Real hardware hack compatibility list

As I said in the Basic Q & A thread, I think it would be useful to have information on which hacks work on hardware and which do not all in one place. I have tested all of the hacks listed here on a real console (an X'Eye, which is similar to a model 2) using the Everdrive-MD.

Anybody else who can test on hardware: please feel free to add any more information you have.

A note about Address Errors: sometimes the game will freeze and the words "Address Error" will appear somewhere on screen. It's usually (but not always) possible to recover from these by pressing the C button. In most Sonic games, the number of lives display may be messed up after one of these errors occurs.

Hacks listed in Sonic blue work with few to no problems.

Hacks listed in Tails orange have significant problems, but can be finished.

Hacks listed in Big purple cannot be finished.

Hacks listed in Knuckles red crash at the start or shorly thereafter.

Hacks listed in black have conflicting reports on different hardware.

Note that "no problems" means no problems that are related to playing on real hardware.

*Sonic 2: Advanced Edit - No problems.

*Sonic AGX Demo - The buzz bomber type enemy's graphics were jumbled, but only in act 1? I haven't seen this problem on Fusion. No other problems.

*Sonic 3 & Amy (Rev 1.4) - Crashes to title screen early in AIZ1 or when starting Competition mode

*ATOMIC SONIC - No problems.

*BakaSonic (SHC 2014 Demo) - No problems.

*Big's Fishing Derby - No problems.

*Sonic Boom - No problems.

*Sonic 1 Bouncy Edition / Within a Deep Hedgehog - Constant address errors in the special stage. LZ3 Boss does not work, so finishing that stage is impossible.

*Sonic 1 Brother Trouble - No problems.

*Sonic 2 Build-A-Burger - No problems.

*Sonic 3 & Knuckles: The Challenges - No problems.

*Sonic Classic Heroes - No problems in latest version. Earlier versions fail to complete the cutscene at the end of WFZ.

*Sonic: Code Gray - No problems.

*Sonic 1 Color Contrast (SHC 2014) - Address Error at start; recovering from it skips the initial cutscene, so the GHZ hub never loses its colors. I consider this a minor problem because everything else works fine.

*Sonic 3 Complete - No problems.

*Sonic 3 Cz - Crashes to SEGA screen when you win an Act as Amy.

*Sonic 2 Delta - Glitchy HUD graphics. Fully playable.

*Dr. Robotnik's Creature Capture - If you get crushed between two platforms, an address error will occur, but this can be recovered. No problems otherwise.

*Sonic and Tails: Double Trouble (Version 1.1) - No problems.

*Sonic 1 Easy version - No problems.

*Sonic the Hedgehog: Egg on Toast Edition - No problems. I got all the bonus shinies and everything

*Sonic Erazor - No problems.

*Flicky Turncoat DX (Nov 8 2010 Demo) - No problems.

*Sonic 1: Gotta Go Fast Edition - In the secret zone, there's a trap with several Robotnik monitors that will cause an address error if you hit them, but this is recoverable.

*Jester's Challenge - No problems.

*Kirby in Sonic the Hedgehog - No problems.

*Knuckles in Sonic 1 - No problems.

*Sonic 2 LD - No problems on X'Eye in SMS mode.

*Sonic 2 Long Version - Freezes at Genocide City Zone title.

*Sonic the Hedgehog: The Lost Worlds - No problems.

*Sonic the Hedghog Mega Blitz (Alpha v 0.4) - No problems.

*Sonic the Hedgehog Megamix (Version 3.0) - Address error sometimes occurs upon hitting Robotnik monitor. Recoverable.

*Sonic the Hedgehog Megamix (Version 4.0) - This is a Sega CD game. I've had no problems with it on hardware.

*Metal Sonic Hyperdrive (SHC 2014) - No problems.

*Metal Sonic in Sonic 3 & Knuckles - No problems.

*Sonic Mildness - No problems according to Ravenfreak.

*Mr. Needlemouse (Second release) - No problems.

*Neo Sonic the Hedgehog - No problems.

*Sonic the Hedgehog: Never Stop Running  - No problems.

*Sonic: The One Ring - No problems.

*Sonic 1: Painto Edition 2 (SHC 2014) - Endless series of errors right after the instructions screen when starting the game.

*Pana der Hejhog - No problems.

*Sonic 1 Pixel Perfect - No problems.

*Sonic 3 & Knuckles: Pro Survivor - No problems as far as I can tell. I'm unable to finish this hack because it's too difficult.

*Project Reiko - No problems on X'Eye in SMS mode.

*Sonic 2 Recreation - Works fine on MD according to redhotsonic and others. Will not start on my X'Eye.

*Sonic 2 Remixed (SMS) - No problems according to Ravenfreak (author).

*Sonic 1: Return to the Origin - Freezes at SEGA screen.

*Sonic 2: The Rise of Chaos - No problems.

*Robotnik's Return - Very long series of address errors at a certain point in Construction Zone Act 1 (right after hitting a red spring). Was eventually able to get past them and finish the hack.

*Robotnik's Revenge - Sometimes freezes if you make it from one boss to the next too quickly.

*The S Factor: Sonia and Silver - I had a fatal address error when entering the special stage once, but I don't know what causes this, as I've also gone through the whole game, playing the special stage many times, without problems.

*Sonic the Hedgehog 1 @ SAGE 2010 - Works, but DO NOT PLAY on a flash cart. Writes constantly to SRAM to guard against savestates. Flash memory can only take so many writes before it wears out.

*SoniNeko - No problems.

*Sonic: South Island Warped GHZ Demo - No problems.

*Sonic 1: Stardust Gear Edition - Freezes at the start of GHZ2.

*Tails in Sonic 1 - Music sounds TERRIBLE. Otherwise playable.

*Sonic Tetris - No problems.

*30 Day Challenge Revisited (Bugfix) - No gameplay problems, but certain graphics including lampposts and the emeralds during the good ending display properly in Fusion but not on hardware.

*Sonic 2 Time Attack - Works, but has SRAM/Savestate guard (see above entry for Sonic @ SAGE).

*Tohaka - No (hardware-related) problems.

*Sonic the Hedgehog: Tribute - No problems.

*Sonic UMZ - Crashes to error screen at startup.

*Sonic Uno (v 0.3a) - No problems.

*Sonic the Very Useful Engine - No problems.

*Sonic VR - Freezes when a level starts.

*Sonic Winter Adventures - No problems.

*Yeth (Very third version) - Error occurs at a certain point in "Yes Zone" (SBZ), but you can recover.

 

Sonic 2 Recreation doesn't start at all? Works for me perfectly, PAL or NTSC MegaDrive. Also, I have other tech members that can confirm this hack works 100% on hardware. My guess it doesn't work with you is because you're using a third party console, the X'eye. My Sonic 2 Time Attack also works perfectly fine (although you haven't listed this), but has the same SRAM/Savestate guard as Sonic the hedgehog 1 @ SAGE 2010.

 

I downloaded Sonic 2 Recreation again and tried it again - it still doesn't start. I've been told that the X'Eye is pretty much identical to the Model 2 in terms of the Genesis hardware (which is real Sega hardware, I know that much). It seems strange that something would run on the MD and not the X'Eye, but I guess there is at least one such case.

 

Hah, I always laugh when people confirm Sonic ERaZor is working without problems on real hardware, cause it's the most unoptimized crap from here to eternity. No idea how I still managed to make it workable. :V

Thanks for the list (although I don't own a flashcart).

 

No Kirby in Sonic the Hedgehog?

 

I agree with Lone Devil. While I'm here I'll also point out that my hack, Sonic 2: The Rise of Chaos, is missing from the list as well.

*shot for self-advertising*

 

aw, what about my hack? D:


(I know it works, but still, not being listed means you don't like it)

 

It is quite a disappointment that many hacks don't work on real hardware, usually the issue is just unaligned data and/or instructions. Solve those by placing an even after all instances of incbin (depends on assembler however this applies to asm68k).

 

Funnily enough, I spotted the error stated above a couple of days after the contest deadline, and it was fixed with a simple instruction change of move.w to move.b. BUT, there is an error that happens upon entering special stages in Regen (in Fusion, it just glitches out and eventually 'makes' it to the special stage). Unfortunately, I didn't catch it in time, and ended up seeing it in a stream.

Thank you for doing this though, it is very much appreciated (though the discrepancies between Real Hardware and the X'Eye make me curious).

 

I added several hacks to the list, including ThomasSpeedrunner's hack. It worked fine, assuming that the game is supposed to restart when you beat Act 2.

 

Yes, it is supposed to restart, since those two acts were the only two actually done when I released it. It's not a bug.

 

What about versions of said hacks? I mean, reversions could make or break something.

 

By no means are those instructions equivalent. I would like to know more what was being moved to what?Lets consider the following

Code:

move.l #$12345678,d0
move.w #123,d0

Will not produce the same results as

Code:

move.l #$12345678,d0
move.b #123,d0

Yes #123 can be stored in one byte, but the result is different because the upper byte in the word is zero in the first example and such is reflected in the register

 

I'd assume it's a word- or longword-size write to an odd address, which does cause the Genesis to crash upon execution. That's probably what he meant.

 

Yes that is true. I was just guessing another side effect of changing the size that is being written.

Also I already posted a solution for misaligned instructions and data which is a very trivial fix.

 

It was just an accidental rushed sloppy mistake on my part, that I only caught on Regen, using flamewing's debugger. That was the point of the post.

 

Sonic Mildness works fine on both my Model 1 and 2 Genesis. My old Sonic 2 SMS hack, Sonic 2 Remixed also works on hardware as it's the first hack I played on actual hardware. xD

 

Oh look, now I have to stop idling. The former "issue" is a deliberate design choice to remove the thought that the Special Stage could have a Score Attack mission hidden in it. I remember the latter issue but haven't seen it in a long time; does the bugfix version remove the issue? If not, I haven't seen it in my latest test builds, so I'll investigate it. In any case, it's doubtful that it's actually a hardware issue since none of my tests were on hardware and I saw the issue in the past.

 

There is no special stage, I hadn't programmed it yet d=

 

Thank you for the corrections. I've updated the list. I've removed S2RR because I'm not sure about the status of the bug I mentioned, and I'm not sure I should be playing in on a flash cart anyway with the amount of writing to SRAM it apparently does.

I've also tested several more hacks and added them to the list. Happily, they're all fully playable; only a couple had relatively minor problems.