Please, somebody make a Gens Tracer Tutorial!!!!

[Whipon]

Hello to everybody!!!!
Well, i just have a lot of trouble triying to make any code with Gens Tracer. Its very difficult. I followed the little info around here about the steps needed, but I had no luck and no progress. Can anyone, please, make a begginers - intermediate FAQ / Walthrough - Tutorial to make the life a little easier to the newbies???. If more people can understand the method more people will start to make codes and the GG book for genesis will increase a lot . Thank you very much.
Whipon.

[ugetab]

How about this:
I'd rather have people who can rise to the level needed to use it, instead of bringing it down to the level that people want it at. If it's explained like the readers are idiots, too many idiots will start doing idiot things with it, and code quality will suffer in the name of code quantity.

[Lazy Bastard]

Heh, this is a point ugetab and I disagree on. I propose that beginners can become advanced hackers later, and that young hackers may grow up and learn more extensively later on, but without that initial push into hacking, they may just move on to other endeavors, and become mathematicians or something...ugetab contests that, if someone wanted to hack badly enough, they'd figure it out.

In any case, since I've never used the Gens Tracer, don't really hack Genesis, and don't have the time to play around with it and let you know, I can't help you, heh.

[Whipon]

Well, my friend ugetab, i was only asking for help, because i don't know how to use Gens Tracer. Are you a Super Hacker for knowing to use it?. I'm a IDIOT for asking for help?. I think you must descend for your throne in the sky. If you don't want to help DONT ATTACK to the "IDIOTS" who want help for, maybe, some day become a Hacking God like you and have a sit to the right of the Lord.
I learned how to make NES game genie codes thanks to Tony Hedstrom and his faqs. You are calling him a super villian to teach the "IDIOTS" how to hack. What in the hell do you mean with "the idiots will start to make stupid things"??????. Maybe if I can make a GG code I will create an Atomic Bomb with a Genesis cartdridge?. Reading your post I uderstand your point: any person who whants to learn from others is an idiot. If i could learn by miself I do so. But if I remember right this forum name is "School of Hacking". As i said if you don't want to help, or if you think that we "IDIOTS" dont deserve your vast knowledge DONT INSULT THE PEOPLE WHO WANTS TO LEARN.
Thats all. Thank you very much for reading. I feel very relaxed now.

[Pugsy]

The skill & fun comes with cheats that are not possible with just RAM locations so I agree with ugetab on this, if you are interested in modifying game code you are basically on your own and as a complete beginner it's unlikely you will have much success with bugfree cheats other than straight RAM-ROM transfers. I have my own tool I use to aid ROM invincibility cheat making a lot easier - but in the wrong hands it could lead to a load of buggy cheats (and as it's main use is for MAME ROM cheats I won't release it at all incase it backfires).

I've personally never used the Gens Tracer either and probably never will, you use the tools you are used to unless something better comes along. Have you tried the debugger in HazeMD? Which I think is likely to be much more powerful? If you can get yourself fixed up with HazeMD and the romset and know basically how to use it I can give you a few pointers on how to use it to convert a RAM cheat into a ROM cheat.

[Whipon]

I had no problem in try another program. If HazeMD is more powerfull and you know how to use it, please, tell me the correct way to use it. Finding ram cheats is very easy for me, I only had problems triying to make them GG codes. I tried the Chemistry method and Gens tracer with no luck. So i asked for help. I'll appreciatte very much if you can lend me a hand with HazeMD.
Thanks a lot!.
Whipon.

[Pugsy]

You asked for it....

Point to Note, If you find RAM locations using the HazeMD cheat engine that you want to convert to ROM cheats they will be in the format E0XXXX to use them in the HazeMD debugger you will need to change them into FFXXXX.


I'm assuming that you've got HazeMD and have set it up - ie you've rebuilt the ROMs using clrmame to use the correct mame format names (I'm not going to hold your hand with that)

Here's a worked example for infinite lives for the game "Chuck Rock (U) [c][!]" , I personally always use the commandline to run HAZEMD - but you can use a fronted like emuloader with it. I'm not sure if hazemd32 has a debug build (hazemd comes with the non-debug hazemd.exe & and the debug hazemdd.exe)

From the cheat.dat for hazemd we have these RAM cheats:-

; [ Chuck Rock (U) [c][!] ]
:g_chuk:00000000:E006D1:00000009:FFFFFFFF:Infinite Lives
:g_chuk:00000000:E006D5:00000007:FFFFFFFF:Infinite Energy
:g_chuk:00000000:E00657:00000003:FFFFFFFF:Invincibility

On the commandline type

hazemdd -debug -joy g_chuk

The game info will then display just press the space key

You will then be dumped into the debugger,

Now in the debugger type

IGNORE 1

{this will make the debugger ignore the Z80 cpu on the genesis - all cheats use the 68000 which is CPU 0}

Now hit F12 to exit the debugger and start the ROM

Now start playing the game so you are ready to lose a life

Press the tilde or the ~ key (the key that is normally next to the escape key) to enter the debugger

From the cheat file you will see that infinite lives uses location E006D1, which you will need to replace the E0 with FF for the debugger watchpoint to catch it so, in the debugger type

WP FF06D1,1,w

{type HELP WPSET if you want an explanation of what that does in the debugger - or just HELP for other instructions/functions}

Now press F12 and lose the rest of the energy...and then you will be dumped back into the debugger at 2056A and this will be displayed in the debugger

02055E: 6692                       bne     $204f2
020560: 6100 DB5C                  bsr     $1e0be
020564: 5379 FFFF 06D0             subq.w  #1, $ffff06d0.l
02056A: 6A06                       bpl     $20572
02056C: 4EF9 0002 0588             jmp     $20588.l

So you can see that the previous instruction before 2056A is a sub at 020564 which is the lives decrement, the thing you've got to remember is that if you are going to change an instruction that's just before a branch is if you just NOP it you may well find that the branch is not handled correctly so it is better to try and change the decrement in a way which allows the branch still to be tested so a compare is better (you need a good understanding of 68000 instructions). There are many ways of skinning a cat, so you can play around with a way of changing it so that you'd only need to change one instruction - here's a cool way that will make life easier

change

020564: 5379 FFFF 06D0             subq.w  #1, $ffff06d0.l

to

020564: 5379 0001 06D0             subq.w  #1, $106d0.l

This method is quite good as 106D0 is a rom address and so the subq won't have any effect and the branch will always be taken and it will only need a single GG code (just remember to check the value in the location isn't going to cause a problem in this case it won't).

So in hazemdd format we'd have this:-

:g_chuk:20900000:020566:00000001:FFFFFFFF:Infinite Lives:ROM Cheat

Plug 020566:0001 into the GG Code Creator

and you will get

AECT-EADG   which is the Game Genie code for Infinite Lives

Just follow this method and GG codes from existing RAM cheats is frankly just a tedious exercise (and rather pointless unless you have an actual Genesis and GG with that game)

The debugger has a lot more features like DASM and TRACE that makes making cheats a lot easier - you will just have to play.

[Whipon]

Thanks for the info. I'll start to hack right now. I appreciatte very much your help. I have a lot of games I love to cheat. I have an Ngage and i use a Genesis emulator in it: Picodrive. The latest version supports Game Genie, but doesn't support PAR. So i tried to hack Rings of Power with the methods avalaible in the web but i had no results. But hanks to you now I can spare another night hacking it to the bone!!!!. Thank you very much again, you re great!.
Whipon.

[Tony Hedstrom]

Pugsy, that's a neat trick changing the RAM address to a ROM address (FFFF 06D0 to 0001 06D0). Thanks for posting that.

Tony.

[Whipon]

Thanks to the info by Pugsy I'm having a lot of fun. But I have some problems with some games: the master code. It's possible to make one?. I just was wondering if them can be created with HazeMD and his great debugger.
Whipon.