Possible? NES games and endless lives (Pokes?)

top-specci

Hi,
I'm coming from the ZX-Spectrum there was an "optioN" to use pokes to habe (i.e.)unlimited lives.
Also on PC-emulator it's possible to enter these pokes. Than I save the game (as .tap or .z80) and can us ethese modified game in the RetroPie. Thats working!

Now I find some nice games for the NES, specially Donkey Kong (spend a lot of money $$$ €€€ in this arcarde game in the 90th ...)
Donkey Kong is running fine in RetroPie, but is it possible to have also in NES games (i.e.) endless lives etc.?
Are there also "pokes"?
What do I need, PC-emulator and ...

Thanks for hints, because I have NO experience wit NES ....

VictimRLSH

A hex editor. Some games have checksums, so it might be easier to hack your save states. The easiest way to do this is with a hex editor that will compare two files and show you the addresses that have different data.

Start your game, then save state.
Lose a life (or take whatever other action you want cheated, such as using items, etc.) then save to a different save state filename.
Run the editor compare to show the differences. Make note of the addresses that are different AND match your stats in both instances. If you had 20 pieces of cheese, saved state the first time, then ate 3 pieces and saved again, you'll be interested in the addresses that previously contained a 20 but now have 17. There may be more than one for the same stat.
Change all the instances of that count you found to a higher number with the editor, then save the file again.
Reload the save state into the game to see if it works. This might make the save state unstable. If so, try editing fewer of the locations that changed, you might have changed something that was coincidental and not the stat you wanted to cheat.

Learning to do this is a bit of an art form, but can be almost as much fun as playing the games.

mitu

@top-specci said in Possible? NES games and endless lives (Pokes?):

Are there also "pokes"?

Also knows as 'Cheats', the original NES had a special cartridge that would modify the memory by adding 'pokes' to games (see Game Genie).

If you're using a Libretro emulator for playing NES games on RetroPie, you can use the Cheats menu to load a specific cheat file. You'll have to download the Cheats first, and there seems to be one for DK, featuring infinite lives:
https://github.com/libretro/libretro-database/blob/master/cht/Nintendo - Nintendo Entertainment System/Donkey Kong 3 (World) (Game Genie).cht

You can also create your own 'pokes', as explained in the documentation page.

top-specci

Hi,Thanks for your hints!

I save some state file and find also some differents, some looks fine (because value reduced from 3 to 2 (one live lost), but not the expected result. Becasue when saving a state file after loosing a live, also a lot of other things happens. The ape moved, the barrels moved a little bit, .... als these will be saved also in the save file and make a lot of "differents" there ....
So this will take time to find the correct place in the state-file ....

I download now the Cheat.zip, this part was done.
But where is the Quick-menu? When pressing "Select-x", I reach the "Options: -jump -sort -filter ..."

And ;-)

"If you're using a Libretro emulator ..:"
I have the standard installation, is this emulator part from this? Or have I to download?

Have a nice sunday,
Martin

mitu

@top-specci said in Possible? NES games and endless lives (Pokes?):

But where is the Quick-menu? When pressing "Select-x", I reach the "Options: -jump -sort -filter ..."

The quick menu is part of the RGUI - the RetroArch in-game menu. What you're talking about is the Emulationstation menu.

"If you're using a Libretro emulator ..:"
I have the standard installation, is this emulator part from this? Or have I to download?

If you're using the standard RetroPie image, then you are already using a Libretro based emulator, so you don't have to download anything.

top-specci

@mitu said in Possible? NES games and endless lives (Pokes?):

The quick menu is part of the RGUI - the RetroArch in-game menu. What you're talking about is the Emulationstation menu.

When I open Retroarch from the "regular" menu (where I also see the diff.Emulators with their Games), it looks like the attached schreenshot. There is nothing with cheats :-(

Or must this Retroarch-Menu opened when playing a game, but there the button select-x is not working ...

mitu

@top-specci You need to enable the advanced menus, like it's explained in the documentation page I linked

If you haven't done so already, you'll need to enable the advanced settings by navigating to Settings >> User Interface >> Show Advanced Settings, then enabling the Online Updater in View >> Show Online Updater

top-specci

@mitu

OK, I had to reconfire my PS2 controler, now I reach the Menu inside the running game!

Now I get the cheats and found someone who is working with my Donkey Kong Version!
Thanks again!!

I also activate that the cheat should be applied while play load, but after first tests seems this is not working.
Should it work? I press "Apply" to confirm this selection.

The endless lives for the running game is working! But after close the game and start again, no endless lives anymore (habe to load a save state or load cheat again)

And:
Can I remove this screen while loading a game and (maybe) replace by a own (game specific) picture?

mitu

@top-specci said in Possible? NES games and endless lives (Pokes?):

The endless lives for the running game is working! But after close the game and start again, no endless lives anymore (habe to load a save state or load cheat again)

I don't use this feature at all, so maybe this is how it works - try saving a game override from the RetroArch menu and see if it's applied anytime you load the game.

And:
Can I remove this screen while loading a game and (maybe) replace by a own (game specific) picture?

You can configure this in the Runcommand scriptmodule - https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Runcommand/#configuring-runcommand.

top-specci

Thanks a lot for all this great support !!
I will check this ....

VictimRLSH

Hacking your own cheats take a lot of practice before you get a feel what to mess with, but becomes a game in itself. Wait until you are up to hacking inventory lists in PCXS2 save states, that is a confusing mess...

top-specci

Hi again, one more thing ...
I will use three emulators (Sinclar, NES, Amiga2600) and maybe 20 gamer/console.
I search and download manualy picture from these games and use them as launching pictures. Great!

Is it possible to use these pictures in "selection" menu also, actuall I only see the names from the games I installed.

I find an option to download automatically the rom-informations (Scraper)), but for my installed ROMS this found nearly nothing, because I renamed the Roms (maybe this is the reason that the tool ).

I already have the needed pictures, so is it possible to use these pictures in the screen like attached? Only the game name and the picture, no detailed informations date etc. ... ?

)

Or should I use the "original" (using scraper) way, but can I edit missing game information (picture, details like date, plattform) manually?

mitu

@top-specci said in Possible? NES games and endless lives (Pokes?):

I find an option to download automatically the rom-informations (Scramps?), but for my installed ROMS this found nearly nothing, because I renamed the Roms (maybe this is the reason that the tool ).

If you renamed them, then the scraper might not find them online to get the required information (images, description, rating, player #, genre, etc.). There are a few external scrapers that use the file contents to match this info - rather than the name.

As for you enquiry, Emulationstation stores the gamelist information(s) in a file named gamelist.xml, located in \\retropie\configs\all\emulationstation\gamelists\<system_name>\gamelist.xml. You can edit the file (it's an xml formatted file) and add the <image> tag containing the path to the game image.

You can also try using ARRM to edit the gamelist - see this topic.

top-specci

@mitu
OK, thanks, I will check ARRM.

So, there is no "simple" way to see a picture from (i.e.) Dig-Dug in the game selection menu if I move the cursor over the Dig-Dug game in the menu?

Thought like as it possible in the launching-picture option,
when a picture with same name exists as the rom-file has ... show this picture.

mitu

@top-specci said in Possible? NES games and endless lives (Pokes?):

So, there is no "simple" way to see a picture from (i.e.) Dig-Dug in the game selection menu if I move the cursor over the Dig-Dug game in the menu?

You can use Select to edit the game's metadata, including the path to the picture.

Thought like as it possible in the launching-picture option,
when a picture with same name exists as the rom-file has ... show this picture.

Now that you mention it, there is an option in Emulationstation to do that - it's named Search for Local Art, under the Other options.

I think it searches automatically the images/<ROM>-image.png or images/<ROM>-image.jpg files to show them as images.