Now, how to start this post..? I have just extracted the ROMs from 3D Sonic the Hedgehog, and the rumours I've heard recently are that the ROM itself is the host of the 3D layers. I am currently experimenting with near-clean ROM hacks, and even the original ROM to see if this is true. If interested, the direct ROM from S13D Classic's can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw4TswbxjIZLN3phZW5ZcFF6dWM/
The ROM isn't special at all. It's hardcoded in the emulator as to what and what doesn't have depth. In terms of getting ROM hacks to work in 3D, you're thinking a tad bit unrealistically. Until the emulator can be RE'd, there's nothing that can be done. I think that, based off several tests, that the emulator verifies the ROM based on the checksum and NOT the entire header. That means a ROM hack would need to have the same checksum as REVXB/REV00 Sonic 1, which is pretty doubt able.
Thank you, I've been wanting to get my hands on these forever. It seems Sonic1.SGD is actually REVXB, and Sonic1_USA.SGD is REV00. On a binary level, they're identical, so, sorry, the 3D stuff isn't in there. What's interesting though is these vanilla ROMs. I'm amazed Sega still have the REVXB build on hand (the thing was hackishly made in a hex editor, with the new code occupying the end of the vector table), and it goes to show the Spin Dash must be some kind of external patch that's applied according to your settings. I mean, it's not really a surprise, considering just about every Virtual Console game has a patch supplied with it to prevent epileptic fits, but it shows M2 didn't reassemble the game. The Spin Dash must have been added the same way as the REVXB spike bug fix: good old hex-editing. Lends less credibility to the theory that M2 nicked our guide =P. At least our port hurts enemies. Still, seeing their implementation of the Spin Dash SFX, and how it handles changing in pitch, would help to determine if their port is based on ours, since the guide's implementation is particularly terrible. Any way you can dig the patch file out of there? EDIT: On the topic of the Spin Dash, this isn't the first time the original Sonic 1's had it added: Sonic Jam had it too, but it's different from in this version because Jam's version of the ported Spin Dash dust object retained its skid behaviour from S2, where, if you skid, you leave dust clouds. 3DS1 and our guide don't port that.
As far as any patch, I get the feeling that the emulator's patch is built in to the emulator itself as another script. /201 has the startup menu, and /system has the emulator/ROM and pause menus' data. I could just share the entire RomFS dump, and the un-compressor I used on the ROMs seen above, as there are many files about the /system directory that could relate to the spindash patch. The question is.. Should I?
I would actually consults admins on the board about that. I know we share ROMs of games from the 90s here, but I think placing a game that came out very recently here could get us into hot water (hence why GBATemp doesn't allow sharing of ROMs).
