Talk:Mario Kart Arcade GP

I recognised the picture of the man carrying a child and TinEye confirmed my suspicion - it's actually from the Russian Beslan school hostage drama in 2004 where 380 people died. I'm assuming the graphics artist just pulled some random picture from a news site since 2004 would have been during development for the game. A kind of morbid pick, though. --Rapstah 07:13, 30 August 2012 (EDT)

I just searched for the picture myself since it looked like kind of an odd choice for a test picture. I wonder if the picture's origin is worth mentioning in the article? // Foxhack 16:12, 3 November 2012 (EDT)

Of course it is. We <3 trivia. --BMF54123 16:28, 3 November 2012 (EDT)

Working on it now. Also, check your PMs on Jul... // Foxhack 01:01, 4 November 2012 (EDT)

Test Courses

Since there's been no confirmation if the "test" courses are actually playable, and the Mario GP rom is actually playable on a Wii through Quadforce, I thought I'd see what I could achieve just by replacing files. I ended up trying to replace all sorts of files (since that's all I could really think to do), and got something a bit interesting. After replacing "MR_highway_short_A.dat" (which goes to the first level game) with "test_course_bm.dat", as well as mr_highway_short.bin with grd_test.bin (although I don't know if that was necessary or not) I could see what might be this test level.

I couldn't actually drive along it, but I could explore parts of it. What I noticed is that it closely resembles Mario Highway (and I doubt this is just because I replaced Mario Highway's files, as I achieve similar results by replacing another courses files). Some differences being that the textures of the walls are different and there's a large sign saying "Mario Highway". While the first course is called "Mario Highway", I can't actually find this sign on it.

Here's a picture I took, sorry about using a camera.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16429332/screenshots/IMAG0759.jpg

Here's around the same spot in the actual Mario Highway.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/16429332/screenshots/IMAG0751.jpg

I don't even know if anyone else is really going to see this. It'd be cool if someone else who probably knows a little more of what they're doing than me could look into this. GhostSonic 06:28, 17 October 2012 (EDT)

Okay....That's a pretty rad find. That must be an older version of Mario Highway. Interesting how the textures are still there. Btw, how do you get it on the Wii? I tried doing that, and the closest I got to it was putting the channels on and putting the isos on the SD Card...SMB Madman 18:10, 3 November 2012 (EDT)

BlueYoshi previously uploaded a video about test_course. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He9XyuriqdQ

I am uploading a video to show it off again, this time replacing Mario Beach (so the minimap is the final version). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbAYhaIwb9s

But I also discovered what I have just dubbed "Beta Mario Highway 2". The file is "MR_highway_ground_C.dat", I am unable to replace it in GC-Tool because it's larger than any other track model. It doesn't follow the traditional naming conventions for the track models...

The files for the versions are as follows...

• MR_highway_long_A.dat - Mario Beach Day
• MR_highway_long_B.dat - Mario Beach Evening
• MR_highway_long_C.dat - Mario Beach Night
• MR_highway_short_A.dat - Mario Highway Day
• MR_highway_short_B.dat - Mario Highway Evening
• MR_highway_short_C.dat - Mario Highway Night
• MR_highway_ground_C.dat - this file does not match the pattern.

It seems to be a beta of the night-time version of the track. There are differences in this course like the guard rails looking like blocks from Super Mario World, which was also the case in test_course.

I noticed it also had gated off all paths, both for Mario Highway and Mario Beach. Maybe those are objects that could have been enabled or disabled at runtime. I don't know.

Perhaps earlier in development, Mario Beach and Mario Highway used the same three models: one for day, one for evening, and one for night.

So here's a video of that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9eeqCCBugw

In addition, I found two files for what might be yet another beta version of this track. mr_highway_demo_a.bin and MR_highway_DEMO_A.dat

The .bin file is the track collision, and the .dat file is the track model. I could not get the .dat file to load in-game in Grand Prix mode without crashing, maybe it is missing necessary details for that mode. For some reason I couldn't get the .bin file to load without crashing EXCEPT when I replaced the track model with test_course.

The collision doesn't seem to match the final version, based on the minimap, and it definitely doesn't match test_course.

Based on the name of "mr_highway_demo" I wonder if it is used in-game in GP 1's attract mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXi6hV5V-ic

Here's a video showcasing the collision in-game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP71sVPeM1c

And here's a video showcasing the model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r01dMhVVDA

By the way, XDelta patches are in the video descriptions for what I could get working in-game. If the checksum doesn't match up, don't worry it'll probably still work. Just don't try to patch a trimmed iso.

All of these files are in both GP 1 and GP 2. My notes are pretty poorly organized, but for what it's worth here they are: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12bSRvmcJapNbz1ELrkhCvWY1bXwQQg-3IjbbhlvL-HM/edit?usp=sharing

So what else should be done (maybe by me) at some point?

• Investigate other test_course files (models, objects) that can't be loaded in-game by just replacing files.
• Properly extract and render models of all the beta track stuff. Smash Forge supports the .dat format here somewhat, but not all files will open properly(?)
• Maybe look for collision corresponding to "MR_highway_ground_C.dat", and try to load both in-game.
• Maybe try to load "mr_highway_demo" both model and collision in-game.
• Look for differences between these and the final versions of this track. This would probably be a lot easier with the models properly extracted.
• Investigate, I haven't played enough to know for sure whether Mario Beach (Evening) and Mario Highway (Night) are actually used or if they go unused. As far as I know there are 4 rounds in Mario Cup: MH Day, MB Day, MH Evening, and MB Night.

ChainSwordCS (talk) 08:30, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

..How?

How the heck were you able to get the game, much less search through the files? o.O ExtremeSpyro 00:15, 30 November 2012 (EST)

Presumably someone dumped the game software housed in the machine, allowing 1337 haxx0rz to mess with the code/search through the files. --GlitterBerri 01:59, 30 November 2012 (EST)

As for where the files are, Triforce games are in MAME, so they have been available online for a while now. On an unrelated note, it turns out that Mario Kart Arcade GP is the only Triforce game (known to MAME at least) that does not run off GD-ROM - Andlabs 02:05, 30 November 2012 (EST)

I was able to play an iso of the game on the Wii using a homebrew app called Quadforce, which allows you to play Triforce games on the wii (but the only public version is capable of playing the 2 GP games). I just used some Gamecube ISO editor to replace the files. GhostSonic 00:02, 11 December 2012 (EST)

Can they be emulated on Dolphin? This would come handy for searching through loaded files and fiddling with the camera.
And if you could tell me, which key words did you use in Google? Montas1992 00:13, 11 December 2012 (EST)

TPL files aren't readable

Do the TPL files in this game the type of TPL we all know? I can't get them to open, and there's TONS of them. --Lemurboy12 (talk) 15:19, 20 October 2013 (EDT)

Debug Screenshot

I tweeted this to @CuttingRoomWiki about a year ago but they never responded. I was at an arcade and I saw this game for the first time, so I went to play it but 1 of the buttons was broken. I got one of the technicians over, they opened the debug screen (I took 2 photos), he added some coin credit within the coin menu, booted up the console (which confirmed all the buttons were working), tested it but the thing was still broken. Here are some pictures:

http://t.co/CvFGPNtB2q (picture 1, blurry but readable) http://t.co/QGSXTheMRs (picture 2, sharper text but hard to read) http://t.co/rxI46cMoXe (remade image using Lucida Console font)--Marksmithwas12 (talk) 13:10, 24 February 2014 (EST)

Arcade test menus are nothing special. In fact, most, if not all, arcade games have them, which is why we don't cover them. Check page 44 of the operators manual. All you do is press a test switch that's inside the coin door. -Einstein95 (talk) 13:22, 24 February 2014 (EST)