Snes9x.com

So since the hero came to smash not too long ago I decided to maybe play some of the older dragon quest games in the series starting with three. I was able to download the English translation as well as snes9x successfully but when I tried to load in the game I only got to the first screen but the actual game wouldn't load and I was left with a pitch black screen. There were instruction on what to do in the Dragon quest 3 English translation file named DQ3 RC1 Readme but since I'm very new to this whole thing I don't really know what it means. All I really know is that it told me to remove the header by simply loading it into the snes9x and it will ask if you want to remove it upon loading but I had no such experience. If anyone knows what this means and knows how to fix it then please don't hesitate to tell me as I do want to try this game out.

Yes, if the patch specifically expects a header or no header and you have the opposite then it won’t work. If the ROM you’re patching isn’t the right version it will also break. Snes9x does NOT remove the header for you, so you need to do that yourself. This can get into sketchy territory, so I can provide no more advice than to learn more about the process and maybe ask the place you got the patch.

I was able to apply the patch to an unheadered rom with auto patching and the game works fine. Just make sure you have an original, unheadered Japanese .sfc and rename the .ips file to have the same base name.