Arcade version w/roster updates

[Patsox]

I am brand new to the forum, I just stumbled upon it while searching NFL Blitz.  I was glad to see that there are hacks for roster updates out there.  My only problem is that I am not super computer savvy and not sure if I could perform the hack myself.  I just purchased a 2000 Gold arcade cabinet for personal use.  I was wondering if anyone knew where (If available) I could purchase a hacked flash version of this game.  Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Scott

[jaker3]

Hey Patsox,

I developed the roster editor and attempted a 2000 gold arcade roster update. Unfortunately I do not own a arcade machine to test it on so I'm not sure if it works or not. I've been looking for someone whos able to swap it in and test it... Maybe this week I'll reach out to a few arcade forums and see if I can find someone willing to try it out.

[Patsox]

That will work.  I am awaiting my cabinet now and I did order the flash card drive to replace the old standard HD.  After stumbling upon this site and seeing all of the great work everyone is doing I thought there might be a market for us less tech savvy players who would still enjoy the roster updates.  Please keep me updated.

[duderegular]

Are there any files or editors available for the arcade version? I have a Blitz 2000 Gold cabinet and would be interested in updating the rosters.

I don't have a rom programmer at the moment, but may get one, or get some burned for this. My poor Chiefs are stuck with Elvis Grbac...

[jaker3]

Hey DudeRegular,


As far as I know you shouldn't need a ROM programmer. I believe the player data is on the hard-drive itself. The roster editor I created is made be able to support any platform. Do you happen to have have a spare hard drive? If so you could try cloning it and I can help guide you through editing the roster to see if it works (untested since I don't own a cabinet).

[duderegular]

I can try to make a backup drive for my machine. I have used the mame chd files and chdman to do it for other games.

If the files are all in the CHD that would be much easier to test and try out. I will see if I can do the drive tonight.

Are there any tools that I can download to look at trying out the editing piece?

thanks man. If this works, I can see some other folks wanting to give it a shot.

[duderegular]

Tonight I was able to make another hard drive using the blitz2k chd file for MAME. I installed it in my cab and the game fired right up. I started a game and did not notice any issues, but only played for a couple of plays. I went into the service menu and them ran a disk check. The files all checked out. File types that I noticed as they flew by were .wms and .bnk for the most part. Also saw a txt and maybe am exe in there too.

[jaker3]

alright awesome! Do you have a link to where you downloaded the chd file (PM me it if so)? I added roster editing compatibility to my tool awhile back, I'll test it out on the file your using, see if it edits correctly then I'll post some instructions on it. Pumped to finally see this being tested out on a real arcade machine!

[duderegular]

Sending you a PM now.

[jaker3]

Alright... so lets try this tool out:
http://nflblitzfans.com/index.php?topic=50.0

Step 1 would be to covert the chd to a raw drive dump.
Then using the team editor tool:
Select Arcade for System and Blitz 2000 for game.
Click "Pull Roster from ROM"
Select the Blitz2k.raw file.
It should load all the teams with players.
Edit a player, click save roster to rom.
Select the same raw file.
Image the hard drive with this edited raw file.

[jaker3]

Any luck?

[duderegular]

Not yet. I didn't get a chance to try again last night.


Your instructions seemed to go very well. Once I extracted the chd into a .raw file. The editor opened the file just fine. I simply changed the name of one player, saved then created a new chd from the raw file. Then I put that chd onto my hard drive. The arcade would not boot with that hard drive connected however.

My next planned steps are to do the extract-create-image hdd process without any modifications to ensure something isn't happening there.

I am also wondering if one of the roms needs to be modified on the board if there are different checksums or hashes or something along those lines that are not expected.

[jaker3]

Hmmm, could be a checksum issue.. Wish I knew more about how arcade machines worked. You could try changing a player name via hex editor on the raw dump and see if that doesn't work also (to rule out the tool)