Hacking Action Replay and M3 Sakura

[slothsminion62]

Hi. I'm new to Action Replay.

I play Pokemon Fire Red on M3 Sakura, and I want to use Action Replay codes on my game. I have 2 options: Upload Action Replay Codes to Sakura, or play the game on NO$GBA with the codes, then put the game back on Sakura. I have no knowledge on how to do the first, and I don't understand what's wrong when I try the second. In order to get my Fire Red game to work on Sakura at all, I had to SRAM patch the rom and make NO$GBA create a battery file to put on Sakura (Although my save ultimately loaded, it said the recent save was corrupted and loaded the previous one)(see this thread for more information). I played the rom on NO$GBA with Action Replay codes, saved it a few times, and exported a new battery file to Sakura, but when I loaded the game, it said the save was corrupted and loaded the previous one, which was before I used any Action Replay codes. I do not know why this battery-export method worked before and not now. I had a theory that the problem is related to the .is0, .sgn and .opt files. I tried removing them and starting the game without them, but the result was the same.
A note: I use GBA ExpLoader v0.53 for GBA roms.

 

[powered_by_tux]

Do you use an official M3 GBA Expansion with Sakura? If so, you don't need to use GBA ExpLoader at all, you can load GBA games directly from Sakura menu and utilize the GBA cheat function. However, the cheats of the default GBA cheat database are all in chinese/japanese (I cannot even tell), so good luck figuring out what they do. Somebody has done a partial translation but last time I checked, it was not even remotely complete. See this Wiki how to upload the GBA cheats by yourself, it requires a bit of work.

As for the save game problem, you should generally not SRAM patch ROMs. This can even break save game functionality on some games, notoriously Pokemon. Either GBA ExpLoader or Sakura will apply patches to clean ROMs on-the-fly. If you want to use NO$GBA saves on your M3 GBA Expansion, make sure the saves have the appropriate size. See this thread for more information about how to convert saves.

 

[slothsminion62]

First of all, I was wrong when I kept saying I'm using NO$GBA (I used to). I'm actually using VisualBoyAdvance.
Yes, I am using the official M3 GBA Expansion.

See this thread for what happened before with unpatched roms.

I got an unpatched rom and loaded it on VBA, but it said "The 1M-Circuit Board is not installed" and started a new game.

On M3 Touchpod, the unpatched rom patch-loaded after 3-4 minutes, but it cannot read my savegame from the SRAM-patched rom. Instead, it says "You're game was deleted..." and starts a new one. I deleted that rom and put in a fresh rom with my savegame and set it to Fast-Load, and it loaded quickly, but said "The 1M-Circuit Board is not installed" and started a new game. I made and saved a dummy file. On Sakura, the results were the same for the fast-load, but the message was different on patch-load. It said, "The save file is corrupted. The previous save will load", and it loaded the dummy save. I used the same rom again on Sakura and Touchpod, and then on GBA ExpLoader. All same results.

Any way to get my save to work? I won't start over; I've beaten the game except for the 2nd defeating of the Elite Four.

 

[powered_by_tux]

I got an unpatched rom and loaded it on VBA, but it said "The 1M-Circuit Board is not installed" and started a new game.

Were you trying to load a savegame here? What is the file size of the savegame file (extension .sav) in KB?

As stated in the topic I linked to, some games need their savegames to be 128 KB in size to be properly loaded in VBA, Pokemon being the most prominent example. M3 Sakura even wants ALL savegames to be exactly that size. If the file size is smaller than 128 KB, then it won't recognize your game. You will have to manually expand the file, refrain to the previously mentioned topic for respective instructions.

 

[slothsminion62]

1. I used the converter from the other thread, and it didn't work on Touchpod or Sakura. It says "The save game has been deleted..."
Something else: This entire time on VBA, in the emulator options the save format is 128K. It also said it was 128Kb on the M3, but the computer says the file is 64K. I loaded the save that was fixed to 128Kb and saved on VBA, and it saved the game as a 64Kb. So I loaded a new file fixed to 128Kb and exported a battery file from it, and that was 64Kb also.


2. I have anothe seperate problem. Starting now, I will designate info about Fire Red as (1.) and this info as (2.). I want to play a new game of Pokemon Emerald on M3, and when I load it, it says, "The internal battery has run dry. The game can be played. However, clock-based events will no longer occur." How do I fix this on M3?

 

[powered_by_tux]

1. Could you upload or send me the unconverted Fire Red save file?

2. I have little experience with this problem. This has occured to me with the GBA ExpLoader + EZ 3-in-1 but not yet with the M3 GBA Expansion on Sakura. Maybe the battery of your expansion has really run dry, you should search for threads with similar problems. According to some posters, the battery recharges if you have the expansion inserted while charging the DS. If that does not help, you will have to replace the battery.

 

[slothsminion62]

1. Here it is on wiki.gbatemp.net:
http://wiki.gbatemp.net/w/images/9/9e/Fire_Red.SAV

2. Yes, charging it fixed the problem. Thank you!

 

[powered_by_tux]

Please test, if this is working for you: http://filetrip.net/f12962-Fire_Red-1-0.html

For the record, I loaded the save in VBA (ignore white screen), set the save size to 128K and close VBA. The save file should now have been strechted to 128 KB. Re-open VBA and load your save game (ignore the corrupted save message). Once in game, save and exit. From now on, the message will not show again. On your M3, make sure .is0 and .opt files exist for Fire Red. If they do not, they are created by opening the respective GBA configuration dialog (press X). Finally, load your save game back to your M3 and start the game (clean ROM, patch load).

 

[slothsminion62]

I loaded it. There was no "corrupted save" message. The .is0 and .opt files exist. I patch-loaded the ROM and it worked. Thank you!


Now how do I get the Action Replay codes to work on gba? I would also like to know how to work them on DS games, please.

I read that page on the M3 wiki, and it does not explain how to use codes with more than two lines, so it did not help much.

 

[powered_by_tux]

For DS cheats, the latest firmware comes with a pretty extensive database already. These instructions are for Sakura: go to the configuration dialog of a DS game. Under "Cheat Switch" select an option other than "Off". Touch "Select Cheats..." and touch every cheat you would like to have enabled. Keep in mind that there might be a delay before the cheat effects come into effect. Also when you soft-reset during a game, cheats will stop working until you restart the hardware. If there are no cheats for a game and/or would like to manually add cheats, you must use Yasu's R4 CCE to create a file with cheats and load this file in the game's config dialog. Note that the editor is in Japanese, but it comes with instructions how to change the language to English.

GBA cheats do not come with the M3 firmware, you have to download an archive from here, extract it and put the files somewhere on the cart. In the GBA configuration dialog, load the respective .cht file for this game and don't forget to enable cheats. Start the game and right after the GAMEBOY logo, a menu pops up which lets you select what cheats to enable. Again, you can create the cheat files by yourself, however there is no snappy graphical editor this time. You can create them with a text editor, I suggest you take a look at files from this archive how they are structured (and the wiki, of course). You can even hack or convert existing cheats for a game, Codebreaker codes are particularly easy to convert to M3 format.

 

[slothsminion62]

There were no cheats for the game I wanted (Pokemon Soul Silver), although a Soul Silver.cht was created. The Fire Red ones from the website were in I think Chinese, so for both, I'll just make my own codes.

Do I have to put cheats in a specific folder?

I made a cheat file for Fire Red, but it doesn't work. I tried loading my save on vba and using cheats there. It has the same problem as before with changing to a 64Kb save. I did what you said above to open it and stretch the file, etc., but the file never stretches. I will try JHexTool on it again...it gave the "corrupt save" message, and loaded my save at a spot I never saved at! It loaded at the time right before I loaded Action Replay codes on VBA.

 

[powered_by_tux]

You can put cheats in any folder on the card. What matters is that you link a game to the equivalent cheat file. This is not necessary if you always get the latest firmware. I suspect the latest version has cheats for US Soul Silver, too. Also when creating cheat files, remember that GBA and NDS cheats are differently structured.

Could you specify what exactly does not work in Fire Red? Don't you get the cheat selection menu to pop up? Or does the menu show but the enabled cheats have no effect? Do you have created the cheat file yourself or did you use a pre-existing from the archives I linked to? Just to make sure, try cheats in another GBA game.

For the save game problem, try VBA-M, an enhanced version of VBA. At least on Linux, the save file was fixed by exerting the steps in my previous post.

 

[slothsminion62]

I have the latest Sakura v1.48.

On Fire Red, the cheat selection menu came, and I enabled the master codes and others, but they had no effect.

I got VBA-M, and the .sav file still does not stretch. I put it on my M3 anyway and there was no error or "corrupt" message at the beginning. I loaded the save and it loaded at the spot right before I used Action Replay codes. I think it has something to do with the codes.

So the save loads at a different spot on M3 than on VBA, and both do not show a "corrupted save" message or any other message.

 

[powered_by_tux]

Well, I think I have found the reason for the non-working codes. Pokemon Fire Red, as all Pokemon games for GBA, uses random memory addresses to render traditional cheat codes useless. There exists an anti DMA code in CodeBreaker format but I have not been successful at converting it to M3 format (a Google search resulted that nobody was). I am not even sure M3 is capable to apply such a code. You can however still use codes on VBA, you would have to enable the anti DMA code along other codes.

 

[slothsminion62]

I have no problem using the codes on VBA, the problem is when I try to put the save on M3. When I gave you my save, I had used codes on it already, and when you gave the fixed save to me, it worked on M3 with the effects of the codes. I had used the codes for extra items and pokemon.

I also discovered I can use DS cheats on desmume and export a working save to use on M3.