Cheats in SMS/MD emulators

PetroRie

I'm having the same problem here. My cheats work in NES, SNES and PSX emulator. It has to be the Genesis emulator. Lr-FBA-Next has the same issue.

sega guru

@deusxm I found a way to enable cheats on Genesis-Plus-GX . Download a sega genesis pro- action replay rom the only one I got to work was a Europe version make sure your game rom is a Europe version as well. I have the retropie 3 so wi fi is enabled. Go to your pc , open file exployer and click network your pc will recognize your retropie right click and open. Now open your bios folder and add your pro-action replay rom to it this will actually act as the bios for the action replay . You may not have to but I restarted emulation station went to my sega mega drive emulator chose the game I wanted (again make sure its a Europe rom) I chose the Genesis-Plus-GX because I couldn't find a way to make Picodrive work. Soon as I started game I went to RetroArch in game menu clicked on quick game menu scroll down and choose options in this menu on your cartridge lock-on which will initially be disabled change that to action replay( pro ) now go back go to cheats click on cheat file load and scroll down to genesis and choose pro action replay then find your game cheat and enable the cheat(turn on) then apply cheat changes. Go back chose restart than resume your game will start with cheat you chose!!!

wetriner

I'm not really sure what's going on with lr-genesis-plus-gx, but I got Batman on megadrive/genesis on working with cheats without changing the core option to cartridge lock-on the action replay(pro) or putting the Action Replay rom into the bios. Just by loading the game, loading cheats, applying cheats, reseting, and it worked. I did have to go through quite a few games to find one that did work, however.

In the code for lr-genesis-plus-gx, it has implementation for a file called areplay.bin to serve as a bios. Found here. So I'd imagine if it is actually using it for megadrive/genesis, that's what it would have to be named.

In the lr-picodrive code, the retroarch cheat functionality doesn't seem to have been implemented thus far. Found a TODO note here.

sega guru

I was messing around with Genesis- Plus-GX and believe it or not I chose action replay and typed in a genesis game genie code and it worked it was an official code and it doesn't matter what game cheat you choose on a genesis rom it went through!...

sega guru

I started sonic the hedgehog chose Sega Genesis chose Pro Action replay picked a cheat from another game but didn't turn it on just inputed game genie code for infinite lives restarted and resumed and code went through then when you exit out of emulater go back to game check your codes there still the same , so you can actually look up codes and input them and they will work....very strange.

sega guru

I think instead of choosing cheats retronarch gave us im gonna input cheats myself and see how this works.

tonibdll

so, after all this time, any solution for the case had come up? I still see that GameGenie is not working for Sega roms, and on the suggestion of Sega Guru I got stuck in " scroll down and choose options in this menu on your cartridge lock-on which will initially be disabled change that to action replay( pro ) " , as long as I didnt find any "cartridge lock-on" in the menu.

MLC4050

Guys, thanks for your help - I was able to get both the Game Genie and Pro Action Replay working through the lock-on method. Sega Guru and wetriner's posts got me 90% the way there.

Tested with Genesis-Plus-GX, RetroPie 4.1
Googling, you can find US versions of both the Game Genie and Pro Action Replay roms. The files must be .bin, NOT .md for this to work. (.bin is slightly harder to find than .md).
As wetriner mentioned, the liberto source code shows the specific file name GX is looking for the lock-on files: areplay.bin for Action Replay Pro, and ggenie.bin for Game Genie. Rename your .bin files to match, and place these into the bios folder as sega guru mentioned.
Start a game and in RetroArch, go to quick menu->options, arrow down to lock-on, and hit right/left to select either game genie or action replay (pro), depending on which cheat device you want to use.
When you load a new game, the respective game genie/action replay screen will load, and you can manually enter cheat codes, old school style. These codes can be found pretty easily with a google search.
I verified this works with US/JPN roms, using the US versions of both Game Genie and PAR.
Bonus tip that had me puzzled for a bit, Contra Hard Corps (USA) requires a 'master' code with Game Genie that is somewhat difficult to find, otherwise you will get a red screen of death.

Hope this helps, cheers

castlemj

@MLC4050 Thanks a lot, that was very helpful. I couldn't get cheats to work for Genesis before I found your post--as others have mentioned, the built-in cheats menu doesn't seem to work for Picodrive or Genesis-Plus-GX as it does for other emulators.

I didn't try AR, but Game Genie with Genesis-Plus-GX works perfectly for me after following your instructions. Nice that the USA version of Game Genie seems to work for all regions, too. Thanks again

MLC4050

@castlemj
Glad to hear my Saturday morning of googling/ suffering was able to help you at as well.

viking.hellfire

@MLC4050 I'm new to this...I don't fully follow you. Any chance you could break this down simple and sweet? Thanks for your time. I appreciate your help.