Hacking Widescreen cheats for DS games on 3DS

[Sono]

GBARunner2 also recently added native screen-swapping, so there's no pressing need for it on the TwlBg side any more.

If I remember correctly, unless the image is intact in the top-left corner then there is one frame delay for the image to be displayed. I just vaguely remember this, so I might be completely wrong.

However, swapping the screens just changes the memory location at where the DS framebuffer is stored 3DS-side, so it has zero latency, because I'm just changing where the image is stored in VRAM. It's completely passive, one-time swap. And it can also be done at will without any side-effects (tried it, and it only causes epillepsy, it doesn't crash TwlBg).

 

[AlterL]

Only DS mode is supported (including GBArunner2), because on GBA VC there is only one screen (the bottom screen is not part of the display), so the patch crashes.


The only problem with the screen swap patch is that it only works on a very specific version because I can't use pattern matching to find a pointer I need to swap the screen framebuffer pointers.

The above in ELI5 terms: I can't automate screen swapping, so it can only work on a specific version where it's tested working.


Also yes, homebrew can work if they can squish the 3D to fit more stuff, so it can be stretched out later.

thanks for the info. If it's not to much trouble, would you mind trying it with the DSVanias? I know the image will look stretched because they're 2d games when it changes to the topscreen, but I would really love to play it anyways. Also just wanted to say. thank you, been wanting to play Manhunt2 like this for years and you made it possible.

 

[Sono]

thanks for the info. If it's not to much trouble, would you mind trying it with the DSVanias? I know the image will look stretched because they're 2d games when it changes to the topscreen, but I would really love to play it anyways. Also just wanted to say. thank you, been wanting to play Manhunt2 like this for years and you made it possible.

Well, it's important to note that screen swap AND widescreen is not possible yet, because it's a LOT of hard work. Patching DMPGL (3DS' OpenGL driver) is really difficult due to compiler optimizations, and just generally lack of patch space. I have to get really creative with the patches.

 

[AlterL]

Well, it's important to note that screen swap AND widescreen is not possible yet, because it's a LOT of hard work. Patching DMPGL (3DS' OpenGL driver) is really difficult due to compiler optimizations, and just generally lack of patch space. I have to get really creative with the patches.

understood. I still would love to see it done (the topscreen change) If only for the it factor. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

 

[RocketRobz]

Submarine - Tech Demo

16:10 Widescreen for 3DS
920195A8 00001555
120195A8 00001999
D2000000 00000000

 

[gamemasterplc]

Over the Hedge

16:10 Widescreen for 3DS
9207CC88 00001547
1207CC88 00001988
D2000000 00000000

This game nicely has a separate widescreen code for the top and bottom screen but uses a weird value for aspect ratio.

 

[robyspy]

A friend has some problems with this game (Over the Hedge), he says that once a mission is over he is shown a green screen that says this: "impossible to write data, turn off the console, remove the DS card and reissue it" and has no way to continue with the game.
He says the first start of the game was regular, like other roms of this same game, but each of these roms always gives the same problem described above.
Other games work perfectly.
It has the TWLM++ updated (9.3) and starts in DS mode.
Any solution to help him?

 

[DSoryu]

A friend has some problems with this game (Over the Hedge), he says that once a mission is over he is shown a green screen that says this: "impossible to write data, turn off the console, remove the DS card and reissue it" and has no way to continue with the game.
He says the first start of the game was regular, like other roms of this same game, but each of these roms always gives the same problem described above.
Other games work perfectly.
It has the TWLM++ updated (9.3) and starts in DS mode.
Any solution to help him?

This thread is to discuss widescreen cheats related stuff only. For your issue, you should ask in TM++ thread here:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/ds-i-3d...-ds-i-games-and-ds-i-menu-replacement.472200/

 

[robyspy]

Yes I'm sorry, you're right, but I saw the opportunity to dive into this problem. I thought that if this game works in widescreen it could help me and that therefore the friend's problem is not because there is no AP patch file, but for some other obscure reason

 

[DSoryu]

Yes, you're sorry, but I saw the opportunity to dive into this problem. I thought that if this game works in widescreen it could help me and that therefore the friend's problem is not because there is no AP patch file, but for some other obscure reason.

AFAIK WS cheats have nothing to do with save issues.

The frontend (TWM++ in this case) is the one in charge of creating the save file with a correct size, and nds-bootstrap in charge of rewriting/reading save data properly. If there are issues with saves, then both the frontend and nds-boostrap could be involved.

 

[robyspy]

Yes thank you, I wrote now in the correct discussion, I hope Robz8 can help me.

 

[gamemasterplc]

Metroid Prime Hunters (USA)

16:10 Widescreen for 3DS
52110FFC E5991664
02110FFC E3A0109F
D2000000 00000000
5211C638 E59A1664
0211C638 E3A0109F
D2000000 00000000
52110820 00001555
02110820 00001999
D2000000 00000000

This game required three ASM patches for proper widescreen. The first one does the main widescreen. The second one patches the 3D to 2D positioning scale. The third one patches the culling plane widths.

 

[gamemasterplc]

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games

16:10 Widescreen for 3DS
52029E20 E59F10F0
02029E04 EA0136A6
D2000000 00000000
520778A0 73656C6B
020778A4 E3A02301
020778A8 E5922304
020778AC E2122902
020778B0 1A000001
020778B4 E3A04D66
020778B8 E2844021
020778BC E5864008
020778C0 EAFEC950
D2000000 00000000

This game required a small hook to patch the aspect ratio only when the top-screen is rendering 3D. There is another stretch value for some 2D elements at 0x20703E0 but that causes more graphical glitches than improvements when set properly for 16:10 causing fucked up alignment in several places and some squished bottom screen 2D elements.

 

[Vague Rant]

Wow @gamemasterplc, great to have somebody of your talent contributing codes, thanks!

Amazing to see Metroid Prime: Hunters done right--my earlier code was garbage. And Mario & Sonic looks incredible, widescreen and dual-screen, great stuff!

EDIT: I hope you don't mind, in the process of porting your codes to all the other regions, I abbreviated your Mario & Sonic code using the Action Replay E codetype. This allows writing out larger patches without specifying the address for each instruction, so every replaced instruction only takes four bytes instead of eight.

Original Code	Shrunken code
52029E20 E59F10F0 02029E04 EA0136A6 D2000000 00000000 520778A0 73656C6B 020778A4 E3A02301 020778A8 E5922304 020778AC E2122902 020778B0 1A000001 020778B4 E3A04D66 020778B8 E2844021 020778BC E5864008 020778C0 EAFEC950 D2000000 00000000	52029E20 E59F10F0 02029E04 EA0136A6 D2000000 00000000 520778A0 73656C6B E20778A4 00000020 E3A02301 E5922304 E2122902 1A000001 E3A04D66 E2844021 E5864008 EAFEC950 D2000000 00000000

 

[Vague Rant]

I don't know if it too much to ask, but a code for Final Fantasy 4 Heroes of Light would be really neat

I actually made one for this game a couple of weeks ago but didn't post it because it seemed relatively unsatisfying (overworld gameplay is all on the touch screen but battles are on the top screen). If you don't mind that most of the game won't actually be in widescreen I'll give it another look.

I've reached a point where I've started hacking games that run on the touch screen to swap them up to the top screen (Blue Dragon: Awakened Shadow, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Steal Princess), so I actually came back to 4 Heroes again to see what else could be done for it.

So now there's this. The code is very much untested, and currently only available for the USA version (at least until that one has been tested more than me running around the first town/overworld/cave), but anyone who wants to try it can find it in the first post, or for TWLMenu++ users, download the hack file attached to this post and put it in sdmc:/_nds/TWiLightMenu/widescreen. Don't forget to back up the original one in case this one works exactly as well as can be expected for a code I tested for about 5 minutes.

EDIT: As expected, this code doesn't work great currently; talking to any of the shopkeeper, inventory manager, wireless multiplayer assistant thing, etc. will flip the screens back. I'll fix this tomorrow.

EDIT 2: Code has been updated in the OP, tested up to the end of the first dungeon and ported to Europe/Japan. The version attached to this post is currently still the older broken one, give me a bit and I'll do a thing.

EDIT 3: The old broken code attached to this post has been deleted; you can find the current, working version attached to the OP.

 

[RocketRobz]

Pop Island - Paperfield (USA) (DSiWare)

16:10 Widescreen for 3DS
9202E6E4 00001555
1202E6E4 00001999
D2000000 00000000

 

[gamemasterplc]

Ducati Moto

16:10 Widescreen for 3DS
52010384 04000304
02010368 E1A00000
D2000000 00000000
92001C30 00001555
12001C30 00001999
D2000000 00000000

Flips screens in menus to prevent some problematic menus. Menus will be a bit weird as you can still touch them but have an option for button control. Trying to hook the aspect ratio is impossible as it only sets the hardware projection matrix once for the entire game.

 

[Pokem]

Does the fullscreen stuff work with an R4?

 

[Vague Rant]

@Pokem Assuming you mean widescreen, then yes, you can add any or all of the widescreen codes to your personal usrcheat.dat or similar file for your flash card and enable them like any other cheats. You will also need to patch your TwlBg using Sono's patcher to get the widescreen scaling effect.

 

[Pokem]

@Pokem Assuming you mean widescreen, then yes, you can add any or all of the widescreen codes to your personal usrcheat.dat or similar file for your flash card and enable them like any other cheats. You will also need to patch your TwlBg using Sono's patcher to get the widescreen scaling effect.

TwlBg?