Gaming What is AP?

Hebon

Dabbling in the videogamagical
OP
Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
146
Trophies
0
XP
192
Country
United States
I heard about something called AP that some games have. What is it? Does it stand for Anti-Piracy?
 

plasma

GBAtemp's Artificial Lifeform
Member
Joined
May 15, 2009
Messages
1,664
Trophies
1
Location
Inazuma TM Caravan
XP
2,632
Country
United Kingdom
Yes it does stand for Anti-Piracy. For some games they hold Ap's that is harder to crack (Iirc pokemon heart gold/soul silver was 2-3 weeks to crack) Most of the time they are bypassed and the games work.
 

OtakuGamerZ

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2009
Messages
460
Trophies
0
Age
30
XP
258
Country
United States
Yup, AP stands for Anti-Piracy. AP is what keeps both emulators and flashcarts from being able to play the game perfectly or even at all.
How AP is used depends on the game. Some won't let you get past the title screen. Others don't let you save. Pokemon kept you from getting EXP. Most just don't let the game even start.
 

Hebon

Dabbling in the videogamagical
OP
Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
146
Trophies
0
XP
192
Country
United States

Critica1

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
185
Trophies
0
Age
33
Location
CA
Website
www.onehitgamer.com
XP
161
Country
United States
Can someone elaborate on the forms of Anti Piracy? It almost seems that Nintendo does what Sony does when adding protection to their newer games. Newer games usually call functions from the newest firmware functions. If users aren't on the latest firmware, their isn't any possibility to run those functions in the game being called.
 

GameWinner

Take your heart
Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2009
Messages
4,190
Trophies
0
Age
28
XP
2,211
Country
United States
Can someone elaborate on the forms of Anti Piracy? It almost seems that Nintendo does what Sony does when adding protection to their newer games. Newer games usually call functions from the newest firmware functions. If users aren't on the latest firmware, their isn't any possibility to run those functions in the game being called.
Forms of Anti Piracy are generic white screens and freezing (The most common), I say the Michael Jackson game has the best though.
 

Rydian

Resident Furvert™
Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2010
Messages
27,880
Trophies
0
Age
36
Location
Cave Entrance, Watching Cyan Write Letters
Website
rydian.net
XP
9,111
Country
United States
Can someone elaborate on the forms of Anti Piracy? It almost seems that Nintendo does what Sony does when adding protection to their newer games. Newer games usually call functions from the newest firmware functions. If users aren't on the latest firmware, their isn't any possibility to run those functions in the game being called.
Considering the DS and DS Lite don't have firmware updates, no.

The PSP and such already have functions to play games and run programs from the memory stick, CFW tricks and redirects the firmware to run whatever they want, and since the PSP is made to play games like that there's not an issue assuming they're on a supported firmware (which is most often the case). Lately however PSP games have started using other tricks (such as checking to see if there's some CFW files in flash0 to see if the PSP's modded), but that's not really an issue.

With the DS, it's meant to run games from the carts, and that's it. It expects the game ROM to be running from a specific piece of hardware. Flash carts are NOT that hardware, and have a different structure. So to make games run, flash carts automatically patch them so that they can run off of the MicroSD, and to make the saving functions work and all that jazz. This means that the way the games are running (and some of the data) is abnormal, and there's various ways to detect it. Doing a checksum on some data to see if it's been modified/patched or not and trying to poke non-game stuff to see what's up with it are common methods.

Kinda' like ways of detecting if you're in a dream or not. Go out of your way to toke random shit around you and see if it reacts the way it should. Oh, you're in your kitchen making a meal and you want to know if you're in a dream? Okay, distance yourself from the concept of the dream and go poke the neighbor's cat. The neighbor's cat just barfed up a car? Yeah, it's a dream, wake up.

In order to bypass the AP, it's generally a matter of automatically patching the games so that the checking routines return "all clear" when it's not all clear, or changing the flash cart software to start returning known non-game values it checks for.

This is about as simple as I could get, and even it's technically so-so as an explanation. ^^;
 

Sora de Eclaune

All our splendor...
Member
Joined
Feb 15, 2011
Messages
2,850
Trophies
1
Location
Home
Website
www.youtube.com
XP
1,192
Country
United States
Can someone elaborate on the forms of Anti Piracy? It almost seems that Nintendo does what Sony does when adding protection to their newer games. Newer games usually call functions from the newest firmware functions. If users aren't on the latest firmware, their isn't any possibility to run those functions in the game being called.
Considering the DS and DS Lite don't have firmware updates, no.
They mean kernel updates.
 

loco365

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2010
Messages
5,457
Trophies
0
XP
2,927
Can someone elaborate on the forms of Anti Piracy? It almost seems that Nintendo does what Sony does when adding protection to their newer games. Newer games usually call functions from the newest firmware functions. If users aren't on the latest firmware, their isn't any possibility to run those functions in the game being called.
Considering the DS and DS Lite don't have firmware updates, no.
They mean kernel updates.
Actually, Rydian is right here.

Just to add, when a DS game is issued, they are made to work with the latest firmware that is installed on the system. If it's designed to work on a DSi, it will only enable those system features on a DSi. So far, Nintendo has only released system upgrade-independent games on the 3DS and Wii. I don't think it'd be possible to update a Lite's firmware unless you use the method that is used on Flashme.
 

Zetta_x

The Insane Statistician
Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2010
Messages
1,844
Trophies
0
Age
34
XP
574
Country
United States
On different hardware, things get loaded in different memory regions. A sloppy emulation makes it really obvious when it is not in actual hardware. The game can easily check if it is loaded in correct memory regions and if it isn't - it is up to the developers what happens next.

To be honest, I accept piracy as an important part in the stability of the video game industry, if I was a game developer I would not hinder a player's progress by breaking the game, I would add humor. It is inevitable that a good enough game will eventually be able to be pirated, no point in not adding humor to it.
 

Hebon

Dabbling in the videogamagical
OP
Member
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
146
Trophies
0
XP
192
Country
United States
Is there a list of the different types of AP, and the ways of bypassing them?
Also, I'd love to see some videos of the more creative AP's. I can't seem to find any.
 

basher11

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Messages
4,385
Trophies
1
XP
551
Country
United States
I think One Piece Gigant Battle had 1 second battles as AP.
Yu-Gi-Oh! 2011 had AP where you couldn't advance through the story because the kids you were suppose to find weren't there.
Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver AP was pretty brutal as well; the game would freeze more and more after you get a gym badge.
As of now, those are the only ones I can think of.
 

Critica1

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
185
Trophies
0
Age
33
Location
CA
Website
www.onehitgamer.com
XP
161
Country
United States
In order to bypass the AP, it's generally a matter of automatically patching the games so that the checking routines return "all clear" when it's not all clear, or changing the flash cart software to start returning known non-game values it checks for.

These checksums are usually implemented by the 3rd party companies. I am assuming flashcarts get updates to patch over newer games? If flashcarts can "return known non-game values" then I guess anti piracy can be debugged pretty easily.
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: Pump the chocolate into my veins