Hacking R4 sav files explained

[xler8]

DsPet (http://www.aibohack.com) is the author of an Animal Crossing: Wild World save/map editor, AnimalMap. I wrote him to let him know that the R4's sav file (which AFAIK was an unknown format) could not be loaded by his program. He responded back with the following:

"It is a standard 256KB RAW save with an extra 256KB after it (filled with hex $FF don't ask me why) If you simply extract the first 256KB into a separate file, the ACMapEdit (1.7) will edit it."

-DsPet,

It works, so now we know about R4 (and "D3 Simply One" as wel, I assume) sav files.

How to edit your Animal Crossing sav file from an R4:

1) Start AC in your R4, create a character. You can save as soon as you walk out of your house and Nook talks to you. You will now have a 512kb sav file on your R4.

2) Trim the sav file's length to 256k. I did this using the free Hackman Hex Editor (http://www.technologismiki.com/prod.php?id=31). Select File / Change File Size. Change file size to 1/2 the amount, i.e. 80000 to 40000. Save the file. It will be 256kb.

3) You can now load the sav file in in AnimalMap, add bells and whatnot, Saved the file.

4) The R4 is expecting a 512kb sav file, so you have to increase the file length again. Open the file in Hackman Hex Editor. Select File / Change File Size. Change file size to 2x the amount, i.e. 40000 to 80000. (Technically, you should fill the last 256kb of the file with $FF, but I didn't need to in this case.) Save the file. It will be 512kb.

5) Copy the sav file back to your R4 and have fun.

---

HUGE thanks to DsPet for his help. Make sure to check out his site; he has a lot of great AC stuff there.

 

[Syntheticfish]

wow thanks! this is really useful

 

[mavis]

Yeah, you just trim the last 256K ...

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=41478

 

[xler8]

Yeah, you just trim the last 256K ...

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=41478

Well, crap. I thought I had found something new.

I thought that R4 SAVE-Transform.rar util was to convert other sav types to R4 - not the other way around. Anyhow, its great to have 999 million bells and the Famous Painting I needed in AC...

 

[mavis]

Well, crap. I thought I had found something new.Â

No worries, it's nice to see people contributing ...

 

[rodenti]

I wrote a windows script that automatically trims the R4 Animal Crossing save file using a freeware split program, opens up the map editor, and merges the files back to R4DS format automatically.

If you want the details I have posted the files you need to download and the instructions on the web at http://rodenti.vonetwork.com/AnimalMapR4.php

 

[rodenti]

I wrote a windows script that automatically trims the R4 Animal Crossing save file using a freeware split program, opens up the map editor, and merges the files back to R4DS format automatically.

If you want the details I have posted the files you need to download and the instructions on the web at  http://rodenti.vonetwork.com/AnimalMapR4.php

I recoded this utility from scratch in C to eliminate the reliance on external splitter programs and to also make it faster and more compatible than the previous versions.

You can download the new version from my site; it has been tested on Windows 2000 and XP but should work on other versions of windows.

If it works for you on a version of Windows that I have not tested (or doesn't work), please leave a comment on my site to let me know.