Emulator Cheats

This is a collection of codes I made for the Bubble Bobble 2/Symphony game. I'm especially pleased at managing to make the Instantly Beat Game codes, along with the ending selector.

:bublbob2:00000001:40EA4F:00000001:FFFFFFFF:Get Red Key Now!
:bublbob2:00000001:40EA4E:00000001:FFFFFFFF:Get Blue Key Now!
:bublbob2:00000001:40EA4D:00000001:FFFFFFFF:Get Green Key Now!
:bublbob2:00000001:40EA4C:00000001:FFFFFFFF:Get Orange Key Now!
:bublbob2:00000001:40820A:00000007:FFFFFFFF:Get 'ROD' and Finish Level Now!
:bublbob2:00040101:40813B:00000010:FFFFFFFF:Select Ending:This only accesses the endings to the current game mode and the forms of your characters. Some ending numbers are repeats. Should be used with Almost Instantly Beat Game code for highest chance of success.
:bublbob2:00000001:4080F7:00000015:FFFFFFFF:Almost Instantly Beat Game
:bublbob2:00010001:4080F9:0000000B:FFFFFFFF:Almost Instantly Beat Game (2/3)
:bublbob2:00010001:40814F:00000006:FFFFFFFF:Almost Instantly Beat Game (3/3)
:bublbob2:00000000:40EA66:00000000:FFFFFFFF:Always Get Secret Rooms
:bublbob2:00000001:40ECF1:0000003C:FFFFFFFF:Get Crystal-Ball Now! (Effective Next Level)
:bublbob2:60000000:00000000:00000000:FFFFFFFF:[The following values are set when you collect ]
:bublbob2:60000000:00000000:00000000:FFFFFFFF:[the huge candy from the second to last diamond ]
:bublbob2:60000000:00000000:00000000:FFFFFFFF:[room in the game. I don't know what some of ]
:bublbob2:60000000:00000000:00000000:FFFFFFFF:[these do, and they may not do anything at all. ]
:bublbob2:00000000:40824A:00000001:FFFFFFFF:Always Have Fastest Bubble Blowing
:bublbob2:00000000:408252:00000003:FFFFFFFF:Always Have Fastest Bubble Motion
:bublbob2:00000000:40825A:00000003:FFFFFFFF:Always Have Farthest Bubble Blowing
:bublbob2:00000000:40824E:00000001:FFFFFFFF:Secret Room Candy Unknown Effect 1
:bublbob2:00000000:408256:00000005:FFFFFFFF:Secret Room Candy Unknown Effect 2
:bublbob2:00000000:40825E:00000005:FFFFFFFF:Secret Room Candy Unknown Effect 3

Congrats on your first post

A small suggestion, and in no way is this meant to discourage you from finding cheats. We need all the help we can get looking for them.

(since I've been a slacker and barely found any in the past few years, and I'm spending a fair bit of time writing a new cheat.dat checker)

However, it would be a good idea to check the current cheat.dat for cheats for games you intend on trying to find cheats for. If you don't find any, do a search here on the message board to see if someone has posted them recently, and if then you don't find them, search for cheats.

The reason I say this is that some of the cheats you posted have already been found and it could have saved you a fair bit of time. No matter, there are plenty of new ones in there too.

Well done and welcome aboard.

I hate to be wrong, but I'll chance it this time.

I don't seem to be able to find any of these cheats in the Cheat.dat from this site, the message board, or Dogpile. I think these new cheats may have been mailed to you, and you just never noted that there's nowhere else to get them yet, or you're dealing with a non-final release, in which case, I wouldn't be able to get my hands on it anyways.

On another note, I have a method of making codes using save states from MAME(which accounts for every cheat I just submitted), but if your experience with MAME has a more thought-out method, it would help me to know that method.

You and me both...

And I gotta admit, my bad. I'm wrong this time

They are new cheats for a game which has some cheats already for it. I didn't check fully and thought some of them were dupes. Oops.

And no, I don't have them at all. I don't amend my cheat.dat above the :

## END OF MAIN CHEATS

line.

Huh ? Using save states ? Gotta admit, can't say I've ever used a save state before. It'd be interesting to hear about your cheat finding method a bit more and how you do it.

Generally I search for Same/Different (can't recall the exact method and keep losing and regaining what ever it is I'm after. It's a painfully slow method, however it usually works.

Thanks for the cheats, and nope I haven't got any of them in the cheat file as far as I can tell. There's also been no private releases of the cheat file either...it's still very much a WIP (thanks to Slade's Cheat Checker) and only exists on my HD.

I can't imagine how using save states would be easier than using the cheat engine...it's just a case of getting used to the cheat engine to be able to produce pretty much any cheat you can imagine...though due to time delays in RAM poking changing the ROM is often the only way of making some cheats (but that would be the same for whatever method you used to find RAM cheats)

Using save states to make cheat codes is something I have several emulators worth of experience with.

For MAME, the basic idea is to find the address of a cheat code both in the save state, and the MAME cheat address, and adjust the cheat address by the same difference there is between the file address of the test cheat, and the new address you want to make.

Using a large number of the methods to go through the file, I can basically find ANY difference using 2 save states that show the difference. My favorite method is overwriting parts of 1 save-state file with part of the contents of a second save state until the option the second save state has migrates to the first save state. Sometimes you bump into things with this method, either making the game freeze, or enabling you to do things unexpected, like beat the game instantly, or make it blaringly obvious if you're chasing a cheat that takes several screen's worth of data to activate.

The save state method also allows you to test assumptions. I fixed a few codes where I forgot to replace the 'template' values(and am posting them at the bottom of the message). The codes, when compared to lists of existing cheats for the game, implied that there was at least 1 unknown title-screen cheat for Bubble Bobble 2. This formerly unknown code makes you start the game as though you had immediately gotten the huge candy. Activating the title screen codes with cheats also implies that you can only have 1 code active at a time.

The tricky part to make this possible is endian conversion. The save state's addresses represent an opposite endian to the cheat addresses. It's simple to fix this by taking either address and doing an XOR 3 to it, but it's not obvious that this fixes the endian.

As an example, I used the pre-existing 'Set Note 1' codes as my basis in this game. In the save state, the address is 0x20898F. From the cheat database, it's 0x408160.

To make things easier on myself, I simply switched the endian on the cheat code address, for reason's you'll soon understand.

Save:0x20898F
Cheat:0x408163(After using XOR 3 on it)

Now, when I locate an address in the save state that does something useful, I just use this calculation with the windows calculator(scientific mode,Hex system):
(408163+((New Save State Address)-20898F))^3=

Alternately, if you think you may forget to XOR 3 the corresponding cheat address before putting it into the calculation:
(((408160)^3)+((New Save State Address)-20898F))^3=

Then it just spits out a working cheat address.
I just set one up and make a few copies so I can quickly enter save state addresses:
(408163+(()-20898F))^3=
(408163+(()-20898F))^3=
(408163+(()-20898F))^3=
(408163+(()-20898F))^3=

Put in the save state address and paste it into windows calculator(scientific mode, hex selected), and you're done with the hard part. Choose a method of putting that address into the cheat.dat file, with the value it needs to be active.

By the way, here are a few more codes I spent time getting to work.
The 'Max. Candy Effects' button code is new as far as I can tell, so I already submitted the button code elsewhere.

:bublbob2:60000000:00000000:00000000:FFFFFFFF:[Activate any 1 of these codes on the title ]
:bublbob2:60000000:00000000:00000000:FFFFFFFF:[screen before the curtains open. Only 1 code can]
:bublbob2:60000000:00000000:00000000:FFFFFFFF:[be active at a time. ]
:bublbob2:00000001:40A206:00000008:FFFFFFFF:Classic Game (BJBJBJR1)
:bublbob2:00000001:40A20E:00000008:FFFFFFFF:Classic Game (LJL1LBL1)
:bublbob2:00000001:40A216:00000008:FFFFFFFF:Classic Game (1JBLRJ1R)
:bublbob2:00000001:40A21E:00000008:FFFFFFFF:Super Mode Select (U1RJBL1D)
:bublbob2:00000001:40A226:00000008:FFFFFFFF:Unlock Human Characters (LDUJR1BR)
:bublbob2:00000001:40A22E:00000008:FFFFFFFF:Max. Candy Effects (DBJ1LRL1)
:bublbob2:00000001:40A236:00000008:FFFFFFFF:Always Access Secret Rooms (JBJBJBL1)