Hacking Custom Patches via CIA?

[soneek]

Someone had mentioned this to me months ago when I brought up the idea of 3iivolution. I'd like to be able to play custom music for Smash Bros., but I'd like to insert the new files as a custom patch, rather than building a full edit of the game. Has anyone worked on anything like this before?

 

[osm70]

It could work, but the game must be programmed to look for patches or DLC, so it wont work for all games.

 

[Oishikatta]

Custom patches have been used for, e.g. MH4G to duplicate items.

What you want is probably NTR's LayeredFS though. KARL will also probably have something like that if they release something. Anyways, check the NTR threads.

https://github.com/44670/layeredFS/wiki/manual

 

[soneek]

Custom patches have been used for, e.g. MH4G to duplicate items.

What you want is probably NTR's LayeredFS though. KARL will also probably have something like that if they release something. Anyways, check the NTR threads.

https://github.com/44670/layeredFS/wiki/manual

That's pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I'm unable to use that since I don't have a N3DS. That'll be useful for some of my friends though. I'd need a method that could be used alongside Gateway's emunand for now.

 

[Zidapi]

StapleButter is working on something similar to LayeredFS.

He's yet to comment on whether or not it'll be part of the KARL project, or released seperately (and hopefully earlier).

My guess would be that it will be part of KARL, and therefore still months away.

It could very well be done through Ninjhax though, so who knows.

See below for a quick comparison between LayeredFS and his project.

This sort of discussion is better suited for ROM Hacking, Translations and Utilities.

I can't come up with a good name, so... who cares.


So...

LayeredFS -- hooking the game's code
* Probably easier to implement
* Limited to replacing/adding files
* Might cause problems with ASM hacks in games
* Requires users to decrypt their game's ExeFS and rebuild the LayeredFS plugin for each different game. Although this could probably be automated (plugin auto-patching the game's code before the game runs, or someshit).
* More straightforward -- the hook comes into play when the game says "I want file X" so you already have the filename

My method -- hooking Process9
* Less straightforward -- the game will translate filenames to file offsets, and then the hook will translate file offsets back to filenames
* Probably harder to implement
* Limited memory; there isn't enough free memory to store a RomFS file table
* More possibilities, like patching the game's code (ASM hacks) or redirecting saves
* Once it's done, it should work for all the games that embed a standard RomFS filesystem
* Doesn't require decrypting ExeFS's -- ROM hackers will still need to get the game's files, but people who just want to try a hack they downloaded just have to place the provided files on the SD card and play (although it may also be the case with LayeredFS if the hack is provided with a precompiled plugin)
* Hooking Process9 is definitely cool!


As far as speed goes, they should be the same.