Download The Rat Race ROM Hack

While not substantially different from each other, several working versions of EarthBound are available online. Some have an additional half-kilobyte header and others do not. If you are not sure whether your version is headered or not, check the file's properties for its exact size. An unheadered version will have 3,145,728 bytes, and a headered version will have 3,146,240 bytes. Due to certain ROM-hacking protocols and a lack of certain controls in IPS patch creating programs, adding or removing a ROM's header must be done manually. Included in this archive is the header from EarthBound to compare against your own copy of the ROM in a hex editor.

To prevent certain emulators from complaining about failed CRC-32 checks, I have also made further patches available for padding out the file. (The Checksum-16 on any patched ROM, however, should always be correct unless the original ROM is corrupt or you applied the wrong patch.) Once you have applied the appropriate patch, what you will have is a compact version of The Rat Race. To this, if you wish to have the correct CRC-32, you may then apply the further patches which will pad out the file.

The following IPS files in this archive will convert EarthBound to The Rat Race in its various forms as indicated:

Conversion
The Rat Race (U-C).ips = from EarthBound Unheadered to The Rat Race Unheadered & Compact (3,166,416 bytes)
The Rat Race (H-C).ips = from EarthBound Headered to The Rat Race Headered & Compact (3,166,928 bytes)

Padding:
The Rat Race (U-P).ips = from The Rat Race Unheadered & Compact to The Rat Race Unheadered & Padded (4,194,304 bytes)
The Rat Race (H-P).ips = from The Rat Race Headered & Compact to The Rat Race Headered & Padded (4,194,816 bytes)

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