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Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

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Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#21

Post by deaddodo »

anthk wrote: post #19
deaddodo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't tell you without a specific example, but I would suspect distributing an edited ROM would be much easier than save state hacking. In a general sense, I suspect the latter is more popular because it's not illegal to modify/distribute save state data; ROMs certainly can be.

They distribute delta binary patches on the form of IPS formats.

Which gives me even less reason for why they would distribute modified ephemeral data vs source data to alter game logic.

Obviously, if you want all 151 Pokemon captured, you would do that through a save state. But if you want increased chances of capturing Pidgey, it would certainly be easier to distribute a ROM (or delte, in this case) with those new ratios baked in.

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#22

Post by ngcc_hk »

messe wrote: post #16
haunter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 it's worth it for the NSUI [0] alone. The 3DS, especially the New 3DSXL is the best handheld to play NES/SNES/GB/C/A games, pixel perfect! 0, https://3ds.eiphax.tech/nsui

> The 3DS, especially the New 3DSXL is the best handheld to play NES/SNES/GB/C/A games, pixel perfect! For me at least, I think the Steam Deck has it beat these days, although I'll admit I miss the smaller form factor sometimes.

Any starting point for steam dock. A run emulation now. Just treat those rom as well roy and start to hack from that I supposed.

Btw that is 6 years ago or starting 7. No need of any update?

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#23

Post by BoorishBears »

messe wrote: post #16
haunter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 it's worth it for the NSUI [0] alone. The 3DS, especially the New 3DSXL is the best handheld to play NES/SNES/GB/C/A games, pixel perfect! 0, https://3ds.eiphax.tech/nsui

> The 3DS, especially the New 3DSXL is the best handheld to play NES/SNES/GB/C/A games, pixel perfect! For me at least, I think the Steam Deck has it beat these days, although I'll admit I miss the smaller form factor sometimes.

If you're into the kind of emulation where the 3DS is a contender, the Steam Deck is miles behind so many other options.

There's a cottage industry of retro emulation machines that all have much better battery life, more faithful control schemes, etc.

The Steam Deck shines because of all the other things it can do, but those mostly come at a cost to how great of a retro emulation handheld it is.

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#24

Post by britneybitch »

haunter wrote: post #11
jayofdoom wrote: post #7

The 3DS hacking scene is still pretty active. Great form factor devices, fully jailbroken. Guide is pretty easy to follow at 3ds.hacks.guide :) I've got mine as the best form-factor emulation station (for older games) you could imagine :).

+1 it's worth it for the NSUI [0] alone. The 3DS, especially the New 3DSXL is the best handheld to play NES/SNES/GB/C/A games, pixel perfect! 0, https://3ds.eiphax.tech/nsui

I'd never heard of NSUI, this looks awesome!

Is it true that 3DS hardware supports Genesis games (as seen in the screenshot)? I'd love to know the story there. Was Sega involved? How does it works in hardware, since the Genesis has 68k/Z80 CPUs, and the DS family uses ARMs?

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#25

Post by chungy »

britneybitch wrote: post #24
haunter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 it's worth it for the NSUI [0] alone. The 3DS, especially the New 3DSXL is the best handheld to play NES/SNES/GB/C/A games, pixel perfect! 0, https://3ds.eiphax.tech/nsui

I'd never heard of NSUI, this looks awesome! Is it true that 3DS hardware supports Genesis games (as seen in the screenshot)? I'd love to know the story there. Was Sega involved? How does it works in hardware, since the Genesis has 68k/Z80 CPUs, and the DS family uses ARMs?

Only GBA and NDS games can run natively on 3DS hardware. Everything else is software emulation.

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#26

Post by spicyjpeg »

loupol wrote: post #10

Very comprehensive resource for someone trying to get into rom hacking in general. The GBATEK specification [0] mentioned several times in the guide (not limited to the GBA, it also covers Nintendo DS, DSi and 3DS) feels like a real treasure trove of technical data. [0] https://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm

That page was written by Martin Korth (aka nocash) as he developed the no$gba emulator. He has a similar page for the PlayStation 1 [1] and prior to that he wrote one for the original Gameboy [2]; both have since been forked and maintained by other people [3]. He is currently homeless and accepting donations, so if anybody finds these pages useful consider donating.

[1]: https://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm

[2]: https://problemkaputt.de/pandocs.htm

[3]: https://psx-spx.consoledev.net/ https://gbdev.io/pandocs/

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#27

Post by drx »

lostgame wrote: post #12
beebmam wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days it's far easier to read/edit the memory of running programs than the serialized data saved to disk in save files.

Well; isn’t that why a lot of traditional ROM hacks historically (at least in the SEGA Genesis/MD hacking scene I was involved with) used savestates as rudimentary ROM hacks? EG - hasn’t it been easier to manipulate data in runtime memory, eg in a savestate; than within the ROM? Asking because I don’t actually know, I’m just recalling a lot of my early ROM hacking, and indeed discoveries in ROMs, by manipulating memo…

Savestate hacking used to be easier because everything in a savestate is uncompressed and raw. Tile graphics, level layouts, palettes, sprite mappings, etc.

To hack a ROM you need to know how to decompress the data, and then recompress your changes. A given game might use multiple compression formats.

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#28

Post by everly »

dang wrote: post #14
everly wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like just taking out the word download after the slash does the trick: https://gbatemp.net/download/gba-and-ds-rom-hacking-guide.33... The info isn't embedded on the page, but the download button for the PDF is unforced but available Edit: Looks like this thread has the info from the PDF embedded: https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-rom-hacking-documentatio...

Nice catch. Changed from https://gbatemp.net/download/gba-and-ds-rom-hacking-guide.33... . Thanks!

Glad to have been of service - thank you for maintaining this forum so well

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#29

Post by britneybitch »

chungy wrote: post #25
britneybitch wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd never heard of NSUI, this looks awesome! Is it true that 3DS hardware supports Genesis games (as seen in the screenshot)? I'd love to know the story there. Was Sega involved? How does it works in hardware, since the Genesis has 68k/Z80 CPUs, and the DS family uses ARMs?

Only GBA and NDS games can run natively on 3DS hardware. Everything else is software emulation.

Thanks that makes more sense. I must have misunderstood the blurb at the top.

Re: Nintendo GBA and DS ROM hacking guide (2016)

#30

Post by mattl »

spicyjpeg wrote: post #26
loupol wrote: post #10

Very comprehensive resource for someone trying to get into rom hacking in general. The GBATEK specification [0] mentioned several times in the guide (not limited to the GBA, it also covers Nintendo DS, DSi and 3DS) feels like a real treasure trove of technical data. [0] https://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm

That page was written by Martin Korth (aka nocash) as he developed the no$gba emulator. He has a similar page for the PlayStation 1 [1] and prior to that he wrote one for the original Gameboy [2]; both have since been forked and maintained by other people [3]. He is currently homeless and accepting donations, so if anybody finds these pages useful consider donating. [1]: https://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm [2]: http…

Damn. I registered No$CPC in high school.
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