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1 user currently in Rom Hacking:  hukka |
| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Rom Hacking - Changing Text in gameboy and GBA games. |
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iamhiro1112 Armos Level: 35  Posts: 226/487 EXP: 259927 For next: 20009 Since: 03-27-04 From: sd Since last post: 18 days Last activity: 7 days |
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| Well, I was looking for what I can use to make a table to change text in GBA and origninal gameboy games. So far I haven't had any luck. So, anyone know if I should be using a specific emulator or a tile viewer or something to find the right values for the letters to make a proper table? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks. | |||
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Kyoufu Kawa I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. Level: 70  Posts: 1270/2481 EXP: 3008456 For next: 7355 Since: 03-19-04 From: Catgirl Central Since last post: 14 hours Last activity: 13 hours |
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| First thing I always do is try a relative search. Most recently seen hex editors support that. Just for you, I'll say just this: know where "A" is and you can bet your sweet bippy "B" is right next to it  |
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Grinto Red Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 31/43 EXP: 6890 For next: 1031 Since: 03-15-04 Since last post: 13 hours Last activity: 12 hours |
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| In most of the GBA games that I've tried viewing the text, each letter is stored as 2 bytes. A would be 0090, B = 0091 and so forth, Maybe that can help. | |||
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iamhiro1112 Armos Level: 35 Posts: 227/487 EXP: 259927 For next: 20009 Since: 03-27-04 From: sd Since last post: 18 days Last activity: 7 days |
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| Well, I need to find out where "A" is located. So, what would I use to find out where it is? I don't know if The tile viewer in Visual boy advance will give me the right number to be used in a table. | |||
Parasyte Bullet Bill Level: 35  Posts: 354/514 EXP: 267348 For next: 12588 Since: 05-25-04 Since last post: 104 days Last activity: 32 days |
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| Regarding GBA: Without a more powerful debugger, it's difficult to use the tile viewer and such to locate text. If the text is compressed, you may be able to find it by logging all of the BIOS decompression calls, then decompressing all of the data that was logged, and searching those. Most likely, games with a lot of text will store the text in plain ASCII. Japanese games will be a different story. I don't have enough experience working with them to help in that case. If for some odd reason, the text is stored as tile numbers, you will have a more difficult time locating it. Each character will be stored as two bytes, possibly with the BG-format-specific stuff included (such as palette). The tile viewer in Visual Boy Advance may help if you are familiar with the GBA hardware (video modes, bg formats, etc). But the best tool would be a more powerful debugger. (Better breakpoint support is a must ;( ) (edited by Parasyte on 03-12-05 12:33 AM) |
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Kyoufu Kawa I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. Level: 70 Posts: 1272/2481 EXP: 3008456 For next: 7355 Since: 03-19-04 From: Catgirl Central Since last post: 14 hours Last activity: 13 hours |
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| Text often being stored in 16-bits is hogwash. Pok |
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Parasyte Bullet Bill Level: 35 Posts: 355/514 EXP: 267348 For next: 12588 Since: 05-25-04 Since last post: 104 days Last activity: 32 days |
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| I believe it's common knowledge that "16-bit text" is simple background data. Why else would I mention "BG-format-specific stuff ... (such as palette)"? Most games have very little text to display. That being the case, they have no need for text output routines. Couple that with the idea that they don't usually need to worry about data sizes, and you can imagine why most games would simply store BG data in ROM to be copied into VRAM. It's just less expensive to program. So no, it's not "hogwash"; it's a matter of principle. | |||
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Kyoufu Kawa I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. Level: 70 Posts: 1275/2481 EXP: 3008456 For next: 7355 Since: 03-19-04 From: Catgirl Central Since last post: 14 hours Last activity: 13 hours |
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| Y'know, the "Simple" sample code from the Nintendo GBA SDK did just that. One big array (BGBak[] I think) that had 'l','e','t','t','e','r','s' all over just to spell out a caption. A text writer was the first thing to be built |
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Parasyte Bullet Bill Level: 35 Posts: 357/514 EXP: 267348 For next: 12588 Since: 05-25-04 Since last post: 104 days Last activity: 32 days |
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| I have lever looked at the SDK. That's illegal, and we wouldn't want to do anything illegal here, now would we? That aside, most GBA games do not even use the official SDK. | |||
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Kyoufu Kawa I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. Level: 70 Posts: 1323/2481 EXP: 3008456 For next: 7355 Since: 03-19-04 From: Catgirl Central Since last post: 14 hours Last activity: 13 hours |
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| Para, I've had a discussion similar to this on GBADev. Don't force me to bring out the big guns. Having the SDK is not illegal. The way I -might- have acquired it is. What's it to you? Or are you just jealous?  |
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Parasyte Bullet Bill Level: 35 Posts: 359/514 EXP: 267348 For next: 12588 Since: 05-25-04 Since last post: 104 days Last activity: 32 days |
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| No, it's quite illegal to posses without a license from Nintendo. You are required by law to be a licensed developer to own a copy of the SDK. Since you are not licensed, it is illegal. If for some reason you are wrongly referring to one of the many free SDKs as "the Nintendo GBA SDK", then the laws obviously do not apply . Nintendo's software is confidential and not available to the general public. Allow me to post a portion of the GBA SDK document which I happened to find somewhere:
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Kyoufu Kawa I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. Level: 70 Posts: 1326/2481 EXP: 3008456 For next: 7355 Since: 03-19-04 From: Catgirl Central Since last post: 14 hours Last activity: 13 hours |
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| If I had a license, my having a copy of the official, confidential, Sappy-including Nintendo SDK -would- be legal, but you can't prove it, so let's get back to the topic at hand, which was settled long ago. | |||
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Parasyte Bullet Bill Level: 35 Posts: 360/514 EXP: 267348 For next: 12588 Since: 05-25-04 Since last post: 104 days Last activity: 32 days |
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| I can prove it by your fKitten Yiffer to answer these questions: How many licensed games have you, or are you currently working on for Nintendo? Who is your employer? (edited by Parasyte on 03-13-05 05:22 AM) |
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Kyoufu Kawa I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. Level: 70 Posts: 1328/2481 EXP: 3008456 For next: 7355 Since: 03-19-04 From: Catgirl Central Since last post: 14 hours Last activity: 13 hours |
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| Uh-uh, back on topic 'n all. If even the bigshots at GBADev accept, you should too. Ehem... *Kawa-oneechan taps mike Any GBA coder that uses double byte characters in text strings without a very good reason like Japanese support (>256 characters all in all) doesn't deserve to use that compiler. |
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Grinto Red Goomba Level: 12 Posts: 32/43 EXP: 6890 For next: 1031 Since: 03-15-04 Since last post: 13 hours Last activity: 12 hours |
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| I've messed with the text in the two Metroid games and they both have their text stored the way I described. | |||
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Kyoufu Kawa I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way. Level: 70 Posts: 1339/2481 EXP: 3008456 For next: 7355 Since: 03-19-04 From: Catgirl Central Since last post: 14 hours Last activity: 13 hours |
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| Heck, prolly more than 256 characters then. | |||
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HyperLamer <||bass> and this was the soloution i thought of that was guarinteed to piss off the greatest amount of people Sesshomaru Tamaranian Level: 118 Posts: 3698/8210 EXP: 18171887 For next: 211027 Since: 03-15-04 From: Canada, w00t! LOL FAD Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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Every original GB/GBC game I've worked with just uses 8-bit tile numbers, sometimes with dictionary compression. Tile numbers with attributes are quite rare unless there's more than 256 characters or it's for really short text trying to save space. (Text on GB usually isn't formatted in any way, and if it is, they use special characters to turn it on and off, similar to < ) |
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iamhiro1112 Armos Level: 35 Posts: 235/487 EXP: 259927 For next: 20009 Since: 03-27-04 From: sd Since last post: 18 days Last activity: 7 days |
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| Ok, so any suggestions on a emulator with a more powerful debugger? | |||
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HyperLamer <||bass> and this was the soloution i thought of that was guarinteed to piss off the greatest amount of people Sesshomaru Tamaranian Level: 118 Posts: 3753/8210 EXP: 18171887 For next: 211027 Since: 03-15-04 From: Canada, w00t! LOL FAD Since last post: 2 hours Last activity: 2 hours |
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A NO$GBA pirate?  |
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| Acmlm's Board - I2 Archive - Rom Hacking - Changing Text in gameboy and GBA games. |
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