What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

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asper
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What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by asper »

Do you have your own compiled mame version with old cheat engine to find the new cheats ? Is it available to download ?
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NotAGoodName
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by NotAGoodName »

To find the last cheats for SD Gundam Psycho Salamander (which was long after MAME had a cheat finder), I used Cheat Engine like so:

0) Run the game and Cheat Engine and point it at MAME. Obviously.

1) Play around with or find a value that you know exactly what address it has in MAME. Once you find it, add it to Cheat Engine and make sure that you've got the right one. If you have nothing to start with, set up a dummy cheat that lets you plug any value into an address and search for the value you plugged in.

2) Fire up Windows Calculator, set it to hex mode, and find the difference between the two addresses. Obviously, the MAME address and the Windows address won't be the same. They might not even be the same between times you run the game, so get all your cheat finding done now!

3) Find more cheats. When you have the Windows address, convert it to the MAME address and write it down or save it somewhere.

4) Add the cheats you converted.
Aww yeah. AMD A10-7850K givin' MAME and MESS systems what for.
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Mohsin
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by Mohsin »

what you are using is just hit and trial method, finding cheat every time you play a game? and every time that address is different? thats seems lot of fun :o because if the game run pointer cheats, then you cant be sure even if u use a hex calculator to find the difference in values, the best method is try to learn mame debugger, it looks like some alien code at the beginning, but when u try to look thoroughly into it, u will start to understand whats happening, type help in the terminal will give u help about many topics, or the about usage of a specific command. but it still takes a lot of practice, because some value you are looking for, might be in rom at 50000~60000 locations,
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Pugsy
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by Pugsy »

I'm hoping that cheat finding functionality will be added to the debugger soon, so you may want to get used to using the debugger anyway. For now if you want to find cheats you must either:-

1. Use MAME 0.126 with the cheat engine , compile MAME 0.126 with the working cheat.c (link on main page). If you use mameui/32 then there was a uifx build of 0.126 that works out there somewhere. I have a build of standard commandline MAME 0.126 (commandline NOT mameui or mame32) with the working cheat engine though it maybe a core2duo build, I can upload it somewhere if there is any interest?
2. You will need to use the debugger in conjuction with a external program such as Cheat Engine/TSearch. I've mentioned a method elsewhere on these forums.
3. Use the debugger alone....this is currently only an option if you have a lot of patience or you have a good understanding of assembler to find ROM cheats.
Pugsy

Servicing your cheating needs since 1985 8)

Grab the latest cheat collection:
MAME 0.259 XML cheat collection (6 OCTOBER 2023) from http://www.mamecheat.co.uk or direct from:-
https://mega.nz/file/q4dHGZ6K#i-EUiqIjH ... KMz7hnbTfw (ZIP Archive 3.76MB)
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NotAGoodName
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by NotAGoodName »

Mohsin wrote:what you are using is just hit and trial method, finding cheat every time you play a game? and every time that address is different? thats seems lot of fun :o because if the game run pointer cheats, then you cant be sure even if u use a hex calculator to find the difference in values, the best method is try to learn mame debugger, it looks like some alien code at the beginning, but when u try to look thoroughly into it, u will start to understand whats happening, type help in the terminal will give u help about many topics, or the about usage of a specific command. but it still takes a lot of practice, because some value you are looking for, might be in rom at 50000~60000 locations,
It's really not that hard to determine what address is the correct one when you figure out how it works. Yes, it's useless for ROM cheats or games like Samurai Showdown that change addresses constantly, but it gets the job done without teaching yourself assembly and is probably just as fast as using the debugger. Especially for things like lives where the values are just plain blatant.

Say you have 5 lives. Just to be sure that 5 isn't 4h or 6h for some stupid reason, you start a generic all address search. You die, so you know that the value is now exactly one less. You then do a bunch of stuff and search for what hasn't changed. You die again and search for a value one less than the last. You probably already have it. Searching for unchanged values is probably the most useful search of all.
Aww yeah. AMD A10-7850K givin' MAME and MESS systems what for.
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Mohsin
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by Mohsin »

Pugsy wrote: 1. Use MAME 0.126 with the cheat engine , compile MAME 0.126 with the working cheat.c (link on main page). If you use mameui/32 then there was a uifx build of 0.126 that works out there somewhere. I have a build of standard commandline MAME 0.126 (commandline NOT mameui or mame32) with the working cheat engine though it maybe a core2duo build, I can upload it somewhere if there is any interest?
too bad that some wanted games are added in the newer versions like 0.129 & 0.130, which leaves us no choice but to use debugger, i`m also really hoping for a cheat engine function to get built into mame debugger, we can use debugger operator functions but this is just increasing the work. i`ill try to upload a regular compiled build with cheat.c soon.

about using a external cheat software, i would recommend using "art money" if possible pro version, because it lets u sort the values or search the changed values within your selected values, while i cant seem to find such function in cheat engine.
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Mohsin
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by Mohsin »

oky i last night i compiled the source code of mame 0.126 with the cheat engine 0.125u7 provided by Pugsy at the front page of the site, with no cpu optimizations(should work for every one), renamed mame.exe to mamec.exe i have put it compressed on rapidshare for now, if some want to use it, then they are welcome

http://rapidshare.com/files/217277841/m ... 090404.exe
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Thats not a game hack

http://mamec.netii.net/
asper
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by asper »

Is it impossible to add the cheat core to the new mame builds ?
Anyway thank you for the file !

I am using artomoney pro; if someone can tell me how to convert the artmoney memory locations into mame memory addresses I will really appreciate ! Maybe a small software can be compiled to easly make those conversions !

Example:

FireFox infinite energy with ArtMoney Pro: 05AEF6B5 - the value setted to FF

Try to convert this one and tell me if it works !
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by Pugsy »

asper wrote:Is it impossible to add the cheat core to the new mame builds ?
The MAME memory and cpu system has simply changed FAR too much, so unless you want to change every driver for each game then yes it is IMPOSSIBLE.
asper wrote:I am using artomoney pro; if someone can tell me how to convert the artmoney memory locations into mame memory addresses I will really appreciate ! Maybe a small software can be compiled to easly make those conversions !
Example:

FireFox infinite energy with ArtMoney Pro: 05AEF6B5 - the value setted to FF

Try to convert this one and tell me if it works !
Nope, you'd need to find an offset for each different driver to have a chance - and that offset would change according to which MAME variant and version and if the compile is cpu optimised.
So firefox would have different offsets in mameui 0.130u2, mameui 0.130u3 and of course they would be different in sdlmame and standard mame too. Only way of using it would be linked to using the debugger at the same time as using Artmoney Pro (or another program) to get the offsets for each game.

The solution is going to be a matter of waiting for cheat finding to be added to the debugger, Artmoney Pro is a dead end as far as MAME is concerned.

Firefox chd is too big for me anyway...such a large download for a single old game is such a waste.
Pugsy

Servicing your cheating needs since 1985 8)

Grab the latest cheat collection:
MAME 0.259 XML cheat collection (6 OCTOBER 2023) from http://www.mamecheat.co.uk or direct from:-
https://mega.nz/file/q4dHGZ6K#i-EUiqIjH ... KMz7hnbTfw (ZIP Archive 3.76MB)
asper
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by asper »

Can you make a small guide on how to combine artmoney pro and the mame debugger ? or will it be too much work ?
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by Pugsy »

asper wrote:Can you make a small guide on how to combine artmoney pro and the mame debugger ? or will it be too much work ?

There a sort of guide here:-

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3237&p=10717&hilit=tsearch#p10717

It was written with a single game in mind, so the deadbeef part may not be the best solution. ANother way to find a offset for conversion is to find the base address of RAM in the MAME debugger and whilst changing it use Artmoney to find what it thinks the address is - you can use this as a sort of offset if you know what you are doing.
Pugsy

Servicing your cheating needs since 1985 8)

Grab the latest cheat collection:
MAME 0.259 XML cheat collection (6 OCTOBER 2023) from http://www.mamecheat.co.uk or direct from:-
https://mega.nz/file/q4dHGZ6K#i-EUiqIjH ... KMz7hnbTfw (ZIP Archive 3.76MB)
asper
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by asper »

Thank you for the link ! I will try in the future.
asper
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by asper »

I was curious to test so I decided to do it and.... IT WORKED !!!
I did it in firefox, looking for a VERY SIMPLE infinite credits cheat.
I was able to find the main cpu address location at 0015 but I had to do it "manually" because the find command shown no results (i am using the mameui32 debug console)... anyway now that I have this location how am I able to make a cheat ? Can you wrtie it down for me so that i will learn another step ?

I think I am now able to find many others..... DEADBEEF... eheheheh easy to remember (I am italian, I did not catch it in the 1st moment) !

Thank you, now I will try to find the infinite energy cheat...
asper
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by asper »

And here it is !
00ED is the location, the value is 63 (in hex) for INFINITE ENERGY cheat in firefox !

I wait for your explanation on how to implement those locations into an xml !

Thank you man !!!
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by Pugsy »

Something along these lines should do for firefox.xml or firefoxa.xml, I can't test as I haven't got the chd.

You can check they work directly in the debugger by entering the parts in the <action> part, though it will only poke it once

eg
maincpu.pb@00ED=63

Code: Select all

<mamecheat version="1">

  <cheat desc="Infinite Credits">
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.pb@0015=09</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

  <cheat desc="Infinite Energy">
    <script state="run">
      <action>maincpu.pb@00ED=63</action>
    </script>
  </cheat>

</mamecheat>
<!-- Cheat file downloaded from http://www.mamecheat.co.uk, see cheat.txt for list of contributors. -->
Pugsy

Servicing your cheating needs since 1985 8)

Grab the latest cheat collection:
MAME 0.259 XML cheat collection (6 OCTOBER 2023) from http://www.mamecheat.co.uk or direct from:-
https://mega.nz/file/q4dHGZ6K#i-EUiqIjH ... KMz7hnbTfw (ZIP Archive 3.76MB)
asper
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Re: What version of mame do you use to find new cheats ?

Post by asper »

It worked for both firefox and firefoxa sets !!!
The correct value for 99 energy is C6 and not 63.

I thank you VERY VERY much for your patience man !

I will post the cheat in the cheat section of the forum.
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