which I think is ultimately the point of the dialogue.
I really like your localization of the haiku, Sam. It gets the point across while still being a bit subtle and also maintaining a Japanese flavor with the peach metaphor. I think keeping the general feeling of the original script is important, so I wouldn't want it to be too on-the-nose and crass, or to have the whole mood changed for the sake of a cheap joke.
I do like the limerick idea. Granted, they're so long that it would have to be literally one line per text box. Anyway, there are several poems, so I might keep that idea in mind for another one.
While suddenly throwing in a limerick would be funny, I think it would alter the mood too much. I assume most people nowadays know what a haiku is, so that's not exactly a localization issue, but more importantly, it would disturb the Japanese flavor of the story and setting, which from what I understand, is a key element of the series' identity. I don't know...Unless you can think of some clever way to do it that fits in with the original script, I'm against the limerick idea. It just feels a little too...Working Designs to me.
-
Thanks for the positive feedback. :)
I basically agree about the tone, and I don't think I would bust out a limerick unless one of the other poems is truly outlandish, like not even a haiku.
They all seem to be based on real haikus, though. Ever hear these ones? They are about three famous Japanese generals, and as a metaphor for their characters, the generals are talking to a cuckoo bird that won't sing:
織田信長 Nobunaga：
「鳴かぬなら、殺してしまえ ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll kill you."
豊臣秀吉 Hideyoshi：
「鳴かぬなら、鳴かせてみせよう ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll make you sing."
徳川家康 Ieyasu：
「鳴かぬなら、鳴くまで待とう ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll wait till you sing."
In the game, it's a joke like "If you do not sing for me, I will wait for the nightingale."
EDIT: Ugh, the next one has a reference to a famous enka song. I might use an English song as a reference. Quick, what is the corniest, most well known love song in English that you know?
-
And IIiiiiiiiiiIIIIiiiiiiiiIIiiiiiiiiii, will always love yoooooOOOoooooOOooooOOooouuuuu
-
Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down...
-
Quick, what is the corniest, most well known love song in English that you know?
If by 'corniest' you mean 'most awesomist evah!', then Sea of Love would be my pick. Keep it Turbob!
-
You know what occurs to me: enka music in Japan is kind of analogous to country music in America. It's rooted in tradition, nostalgic, enjoyed by older people more than younger, the contents of the lyrics tend to follow certain storytelling patterns, etc.
Any cheesy country love songs that are instantly recognizable?
-
Think of the stuff that was on the Lawrence Welk show. That stuff is American Enka.
-
You know what occurs to me: enka music in Japan is kind of analogous to country music in America. It's rooted in tradition, nostalgic, enjoyed by older people more than younger, the contents of the lyrics tend to follow certain storytelling patterns, etc.
Any cheesy country love songs that are instantly recognizable?
And IIiiiiiiiiiIIIIiiiiiiiiIIiiiiiiiiii, will always love yoooooOOOoooooOOooooOOooouuuuu
-Dolly Parton
-
Islands in the Stream. It's like enka in that truckers love it and it's terrible, despite its creators knowing better.
-
I basically agree about the tone, and I don't think I would bust out a limerick unless one of the other poems is truly outlandish, like not even a haiku.
In my defence, I never knew enough Japanese to understand the game well enough to get a feel for the tone of the game. Lately, with quite a lot of Japanese study under my belt, I may be willing to try to play the game in Japanese to see if I can catch that tone.
They all seem to be based on real haikus, though. Ever hear these ones? They are about three famous Japanese generals, and as a metaphor for their characters, the generals are talking to a cuckoo bird that won't sing:
織田信長 Nobunaga：
「鳴かぬなら、殺してしまえ ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll kill you."
豊臣秀吉 Hideyoshi：
「鳴かぬなら、鳴かせてみせよう ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll make you sing."
徳川家康 Ieyasu：
「鳴かぬなら、鳴くまで待とう ホトトギス」 "If you do not sing for me, I'll wait till you sing."
In the game, it's a joke like "If you do not sing for me, I will wait for the nightingale."
Yeah, learned that one a year or two ago - probably everybody in Japan knows it, and anybody studying Japanese at around a JLPT N2 level should be aware of it.
But your translation is first-person, and is missing the crucial point about the object being a pet bird; the sense of the translation (though certainly not poetic) should be more like:
"If he encounters (or possesses ?) a nightingale (known for its pleasant song) which doesn't sing, he'll kill it" /
"If he encounters a nightingale which doesn't sing, he'll try to force it to sing" /
"If he encounters a nightingale which doesn't sing, he'll wait until it sings"
-
I don't know about the pet bird aspect or any of the deeper history, but I can guarantee you that 殺してしまえ, 鳴かせてみせよう, and 鳴くまで待とう are forms that are only used in the first person. Maybe there are alternate haikus that are third person, but those lines I posted are definitely aren't. There's also no word that means "possesses" or "encounters".
Also, not to nitpick, but the original poem is about a cuckoo bird, not a nightingale. The nightingale is only in a joke in the game.
Anyway, about the enka joke. The setup is like this:
Old guy says "Only those who love haiku above all else can appreciate the fine Japanese aesthetic in poems like this one that I just wrote:
Departing springtime [world's most generic haiku/tanka line]
I've come from so far away [lyric from that enka song]
To Hakodate [ditto]
So an annoying song lyric that fits the 7-5 part of the 5-7-5 structure would be great.
"And I will always love you" is seven, and that's followed soon after by "My darling, you, mmm" so that's pretty decent. I like the instantly recognizable aspect of it.
On the other hand, the original enka lyric fits better than I first imagined it would, so I might stick with that. Decisions, decisions.
-
Departing springtime
I've peaches from far away
Ziria does, too
-
Reading your translation reminds me of "I Ran" by Flock of Seagulls. It's a shame that it doesn't quite fit as a Haiku...
Writing it as:
I ran all night and day, I
Couldn't get away
fits 7 then 5, but seems way more awkward than it does as 6 then 6. Blarg.
-
There's also no word that means "possesses" or "encounters".
Also, not to nitpick, but the original poem is about a cuckoo bird, not a nightingale. The nightingale is only in a joke in the game.
This is a great example of something difficult to translate.
HOTOTOGISU is the problem here. In your first translation, you ignored it, with the effect was that the reader was who was expected to sing (which was my primary concern).
True, it isn't a nightingale - but it is a bird valued for its song, and was domesticated for same (at least in that era), which is why I chose nightingale as the analog. "Cuckoo", while technically more correct (genetically), doesn't come close to conveying the fact that the song was valued by people (at least in English).
So, no matter how you cut it, you'd have to (a) painstakingly explain background, (b) take liberties in localizing it, or (c) lose the essence of the original.
Translation is hard, but translation of poetry is VERY hard, and translation of poetry from a different era is CRAZY hard.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not even close to your level of Japanese, and I'm not trying to to criticize - merely trying to discuss the merits of a particular choice of words.
-
"I would walk five hundred miles
And I would walk five...
...Er, something like that"
Hmm.
EDIT:
This is a great example of something difficult to translate.
HOTOTOGISU is the problem here. In your first translation, you ignored it, with the effect was that the reader was who was expected to sing (which was my primary concern).
Well, I said in the note above the poems that the generals were talking to a cuckoo bird. I just omitted that part from each line because I wanted to get to the point and explain the joke.
I don't think this is really so difficult or complicated. A straight translation without 5-7-5 is simply "If you do not sing, I shall wait for you to sing, cuckoo bird".
Take a liberty and stick "little" in the third line and there you go, a decent 5-7-5 rendition.
Does it lack a little context about the pet songbird aspect? Sure. But then again, so do the Japanese poems. I did a little research, and it turns out that the poems come from a book written around 1820, and the original poems are part of a larger parable in which this particular information is explained before the poems appear.
When used on its own/in a reference, "Et tu, Brute?" probably shouldn't be translated as "You're betraying me too, Brutus?" regardless of how informed the reader is. Sometimes, it's best to leave things in their raw state and leave it to the reader to educate themselves about the context. I think this would be one of those times. Besides, the focus isn't even on the bird, but rather the attitude of the general, and that comes through fine.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not even close to your level of Japanese, and I'm not trying to to criticize - merely trying to discuss the merits of a particular choice of words.
It's all good. That's all I'm doing, too. :)
-
ASIDE: I did not want to make a serious post in this thread, but I will. The original title for this post was "I Know Why The Caged Cuckoo Sings"
THE MUCH-MALIGNED CUCKOO
The two approaches (cuckoo vs. nightingale) suggested by SamIAm and dshadoff perfectly illustrate (to me) the nuances of the localization process.
One, brief moment in the game has generated substantial discussion...and, to be honest, this moment will hold much more meaning to me during the actual game, simply because I know the backstory behind it.
Personally, of the two birds, I have greater reverence for a nightingale, since the cuckoo (and the humble loon!) have had their reputations tarnished by countless cartoons (and the occasional sugary breakfast cereal).
Honoring the original Japanese (cuckoo as soprano) clashes with vapid pop-cultural associations (cuckoo as vaudevillian).
I honestly don't know which approach best "honors" the original intent of Tengai Makyou...but is difficult for me to overlook the cultural baggage the cuckoo is burdened with.
FURTHER ASIDE: I will never have the opportunity to discuss this again (here at pcefx), so I can't help but throw in one of my favorite lines from The Third Man:
Harry Lime: "You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Now, this is factually/historically inaccurate, but that doesn't matter. It fits the character so well (since he is a master of manipulation).
IN CONCLUSION: The much-maligned cuckoo can't catch a break.
/aside
You may continue, as you were.
-
All this time translating old video game lines will be worth it if I can just challenge some cultural perceptions of cuckoo birds. 8)
Anyway, the kooky old poet in the game used two birds. Since it's based on some of the most famous haikus in existence, I'm sticking the cuckoo in there. Maybe:
"Little cuckoo bird
if you do not sing for me,
the nightingale might"
Take out the cuckoo, and it's a lot harder to recognize the association with the real haiku. Also, I like adding "might" because the original poems are so strong and threatening. It's a funny contrast, at least to me.
I should make one thing clear, though: the joke in the game is actually not even like what I've explained at all. The joke in the game is simply a bizarre combination of references, like saying "To be or not to be...it was the worst of times." In the game, it's "Oh, nightingale...I will wait until you sing, cuckoo bird". It's like he's drunk. But I found this too incoherent, so I made up my own thing.
But that brings me to the real dilemma...neither way is really funny to English speakers. Not unless you actually know the original poem. Being funny really is the line's first purpose, and it would be a shame to lose that.
So, do I preserve the original reference and poem as-is and just say "welp, that's what it says"?
Do I tweak it a bit, as I have done so far, so that it's at least coherent and hopefully funny to people who know the original story of the three generals and their cuckoos?
Do I make up a new poem that's entirely different, possibly involving booze? I haven't seen any mention of booze at this haiku gathering, but some of the other haikus are goofy enough that it almost seems implied.
Or do I come up with a new poem that still references those original poems but stands on its own as being funny? Is that even possible?
Finally...The old guy doesn't only say this haiku. In the lines before, he says he would like to dedicate his haiku to world peace. I could play off that, and make a haiku like:
"I can wait for peace
longer than Ieyasu
can wait for cuckoos"
It's not wacky-funny at all, but it's somehow still faithful, and it works well with the context otherwise. It also does a lot more to provoke someone to investigate the story of the generals.
Thank god most of the rest of the lines in the game are like "Remember to equip your armor!"
-
"Little cuckoo bird
if you do not sing for me,
the nightingale might"
Take out the cuckoo, and it's a lot harder to recognize the association with the real haiku. Also, I like adding "might" because the original poems are so strong and threatening. It's a funny contrast, at least to me.
So, if I understand correctly then, the original (famous) haikus are not actually spoken in this section of the game; merely referenced ?
That would be pretty harsh - expecting an audience to recognize a foreign cultural reference which isn't even included in the script.
If they were part of the script, the audience could at least catch on to the fact that there are several variations of the same haiku, even if they didn't get the reference to historic characters. You might still have to include a warning to read carefully, as some people may try to read it too quickly and think that it's mere repetition.
I have another question - is this episode referenced later in the game ?
If it is, you're pretty much stuck with trying to keep a lot of things as they are.
If it isn't, you can have some more leeway... and this can go in several potential directions.
I should make one thing clear, though: the joke in the game is actually not even like what I've explained at all. The joke in the game is simply a bizarre combination of references, like saying "To be or not to be...it was the worst of times." In the game, it's "Oh, nightingale...I will wait until you sing, cuckoo bird". It's like he's drunk. But I found this too incoherent, so I made up my own thing.
But that brings me to the real dilemma...neither way is really funny to English speakers. Not unless you actually know the original poem. Being funny really is the line's first purpose, and it would be a shame to lose that.
There are more than enough English-language referential taglines which could be applied to produce humor, if the core idea is an old man rambling in memorable but mismatched quotes. Some combinations could be funny, but the visual scene has to match.
Are you able to make a youtube video of what's going on ? Maybe crowdsource on nicovideo ?
So, do I preserve the original reference and poem as-is and just say "welp, that's what it says"?
I can't say that I am a supporter of this. It would at least require translator's notes, and that would detract from the game itself.
Do I tweak it a bit, as I have done so far, so that it's at least coherent and hopefully funny to people who know the original story of the three generals and their cuckoos?
Better, but still serves a very limited audience.
Do I make up a new poem that's entirely different, possibly involving booze? I haven't seen any mention of booze at this haiku gathering, but some of the other haikus are goofy enough that it almost seems implied.
Or do I come up with a new poem that still references those original poems but stands on its own as being funny? Is that even possible?
While I would love to enjoy the original game in all its splendor, it requires an investment which is just not something the average person wants to commit to. This is a hard decision, but at least this choice (or rather, either of these two choices) is a compromise which allows the game to reach a wider audience in its new language.
Given the choice, I would say that if there was already a pattern of cuckoo-related poems, this would have to be yet another. But if they weren't all variations of the same original set, then either would be fine.
But in any case, this section is probably among the most difficult localization that exists. Many professional translation efforts would try to cut the section out, to avoid the hard work.
Finally...The old guy doesn't only say this haiku. In the lines before, he says he would like to dedicate his haiku to world peace. I could play off that, and make a haiku like:
"I can wait for peace
longer than Ieyasu
can wait for cuckoos"
It's not wacky-funny at all, but it's somehow still faithful, and it works well with the context otherwise. It also does a lot more to provoke someone to investigate the story of the generals.
I like this one. Not sure how wide the appeal is, though.
-
That's right, the old man does not say the original poem. He says うぐいすや・・ なくまでまとう ホトトギス.
うぐいす means nightingale, and the や is basically just like "Oh". It's a very generic-sounding first line. I looked for a specific reference, but there are too many poems that start like this and not one that is particularly famous as far as I could see.
This is not a "scene", so much as a room full of guys at an inn that you can talk to one-by-one.
I think that what I do here will depend on how many more instances there are of Japanese references that Japanese people generally get and westerners generally don't. If it's only in this area, then I might twist in some English references (like "I will always love you") and be done with it. If it happens again, though, I might make some translators notes. I know that that's cumbersome and all, but this isn't some generic fantasy RPG that happens to have a Japanese reference because it was made in Japan. This is bloody Tengai Makyo. It's supposed to be full of Japanese stuff.
I mean, if there was film about Renaissance Europe that made a Shakespeare joke and it was being translated to Japanese, I would want to see the joke left in there. If it needs tweaking, fine, but there should be a Shakespeare joke there. There comes a point where if some audience members don't get it, it's their problem.
Plus, as a practical matter, we're not dealing with a general western audience; we're dealing with a small and dedicated hobbyist fanbase, of whom I think we can ask to come with us on these things. The choice that most translators seem to make with movies is actually just to toss the joke (have you ever watched a Hollywood movie with Japanese subtitles?), but this always seemed like a lowest-common-denominator choice to me.
Not to mention, throwing an original joke out completely and making up a new joke is how we got Bill Clinton references in Lunar 2.
-
That sounds like a fair idea.
One more thing to keep in mind is whether the information disseminated in this area is used later - especially to obtain a power-up. But in most RPGs of that area, merely speaking to the right person would probably be the trigger.
-
My guess is that this is just a one-off kind of funny area in the game.
The next haiku actually contains a reference to the Man'yoshu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27yÅshÅ«). Oh boy.
EDIT: Ooh, the one after that is a reference to this one! A haiku classic!
古池や
蛙飛び込む
水の音
Donald Keene's translation:
The ancient pond
A frog leaps in
The sound of the water.
Also, Reginald Horace Blyth's translation:
The old pond.
A frog jumps in.
Plop!
-
Hey Sam, I think I should warn you about something. I've made great progress with Emerald Dragon so the project can go forward with now having a good handle on it and with David's recompression code from Ys IV working! But, in working on the first text block, I see that we will have problems fitting in your translated results. The LZSS text codec will not cut it for the amount of English text that you wrote...
When I started, the text block compressed ~4,000 bytes in excess of the space allocated (the allocated block is 4,175 bytes, and it needed ~8000 bytes initially!). This is 101 strings, and so the last 40 were blanked out to "T\pause\0" temporarily so that I could shrink it and recompress it to fit, just get something working and visible for testing/learning! The process since then has been editing your results down, examples as follow:
** Logical trimming with context. She's standing right in front of the town, next to the Town of Ulwan sign. [07]Young Girl<\r>
No, I'm not Tamryn.<\p> If<\r>
you're looking for her, you<\r>
might try up in the Town of<\r>
Ulwan.<\p><\0>
[07]Young Girl<\r>
Ulwan is just right over<\r>
there.<\p> Just walk straight<\r>
north and you should<\r>
reach it.<\p><\0>
[07]Young Girl<\r>
No, I'm not Tamryn but you<\r>
might find her here.<\p><\0>
[07]Young Girl<\r>
This is the Town of Ulwan.<\r>
Just head north.<\p><\0>
** This idea we're definitely gonna have to do: Since you are talking to the character that's perfectly visible throughout the message boxes that appear, you only need to state their name or description on the first line once![07]<YELLOW>Lady<WHITE><brk><\r>
That Heretic <GREEN>Bagin<WHITE> is a<\r>
terrible man.<\p><\0>
[07]<YELLOW>Lady<WHITE><brk><\r>
10 years ago, he left his<\r>
own child somewhere and he<\r>
almost never visits her...<\p><\0>
[07]<YELLOW>Lady<WHITE><brk><\r>
In fact, he won't even let<\r>
her call him "father."<\p><\0>
[07]<YELLOW>Lady<WHITE><brk><\r>
"The Heretics Way" seems to<\r>
mean isolating yourself from<>
the rest of us.<\p><\0>
[07]<YELLOW>Lady<WHITE><brk><\r>
That Heretic <GREEN>Bagin<WHITE> is a<\r>
terrible man.<\p><\0>
[07]10 years ago, he left his<\r>
own child somewhere and he<\r>
almost never visits her...<\p><\0>
[07]In fact, he won't even let<\r>
her call him "father."<\p><\0>
[07]"The Heretics Way" seems to<\r>
mean isolating yourself from<>
the rest of us.<\p><\0>
** The other idea is something your programmer EsperKnight would probably have no problem implementing. It's a basic compression idea from David that can be accomplished with the hacking of the print routine. It's based on the fact that 20-30% of a script is space characters. So, take this example string:
Text Input: "TheBoyWentToTheStore."
With some recoding in the print routine, a simple algorithm is implemented to lowercase and interpret a space character need based on a previous letter being lowercase and the next one being uppercase.
1) Read character.
2) If uppercase, check if previous char is lowercase. If false, print normally. If true, print space character, lowercase the current char, then print it.
3) LOOP/REPEAT TILL CHAR = 0x00.
So, with that basic hack to the print routine, the previous ASCII input is outputted to this:
Display Output: "The boy went to the store."
The LZSS codec will have 20-30% less text to compress as a result of this! Now, I'm not saying for sure this would be needed, you might get away without it, but if you can't, I'm putting the idea out there so you can pass it along to him... I'm not 100% sure I'll need it for Emerald Dragon, I'll find out soon enough, but yeah. It's a good, simple idea and it's possible to implement if enough of the S-JIS processing code in the print routine is overwritten with new code to do it!
The bottomline of my warning here was you need to be thinking about how to say just about the same thing with less words... I dunno if you've ever gotten to the post-editing phase with any of your projects with him, and maybe you just wanted to cross that bridge when you get to it, but just FYI, I have A LOT of trimming to do for this first text block with Emerald Dragon! I don't know if I can implement that space compression idea, I might try when I track down the print routine. I can definitely get rid of the 0x07 font switch code for going to 8x12 mode, and not having to use the code with every string! That'll save me 101 bytes for this 1st text block (7,357 bytes considering the whole script), so that's a start! The biggest savings is of course not repeating the name/description of a character every time they speak! So yeah, things to consider for your other projects. Anyway, stay tuned for an upcoming progress update for ED in my thread!
-
You know, these days Bonknuts in particular has been talking seriously about making a new system card with expanded RAM for translations. You should get in touch with him.
This was just made public recently on krikzz's forums, but there is going to be a v2.0 Turbo Everdrive coming soon that uses RAM instead of flash memory. This just might do the trick. Even if it doesn't, it really shouldn't be too hard to make a new card with 512k of memory. That would make an enormous difference, needless to say.
http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=2670.0
Thanks for all your work! Editing down the wordcount is always a good idea regardless of how much space is available, and I would certainly be willing to look into that. Anyway, with a little luck, memory itself won't be a problem.
-
http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=2670.0
Ah man, now I gotta sell this thing... :( He says he already has a working sample:
http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=2670.msg26815#msg26815
$72 bucks down the tubes on the current version... Can't believe this, thought he was just done with the system and his flashcart for it...
Now nullity's laughing at our group buy of 20 for the current version is far more applicable.
http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=18127.msg382039#msg382039
Gotta sell it while it's still in good, new condition... What a drag...
-
The LZSS text codec will not cut it for the amount of English text that you wrote...
I've never done this kind of post-mortem translation, only with-source translation, so I may be way out of line here, but ... I've got to ask ... is the problem the lack of compressed space, or the decompressed space?
If it's the decompressed text that's too large, then it's time for the nasty stuff like you're mentioning ... or perhaps plain old packed-6-bit ASCII.
If it's the compressed space, then there are lots of better text compressors than plain-old-LZSS if that's what they're using ... and you could fit such a decompressor into a few hundred bytes.
The LZSS codec will have 20-30% less text to compress as a result of this!
Since LZSS is looking for common patterns ... that's not necessarily a win, and can possibly be a lose in the compressed data.
-
As much as I love the idea of a new system card that expands the system's RAM, I would hate to see people start falling back on that as a solution, because it really limits how many can appreciate the work that goes into a translation. We have enough keen minds around here that I think we can come up with reasonable solutions without going that route in most cases.
-
I don't like it either, but honestly, some translations are never going to happen without a new system card. It's the way it's gotta be.
-
I don't like it either, but honestly, some translations are never going to happen without a new system card. It's the way it's gotta be.
If you are open to increasing the hardware requirements of the game ... is there some reason that you can't just make the existing Arcade Card a requirement instead of needing some never-been-seen-before-product?
Yes, I know that the Arcade Card isn't just regular-accessible RAM ... but it is still RAM, and using it shouldn't require that much hacking. After all, string printing is pretty-much a one-character-follows-the-last kind of thing that's perfect for reading from the Arcade Card's auto-incrementing port.
Or just copy a string at a time from the Arcade Card's RAM to regular RAM before printing it.
What am I missing?
-
You'll have to talk to Bonknuts about that, since he's sort of the low-level hacking expert around here. I just do Japanese to English. What I remember is that he said he wants to be able to execute code directly from the RAM, not just retrieve text, but I could be off.
-
I've never done this kind of post-mortem translation, only with-source translation, so I may be way out of line here, but ... I've got to ask ... is the problem the lack of compressed space, or the decompressed space?
It's recompressing English text and overwriting the old Japanese text block. The first block I'm working with has 4,175 bytes allocated. When I compressed Sam's English text for that block, the result was ~8,000 bytes. Thus, it cannot fit, I must edit it down, trim where needed, come up with other ideas, maybe ask David to see if further improvement can be made to his recompression code, etc.
If it's the compressed space, then there are lots of better text compressors than plain-old-LZSS if that's what they're using ... and you could fit such a decompressor into a few hundred bytes.
That's a bad idea, not worth it and it's beyond the scope for someone of my experience to do. The same codec in the game is typically used for graphics blocks (e.g. Ys IV), so you would have to find all of them in the game, and recompress them with your new codec... Bad idea certain to introduce bugs and long work time on the project...
Since LZSS is looking for common patterns ... that's not necessarily a win, and can possibly be a lose in the compressed data.
I would agree if you were getting rid of random characters. But in this case you're always getting rid of the same 0x20 space character, so I think the vast majority of the times it would result in a smaller compressed size. Maybe not 30%, but even 5-10% would be worth it.
-
It's recompressing English text and overwriting the old Japanese text block. The first block I'm working with has 4,175 bytes allocated. When I compressed Sam's English text for that block, the result was ~8,000 bytes. Thus, it cannot fit, I must edit it down, trim where needed, come up with other ideas, maybe ask David to see if further improvement can be made to his recompression code, etc.
Thanks for the explanation, I appreciate you taking the time to help dispel my ignorance.
OK, so the original developers hard-allocated all the decompression space that they needed for the original text ... and you can't mess with that without making major changes to the code and introducing lots of bugs.
That's eminently sensible on your part, and a reasonable thing to do on their part (although a lot of Western developers that I know dynamically adjusted their runtime memory layout).
The same codec in the game is typically used for graphics blocks (e.g. Ys IV), so you would have to find all of them in the game, and recompress them with your new codec... Bad idea certain to introduce bugs and long work time on the project...
It would certainly be a lot of extra work ... and from what you say, pointless anyway since the issue that you are having is with the post-load decompressed space.
I would agree if you were getting rid of random characters. But in this case you're always getting rid of the same 0x20 space character, so I think the vast majority of the times it would result in a smaller compressed size. Maybe not 30%, but even 5-10% would be worth it.
It all depends upon the actual LZSS encoding and it's break-even point.
Changing a "<period><space><char>" into a "<period><char>" just changes a potential 3-byte repeat into a 2-byte repeat ... which may not actually have any effect at all on the resulting number of bits used by the LZSS offset-length encoding.
But that's beside the point anyway, since your limitation is actually decompressed space.
A really, really, really nasty hack would be to always put a new decompressor (or modified text-printing code) in at the start of the text when you LZSS compressed it, and then modify the original code to jump to that routine after the LZSS decompression when you needed to print something.
Then you could store the text in that area in whatever format you wished (such as 6-bit-with-escape-code, or 8-bit-with-a-192-entry-common-substring-table).
But it's still not going to magically fit 8000 bytes of uncompressed text into a 4175 byte space.
-
There's definitely some fat in my translation, and I think we could make some significant reductions without damaging any meaning. However, if the task is to cut the length in half, then losing some major detail will be inevitable.
Let's see what this 2.0 Everdrive can do.
-
Hm, just to be clear, the issue is the old compressed blocks of text, the space that was allocated for them. It's not an issue with the decompresion buffer or something. I do have compressed blocks that are contiguous to each other and David found the 16-bit pointers to them, so I do have an additional option of packing final recompressed blocks into each large contiguous block by recomputing the pointers. That'll be a last resort, we'll see how it goes.
Changing a "<period><space><char>" into a "<period><char>" just changes a potential 3-byte repeat into a 2-byte repeat ... which may not actually have any effect at all on the resulting number of bits used by the LZSS offset-length encoding.
Some cases yes, sure, some cases no. I have to run some tests. Compress the block with spaces, and do it again with this idea, and see what happens. It's easy enough to test out the theory and see how well it works beforehand.
-
OK, I changed about ~9 strings to using this idea temporarily. E.g.
[07]<YELLOW>Townswoman<brk><\r>
<WHITE>IHearThe<GREEN>Mayor<WHITE>IsHaving<\r>
someTrouble.YouOughtTo<\r>
goLendHimAHand.<\p>His<\r>
houseIsAtTheNorthwest<\r>
cornerOfTown.<\p><\0>
When I recompressed before the change, I had 462 bytes free, afterwards, free space kicked up to 482 - I freed up another 20 bytes. So far it seems to incrementally free up space. There are 101 strings in full, am not gonna test anymore, but yeah, it seems to work at first glance. I am hoping NOT to have to do this, I wanna see how things look after I eliminate some "fat" (as Sam refers to it), repetitious restating of the character's name/description, etc. and eventually even packing large contiguous text blocks with pointer re-computation (I've done it before with Xak III).
EDIT: Did some more (maybe another 10 or so), and kicked up free space to 514 bytes. One sentence at times caused no change, but then the next one freed up 12 bytes as a result, etc. So, overall, it continues to free up space despite cases of no benefit, etc. Ultimately you need a big enough block to compress for it to be worth it and be able to hack the print routine to respond properly to strings encoded like this... I would have to do more tests to determine how worthwhile this idea would be to seriously consider implementing it. It will suck having to edit the script looking like that, but yeah... It's an option on the table that's somewhat feasible.
There's definitely some fat in my translation, and I think we could make some significant reductions without damaging any meaning. However, if the task is to cut the length in half, then losing some major detail will be inevitable.
Let's see what this 2.0 Everdrive can do.
Since Ys IV was accomplished and I think this can work with some trimming, I would not want to rely on this idea down the road. I think it's for impossible font hacks that Bonknuts has this in mind for. But yeah, we'll be alright as is for Emerald Dragon I suspect. I don't want to break compatibility.
Well, here's what he actually said:
as for modifying the print routine, you're heading back into an issue I hate...
finding free room for your replacement code
and making sure that room is always available
which is why I'm moving toward a custom system card
either one with more ram, or one with a modified rom
a modified rom one would only work for duo/scd units though. not the originals
The space encoding thing sounds kinda cool though. I mean, no dictionary needed or such
I think if there was no English font support whatsoever, and to add things like subtitles when the game is packed pretty tight like Ys IV, as a total last resort, then yeah, I guess if Bonknuts tells you for this or that game there is no way for him to do it, then a custom system card might be the only solution. Anyhow, we're not gonna need that for ED, can say that with confidence! I only need minor changes and I should be able to free up code space thanks to all the S-JIS processing stuff.
-
Maybe we should move the Emerald Dragon talk over to the Emerald Dragon thread...
But according to my extraction notes, most of the superblocks have relatively large empty spaces at the end (ie. data padded with 0xff until the end of the sector and/or memory bank - in some cases, well in excess of 1 KB). A couple of them were tight, but most were not.
So if you're comfortable adjusting the pointers to use the entire available space - not just the original superblock size, that should probably be sufficient in most cases.
English should be more compressible than Japanese for this, but I recall that this Japanese was fairly dense, since kana were single-byte.
I'd really rather keep to the original hardware platform - or AT LEAST a version of the original platform that was native (ie. promote CDROM to SuperCDROM would be acceptable). Targetting specialized hardware is like targetting emulators only.
I believe that the Arcade Card is actually already used by Emerald Dragon (if attached), so even if it were a good place to store English text, it likely wouldn't work in this case (unless the original code were turned off). Easier to just try to work with what we have, until we reach an insurmountable roadblock.
-
I'd really rather keep to the original hardware platform - or AT LEAST a version of the original platform that was native (ie. promote CDROM to SuperCDROM would be acceptable). Targetting specialized hardware is like targetting emulators only.
Right, and I believe Bonknuts has done CDROM to SuperCDROM hacks before.
-
I'd really rather keep to the original hardware platform - or AT LEAST a version of the original platform that was native (ie. promote CDROM to SuperCDROM would be acceptable). Targetting specialized hardware is like targetting emulators only.
Believe me, I totally get where you're coming from. I want as many interested people to play a translation as possible. At this point, though, I just have to support the idea of using a new system card. Here's why:
1. Some games may fit an English script and new code just fine. Others might fit with some expertise and elbow grease. But others, unfortunately, look pretty hopeless. Tengai Makyo 2, for one. Legend of Xanadu for another. It's not that you can't get them to show any English text at all, don't get me wrong. But if the new English script and print routine have to fit in the framework of the original Japanese script, then lines like this:
//...An orphan.\n
//Now don't get any bright ideas.
//We've got enough mouths to feed as it is!
...will have to become something like this:
//A n O r p h a n !
//F o r g e t i t .
//W e ' r e t o o p o o r !
2. If you have to have a special card for one translation, you might as well have it for others, too, even if they don't necessitate it quite as much. If it speeds up the hacking in any significant way, I'm all for it. How many PCE-CD games have been hacked to completion in the last 10 years?
3. Even if you have to stick in a special new system card, the game will run on your real hardware exactly as it would otherwise. The only difference will be that you'll see a more fleshed out script and/or a better print routine and/or a prettier font. I know you know this, but I just want to stress that the only barrier here is the price of the card.
-
Fair points, Sam. I think what made David nervous was forwarding the idea that we needed it for Emerald Dragon. We should be able to manage OK, plus there's no timetable for when something like that would ever be designed/released either, so...
Now, when it comes to other games that you mentioned, sure, I guess. If Bonknuts ever produces something like this, or if you guys try to lobby krik while you got the chance (the window is gonna close fast since he's 2-3 months from his TurboEverdriveV2.0 release), then great, I guess it would be useful down the road. Maybe it's just a matter of hacking the game to go from SCD to ArcadeCD if krik declines anything specific to what Bonknuts has in mind, but adds ACD support to his flashcart as stated. I do wonder though if there might be a temptation to go the easy route with it first when a traditional hack job might be sufficient enough and thereby break compatibility when you didn't have to... But yeah, Bonknuts would be the best person to tell you if there's no other way out of the situation but to go with a custom system card.
A big reason why you haven't seen PCE CD games hacked to completion in the last 10 years is because unlike SNES, the system just didn't gain the much larger user fanbase that it did. I managed 2 RPG translation projects (XakIII, Ys IV) and Ys IV was with a big team (Neill Corllett and David Shadoff as programmers besides me, 2 translators, and other people, 5-6 for varying lighter stuff, etc. NOT counting voice actors for the English dub). That was a tough project and I took a break from the system because of text codec usage, lack of font hacks and not being able to handle that myself; I didn't think I'd ever return, preferring to focus on Falcom Windows PC games (of course, I got screwed big time given the people I made the mistake of working with...). Neill was done with the system, few like him were around, and I was proud to have gotten at least another a feather in my cap with Ys IV.
But yeah, overall, there aren't enough people in the fanbase to come forward and start hacking some of these remaining CD RPG games. The lack of folks translated to lack of tools [debugging or otherwise] for many years, lack of documentation, lack of more computer wizards on our "team" like Bonknuts, or EsperKnight, etc. Compare that to the plethora of tools built around SNES because of the attention that it got which fostered a movement trying to translate EVERY LAST Japanese game ever made! We just don't have that in our little corner and that's part of why I wanted to work on PC Engine games when I got started, I was enough of a fan, saw that there was a vacuum I could fill and be the "first" at something, a CD RPG project (Xak III), etc.
Anyway, blah blah, you know what I'm trying to say here. If the system was as popular as SNES, lots of shit would've gotten done already and likely without having to go as far as a custom system card to boot is my guess!
Question: Is upgrading the game to Arcade Card not enough ?
-
Fair points, Sam. I think what made David nervous was forwarding the idea that we needed it for Emerald Dragon. We should be able to manage OK, plus there's no timetable for when something like that would ever be designed/released either, so...
I did get in touch with Krikzz just a little, and while there hasn't been anything conclusive, he seemed optimistic about this expanded memory idea working with the Turbo Everdrive v2.
If you guys can pull Emerald Dragon off nicely as-is, that's great. Like I said, I would be very happy to see this available for as many people as possible. If that idea motivates you, then go for it.
I do wonder if there might be a temptation to go the easy route with it first when a traditional hack job might be sufficient enough and thereby break compatibility when you didn't have to...
I understand your concern, but if a new expanded-memory card comes out and someone is at all inclined to use it for translation purposes, I think that they should do so regardless. The PC Engine CD hasn't gotten a damn thing in years. I'm not saying that there haven't been some flaky translators, myself included, but these projects begin and end with hacking work. Esperknight, Bonknuts and dshadoff have the skills to do the deep surgery on these games, but they don't have the time to put to make everything fit back together again inside the 256k of RAM currently available and have it work throughout an entire RPG.
Meanwhile, aging nostalgic gamers are dropping huge money on even the loosest of hueys. I think they can justify setting aside a little for a Turbo Everdrive v2, or possibly even a cheaper alternative manufactured by this community, in exchange for access to games they had no hope of playing before. Just trust me, if parking the translated script and all the new code in some expanded RAM cuts the hacking time in half, it's what you want the hackers to do.
Motivation is the biggest factor. If making Emerald Dragon work on the normal hardware drives you, then go for it. If using expanded memory to simplify the hacking gives others motivation, then they should do that. I'm just frustrated of seeing so little happening around here.
-
Hey Bonknuts, when/if you see this. What about getting by with upgrading the game to Arcade Card ? I'm trying to see, is that not enough for these real difficult cases, if not, why not, etc. and so it must be something custom (like another Games Express) ?
-
Hey Bonknuts, when/if you see this. What about getting by with upgrading the game to Arcade Card ? I'm trying to see, is that not enough for these real difficult cases, if not, why not, etc. and so it must be something custom (like another Games Express) ?
Here's something he posted when I asked the same question:
The ACD has a the drawback that it lacks memory that you can execute code from. So you still need to find free areas in the original CD ram layout, etc. It would have been nice if they had added something like 8k of direct accessible ram, if only for us translators/hackers. I've been wanting a new system card with more direct code accessible ram for a while now, for translations. Tail Chao's hucard can do this. Its specific mapper can allow 512k of ram easily as well as the original system card 3.0 ram. It's a real card and mednafen started adding support for it. That would be extremely ideal for translation hacking. Though a card made from the ground up would work as well (no mapper needed, just a few discrete chips to handle memory layout. Also mirror the first 1k of the ram to open bus space of bank $ff. That would allow the hooks to be static/fixed in memory layout and code to map in new banks of hook code from there).
-
[07]<YELLOW>Townswoman<brk><\r>
<WHITE>IHearThe<GREEN>Mayor<WHITE>IsHaving<\r>
someTrouble.YouOughtTo<\r>
goLendHimAHand.<\p>His<\r>
houseIsAtTheNorthwest<\r>
cornerOfTown.<\p><\0>
It will suck having to edit the script looking like that, but yeah... It's an option on the table that's somewhat feasible.
Errr ... isn't that when you ask your programmer to write a pre-processor that takes the human editable text and spits out the compression-ready text? It would save a lot of human-error that would otherwise occur.
It looks like it's saving you a few bytes of RAM and a little compression space ... but then you need a customized printing routine.
Or a customized compressor, or a customized whatever-other-neat-gizmo.
Which gets back to code space and the Arcade Card ...
Here's something he posted when I asked the same question:
The ACD has a the drawback that it lacks memory that you can execute code from. So you still need to find free areas in the original CD ram layout, etc.
And that's where your task as post-mortem translators really sucks, and why I have such respect for what you guys do.
You've got to analyze the game, completely without source, and figure out where there is some spare space ... and how to actually get code/data to load into that spare space.
I can think of some strategies ... but they're all difficult and nasty work ... like the old C64 and Amiga hackers that would rip games off tape/floppy and actually rewrite the games' loading code so that they could bypass copy protection and release compilation disks.
So when David said ...
But according to my extraction notes, most of the superblocks have relatively large empty spaces at the end (ie. data padded with 0xff until the end of the sector and/or memory bank - in some cases, well in excess of 1 KB). A couple of them were tight, but most were not.
So if you're comfortable adjusting the pointers to use the entire available space - not just the original superblock size, that should probably be sufficient in most cases.
That sounds much more like the kind of CD/loading system that I'm used to ... and that you may actually have some free space to play with ... but, and it's a huge "but" ... then you are starting to enter the realm of remastering the CD image.
That would give you a lot of added flexibility, but comes at the cost of needing someone to write the tools.
And good tools programmers have always been hard to find ... it's vital but completely un-glamarous work.
Anyway, I'm rambling rather than actually contributing anything useful, so I'll stop bombing this thread with my distractions.
-
Hey Bonknuts, when/if you see this. What about getting by with upgrading the game to Arcade Card ? I'm trying to see, is that not enough for these real difficult cases, if not, why not, etc. and so it must be something custom (like another Games Express) ?
If we are talking about Tengai Makyo (the game meniotned in the thread), there are two versions of it:
1) CD, which is what I have always counselled to base extractions from, because you can easily extend RAM usage into the SCD area, which will be untouched.
2) SCD, which was a re-release a few years later, which tried to address load times. I would advise to try not to use this one, as it's not clear what its memory footprint is.
If on the other hand, we are talking about Emerald Dragon again/still (even though it has its own thread), then there a few problems with Arcade Card, which stem from the complexity of CDROM games in the first place:
1) According to my information, it already uses Arcade Card memory if it detects it. Disabling such use would be a LOT of trouble, and then would come the problems of the repurposing
2) If a game did not use ACD memory, then great, the ACD can be used. But ACD storage would really only be viable as text storage, because it can't be used to execute code from. So it wouldn't solve problems like print functions. Also, you would still need ACD access routines which must reside in main memory, and that memory may not be easy to find.
3) Using ACD memory for text storage could be theoretically OK, but still has some issues which need to be surmounted:
- First, it needs to be stored on the disc in the first place. You need to find that storage. And the way that code and data are stored on the disc currently is like a gigantic ROM file, which gets paged into memory a few blocks at a time. You can't just shift something over without huge consequences. You could theoretically extend the end of the CDROM data track, but you'd better hope that existing CDROM access code in the game doesn't reference MM:SS:FF or LBA addresses on disc - rather that they would address tracks (which would be fine, as they would shift).
- While the text could be stored in ACD as either compressed or uncompressed, it would need to be copied to main memory prior to print.
-- If compressed, you would need to copy to the same compress buffer in main memory as would have previously been used (ie. a text page loaded from disc), and decompress as per usual. This is probably the more difficult choice.
-- If stored in ACD as uncompressed text, then the string locate (or 'pre-print') function could be replaced with ACD accesses. In such a case, instead of addressing a text page to find compressed data, and then uncompressing into a RAM buffer, and sending the start of the string to the print function, there could instead be a lookup (based on superblock, sub-block, and string #) to a lookup table to find out ACD location instead. Then all that would be needed would be a block-move into the uncompress buffer (to the start of the buffer !), and send that address to the print function. Of course, this becomes complicated if the superblock-subblocks are expected to already be decoded into the uncompress buffer at the time of print (a very real possibility). Then you wouldn't have the hook to the uncompress to support you, and you would need to worry about how big the uncompressed strings are in memory - and whether your uncompress buffer was big enough to hold the block in the first place.
So, it's not so easy.... because even imagining all of these problems, and devising theoretical techniques to deal with them is really only about 30% of the work. The techniques would then need to be implemented, debugged, and as is always the case, unforeseen events happen along the way.
-
Errr ... isn't that when you ask your programmer to write a pre-processor that takes the human editable text and spits out the compression-ready text? It would save a lot of human-error that would otherwise occur.
Yeah, I can do that eventually if I needed to really try to this idea, bit more grunt work, but yeah. Really, I'd have to cause I have auto-wrapping code which relies on spaces to wrap strings depending on the dimensions of message boxes. Wrapping at the click of a button would break if I edited every string like that, so it would have to be in the pre-processing, detokenizing phase prior to compression.
It looks like it's saving you a few bytes of RAM and a little compression space ... but then you need a customized printing routine.
Compression space is saved, right, and you have to hack/mod the print routine a bit. The changes seem feasible enough so I think it's a pretty good idea if you've got a hacker good enough to mod the print routine and space is tight for whatever game. So, the idea is out there for others to try. Bonknuts found it interesting when I mentioned it to him on Facebook and from my quick test it looks like it works.
Here's something he posted when I asked the same question:The ACD has a the drawback that it lacks memory that you can execute code from. So you still need to find free areas in the original CD ram layout, etc. It would have been nice if they had added something like 8k of direct accessible ram, if only for us translators/hackers. I've been wanting a new system card with more direct code accessible ram for a while now, for translations. Tail Chao's hucard can do this. Its specific mapper can allow 512k of ram easily as well as the original system card 3.0 ram. It's a real card and mednafen started adding support for it. That would be extremely ideal for translation hacking. Though a card made from the ground up would work as well (no mapper needed, just a few discrete chips to handle memory layout. Also mirror the first 1k of the ram to open bus space of bank $ff. That would allow the hooks to be static/fixed in memory layout and code to map in new banks of hook code from there).
Ah, OK, that answers that question. I see.
If on the other hand, we are talking about Emerald Dragon again/still (even though it has its own thread), then there a few problems with Arcade Card, which stem from the complexity of CDROM games in the first place:
Relax. ;) We'll be OK with ED with trimming and contiguous text block packing, I think. The interest I took in the discussion here is about future games and this idea I heard from Bonknuts, his desire to produce a custom system card and willingness to break compatibility to get difficult projects done, etc. I guess if there's no other way, why not. I just would hope that the easy route isn't taken first if such a card was produced. I also wondered about why the Arcade Card couldn't be enough if you *really* had to go this route. Again, for me that was about other/future projects, a general debate. Anyway, I read the rest of your post, so that answers the question as well.
-
Pardon my ignorance on all things translation hacking based, but how would they have gone about doing this say they had actually ported the game back in the day?
I guess I'm not understanding the reason that there is such a limitation, someone maybe lay it out in simpleton terms, as I don't get why replacing one wall of text with another would be such a stumbling block.
Thanks
-
By ported, you mean if a US publisher bought the Rights to localize and release it ? The Japanese company/IP holder will give you the full source code if a deal is made, if they decide to give you permission to do it. Or, you let their own programmers do it, so they give you the Japanese script, you translate it, give an English script back to them, and they will rebuild the game with it - that's how it's done with that criminal outfit X.X.XSEED Games (http://www.xseedgames.com/) and Falcom actually. XSEED doesn't have much of a staff for reprogramming the game, so Falcom does it for them based on the deal in place. They do have a contract programmer to port the game on Steam after Falcom inserts their translated results, though.
So yeah, by being able to recompile the videogame having all the source code, you can grow/change it far more easier instead of how we as fans are forced to do it by hacking the final binary output (hacking = what's known as reverse-engineering, since we don't have access to the original source code).
-
By ported, you mean if a US publisher bought the Rights to localize and release it ? The Japanese company/IP holder will give you the full source code if a deal is made, if they decide to give you permission to do it. Or, you let their own programmers do it, so they give you the Japanese script, you translate it, give an English script back to them, and they will rebuild the game with it - that's how it's done with that criminal outfit X.X.XSEED Games (http://www.xseedgames.com/) and Falcom actually. XSEED doesn't have much of a staff for reprogramming the game, so Falcom does it for them based on the deal in place. They do have a contract programmer to port the game on Steam after Falcom inserts their translated results, though.
So yeah, by being able to recompile the videogame having all the source code, you can grow/change it far more easier instead of how we as fans are forced to do it by hacking the final binary output (hacking = what's known as reverse-engineering, since we don't have access to the original source code).
There it is...thanks for the explanation
-
Dshadoff pretty much hit on everything. AC memory can help with scripts (doing a dictionary compression scheme or just tokens to larger strings) and font storage. Finding free space in the ISO is probably the easiest thing as most data tracks are extremely fragmented (rarely is this not the case). And I could write a boot handler to load your AC stuff on the games initial boot (easy to do). But like Dave said, it's a bi-compatible AC game. And that means making absolutely sure you hunt down all instances of AC detection routines (some games, like Gulliver Boy, periodically do an AC check and change appropriately). That's too bad.
Dave said there is sometimes free space near the of compressed blocks? That would be a great place to start; figure out that pointer system and try to maximize that area for your new compressed blocks. Maybe in conjunction with this compression scheme you already have in place (the no-space run?).
-
Yeah, I think we'll be OK with ED.
So to reiterate, for Ziria here and other games, my advice to Sam was to watch the "fat" in the script. Also, the space compression idea is now listed and tested, so if EsperKnight did have recompression excess, that might be an idea worth trying. I think if he can fit a VW font hack, he could most certainly do that.
It seems you indicate that you can get by, whatever the game (forget ED), if CD upgrade to SCD, or if SCD upgrade to ACD, etc. and thus avoid the need for creating your own custom system card based on what I read. But, you really like the idea even still ? My feeling/preference is for the upgrade route before going as far as the custom system card route, but yeah, you would know better as to what games are impossible to do without the latter. I'd just play it on an emulator if I was even interested in whatever future game you targeted using the idea.
-
As a greedy f*cker that wants sweet games to play in English, I'm cool with having to buy a special syscard to play 'em (everdrive or whatever). If it means more games get done in less time, that a game doesn't get a severely truncated translation to fit, or it saves a game from being abandoned as too difficult/frustrating, it's totally worth having to pay a pittance for the card.
-
It seems you indicate that you can get by, whatever the game (forget ED), if CD upgrade to SCD, or if SCD upgrade to ACD, etc. and thus avoid the need for creating your own custom system card based on what I read. But, you really like the idea even still ? My feeling/preference is for the upgrade route before going as far as the custom system card route, but yeah, you would know better as to what games are impossible to do without the latter. I'd just play it on an emulator if I was even interested in whatever future game you targeted using the idea.
Well, CD to SCD definitely. I did this for Dave's Cosmic Fantasy I project. SCD->ACD helps with having a place for the font to live outside the regular game (i.e. most games need a new font), and it can help with script compression issues (dictionary/string compression). But ACD still lacks in one thing; not extra space for replacement code. You can't always just overwrite the original game code. Sometimes it requires more space. One example is if the original print routine is complex and needs a lot of 'monitoring' and special case modification (you'd be surprised). Dead of the Brain required a LOT of this because of how the tiles and tilemap was setup. I basically ran out of space, which is why certain script stuff has to be manually don't with control codes on the script side and special attention to the format of the text. Which is why the project has stalled (needs special support utils to handle this pre-script insertion).
Here's how an easy to make hucard with the original 256k SCD bios rom with a full 512k (hell, even just 256k vs 192k) can help: on your boot code, you load a special modified system card bank $00 into ram and map this to MPR 7. Games never change that, so once it's mapped - you're good to go. There is free space in the original rom's area, which is now ram, we can put our own custom call routines in there to the new ram. The original rom is there, making it compatible with original SCD games, *and* you have the ability to add upgrades by simply reserving 8k for a new/alt sys card fix lib bank. It's so simple, it's genius.
I suggest 512k, because then homebrew could use it too. Why not get more purposes out of one card? And like I said, the card is super simple to make - no special hardware or mappers. You just need a hucard PCB that can accept two chips (one for lower 512k and one for upper 512k range).
Technically, I can do something similar with the SGX, because of the additional 24k of ram, but then I'm limiting all gamers to have an SGX. Arcade Cards are awesome, but they have a lot of tech in them and are more prone to failure (I've already have two of them die), and it doesn't address all issues. A PCB, like the one the french guy made (silk marked in white) would make the perfect SCD+extended ram card.
-
Ah, I gotcha. Makes sense.
http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=2670.msg26815#msg26815
Maybe lobby krik about the idea before it's too late ?? Would be nice to get what you need in an all-in-one flashcart product considering he's mulling over adding ACD support.
-
Ah, I gotcha. Makes sense.
http://krikzz.com/forum/index.php?topic=2670.msg26815#msg26815
Maybe lobby krik about the idea before it's too late ?? Would be nice to get what you need in an all-in-one flashcart product considering he's mulling over adding ACD support.
Bonknuts, if there are any little details that krikzz should know about regarding how a system card would need to be set up on that new everdrive, the time is really ripe to contact him. He's not only a receptive guy, but I think he would appreciate the help from someone as knowledgeable as you.
I do think that the ideal thing would be for us to manufacture our own little card. For the time being, though, and for all who will eventually get one of these everdrives, it would be great to get this working.
-
If you guys got together and made a special system card, I'd buy it. In fact I think you deserve to make a little money off your hard work(I know that's not why you're doing it but still) doing these translations. The beauty of this card would be that there would be no copyright or IP infringement so you could sell it w/o concern.
-
Here's how an easy to make hucard with the original 256k SCD bios rom with a full 512k...
Use a 512K flash chip and a 512K RAM chip. Use a 2-4 demultiplexer chip, driven by A19 and A20 (so the $80000-$F0000 space is unmapped, leaving the hardware areas untouched, and unlikely to cause bus conflicts).
One ouput from the demux turns on the OE line of the flash, and another turns on the OE of the RAM.
Memory is split : $00000-$3FFFF would be the flash, $40000-$7FFFF would be RAM. Ram would be available where expected, with an additional 64K at $80000 (standard system card 2.0 RAM) iirc.
If it didn't require $200+ to get 10 prototype cards made, I'd be working on it now.
(And Tom, consider this: with twice the ROM space, we could actually make a system card that would boot in either a us or jp system, without any modifications :)
-
If it didn't require $200+ to get 10 prototype cards made, I'd be working on it now.
If you or anyone else with the skills (and the time and the reputation) would be interested in making a card but is put off by the overhead costs, let me know. I'm not rich, but fronting a couple hundred bucks is within my range and is something I would be glad to do.
-
If it didn't require $200+ to get 10 prototype cards made, I'd be working on it now.
If you or anyone else with the skills (and the time and the reputation) would be interested in making a card but is put off by the overhead costs, let me know. I'm not rich, but fronting a couple hundred bucks is within my range and is something I would be glad to do.
If you guys can figure out the total costing of the project, maybe you could do a preorder to cover the development costs?
-
I can guarantee they will do whatever they can to NOT take preorders, as they create obligation hell.
-
If you guys can figure out the total costing of the project, maybe you could do a preorder to cover the development costs?
I can guarantee they will do whatever they can to NOT take preorders, as they create obligation hell.
+100
Flash chip is ~$4. Rom chip is ~$5, iirc. Demux chip is <$1.
I'm not ready to spend $200 on boards that may not work, though. I'm not an EE, and don't know how the chip timing works on a turbo. I would hate to spend $200+ on boards, and find out there is a problem requiring a re-design (and trashing all the old boards)
I might go ahead and do some home-etched boards (which won't be pretty) in the future, just for lulz. I just don't see a market for a new cd card.
-
I just don't see a market for a new cd card.
There's gotta be someway to gauge the interest in it. Arkhan was saying there were even around 100 orders for atlantean just on hold not to mention those already bought, maybe he'll have some more information that'd be helpful. I haven't looked into this sort of thing before so I'm not sure if that'd be enough to justify it. There are plenty of other places people would be interested in this too though
-
If it didn't require $200+ to get 10 prototype cards made, I'd be working on it now.
If you or anyone else with the skills (and the time and the reputation) would be interested in making a card but is put off by the overhead costs, let me know. I'm not rich, but fronting a couple hundred bucks is within my range and is something I would be glad to do.
I would be willing to donate some $$$$ for prototype...knowing full-well that it might not work out as planned.
If just a few of us (here at pcefx) helped donate $$$$ towards prototype boards, it could help move project forward.
We should just make a disclaimer that (1) donations are donations and (2) several iterations of the board might be necessary.
:)
-
Thank you, esteban.
I am dead serious about wanting to do more translations on this system. To anyone who has some confidence and can at least promise to try to make the boards, I will front most or all of the money for prototype builds. That's with the understanding that you might not succeed.
If you do succeed, I can also help fund a building of 100+ cards, to be distributed at or near cost. TheOldMan, can you give me an estimate of what the cost of a finished card might be?
This should probably have its own thread, but I'll want to touch base with Bonknuts before making one.
-
This card is a f*cking good idea and i'd be glad to donate or buy or whatever.
TM2 maybe one day :pray: