Loading Areas 2nd Programmers Room/3rd Marble Gallery

Ok, I have been working on the third Matrix Area, but as we all have real life's and jobs, lately
I have been strapped for time...

So I started thinking there must be a way for us to check for loading areas faster then
having to use S4R to reach them....since that is really the only reason for trying to reach the
third Matrix Area, to see if there are any more loading areas near it...

So after some trial and error I found a method to find loading areas with Cheat Eninge any where on the map with out using S4R...

and I learned that S4R is actually not essential to reaching the (Richter castle loading area),
or the (HP, MP, LUCK, Muramasa & BEAT Glitch) area...they can all actually be reached by using Heart Refresher sinking...

Even though it would take a SHIT LOAD of HR's to reach them  

But the main point is I can check to see if there are any loading areas near the the third Matrix Area
with out actually having to spend hours and hours reaching it.


I will start testing today, and hopefully we can find some thing good some where...like maybe a loading area to Maria's castle

Here is a video of how I find the loading areas if anyone is interested...

Would you not have to do this in each area since each area is specifically linked to only certain other area's? I think we discussed this before and this was causing the problem with attempting to do things with just HR's since even though area's may be close by it does not mean they are actually loadable from eachother. For instance the programmers room is close to catacombs and mines and outer wall but may not be loadable from there if they are linked to say the castle keep instead.

Changing out position using the cheat engine will surely be the fastest method to test. You never know what's out there!

Pale-Dim wrote:

Would you not have to do this in each area since each area is specifically linked to only certain other area's?   I think we discussed this before and this was causing the problem with attempting to do things with just HR's since even though area's may be close by it does not mean they are actually loadable from eachother.  For instance the programmers room is close to catacombs and mines and outer wall but may not be loadable from there if they are linked to say the castle keep instead.

This seems to only be true with PSX... For some reason Saturn has these random load spots under the regular map when
sinking from the inverted map, and the areas and not coded the same.

like, it makes no sense that sinking from the Anti Chapel/Inverted Third Bell Tower (coded in the game as 0026), there would be a loading area that teleports you to Richter's Inverted Castle keep (coded in the game as 002B), but it exists  ...or those load spots that can increase you stats.
They really just seem to be random spots in the games memory and they do not have to have the same coding to load.

and this is what I have come to learn so far about the way it works...

Basically when you sink from the inverted map to the regular map, once you hit the bottom of the regular map
there seems to be a area/barrier, and once you cross it or sink past it 80 percent of the time the bottom of the screen will fall
out and you will start to free fall into the Matrix Area.

Then you will most likely hit a a load area or one of the load areas that increase you stats.

For example I found a load area in the Anti Chapel/Staircase that will increase your
Intelligence status (which seems to make your Gas, Bat and Wolf attacks crazy strong, Like 9999)...
but it is one of the few areas that the bottom of the screen does not fall out.


Also I have been checking the third reachable S4R Matrix area for loading areas with the technique, and have not
found any thing, so I'm stopping the attempt to reach it and in my free time I will just concentrating on finding
loading areas and coming up with a better way to reach them then having to use like probably about a 2000
Heart Refresher chain to get to them.

I"m predicting we will probably eventually find a load spot to Maria's Castle and to the Bloodlines Prologue Castle Keep.
and for those 2 areas I would do a 2000 HR Chain if needed

Reach Maria's Castle is not a big thing now. It's the same as Richter's (except for the Entrance music and ending). Debug room is the main focus! Do you tested a 2000 HRs chain?  My record is about 200/300 hahaha

paulo1179 wrote:

Reach Maria's Castle is not a big thing now. It's the same as Richter's (except for the Entrance music and ending).

I Agree, but if we did find it, then we would have Max White Map and
Max game percentage with Alucard, Richter and Maria on Saturn...which
would make me happy for the sense of Completeness  

paulo1179 wrote:

Do you tested a 2000 HRs chain?  My record is about 200/300 hahaha

No I have not test 2000 HRs chain, but that is what I am guessing it would take
to sink through the entire normal map to reach the Matrix Area where the load
spots are. Yeah I think the most HRs I have ever done is 200-300 ish too LOL

paulo1179 wrote:

Debug room is the main focus!

The crazy load spots may also exist on PSX, but I have not found any yet, but
I will start looking...If we ever found a load spot to the debug room I would do
5000 Heart Refreshers to get too it if necessary LOL

Really the 2 things I care most about is finishing the PSX Map, and finding a load area to the Debug room

While searching for a compatible area with the 1st Programmers room...I found one, it is a 2nd Programmers room set at
X00,Y00,...but must be loaded from the left side of the CDLR room of the 1st Programmers room, and entered on the right side
or the 2nd Programmers room set at X00,Y01.





But sadly, this 2nd Programmers Room is not connected in any way to the Nightmare Room or the Bloodlines Room...it is own separate area
set at the same place...so loading from the Bloodlines Room or the Nightmare Room to the 1st Programmers room is not Possible...I tried it
already.

I will keep searching for other compatible areas for both the 1st and 2nd Programmer Room.

Sometimes, we can "create" new areas without changing the tileset. Try to use the library card on debug's room. Eventually you'll appear on another strange area. We need to reach these places without codes now! BTW good finding

So like I said I did not receive your PM about Cheat Engine, but I use Cheat Engine a lot for testing and am very familiar with it.
You can use Cheat Engine to pull up the codes that show your X, Y position at all times, this is how I did the mapping for the areas
that we have been talking about or I should say how I know where every room on the map is... even if you can not open you map or
the rooms do not show up as white rooms, and thats why I know exactly where the Forest Entrance is located... watch this video and
you will see what I mean, It shows that the 2nd Programmers room is located a X0,Y0... and that both Programmers Rooms have the same room
coding, which makes them compatible with each other so they can load into each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqyj7DPtNRA#t=80
  
Alucard can not teleport into the Bloodlines Room, it always crashes the game because the room is specifically coded for Richter.
The Succubus Room coding is 12 Hex, but for some reason you can not teleport there... but you can create a save in the room with
this code...
800730B0 0000
800730B4 0000
80097918 0012
800974A0 0012

Sometimes when you create a save in a area that is not meant to be saved in, the game will not let you load out of the
area... and will just keep loading the area over and over, you have to use a library card to escape.

When you teleport to a area sometimes the game does become buggy, so if you can save and then reload the area, like
Forest Entrance 1, the problem usually goes away and it fixes the graphic glitches.

I will do some testing to see what these small white rooms are but I think Pale knows about them, he calls them half rooms.

There isn't really a easy way to just enter Game Shark codes into Cheat Engine... but this is what I do when I want to pull up codes
so I can use Cheat Engine to work with them.

This is the X, Y positioning codes... what I do is turn on the codes with Game Shark, then attach Cheat Engine to my PSX Emulator...
and tell Cheat Engine to search for a value of 21 (which is 15 in Hex)...
X 800730B0 0015
Y 800730B4 0015

Then I go back into Game Shark and change the code to say 25 Hex...
X 800730B0 0025
Y 800730B4 0025

and once again I go back to Cheat Engine and tell it to search for a value of 37 (which is 25 in Hex)...
After that Cheat Engine usually finds the code or gives you about 20 codes it thinks you are looking for...
so if you look at the 20 codes you will know which code controls the Game Shark code because they will
look like this in the Cheat Engine search menu...

????30B0 0037
????30B4 0037

So basically you know they are the codes you are looking for because of the 30B0, 30B4 part will still be
part of the code in the Cheat Engine menu.
Then double click the codes on the Cheat Engine search area, so they will be brought to the Cheat Engine  
area where you can mess with the codes... now you can right click on the codes and setup Hot Keys for them...

That is how I moved the cursor on the video so fast, I make X increases/decrease with the right and left keys on the keyboard,
and Y increase/decrease with the down and up keys on the keyboard.
oh yeah, and then go back to Game Shark and turn off the codes.


I will check the 1A address to see what it is, but I am 100% sure that 1F is the bloodlines room coding
because just like the X,Y positioning, Cheat Engine tells me what the room coding of a area is when I am in that location.

The Forest Entrance is just a really strange area, the 3 load points that you listed are correct,
but the 4th load point (which is also the 2nd and 3rd you are just accessing it from a different area)
is the purple area I highlighted and pointed to under the map... I mean think about it?
how could you use Heart Refreshers to sink to the Forest Entrance like in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrixhlJY3Q0
if the Forest Entrance was not underneath you, that would not make sense.


Yeah, wish we had a code that shuts off not being able to see your position when in certain areas of the map.

someolddude wrote:

I see, thanks!
Well, to the old method of "now 15", "now 10", haha. I bet if it can be done just by repeteadly changing rooms without using gamesharks, or there are many random shit values.

Actually that is how I find the code address most of the time, I just switch to different rooms and then search for those values.

someolddude wrote:

4th loading point? I don't see it clear. I think we're confusing ourselves with the "loading spot" term:

- With loading spot I do not mean an spot that loads the forest, the forest is already loaded when you're in entrance-1. I mean the link-rooms that point to another room (like dracula battle or succubus).

So as I understand it, if when you sink you hold left, you'll fall in the last purple room, which is one to the left of the loading spot, that's why it works sinking too (if you sink from another place it works, even from the "short method sink", since thats the most point to the left before you find the point loading sequence room.

or maybe the whole purple array are loading spots, who knows.. until we can somehow find ourselves in the map.. (I know that with ce you can show your "position" when in the forest.. but if the pointer its not in the map, maybe they're XY coordinates from "another map" or something, who knows lol.)

However, when im on the forest, my position is Y=0, X=44, wtf?. This means that I'm at the top of the map and not below the entrance?? Another interesting thing is that if I change my position values, I cannot go to the entrance lol. so even if the pointer isn't in the map, it is there doing its work

Yeah, loading areas to me means, 2 different areas with different room coding that can load into each other at a certain point on the map.
So like you said, we should be saying that the Forest Entrance and Entrance 1 are linked areas because they have the same room coding
with certain rooms that point or transport/teleports you to other certain rooms with the same room coding even if the 2 rooms are not touching on the map.
All I was meaning by 4th load point is that there is a area in Entrance 1 that you can use HR's to sink into the Forest Entrance underneath you,
and actually yeah, I think there are a couple other areas in Entrance 1 that you can use HR's and sink into the Forest Entrance (the purple area)
from if you wanted to.

I think your mixing up what X and Y mean... Y Horizontal, X Vertical... which puts the Forest Entrance under Entrance 1.

someolddude wrote:

WTF. something weird happens with the values on memory, I noticed it takes them some seconds to load their values sometimes o.O. If this happened on psx also, maybe it would allow to open wrong rooms if done faster than the game updates the pointers? who knows..

I also tested: you can go from entrance-1 to forest from another point, it's the same zone and it's loaded in memory (and when you do with this method, you GET the white room? I think its because when you teleport to any spot first it registers the room, then it searches for the actual room at that place)

Also got the travel between programmers rooms working , so neat. Thanks! However for some reason it only loads sometimes from progs 1 to progs 2, a bit strange..

Btw, if I start the game on programmers rooms 1, I can't turn to wolf/bat/mist, I'm inivisible forever and that sux. That doesn't happen to you??

---

@Digging through the floor barrier

Hmm, I just tested some digging down there (starting on the IC succubus top middle room, no boundaries and free fall. After some hundreds? (not sure) hrs got bored and quit. Alucard now has like a continuous colorfull glow (like when you get a hp max up?, but only the pixel around Alucard), but no rare stats (however, when you exit the pause menu the game freezes so im stuck forever there xD).

Yes the same thing happens to me, I receive a white room, but like you said its only happening because its registering the room before the teleport.
The Programmers room is always buggy like that, it has crashed on me so many times...  

Yeah, the weird glowing is from the Matrix Area, you can find certain areas down there that will increase your rooms number from just standing still.

Here is another weird load room you guys can look at. I am not sure where it is or what's going on but here is how to get it.

Start a new game and during the "bloodlines" sequence have a save orb appear below the hidden staircase. save your game and reload it. the screen will be offset. Kill dracula and let it load the alucard sequence. instead you will be dropped into a single 1x1 room and no where to go.

Have fun!

someolddude wrote:

Btw I noticed a little weird thing: Even if I can control both alucard positions (one "map" pointer which is the one we move to teleport Alucard when entering a door,and another one that seems to have info about where alucard is on the map at that point), I am seeing strange results.

On the forest, I always get those values:

"map" pointer: Always points to (0,44), even if you move through the corridor.
"alucard" pointer: Always points to (Xcoordinate where you entered the forest, 44), even if you move.

I though that it was weird, but then I discovered that it works like that on the entire castle: the "map" pointer always points to the most upper/left "square" from the actual room where Alucard is in, while the "alucard" pointer points in the one where he entered. It happens the same to you? It looks so weird because the pointers only seem to match on 1x1 rooms :S. For this reason, I am not able to check coordinates for actual rooms, others that the first room I joined. How you do it? I tested your method and I'm having those problems

- the "dark" Dracula fight room, the "alucard pointer" points to the center room below the ground (as we know, and its ok being a 1x1 room, so the "map pointer" should also point there, but it actually points to another coordinates, something like [37,36], very strange.

What are the last 4 digits of the "Alucard" pointer codes you are talking about, like the last 4 digits of the map pointers are...
800730B0
800730B4

someolddude wrote:

Matrix area only sinking a very few hundreds hrs on the bottom on the inverted castle?? I though that you had to sink an entire barrier in order to freefall and loach "out of map memory" that could load you to random spots depending on memory or reach "matrix" areas which would bug your stats, bug only sinking without going through works??

Yeah, the Matrix area actually starts not too far down off the screen of the Inverted Map, but this is only the part that increases your
rooms number by standing still (Saturn is the only one with the part that lets the bottom of the screen fall out, and that is not too far off the screen as well)... all the other stuff like increasing you stats, loading spots, are way further down... but they don't exist on
PSX, just on Saturn and PSP. So you could sink with Heart Refreshers to the Stats Areas and the Loading Spot Area's but they are so very, very much further down then the area that increase you rooms number it would take thousands and thousand of Heart Refreshers to reach the areas.

Check out this new area/rooms I found, I call it the Extended Marble Gallery.

Its located at 9 different address...

HEX 46, 47, 48, 49, 4A, 4C, 4D, 4E, 4F.

All the address look the same except...
the one at 46 has some similar qualities to the Debug Rooms, like when you try to transform into
Bat, Wolf or Mist the game will make you disappear/crash. So testing will need to be done to see
if any of these rooms can load into any other areas that we have already discoverd... then maybe
we could use HR's to sink into the Extended Marble Gallery.

This is location HEX 47



I really need to go through all the PSX coding again, I have know idea how I missed this.
Actually, I found these areas before, but just thought it was a Mirror/Copy of the real Marble
Gallery just set at a different HEX address and did not check my map
That's what happens when you start slacking off... 

Oh, I don't think I have said this before but a Mirror/Copy area, is a area like lets say
the Regular Castle Keep set at 0B, that is also set at another address like 4B and is completely
and perfectly overlapping the Regular Castle Keep 0B, and any battles or items collected at Regular
Castle Keep 0B, will also be collected at Mirror Castle Keep 4B.

So if your in the Mirror Castle Keep 4B, and lets say go and exit to the Royal Chapel,
the Regular Royal Chapel will load, but if you try to go back into the Mirror Castle Keep
the Regular Castle Keep will be loaded instead.

Oh, and there really is a Mirror Castle Keep at 4B, the only difference besides the coding
that I have found is that the warp to the Inverted Castle does not work.

So the 3rd Outer Wall is a Mirror/Copy address of the Regular Outer Wall, since none of the items or battles
have re-spawned, but for some reason is not overlapping the Regular Outer Wall and does not load into
the Regular Marble Gallery, Library, Warp Zone, Clock Tower... but instead loads into there Inverted Counter Parts.

So the Extended Marble Gallery set at 47 HEX is probably the original, and the rest are just Mirrors,
except the one at 46 since it has the strange Programmer Room properties.

Edit: ForgoneMoose messaged me on Youtube and showed me someone has already discovered this new area
but did not list too much information about it.
http://tcrf.net/File:SOTN-TestRoom.png http://tcrf.net/Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night_%28PlayStation%29#Test_Areas

                      
WOW, Jack even had videos showing it, how did I miss them... DERP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, I have put this aside for the moment because I was trying to work on the PSP Matrix Stats Glitch.

nathan7878 wrote:

While searching for a compatible area with the 1st Programmers room...I found one, it is a 2nd Programmers room set at
X00,Y00,...but must be loaded from the left side of the CDLR room of the 1st Programmers room, and entered on the right side
or the 2nd Programmers room set at X00,Y01.





But sadly, this 2nd Programmers Room is not connected in any way to the Nightmare Room or the Bloodlines Room...it is own separate area
set at the same place...so loading from the Bloodlines Room or the Nightmare Room to the 1st Programmers room is not Possible...I tried it
already.

I will keep searching for other compatible areas for both the 1st and 2nd Programmer Room.

awesome!! it works! i thought the 2nd Programmers Room is a part of normal debugroom because it's still 0974A0#0040! Just like the relationship between Hawaii and the continental United States
also , I think theoretically there is a invert debug room that is 0974A0#0060(because 0974A0 can flip the map. when i stay in debugroom and flip it ,the code turns to 0974A0#0060(BUT THEN ERROR HAPPENS)

Glad to help