Pokemon GEN2 & 3 PCNY Distribution Machine Save Downloads

[Boyki]

Something I had trouble with when rewriting Gen 2 saves to my retail carts was caused after using the saves with an emulator. You need to delete the last few lines of hex following the footer in the savefile before writing it back to the cart, otherwise it won't work. It was the same when transferring saves to 3DS VC. I think it has something to do with the RTC data.

Spoiler

Hopefully that fixes your problem. Actually, we should probably reupload the save with those last lines cleared. If you run the save in an emulator, it will just add them back.

@InsaneNutter can you update the download in the first post?

I tried this but it still does not recognize te save file. Maybe the problem is that I am not injecting the save on a retail cartridge but on my supercard sd?

 

[Lexi]

I tried this but it still does not recognize te save file. Maybe the problem is that I am not injecting the save on a retail cartridge but on my supercard sd?

Would you mind sending screenshots of what you've done?(please spoiler the screenshots) You may have made a small mistake and not realized it. The reason I suggest this is because these types of things can be very fragile to mistakes. I don't think you specified which console you're using homebrew on, which I suspect may effect it. Like I think you need to treat a 3DS differently than you would a Switch since the 3DS has official virtual console versions. Also are you using English roms? I'm almost positive in gen 2 you can't use foreign roms with English saves unlike gen 3.

 

[Boyki]

Would you mind sending screenshots of what you've done?(please spoiler the screenshots) You may have made a small mistake and not realized it. The reason I suggest this is because these types of things can be very fragile to mistakes. I don't think you specified which console you're using homebrew on, which I suspect may effect it. Like I think you need to treat a 3DS differently than you would a Switch since the 3DS has official virtual console versions. Also are you using English roms? I'm almost positive in gen 2 you can't use foreign roms with English saves unlike gen 3.

I think I found the issue. I am running the english rom from my gba flashcard. Issue is however it does not have a RTC built in or emulation option. Im looking for a patch maybe that can help. Any suggestions?

 

[Lexi]

I think I found the issue. I am running the english rom from my gba flashcard. Issue is however it does not have a RTC built in or emulation option. Im looking for a patch maybe that can help. Any suggestions?

Some flashcards don't have the ability to run RTC saves. You might have some luck loading the save in emulator, changing some of your settings then manually saving in game. Though I suspect it is less likely to work in gen 2 than gen 3 as in gen 3 if the battery that keeps the dies you don't your save while in gen 2 losing one makes you lose both. If it doesn't work you may have to get a different flashcard. I think there are patched versions of gen 2 games that don't require RTC but I suspect those saves aren't compatible and would be quite hard to find.

 

[InsaneNutter]

@InsaneNutter can you update the download in the first post?

No problem, I have re-uploaded the save.

Out of curiosity is it defiantly the last 3 lines that have to be deleted for the save to work on a retail cart? (my battery is now dead so can't test this).

On the VC versions of the game i remember leaving the 00080000 offset and just deleting the last two.

 

[Boyki]

Some flashcards don't have the ability to run RTC saves. You might have some luck loading the save in emulator, changing some of your settings then manually saving in game. Though I suspect it is less likely to work in gen 2 than gen 3 as in gen 3 if the battery that keeps the dies you don't your save while in gen 2 losing one makes you lose both. If it doesn't work you may have to get a different flashcard. I think there are patched versions of gen 2 games that don't require RTC but I suspect those saves aren't compatible and would be quite hard to find.

I managed to find a patch but wasnt able to get it working. Such a bummer.

 

[Deoxyz]

No problem, I have re-uploaded the save.

Out of curiosity is it defiantly the last 3 lines that have to be deleted for the save to work on a retail cart? (my battery is now dead so can't test this).

On the VC versions of the game i remember leaving the 00080000 offset and just deleting the last two.

I definitely remember having to only delete two lines in the past, but I've been seeing three lately for whatever reason. Maybe because I was using a different emulator than I typically used in the past.

All I know is the PCNY flag is the very last line of the savefile, so that is how I know where to cut it off.

 

[InsaneNutter]

I definitely remember having to only delete two lines in the past, but I've been seeing three lately for whatever reason. Maybe because I was using a different emulator than I typically used in the past.

All I know is the PCNY flag is the very last line of the savefile, so that is how I know where to cut it off.

That's good enough for me, its possible even the emulator used for the VC versions of the games is handing the RTC emulation slightly different to actual hardware would handle the RTC.

 

[Lexi]

Out of curiosity are these gen 2 events region locked to English only. Or are they also distributeable to European languages too? If it is distributeable to European languages, could it be tested what happens if its attempted on the german alpha version of gold?

 

[Gridelin]

Out of curiosity are these gen 2 events region locked to English only. Or are they also distributeable to European languages too? If it is distributeable to European languages, could it be tested what happens if its attempted on the german alpha version of gold?

The software only works with English games unfortunately

 

[Sabresite]

@Deoxyz - here is the "Normal Mew" from PCNY website itself:
https://web.archive.org/web/20021011204306/http://www.pokemon.com/events/events4.asp

Some information about the RNG and inner workings of the software:

Gen 2 and Gen 3 uses roughly the same method. The RNG is a modified version of the GBA Pokemon RNG where instead of 0x6073 it uses 12345.
A pokemon is selected from the list by creating a random number and modulo by the sum of the weights (1000).
The number is compared against the weight and decremented by the weight until it is at or below 0. The entry that makes it go to zero or lower is the chosen entry.
Once the pokemon is selected, the DVs are randomized by the RNG. If it is shiny then all of the DVs are fixed except for the ones that cause it to be random where the chosen value is taken from another table.

Gen 3 is the same for pokemon selection. After that it looks like they pasted in GBA Pokemon code to essentially generate a pokemon. They added the regular GBA Pokemon RNG for that purpose.
The OT Gender and game origin is taken from the save file (default behavior for events).
To make the PID never shiny the PID-High = PID-Low ^ TID ^ SID ^ Rand (which I knew before having the software also)
I have to double check how shiny PIDs are made, I forgot.

One thing that is interesting (which I knew before we had access to the software) is that the seeds for each pokemon was linear. I calculated that the RNG was called 60/sec and concluded that the software was running on a loop.
We confirmed this is the case. On every loop the software checks to see if a cart is inserted and if so, does the generation process, sends a signal back to the GC and waits for another insert.
During this loop both the RNG made for Gen 2, and the Gen 3 RNG are advanced by 1.

This has a profound effect. The statistical chance of a pokemon occurring is bias against when a kid inserts the cart to redeem. In the logs and through simulation tests we have seen a bias of up to 10% over 1000 redemptions.

A small tidbit about the generation process. We believe eggs could have been distributed in gen 3 as well. I might make a campaign just to show off that functionality since it seems fun.

 

[Deoxyz]

@Sabresite Thanks a bunch for that link! It's awesome to see official documentation. It definitely appears like there was an oversight when they created the campaign data, because a normal Mew just seems to make more sense than an unprecedented shiny Mew distribution, and being ONLY shiny.

Spoiler

 

[PawsofHorror]

This is crazy are all of those Pokemon legit? Does this mean we finally got shiny mew and celebi for the retail games??? Along with other shiny legends wow. I hope everything gets dumped so we can do the distributions in emulators

 

[Boyki]

This is crazy are all of those Pokemon legit? Does this mean we finally got shiny mew and celebi for the retail games??? Along with other shiny legends wow. I hope everything gets dumped so we can do the distributions in emulators

They are all legit but unfortunately it is not (yet?) possible to do the distribution ourselves. I remember a video explaining why the general population is not able to distribute these pokemon. Something with the hardware if I remembet correctly.

 

[InsaneNutter]

Indeed everything in this thread is as legit as it comes, its not possible to run the distribution software on emulators yet to the point where it will distribute Pokemon.

To use this on real hardware you need the special cart reader pictured in the original post.

It's possible the cart reader might be reversed eventually as its essentially a GBA. Its also possible the distribution or the Dolphin emulator could eventually be modified so the distribution can eventually be fully emulated.

Either of the above would be really nice so everyone can enjoy this piece of Pokemon History, however for now though the download here are an great compromise and a fantastic win for everyone interested in Pokemon event preservation.

 

[Pyrochrome]

Do you guys know exactly what kind of Altera chip it is? They still sell them in places, so if you know what you're looking for it shouldn't be too hard to find one. Maybe somebody could wire it up to a Gba clone motherboard- or if we're really lucky we could figure out how to make a Super-FX style addon/flashcart that can communicate with a retail Gba!

Hotswapping and Gbc compatibility in Gba mode has tons of potential, it could be really useful for homebrew or save backups!

 

[BlueGold]

Hello,

Thank you for posting this very useful save game with events Pokemon directly generated by the real hardware.

I've a question regarding the random algorythms.

Is the algorythm to generate the genes have the restrictions discussed here below ?
http://wiki.pokemonspeedruns.com/index.php?title=Pokémon_Red/Blue_Wild_DVs
https://pastebin.com/C8xqV670
https://pastebin.com/iBT64Pkq

I guess not as the probability to get a shiny Pokémon is really higher than normal. Example :

• Celebi Lv5 - 98.5%
• Shiny Celebi Lv5 - 1%
• Shiny Mew Lv5 - 0.5%

So in theory can an event Pokemon be generated with perfect DVs ?

Also, when I see this :

• Celebi Lv5 - 98.5%
• Shiny Celebi Lv5 - 1%
• Shiny Mew Lv5 - 0.5%

Is my understanding correct that the machines gives :
98.5 % of the time a shiny locked Celebi with random genes ?
1% of the time a shiny Celebi with the other genes being random ?
0.5% of the time a shiny Mew with the other genes random ?
0% of the time a non-shiny Mew ?

BG

 

[Pyrochrome]

What's the progress on this so far?

 

[Ionicbox]

I managed to find a patch but wasnt able to get it working. Such a bummer.

I gave up trying with my Super Mini Card; I have been successful with an Ez Flash Jr for GB/GBC and Everdrive for GBA;

 

[Lexi]

Do some of the forum users still have access to the machine or at least rom + save games used to distribute these pokemon? I was wondering if we'll ever get a patched version of the rom along side the save that can tranfer these event pokemon on something like nintendont. I've hoped to since hearing that this was being preserved even if not shared publically. Hell if the original rom was public unpatched, I think I know a few people who would be happy to make such a patch.