Hacking Rominator for NDS

[_mrshl_]

right the way a thought it would be

:

[my thoughts]
hm.. a ' and it does crash.. oh! wait! wasn't there something with sql the last time you hex-edited the settings - checking - right! very likely to be sql-related.
so having the hex editor open i could check how he stores the string - checking - oh |$| is the separator (or at least part of it).. looks weird. think it is self defined. must check how the program reacts! - checking - hehe, crashes, yes, that was right! ok, think i should give some suggestions - looking for other things.....
[/my thoughts]

well, i know that you often say that one should use a program in the right way, because not all bugs are only caused by the program when it just does what it should. here is just my philosophy of creating a program: make the user only be able to do what the program is supposed to do and rather avoid any crash than letting the user alone with a crashing program. so well the user should not do many things but it would be easier if the the user just could not do these things so that he/she does not have to think about it...
just my philosophy

.
[and btw: i don't think that one would really thing you want to hide something if you encode a string with base64

]

have a nice day!

mrshl

 

[hankchill]

right the way a thought it would be

:

[my thoughts]
hm.. a ' and it does crash.. oh! wait! wasn't there something with sql the last time you hex-edited the settings - checking - right! very likely to be sql-related.
so having the hex editor open i could check how he stores the string - checking - oh |$| is the separator (or at least part of it).. looks weird. think it is self defined. must check how the program reacts! - checking - hehe, crashes, yes, that was right! ok, think i should give some suggestions - looking for other things.....
[/my thoughts]

well, i know that you often say that one should use a program in the right way, because not all bugs are only caused by the program when it just does what it should. here is just my philosophy of creating a program: make the user only be able to do what the program is supposed to do and rather avoid any crash than letting the user alone with a crashing program. so well the user should not do many things but it would be easier if the the user just could not do these things so that he/she does not have to think about it...
just my philosophy

.
[and btw: i don't think that one would really thing you want to hide something if you encode a string with base64

]

have a nice day!

mrshl

I don't know why I didn't think of just disallowing the |$|, even if you do manage to get past the type-protection on the field

Now there's 3 levels of protection: Field-protection, replace-all protection, and String Disallowment protection

NOW you can't get past it

As mentioned, I'm going to start encrypting databases (only the settings and game lists). You need to remember though, even though you might design something that users should use the right way, NOTHING can stop someone from hex-editing a database, or opening it up in notepad and f***ing things up. It's basically the same thing. I can only do what I can and expect people don't mess around with the settings file, because obviously, you will crash it. However if the settings have been corrupted in any way then they will be reset to the factory default settings for the next version.

Thanks for your input _mrshl_, your feedback as always is excellent

Now go submit some reviews everyone!!

Regards.

 

[ryohki]

thanks for the reply hank! great tool! (the software, not you

)

 

[hankchill]

thanks for the reply hank! great tool! (the software, not you

)

My pleasure. I'll see what I can do about getting it to *not* crash with certain homebrews

Allright, I just tried loading in the Game & Watch Collection that people have been complaining about... It went in without a hitch. I placed the game inside my Games folder, and when I ran Rominator, it showed up on the list like normal. What are you guys doing differently? Your games aren't compressed, are they? Rominator doesn't support compressed games as of yet.

Anyways, I'm releasing an update to fix a couple issues tonight. It'll be available in just over an hour.

Changes:
• Fixed a bug that would allow the special delimited that separates the string replacers
• You can now edit the string replacements by double clicking on them, instead of deleting and adding a new one.
• Option to AutoSort Alphabetically or By Number
• If you ever experience problems with the settings not functioning, holding the Ctrl+Alt keys down while launching Rominator will allow you to reset to the factory default settings.

 

[Xelia]

Great!


Thanks for implementing the number auto-sort thing.

 

[F2a]

@Xcursion: v3.3 will change the way games are stored. They will be stored in a database for quick access, however each games still needs to be read for it's icon. I'm surprised it's working as fast as it is with how it has to read the DS Icons, and how many it has to read and show

Awesome can't wait for the database integration.

 

[Xcursion]

@Xcursion: v3.3 will change the way games are stored. They will be stored in a database for quick access, however each games still needs to be read for it's icon. I'm surprised it's working as fast as it is with how it has to read the DS Icons, and how many it has to read and show

That is great to hear. does it get the icons when the game is loaded or just when it is selected?

 

[hankchill]

@Xcursion: v3.3 will change the way games are stored. They will be stored in a database for quick access, however each games still needs to be read for it's icon. I'm surprised it's working as fast as it is with how it has to read the DS Icons, and how many it has to read and show

That is great to hear. does it get the icons when the game is loaded or just when it is selected?

It gets the icons as soon as the list is loaded. It's a lot nicer to browse through a list of games when you can see their icon rather than just text, and see the icon when clicking on the game -- Most people report to me that it helps them pick and choose games easier when there's an icon

Regards.

 

[NemesisHunter]

Hankchill, thx for the great updates!

Btw, would it be possible if you could allow trainer modifications to be updated unto the flash memory card when they are changed within it? For example, instead of having to recopy the entire rom back into the flashcard after having tweaked with the trainers, why not simply add the modified code directly into the flashcard during modification?

Also, it seems the save file system you implemented in version 3.2.1 doesn't backup our save files into our own directories. They don't end up in the directory I've placed them in, I've lost two save files because of it. I understand the "delete save file" function (which essentially tells the flashcard to delete the save file along with the rom), but the supposed "backup save file" is nowhere to be found o.O

 

[hankchill]

Hankchill, thx for the great updates!

Btw, would it be possible if you could allow trainer modifications to be updated unto the flash memory card when they are changed within it? For example, instead of having to recopy the entire rom back into the flashcard after having tweaked with the trainers, why not simply add the modified code directly into the flashcard during modification?

Also, it seems the save file system you implemented in version 3.2.1 doesn't backup our save files into our own directories. They don't end up in the directory I've placed them in, I've lost two save files because of it. I understand the "delete save file" function (which essentially tells the flashcard to delete the save file along with the rom), but the supposed "backup save file" is nowhere to be found o.O

I'm not sure if you've read any previous posts, but the backup saves are stored in a DATABASE now. Rominator handles databases much better than a million individual files. Basically, there is NO save backup location anymore -- it's a database inside the Rominator Data folder. Whenever you back up a save, it adds the save to the database, and can then be done whatever to (exporting, enabling, etc) from within Rominator whenever that game is highlighted.

Also, I'll work on something for direct file modification for the trainers -- shouldn't be too hard

Regards.

 

[NemesisHunter]

Oh I see what you mean now Hankchill. Instead of a directory storing our individual save files for each of our roms, you have created a distinct .rsd file in the Rominator Data folder that allows multiple save files associated with a single rom. Indeed nifty ^^. My only concern however is if something happens to our Rominator Data folder, our saves will be completely lost. It'd be nice to have some kind of backup (since we only hold one copy of our save files with the new system you've put in).

 

[hankchill]

Oh I see what you mean now Hankchill. Instead of a directory storing our individual save files for each of our roms, you have created a distinct .rsd file in the Rominator Data folder that allows multiple save files associated with a single rom. Indeed nifty ^^. My only concern however is if something happens to our Rominator Data folder, our saves will be completely lost. It'd be nice to have some kind of backup (since we only hold one copy of our save files with the new system you've put in).

Well you're more than able to export your save games to a backup location if necessary

What would happen to your Rominator Data folder anyways? Only thing I can think of is possible hard drive corruption, which would then make no matter where your backup saves are, useless

I can always add in a Save Backup system that would allow you to back up your save database to a USB drive or something like that

Regards.

 

[IBNobody]

Have you ever thought about mirroring the functionality of the DS-X Manager? I've read your arguments against zip support, but it sounds like your new cache system is on the cusp of doing exactly what the DSXM does.

The DSXM would scan through your entire ROM library, even through subdirectories, and index every file. It would extract Zips and Rars and index the contents. Everything, including the header AND the icon file would get stored in a database.

If you're considering a caching system, why not go that one step further?

(BTW: Shortfuse has a SourceForge page for the DSXM now...)

 

[Czeko]

Thanks for the hard work, Hank! the new save system is great, just a little bit confusing at first.

i just have a little request. when a rom gets deleted from the flash (and the .sav backup'd), the new .sav gets added to the rom's list of save, BUT the older save stays selected for copying... please make rominator select the newest .sav so thats the one that gets copied next time i flash that rom.

i thought that hotel dusk wasnt saving properly, but it was just rominator copying the same old sav.

also, please add hour and minute to the "date added" column in the save utility... i often flash/erase/flash a game during the weekends, and its going to be dificult to tell them apart when they have the exact same date.

thanks again

 

[hankchill]

Thanks for the hard work, Hank! the new save system is great, just a little bit confusing at first.

i just have a little request. when a rom gets deleted from the flash (and the .sav backup'd), the new .sav gets added to the rom's list of save, BUT the older save stays selected for copying... please make rominator select the newest .sav so thats the one that gets copied next time i flash that rom.

i thought that hotel dusk wasnt saving properly, but it was just rominator copying the same old sav.

also, please add hour and minute to the "date added" column in the save utility... i often flash/erase/flash a game during the weekends, and its going to be dificult to tell them apart when they have the exact same date.

thanks again

I'd rather leave the older save in there - it's up to you if you want to get rid of it or not. Besides, it would be *impossible* to tell which save to overwrite, especially if you have multiple saves for a game. I'll add an Hour/Minute display, as requested.

Sorry that it's a little confusing, I tried to make it really easy

I'm still working on documentation unfortunately -- and the docs may take a *little* longer, because I just picked up a new Wii

Regards.

Regards.

 

[NemesisHunter]

Thanks for the hard work, Hank! the new save system is great, just a little bit confusing at first.

i just have a little request. when a rom gets deleted from the flash (and the .sav backup'd), the new .sav gets added to the rom's list of save, BUT the older save stays selected for copying... please make rominator select the newest .sav so thats the one that gets copied next time i flash that rom.

i thought that hotel dusk wasnt saving properly, but it was just rominator copying the same old sav.

also, please add hour and minute to the "date added" column in the save utility... i often flash/erase/flash a game during the weekends, and its going to be dificult to tell them apart when they have the exact same date.

thanks again

I'd rather leave the older save in there - it's up to you if you want to get rid of it or not. Besides, it would be *impossible* to tell which save to overwrite, especially if you have multiple saves for a game. I'll add an Hour/Minute display, as requested.

Sorry that it's a little confusing, I tried to make it really easy

I'm still working on documentation unfortunately -- and the docs may take a *little* longer, because I just picked up a new Wii

Regards.

Regards.

Hankchill, I believe what Czeko is trying to say is that he doesn't mind the multiple-save instances. What he wants modified with the save manager is some form of auto-selection (checking) of the backed-up save file whenever a game gets deleted from the flash memory card. He said that whenever he tried copying a particular rom into the flash card, it only transferred the older, checked save file, rather than the recently backed up save.

To sum it up, he's asking you to make Rominator auto-check the latest save file that has been backed up, so as to avoid older save files from reentering the flash card when the rom will be retransferred into the memory card.

 

[hankchill]

Thanks for the hard work, Hank! the new save system is great, just a little bit confusing at first.

i just have a little request. when a rom gets deleted from the flash (and the .sav backup'd), the new .sav gets added to the rom's list of save, BUT the older save stays selected for copying... please make rominator select the newest .sav so thats the one that gets copied next time i flash that rom.

i thought that hotel dusk wasnt saving properly, but it was just rominator copying the same old sav.

also, please add hour and minute to the "date added" column in the save utility... i often flash/erase/flash a game during the weekends, and its going to be dificult to tell them apart when they have the exact same date.

thanks again

I'd rather leave the older save in there - it's up to you if you want to get rid of it or not. Besides, it would be *impossible* to tell which save to overwrite, especially if you have multiple saves for a game. I'll add an Hour/Minute display, as requested.

Sorry that it's a little confusing, I tried to make it really easy

I'm still working on documentation unfortunately -- and the docs may take a *little* longer, because I just picked up a new Wii

Regards.

Regards.

Hankchill, I believe what Czeko is trying to say is that he doesn't mind the multiple-save instances. What he wants modified with the save manager is some form of auto-selection (checking) of the backed-up save file whenever a game gets deleted from the flash memory card. He said that whenever he tried copying a particular rom into the flash card, it only transferred the older, checked save file, rather than the recently backed up save.

To sum it up, he's asking you to make Rominator auto-check the latest save file that has been backed up, so as to avoid older save files from reentering the flash card when the rom will be retransferred into the memory card.

Ohhhhh I get it

Sure I can have it autocheck!

Regards.

 

[Czeko]

thanks! sorry for my weird english

 

[fli_guy84]

Yes, that feature would be really helpful

 

[Dooz]

Ever since I updated from the first release of Rominator, I haven't been able to get it to work right. From now on, it always opens like this: http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t41/doo...minatorprob.jpg . The menus all work, but that's about it.