Hacking 3 questions regarding R4DS+YSMenu

[Governa]

Greetings,

This is my first post. I tried searching for my answers before but I couldn't find relevant info. I would like to thank you all in advance for your help and patience.

I own a Nintendo DS + an original R4DS. I recently replaced the latest official firmware (1.18) with a recent build of YSMenu which is running flawlessly.

3 questions arise:

1- I used to run what I believe was an ARM7 patched build of GTA Chinatown Wars. The game ran fine under firmware 1.18 and I have a SAV of my progress. When I changed the 1.18 for YSMenu, I replaced the patched GTA for a clean ROM of the game. The problem is the game runs fine if I don't use my previous SAV. If I do, the game hangs. Fortunately I can still use my old SAV if I use the ARM7 patched build of GTA. I would like to ask, is there any known way to maybe Hex Edit the old SAV so that the non-patched GTA can load it successfully? I assume the ARM7 patched version produces incompatible SAVs.

2- If I'm thinking correctly, there are 2 core components from YSMenu that can change over time: YSMenu itself and the latest DSTT firmware. In case one of these gets updated, do I have to repeat the whole R4YSauto process to generate a working firmware or I just need to convert the YSmenu.dat and/or replace the TTMenu with the most recent version?

3- What is the best ROM trimmer for me? I heard good things about the NDSTokyoTrim, do you recommend it for an R4DS+YSMenu combination? Do the ROM trimmers remove unneeded Languages and other game localizations?

 

[elixirdream]

1- I used to run what I believe was an ARM7 patched build of GTA Chinatown Wars. The game ran fine under firmware 1.18 and I have a SAV of my progress. When I changed the 1.18 for YSMenu, I replaced the patched GTA for a clean ROM of the game. The problem is the game runs fine if I don't use my previous SAV. If I do, the game hangs. Fortunately I can still use my old SAV if I use the ARM7 patched build of GTA. I would like to ask, is there any known way to maybe Hex Edit the old SAV so that the non-patched GTA can load it successfully? I assume the ARM7 patched version produces incompatible SAVs.

use the BackUp Activator/Game Fix Code from the gbatemp cheat database (CLEAN ROM)

 

[Governa]

use the BackUp Activator/Game Fix Code from the gbatemp cheat database (CLEAN ROM)

I am aware of that. The clean GTA ROM runs fine under YSMenu using the Backup Activator/Game Fix code but, as mentioned in my post, it will not load my SAV file generated when I was using the patched GTA for R4 firmware.

What I'm looking for is a way of making my old SAV load properly on a clean GTA ROM. I assume that the patched GTA generates SAV files in a slightly different way that renders them incompatible with a clean GTA ROM.

I expect some sort of Hex Editing of the SAV file will allow me to load it under a clean GTA ROM.

Anyone aware of such a possibility?

 

[elixirdream]

i can't help you on those

why not try play the game a little from emulator and then convert your emulator save to r4 save!
see it helps or not?

 

[Governa]

That's an interesting alternative.

I'll give it a try and report the results.

Cheers

 

[elixirdream]

I hope it helps and this is the place where you can convert your save http://www.shunyweb.info/

 

[Governa]

Oh thanks! I wrongly assumed most NDS emulators would have a SAV converter option.

I'll reply during this weekend once I find the time to try it.

Cheers

 

[Governa]

I have nailed down the problem to a bad GTA ROM. It seems the clean ROM I was using was not up to the standard.

After trying it with both a Mac NDS emulator and a Windows NDS emulator and seeing that both crashed when the ROM was loaded, I became suspicious and decided to try and download another clean ROM from another repository. And guess what, it works fine and is able to load my old SAV with no problems. Everything running smooth now.

 

[elixirdream]

Hip hip hooray

glad your problems solved