ROM Hack A couple of questions about rom hacking

[ashxu]

1. Can anyone explain how hex works? i've been following this
and i got confused at:

Decimal = Hex
20 = 14
30 = 1E
50 = 32
100 = 64

2. Which one is easier to hack? GBA or DS? I mean with only a couple of programs and hex, not a crapload of programs like Pokemon.
3. Do NDS sprites tend to have small palettes? GBA sprites have 16 colors available, so it's a pain in the ass to work around it.
4. Are hacking GBA and DS roms similar? Is there much of a difference?

Thanks in advance

PS: I do realize there is a giant documentation but i can't make heads or tails of it.

 

[DarthNemesis]

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal
2. DS, it has a filesystem and is generally more flexible
3. 16 or 256
4. No

 

[ashxu]

Thanks for the reply

So DS isn't just a huge chunk of code, as in it may have files like "SPRITES" "MAPS" etc. if you look into the rom? Would Advance Wars 4 use 256 colors?

and on the 4th answer, do you mean DS and GBA hacking are completely different?

Wiki article doesn't help much, i already looked at it before.

 

[ashxu]

This may be asking too much, but what tools should i get? (for DS hacking) I've already got a hex editor (Hexecute)

 

[rastsan]

crystaltile2, dsbuff, emeditor, uestudio....
crytaltile 2 has a variety of functions very useful (language code page, graphical hacking compression decompression, and a crap load more)
ds buff well look it up
emeditor for its reload in language character function amonst other stuff

 

[megawalk]

ds buff is used to decompress a .nds file into a folder.
same goes for ds lazy tho
anyways there are different kinds of compressions that can vary from
.txt to lz77 or even stored text documents
there are even graphical text which if i recall right is a font
font translations can differ from easy to very very difficult
its what you have learned and what rom you use that depends on whether you can do it or not
but basically you should start simple before going into something more advanced that goes above your knowledge. if you don't know what is what then study it up and try to google some results, maybe you can find your things there (Mostly if not likely) also start at romhacking.net for documentary entries (Guides so said) to learn to understand what to do with what.

 

[ashxu]

Okay will do, thanks for you help guys. I'm attempting to do a full conversion of a game, and i want to crawl before i can walk.