svg cheats

This FORUM is ONLY for posting requests for M.A.M.E. arcade cheats. The actual cheats should be posted in the M.A.M.E. "Arcade" Cheats forum. For cheat requests a 'please' would do no harm...
Post Reply
karl_eichholtz_13
Posts: 110
Joined: Tue May 15, 2007 6:04 pm
Location: Leipzig, Germany

svg cheats

Post by karl_eichholtz_13 »

can someone put up cheats for S.V.G. Spectral vs. Generation?
User avatar
Abystus
Posts: 521
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2006 6:53 am
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 22 times

Re: svg cheats

Post by Abystus »

Apparently these are the specs of this game's board as listed here:

Code: Select all

CPU : 68000 @ 20 MHz 
Sound CPU : Z80 
Sound Chip : ICS2115 32 Channel PCM 
Protection : ARM asic cpu with internal code (on most later games) 
Hardware Features : 1 scrolling 8x8 tiles 4bpp scrolling tilemap, 32x32 tiles 5bpp scrolling tilemap with linescroll, arbitrary size 5bpp sprites, zoom and shrink capabilities.  


The game has a protection CPU (ARM7 ':prot') which is giving me a headache trying to find ASM based cheats in this game (seems the 68k isn't really controlling the action, and I cannot seem to modify any of the THUMB instructions on the protection chip). I am able to modify the instructions of the 68k chip, but again I don't think it is really controlling anything worth hacking as per what I'm seeing in the trace log (definitely not the hit routine :/). I have not been able to hack any sort of RAM based cheats either, and this may be a result of the protection included on this board (maybe they are XORed in memory). I haven't spent much time with this (watching my kid for most of the day), but so far it looks like it may be a tough nut to crack.
Bored? Watch some of my hacks here.
User avatar
Pugsy
Posts: 3638
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:59 am
Location: North Wales, UK.
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 12 times
Contact:

Re: svg cheats

Post by Pugsy »

Cheats here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11129

It's possible to find cheats but the debugger cheat finding doesn't work so well with some drivers - fails to see the memory changes properly. There was a period of time between the XML cheat file introduction and the debugger cheat finding capability introduction of several months when cheat finding wasn't possible. In that time I made a simple tool called FIND which would allow you to search for cheats in SAVE dumps from the MAME debugger from the windows commandline, it's still useful for cases like this and for finding region cheats. It's fairly limited - only searches for bytes and it's not BCD aware. But works fine for most things with a little care.

I can dig it out if you are interested......I think I posted it on the forums years ago unfortunately it's called "FIND" and that's a bit too generic for the forum search to find it.
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)
User avatar
Abystus
Posts: 521
Joined: Sun Jul 23, 2006 6:53 am
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 22 times

Re: svg cheats

Post by Abystus »

Pugsy wrote: I can dig it out if you are interested......I think I posted it on the forums years ago unfortunately it's called "FIND" and that's a bit too generic for the forum search to find it.
Sure, I'll have a look if you can provide a link. I've found that using your cheats in combination with watchpoints only break on the PROT processor, and it seems that the 68k is doing something else entirely (or the ARM processor is acting as a passthrough). Have you attempted any ASM based hacks for this game? Maybe I'm doing something wrong here, but I think this game is preventing my ability to perform any sort of assembly hacks due to the chip being used (ARM7 ':prot'). This is the same game your using correct?:

Image
Bored? Watch some of my hacks here.
syndromtr
Posts: 232
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 8:18 am
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: svg cheats

Post by syndromtr »

good to see these cheats are already found :)
yes, i started finding them yesterday but interestingly, built-in cheat find always ended with 0 cheats found.

as i found cheats for "theglad", i noticed their RAM ranges are same, 18000000-180XXXXX so i started with:
ci ub 18000000,50000

after energy decrease, cn - but immediately resulted with "0 cheats found". more examples, same result.
so probably a problem/bug in MAME debugger?

(i registered to mametesters.org but i'm still VIEWER so cannot post bug report if this is a bug)

similar problem in [ddpdfk] : when you enter "ci" command on debugger, all windows close immediately. (maybe # of cheats to be initialized as bytes are too many, passing debugger's limit?)
User avatar
Pugsy
Posts: 3638
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:59 am
Location: North Wales, UK.
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 12 times
Contact:

Re: svg cheats

Post by Pugsy »

Ok here it is:-


http://www.mediafire.com/download/h8s2i ... v/FIND.zip

Extract it to the same directory as MAME.exe
And run it with the commandline (replace between * with proper info):-
FIND *STARTMEM* *filename1* *condition1* *filename2* *condition2* *filename3* *condition3* etc etc

You can repeat filenames and conditions as necessary, just type FIND for more help.


As an example to find Infinite Credits location in svg:
When you have 0 credit open the debugger and type
ignore 0
ignore 1 (we are only interested in the prot cpu)
SAVE 0CRED,18000000,FFFFFF
When you have 1 credit open the debugger and type
SAVE 1CRED,18000000,FFFFFF
When you have 2 credits open the debugger and type
SAVE 2CRED,18000000,FFFFFF
When you have 4 credits open the debugger and type
SAVE 4CRED,18000000,FFFFFF

Note, only difference is the filename. We will save 0XFFFFFF bytes from memory starting from 0x18000000 (we will use 18000000 in the commandline below)

then on the commandline type this:-
find 18000000 0CRED +1 1CRED +1 2CRED +2 4CRED

this will create 4 txt files starting with "cheat_finder_report_", just open them in NP++.
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)
invincibility
Posts: 41
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2001 1:00 am

Re: svg cheats

Post by invincibility »

syndromtr wrote:good to see these cheats are already found :)
yes, i started finding them yesterday but interestingly, built-in cheat find always ended with 0 cheats found.

as i found cheats for "theglad", i noticed their RAM ranges are same, 18000000-180XXXXX so i started with:
ci ub 18000000,50000

after energy decrease, cn - but immediately resulted with "0 cheats found". more examples, same result.
so probably a problem/bug in MAME debugger?

(i registered to mametesters.org but i'm still VIEWER so cannot post bug report if this is a bug)

similar problem in [ddpdfk] : when you enter "ci" command on debugger, all windows close immediately. (maybe # of cheats to be initialized as bytes are too many, passing debugger's limit?)
for theglad you may type this:

ci ub,18000000,3ffff,2

2 indicate the arm cpu.

svg is the same case i think.
User avatar
Pugsy
Posts: 3638
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:59 am
Location: North Wales, UK.
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 12 times
Contact:

Re: svg cheats

Post by Pugsy »

invincibility wrote: for theglad you may type this:

ci ub,18000000,3ffff,2

2 indicate the arm cpu.

svg is the same case i think.

Good call, I've always used ignore x to search for cheats in a specific CPU. As most games have cheats in either CPU0 or CPU1 and older games which do have CPU2 cheats were found a long time ago with the old cheat engine it must have gone unnoticed as few games have a CPU2 that is involved in the game logic. DOH!
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)
User avatar
Pugsy
Posts: 3638
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:59 am
Location: North Wales, UK.
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 12 times
Contact:

Re: svg cheats

Post by Pugsy »

BTW, the above program I posted is not entirely useless..... it is useful for finding region cheats. Just save the entire memory (SAVE filename,0,fffffff) as soon as the debugger opens for different area versions of the same game....then do a find 0 file1 ne file2 ne file3 ne file1 and look at the results for values in the low integer range which vary by a small amount.
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)
syndromtr
Posts: 232
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 8:18 am
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: svg cheats

Post by syndromtr »

invincibility wrote: for theglad you may type this:

ci ub,18000000,3ffff,2

2 indicate the arm cpu.

svg is the same case i think.
this is getting really interesting...

ci ub 18000000,50000 (i gave this command when i was on ARM7 CPU - but after two cn - result is 0 cheat found)

ci ub,18000000,3ffff,2 (your offer - tested it, it doesn't end with 0 cheat found, but after i enter cheatlist - 1801035E cannot be found - it's energy PL1 location mentioned in Pugsy's cheat)

ci uw,18000000,3ffff,2 (after a few cn - commands, 1801035E is found, it's in list after cheatlist command)

i'm sure, for [theglad] cheats, i didn't have to add ",2" to mention CPU to search for energy and other cheats, in "ci" command, and managed to find the cheats with a few cn - etc...
User avatar
Pugsy
Posts: 3638
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:59 am
Location: North Wales, UK.
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 12 times
Contact:

Re: svg cheats

Post by Pugsy »

I am seriously starting to think I've not looked for non-CPU0 cheats for some time.... It seems that the only way to search other CPUs is to use the full ci command, it's possible I've used it without thinking in the past but as I've been doing a lot of TRACE on active cpus recently I might have got lazy.

Looking at the source there's simply no way that ignore will work with cheatinit.
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)
User avatar
Pugsy
Posts: 3638
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2001 12:59 am
Location: North Wales, UK.
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 12 times
Contact:

Re: svg cheats

Post by Pugsy »

Just so that this doesn't happen again, I've submitted a patch that changes the init message.

Example, it will change

Code: Select all

131072 cheat initialized
to

Code: Select all

131072 cheat initialized for CPU index 2 ( aka :prot )
I think this simple patch will be enough information to stop us all searching in CPU0 without thinking....
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)
Post Reply