KOF2000 FIX: No downsampling required!

[Marauder52]

Thanks to Gouk, we all know how to fix KOF 2000. I gotta give him props for the original idea. However, I discovered a way to fix KOF 2K without downsampling any audio files. This may not matter to some of you, but I prefer to have the highest quality of music possible (yeah, I'm a bit picky).

The key is to sort the files so that MUSIC.AFS (the 500-meg music file) is burned near the inside of the disc. I have tested this fix briefly and it seems to work. (I've got the missing options menu, energy bars and transitions back.)

You need to copy all of the data files from the KOF2000 CD to your HD and follow the instructions in the Echelon selfboot kit, with a couple of modifications. You can also delete the "ZZZZZZZZZ" directory, as per Gouk's instructions.

1) You need to create a sort file (let's call it "sort_file.txt" in this example) in your self-boot work directory that contains a single line:

data/MUSIC.AFS 1000

"data" is the path of the subdir that contains the KOF2K data files, *relative* to the dir that you are running mkisofs from. It's important to get the relative dirspec right, otherwise the sort won't work properly. "1000" can be replaced by any number greater than 0.

2) When you create the ISO file, add the -sort parameter to
the command line:

mkisofs -C x,y -V KOF2000 -l -o data.iso -sort sort_file.txt data

In this command line, x and y are the numbers you obtained using the "cdrecord -msinfo" command, "data.iso" is the path to your iso file, and "data" is the path to the KOF2K data files.

If you have any problems with this fix, let me know. Thanx again to Gouk for the original idea!

[Owen_Yu]

Originally posted by Marauder52
...The key is to sort the files so that MUSIC.AFS (the 500-meg music file) is burned near the inside of the disc...

Whoa! This goes totally against convention. Every instance in the past of remastering a game recommended that large and important files should be burned as close to the outside edge of the disc as possible.

This has always been done for movie and sound files, so that they wouldn't stutter when played. Usually, you want your dummy file closest to the center of the disc; that's why you always give the dummy file the highest value in your "sort texts."

I've never heard of anyone ever placing such a large and seemingly important file as MUSIC.AFS on the inner part of the disc.

[Marauder52]

Originally posted by Owen_Yu
Whoa! This goes totally against convention. Every instance in the past of remastering a game recommended that large and important files should be burned as close to the outside edge of the disc as possible.

This has always been done for movie and sound files, so that they wouldn't stutter when played. Usually, you want your dummy file closest to the center of the disc; that's why you always give the dummy file the highest value in your "sort texts."

I've never heard of anyone ever placing such a large and seemingly important file as MUSIC.AFS on the inner part of the disc.

Well, I know it sounds crazy and unconventional, but consider this:

KOF2000 apparently loads the entire song for the match into memory before the match starts rather than streaming the music from the GD-ROM. Therefore, placing the MUSIC.AFS file near the inside may make the load times at the beginning of the round a little longer, but it won't cause stuttering.

Also, MUSIC.AFS is a large package consisting of many smaller ADX files, right? So the size of MUSIC.AFS is not really an issue.

In any case, you're welcome to try this fix out if you like. I'm playing my fixed copy right now and it seems to work just fine, without any audio skipping. (I tried both the "Original" and "Arranged" soundtracks, in case you're wondering).

[Marauder52]

One more thing to ponder, if you don't believe my modified fix works because it places the MUSIC.AFS at the beginning of the disc:

Try running ISOBuster on the original, broken release of KOF 2000. Look the LBA value for MUSIC.AFS: 23831

Now, if you apply my fix, the LBA value for MUSIC.AFS will be 117xx. Not a huge difference, is it? Especially for such a large file.

Well, we all know the music worked in the original, broken release, despite the fact MUSIC.AFS was so close to the inside of the disc. In my modified fix, MUSIC.AFS is only moved about "10000 sectors closer to the inside of the disc" (yeah, that doesn't make much sense, but you know what I mean) Especially considering that the data session is 331,193 sectors in size. Logically, the music shouldn't be affected that much by my fix.

The real effect is that all the rest of files are pushed very far towards the outside of the disc, since MUSIC.AFS is so big (255,237 sectors). Gouk had the right idea with his fix, but you don't really need to downsample the audio and create a dummy file, since the audio file itself will work just fine.

[Gouk]

I tried your method Maurauder and it works but the loading times are longer than the way I do it and another thing is a real NeoGeo's sound sample rate is 22050KHz Stereo so I don't really mind the drop in quality.

Now can someone create a fix so us PAL Dreamcast owners can run this game in 60Hz?

[Owen_Yu]

Marauder52,

I did your method, and it DOES work; I have no missing graphics, and I didn't have to do all the extra work of re-tooling the MUSIC.AFS file. My worries of stuttering music were unfounded, too.

Thanks,
Owen Yu

[ka1oshade]

i did exactly what your tutorial said and added the txt file with 1000, but it still has empty bars? was that number supposed to be 10000 instead of 1000?

[Peptou]

Originally posted by kaioshade
i did exactly what your tutorial said and added the txt file with 1000, but it still has empty bars? was that number supposed to be 10000 instead of 1000?

Maybe if you had burned the game in like 4x instead of 40x

[ka1oshade]

Originally posted by Peptou

Maybe if you had burned the game in like 4x instead of 40x

you know i like the way people assume just because you have a problem that you are trying to burn the cd at high speeds. for your information i burned the cd at 2x. if youre not going to offer anything constructive, then dont bother. i asked a reasonable question, i dont think i deserved that kind of answer.

i changed the value of the text file to 10000 and burned it again. no change in bars or anything. what am i doing wrong?

[GinsuV]

Quick question:
ISObuster is only showing the CDI file as 1 track and I can't just extract the files. (It only shows TRACK 1, but not the audio track and no files)
I tried to get around this by popping in my disc to rip the data, but it only showed up as a big audio track (I conv'd with CDI2Nero 0.9.9)
So I tried to burn with DJ onto a CDRW and the same thing happened: one big audio track.

So does anyone have any suggestions on getting these files extracted so I can reburn this? I haven't run into a problem like this yet.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Marauder52]

Originally posted by kaioshade


you know i like the way people assume just because you have a problem that you are trying to burn the cd at high speeds. for your information i burned the cd at 2x. if youre not going to offer anything constructive, then dont bother. i asked a reasonable question, i dont think i deserved that kind of answer.

i changed the value of the text file to 10000 and burned it again. no change in bars or anything. what am i doing wrong?

Here's how you can check if the sort worked:

Put your "fixed" KOF2K cd in your drive and load up ISOBuster. Check the LBA of the MUSIC.AFS file - it should be 117xx and all the other files should have higher LBA's (sort by LBA to verify this). If not, then there's a problem with your sort file.

[ka1oshade]

Originally posted by Marauder52


Here's how you can check if the sort worked:

Put your "fixed" KOF2K cd in your drive and load up ISOBuster. Check the LBA of the MUSIC.AFS file - it should be 117xx and all the other files should have higher LBA's (sort by LBA to verify this). If not, then there's a problem with your sort file.

thanks a lot i found out what it was. i checked the sort file and it was music.asf, not afs. thanks for everything, works like a charm and the loading isnt bad either...

[RedCuba]

GinsuV
even the newest isobuster cant handle the new CDI images (yet), nor CDmage. Only way to rip the CDI is to use CDIrip, found here. http://cdirip.freeyellow.com/index_en.htm
Its updated for the new CDIs and i know it works for KOF. Once it has been ripped so you have a larger iso file, you still cant open it until you patch the lba with isofix, another program found on the same page as CDIrip. Patch with 11702 when it askes and you should be ok. This works, but its probably a lot easier to just burn the game and use isobuster to rip the files off the disc....

[Brandono]

I used this beta version of CDmage to extract the files from the cdi without a problem. http://ftp.uevora.pt/pub/Mirrors/CDm...ge1-02-1B5.exe

[GinsuV]

Thanks, I'll try that.
But as far as burning it off first, read my previous message again.

[AcRiD]

hmmm, is there any ip.bin to handle with? i can't see it...

[kekeke]

of course one is needed and i m lazy to extract it

can someone upload it somewhere

[Marauder52]

Originally posted by AcRiD
hmmm, is there any ip.bin to handle with? i can't see it...

Just use CDRWIN to determine the starting LBA of the data session. Starting with that sector, extract 16 sectors in Data Mode2Form1 (if i remember correctly) to an image file named ip.bin on your HD.

E.g.: if the starting LBA is 11702, extract sectors 11702-11717.

[Brandono]

Now my copy won't work but that may be because of CDmage. Going to try to burn it then take the files off that

[Owen_Yu]

DATA/257_S1.GRC 1
DATA/ART_BG.GRC 2
DATA/BG00.GRC 3
DATA/BG01.GRC 4
DATA/BG02.GRC 5
DATA/BG03.GRC 6
DATA/BG04.GRC 7
DATA/BG05.GRC 8
DATA/BG06.GRC 9
DATA/BG07.GRC 10
DATA/BG08.GRC 11
DATA/BG09.GRC 12
DATA/BG0A.GRC 13
DATA/BG0B.GRC 14
DATA/BG0C.GRC 15
DATA/BG0D.GRC 16
DATA/BG10.GRC 17
DATA/BG11.GRC 18
DATA/BG12.GRC 19
DATA/BG13.GRC 20
DATA/BG14.GRC 21
DATA/BG15.GRC 22
DATA/BG16.GRC 23
DATA/BG17.GRC 24
DATA/BG18.GRC 25
DATA/BG19.GRC 26
DATA/BG1A.GRC 27
DATA/BG1B.GRC 28
DATA/BG1C.GRC 29
DATA/BG1D.GRC 30
DATA/BG1E.GRC 31
DATA/BG1F.GRC 32
DATA/BG20.GRC 33
DATA/BG21.GRC 34
DATA/BG22.GRC 35
DATA/BG23.GRC 36
DATA/BMES.BIN 37
DATA/BVMES.BIN 38
DATA/CT26.BIN 39
DATA/DEMO.GRC 40
DATA/DEMO.OSB 41
DATA/EMES_BE.BIN 42
DATA/EMES_ED.BIN 43
DATA/EMES_GA.BIN 44
DATA/EMES_IK.BIN 45
DATA/EMES_JO.BIN 46
DATA/EMES_KM.BIN 47
DATA/EMES_KU.BIN 48
DATA/EMES_KY.BIN 49
DATA/EMES_RY.BIN 50
DATA/EMES_SA.BIN 51
DATA/EMES_SY.BIN 52
DATA/ENDING.BIN 53
DATA/ENDING.GRC 54
DATA/FIRST.GRC 55
DATA/GALL.GRC 56
DATA/GAME.GRC 57
DATA/JYOU.GRC 58
DATA/KOF.MLT 59
DATA/LMES.BIN 60
DATA/LOGO1.GRC 61
DATA/LOGO10.GRC 62
DATA/LOGO11.GRC 63
DATA/LOGO2.GRC 64
DATA/LOGO3.GRC 65
DATA/LOGO4.GRC 66
DATA/LOGO5.GRC 67
DATA/LOGO6.GRC 68
DATA/LOGO7.GRC 69
DATA/LOGO8.GRC 70
DATA/LOGO9.GRC 71
DATA/MANATEE.DRV 72
DATA/MBMES.BIN 73
DATA/MMES.BIN 74
DATA/MOZI.GRC 75
DATA/MVMES.BIN 76
DATA/P00.OSB 77
DATA/P01.OSB 78
DATA/P02.OSB 79
DATA/P03.OSB 80
DATA/P04.OSB 81
DATA/P05.OSB 82
DATA/P06.OSB 83
DATA/P07.OSB 84
DATA/P08.OSB 85
DATA/P09.OSB 86
DATA/P0A.OSB 87
DATA/P0B.OSB 88
DATA/P0C.OSB 89
DATA/P0D.OSB 90
DATA/P0E.OSB 91
DATA/P0F.OSB 92
DATA/P10.OSB 93
DATA/P11.OSB 94
DATA/P12.OSB 95
DATA/P13.OSB 96
DATA/P14.OSB 97
DATA/P15.OSB 98
DATA/P16.OSB 99
DATA/P17.OSB 100
DATA/P18.OSB 101
DATA/P19.OSB 102
DATA/P1A.OSB 103
DATA/P1B.OSB 104
DATA/P1C.OSB 105
DATA/P1D.OSB 106
DATA/P1E.OSB 107
DATA/P1F.OSB 108
DATA/P20.OSB 109
DATA/P21.OSB 110
DATA/P22.OSB 111
DATA/P23.OSB 112
DATA/PSEL.BIN 113
DATA/PSEL.GRC 114
DATA/TEMP.DAT 115
DATA/TITLE.GRC 116
DATA/VM_BG.DAT 117
DATA/VM_CUR.DAT 118
DATA/VM_MES1.DAT 119
DATA/VM_MES10.DAT 120
DATA/VM_MES11.DAT 121
DATA/VM_MES12.DAT 122
DATA/VM_MES13.DAT 123
DATA/VM_MES14.DAT 124
DATA/VM_MES15.DAT 125
DATA/VM_MES16.DAT 126
DATA/VM_MES17.DAT 127
DATA/VM_MES18.DAT 128
DATA/VM_MES19.DAT 129
DATA/VM_MES2.DAT 130
DATA/VM_MES20.DAT 131
DATA/VM_MES21.DAT 132
DATA/VM_MES22.DAT 133
DATA/VM_MES23.DAT 134
DATA/VM_MES24.DAT 135
DATA/VM_MES25.DAT 136
DATA/VM_MES26.DAT 137
DATA/VM_MES27.DAT 138
DATA/VM_MES28.DAT 139
DATA/VM_MES29.DAT 140
DATA/VM_MES3.DAT 141
DATA/VM_MES30.DAT 142
DATA/VM_MES4.DAT 143
DATA/VM_MES5.DAT 144
DATA/VM_MES6.DAT 145
DATA/VM_MES7.DAT 146
DATA/VM_MES8.DAT 147
DATA/VM_MES9.DAT 148
DATA/VM_PVR.GRC 149
DATA/VMES.BIN 150
DATA/WDEMO.GRC 151
DATA/PL 200
DATA/PZL 300
DATA/ART 400
DATA/MUSIC.AFS 500
DATA/1ST_READ.BIN 501
DATA/IP.BIN 502