Hacking GBA .sav with AKAIO

[Goobaman]

I was reading somewhere that AKAIO inserts something additional into the save file of a GBA game that prevents it from loading onto VBA? I have a Mac, and so my sources seem to be limited as I never know where to find things, but a few GBA games that I started on AKAIO and wish to cheat on, won't load through VBA, even when the filetype is changed from gba.sav to plain .sav. If my first statement is correct, is there anything I can use on this trashy computer to get it work? Or am I SoL?



EDIT: Upon some research, I also found that the M3 flashcart allows for GBA cheats, but that they require patching? IS that something that I can accomplish on this computer??

EDIT v.2: Using a hex editor I found I was able to open the AKAIO save and compare it to a native VBA save. Worth a note, the AKAIO-made save is 132 KB, vs. the VBA's 128KB, but from there I got rapidly lost in the sea of hex, but thanks anyway AW, for the suggestion.

 

[Da-Bomb1]

http://www.gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=99334

Here, you should be able to patch roms with cheats using that.

 

[Goobaman]

Yeah, I know all about that, but that's not going to work on this, it's an exe file, windows-only, as mentioned above I have a Mac, and running Boot Camp on it doesn't seem to ever work. You got any info on the other parts of my post?? Namely, confirmation on what I read about AKAIO saves and the M3 Perfect deal? Thanks for your reply though, more thoughts never hurt.

 

[Another World]

the 1st 16 bytes of the akaio made gba save contain a header for akaio that other emus will crap out on. simply remove those 16 bytes using any hex editor app that runs on a mac (or unix if you are the new mac o/s and can use the unix shell).

-another world

 

[Goobaman]

That's all then? That's easy enough, I suppose.

How about the cheat patching issue for GBA Roms on M3 Perfect? Does the cart auto-patch the games or does that require a program that I most likely can't use?

 

[Da-Bomb1]

Haha, sorry, guess I wasn't paying enough attention. But it should patch it in the interface...I mean, if it's a marketed feature, chances are the cart can do it by itself.

 

[Goobaman]

Nonsense, you were nice enough to respond in the first place. Although, in retrospect, posting questions about the M3 Perfect on the Acekard forum wasn't the brightest move on my part. Thanks anyway, haha.

 

[Goobaman]

-Accidentally hit the post button several times, my apologies, guys.-

 

[Goobaman]

-Same as above.-

 

[Another World]

the m3 lite patches the rom for cheats when you flash it to the msd using the m3 game manager. the cheat files are seperate, i think it uses .cht files?

-another world