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Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Rom Hacking - FCEUXD information

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<blockquote><font class=fonts><i>Originally posted by bbitmaster</i></font><hr>The Code/Data logger is a special feature I came up with. Actually, FCEUXD started one day when I had a brainstorm about how something like it could work. These other features are just extras I've put in along the way due to other brainstorms ;) The basic Idea is this: if you know what bytes in the game are code or data along with a few other things (which will be logged also), you could make a nice disassembly of it. Disch actually used this same method to come up with that FF1 source code that was released a while back, he put together something like my code/data logger in his own emulator, and had a friend play through the game and send him the log. The result was that source code. He got the idea from me when I was talking about fceuxd.

And yes I realize that you have to play through every part of the game, and something could be easily missed, but as Dahrkdaiz mentioned, these logs can be combined. Just have 5 or 6 people play through the game a few times and log everything they can, then combine them all and you've got yourself a pretty good log. When you think of the possibilities this would bring, of having the game in a fully editable source file, asm hacking would get a LOT easier. Of course, I have yet to start working on a disassembler which makes use of these logs, but hopefully that won't take too long once I get started.

MathOnNapkins; Sure, its possible that there is unused stuff in the rom That will never be logged. But in such cases I could put an option in my disassembler to add comments saying something like "This section was never logged as being accessed." How hard would it be to go through such sections and manually figure out what they are? You'd have to do this anyway, but only now you'd know for sure it wasn't ever used. In fact, you'd have every unused portion in the rom sitting right there marked as unused! Who knows what all goodies you might find while looking through that.

Besides that, the Code/Data logger allows for a few other slightly useful things, one which you saw in the screenshots in my earlier post where it can tell the trace logger to only log newly executed stuff (similar to a feature in evil peer's snes9x tracer).It'll also allow code and data to appear in different colors in the built in hex editor. Also, if anyone ever wants to make one, a rom corruptor that only corrupts data would certainly be possible.

The save stripped ines rom is probably more of a novelty than anything else. Basically, it takes the original rom, plus the code/data log, and creates a new rom that only includes code and data that was executed. What's the point of this? Well take a look and see for yourself:

Apply this patch to a Megaman 3 rom.
[url]http://bitmaster.panicus.org/misc/topman3.ips[/url]

To create this, I took a few minutes and played through the topman stage in megaman 3 then saved a stripped nes rom. So, all that is playable in this rom is the topman stage. It's interesting to try some things that I never logged and see how the game reacts. For example: Try selecting the password option on the main menu, or try going to another stage, or try hitting the instant death spikes which are now harmless. All because the information behind that stuff is missing - It was never logged. A word of warning though, I never jumped off the first ladder in topman's stage, so if you do so the game will crash. Be Sure to Climb off of that ladder. You may find other odd glitches if you do things I never logged.

If you look at this rom in a hex editor, you'll see it is almost entirely made up of 00's, only about 16% of the prg-rom is even present! Amazingly, the game runs fine in this state, because only what was logged as being accessed while I played is there. This may possibly be useful for hacking if someone wanted a rom that had everything stripped out of it except for what they were looking for, but it probably has more of a novelty use if someone wanted to release a small demo of their hack. I actually considered getting with Dahrkdaiz to create a fake smb3 beta rom for April Fools 8-)

jman: I really have thought about attempting this for snes, I have my hands full right now, but it isn't out of the question for later, so just keep hoping.

More to come later.<hr></blockquote>

User	Post
The Great Guy Posts: 91/170	Wow, just wow. If something like this existed for GBA I could have pursued my dreams of hacking Fire emblem: Rekka no ken, this would help alot with locating data, but it doesn't exist for GBA. But this will definatly help tons of NES hackers! Imagine the possibilities... TY bbitmaster!
Sokarhacd Posts: 404/1757	you have 100% support from me, because I hate switching back and forth from emulator to hex editor to edit....and because all the features you are adding are awesome, keep up the good work
MathOnNapkins Posts: 558/2189	I'm in sort of the same boat. If I continue to hack as much as I do, I'll probably fail my semester (ever so slowly though.) bbit, are you at UT? I love that campus, I spent a week there and it rocked.
bbitmaster Posts: 25/103	Thanks Drag, finding bugs like that is what beta testers are for. That is why this can not be rushed. Anyway, progress has been slow as I'm in school now and I have to devote my time to a higher education. And yes, I did spend a few hours the other day and thew together a name table viewer. Of course its slow right now, I haven't even began to optimize it, but other than that, I've done a few little fixes/enhanchments in the past few weeks. I really do appreciate all the support though, this does really help motivate me to keep going. All I can say is it will be ready when its ready :-)
Wlokos Posts: 124/176	Originally posted by Wlokos Ugh, I want this so badly... Either hurry up or gimme a copy! :-P *J/K*
drjayphd Posts: 655/1477	(cream) NSA never worked for me in XP... if this'll make N/A table editing easier, you will worship him like the deity we'll call him.
Drag Posts: 213/254	It's coming along very well, in my opinion. The only thing is, yeah, wait for him to finish, because I did find a bug in it previously (dealing with locking/unlocking ram bytes, sometimes the program would freeze when unlocking a bunch at a time, and it's fixed now, hopefully), so yeah, don't rush him. He's coding a nametable viewer at the moment, and it's kinda laggy (for me at least), but it works. Laggy like, it bogs the whole program down. But bbit said he'd check it out. But yeah, just wait until he releases it, it'll be optimum working order then.
BMF98567 Posts: 356/1261	CHILL OUT, guys. He'll release it when he's ready. You don't want a buggy, half-finished program, do you? (not saying that it is, just what's happened in the past when things were rushed)
Wlokos Posts: 123/176	Ugh, I want this so badly... Either hurry up or gimme a copy! :-P J/k
Sokarhacd Posts: 400/1757	Just a bunp to ask how the project is doing....
Gavin Posts: 169/799	Originally posted by Rebecca Daise holy crap, is that what I think it is? A text editor in the rom viewer? Will it support .tbl files? If so, this could totally speed up NES translation hacks like crazy. reading am good: Originally posted by bbitmaster Wow, thanks a lot for all the support. Just today I added something else, *.tbl file support! http://bitmaster.panicus.org/images/FCEUXD13.png Yes it edits text directly, and of course the changes show up immediately. (edit: thought i'd ask) how far exactly do you plan on developing the Hex editor, and what possible features will be implimented, or is this where further developement on it will end.. I know there are many independant programs to handle the various other features so-called 'good' hacking hex editors have (such as `Bongo's WinHex32, which is a really great hex editor with script dumping, MTE support, tile editing, address bookmarking, file patching, et cetera) , but i would imagine they would take a bit of time to create.. i would definetly understand if this is as far as the emulators new hex editor will go, i'm just curious as to what you are planning?
DahrkDaiz Posts: 322/885	holy crap, is that what I think it is? A text editor in the rom viewer? Will it support .tbl files? If so, this could totally speed up NES translation hacks like crazy.
bbitmaster Posts: 21/103	Heres another picture from River City Ransom, the text istelf is a parody of a whole ordeal I went through back in april, when someone stole a copy from one of my beta testers and actually threatened to leak it. http://bitmaster.panicus.org/images/FCEUXD14.png edit: and yes folks, I say again, it does support table files.
Gavin Posts: 167/799	check the dates of those posts 1] i posted that before he added .tbl support 2] you interpreteted it incorrectly. i was not looking for text editing in the game, i was looking for a text editor to open and fill my notes. if he had thrown a text editor into FCEUxd then i would need to run only one application... which is what i was getting at
Chickenlump Posts: 367/722	Table file support was added after he posted that, I think. Looks pretty cool, who wouldn't want to play around with it after all these cool screens?
windwaker Posts: 79/1797	Originally posted by Gavin this program will probably cut my running applications number in about half. hah, i mean throw a text editor in there and i'll need absolutely nothing else. It already supports table files, right...?
d4s Posts: 66/325	whooooooooooops
Googie Posts: 152/624	WOW! that is so hot! Editing the text like that on screen? I like that feature alot, thanks Bbit for the update. nice job & nice progress.
interdpth Posts: 252/527	OMG SOURCE CODE PWNAGE! Wow I really wish a program like this was for GBA good job BBit
bbitmaster Posts: 20/103	Wow, thanks a lot for all the support. Just today I added something else, *.tbl file support! http://bitmaster.panicus.org/images/FCEUXD13.png Yes it edits text directly, and of course the changes show up immediately.
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