Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

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Maeson
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Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by Maeson » Wed Aug 03, 2016 2:54 pm

Hi. I hope I'm asking in the right section.

I've seen that the user Ralf has made a lot of Wiird codes that enable 60hz option on PAL games (Thank you for all those cheats) that didn't release with one (Luigi's Mansion, the Mario Party games, Doshin the Giant, Skies of Arcadia, etc...). I think it's awesome.

Problem is, I've been trying to make them work with Nintendont, but I just discovered that they are not compatible because Nintendont shifts around many things and the adresses are not the same.

So I thought, "Maybe I could write them ON the iso". I know a bit of hex editing, as I messed around with some games. Heres my problem, though: I'm still a big noob and I do not know how look for the right offset to edit.

Let's try for example with Mario Pary 6:

Enable 60Hz Mode [Ralf]
02005966 0000C500

005966 is supposed to be the RAM adress, I think, but is there a way to find the offset to edit through Hex Editing with that information?

Does the 02 at the beginning help in any way?

As far as I know most of the time (Or maybe every time) all these changes are to be made in a file named Start.Dol. I know how to exctract one from the ISO if that helps.

I hope anyone could point me to the right direction, although I fear that is not going to be possible with just the Hex editor...
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emu_kidid
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Re: Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by emu_kidid » Mon Aug 08, 2016 4:28 am

You would need to find the code that reads or writes that address in the DOL and change it. Or maybe ask FIX94 via his github issue tracker to add support for it, he's usually helpful.
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Maeson
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Re: Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by Maeson » Tue Aug 09, 2016 8:08 am

I had the idea of asking to FIX94, but I thought this wouldn't be important enough for he to bother with it. Also, If I managed to write them into the iso I could make a patch out of it and maybe share it with people with the same problem (Or that doesn't like to depend on a cheat code activated at all times).

It's an option, of course, but I think he has enough with all the other people asking things.

I also found an old post:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=2597

It gives me an idea of how it's done, but again, I would need to run Dolphin to see the memory, which this computer can't run. I guess I have to solve that in order to even try doing the rest.

Thank you for your input, emu_kidid.

EDIT: Okay, success! ...At least for now. After tinkering with Dolphin I managed to make it run games (horrbly slow, but that doesn't matter for what I want to do, to make them boot up is enough).

I tried with Luigi's Mansion and I found the offsets for the iso, and now I have a version of the game with the 60hz Option in it without external help.

I will now go ahead and try it with other games. I don't know if this type of information would be useful (the offsets, I mean), I could post them here if that's the case.

EDIT 2: Mario Party 5 and 6 are done too, I think. My only way to know if it works without trying it through my Wii (I can't do it right now) is that when I boot the game the Nintendo and Hudson logos are at 60 frames, instead of the capped 50 of Pal50.

That said, though, for some reason Ralf's codes didn't work on Dolphin. Probably a problem from my end or something, but activating them is like they weren't there at all. Thankfully they were vital to find the offsets!
FIX94
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Re: Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by FIX94 » Tue Aug 09, 2016 3:14 pm

oh I do care about a lot of things, the main thing is, I dont know if ralf would be fine if I just were to include his work into nintendont and just have the info of who made it all actually in a source file, it would be very nice to have though so I am not against the idea at all.
Maeson
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Re: Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by Maeson » Tue Aug 09, 2016 5:45 pm

It would be great! It's just as I said, I don't know if this is something that important to bother you when there are other things that may have more urgency...

Also, I kinda wanted to learn to do it by myself too. it's useful to have that knowledge in case I want to play on other platform/program and doesn't support cheats.
Ralf@gc-forever
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Re: Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by Ralf@gc-forever » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:09 pm

Almost all of my 60Hz Mode codes must be applied before the game starts to work properly. All Action Replay codes with the master code flag set will be executed before the game starts, so there's no problem to make 60Hz Mode codes work. Whether a WiiRD/Gecko code is executed before or after game boot depends, unfortunately, on the used backup loader and the main cause of non-working 60Hz Mode codes.

@FIX94: You are welcome to use any of my work in Nintendont, as long as you give proper credit.
Last edited by Ralf@gc-forever on Wed Aug 10, 2016 8:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Maeson
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Re: Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by Maeson » Tue Aug 09, 2016 6:54 pm

Oh, so that's why some cheats didn't seem to take effect; now I understand... And as I suspected, it was my fault. Par for the course, lol.

I've been able to insert the 60hz codes in Luigi's Mansion, the Mario Party games and Doshin the Giant (This one gave me some trouble at first). It's fantastic to see them running at their full speed and on my own language to boot (Although Doshin's voice acting is wooden as hell!).

Let me say again that I'm very thankful for all these 60hz cheat codes. I also wanted to ask you through a private message, but I'll take the chance now:

Would you give me permission to create patches out of these and share them? Of course you would take full credit for them (As I just put them into the game). But I would understand if you didn't want to.

Lastly, do you know, by any chance, if the german Tales of Symphonia 60hz code works for a PAL Spanish version too? I'll try it anyway, but just in case... If not, maybe just comparing the german and spanish version would help.
Ralf@gc-forever
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Re: Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by Ralf@gc-forever » Wed Aug 10, 2016 8:55 pm

Maeson wrote:Would you give me permission to create patches out of these and share them?
Sure, no problem.
Maeson wrote:Lastly, do you know, by any chance, if the german Tales of Symphonia 60hz code works for a PAL Spanish version too?
I don't think so, the German ToS 60Hz Mode code is more complex than the regular 60Hz codes and must be ported to the Spanish version first.
Maeson
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Re: Writing 60hz Option on PAL GC Isos

Post by Maeson » Wed Aug 10, 2016 10:15 pm

Ralf@gc-forever wrote: Sure, no problem.
Thank you! I'll start tomorrow.
Ralf@gc-forever wrote: I don't think so, the German ToS 60Hz Mode code is more complex than the regular 60Hz codes and must be ported to the Spanish version first.
Oh... Well, I'll try to find byte strings to see if I can find something. I hope the bytes regarding this will be the same for both, and are just in different places.

Thank you for your time!
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