Easy Guide for Cheats

herb_fargus

So I never used cheats before so I figured I'd give it a go. I didn't like the hodgepodge guides I found so I found a very simple direct approach and wrote up another wiki page. You can see it here:

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Cheats/

mediamogul

@herb_fargus

Very succinct for what is normally a fair amount of information. Nice work.

PetroRie

About the Multiline Cheat Codes, if a cheat exists of 2+ codes each code needs to be added separately or else it wont work properly. Its not only with the PSX but with all systems, this drove me crazy and took me so long to figure out. Could this be a bug???

Now the problem is when you download the cheat files via the RGUI menu, many of them will contain multi line cheat codes in one code. So codes wont work, they need to be edited out.

Don't you need to set up a cheat directory file in the main retroarch.cfg? (cheat_database_path) I placed mine in the rom directory so I can acces the cheat files easily trough SMB. If you want you can add the following mini guide I quickly wrote below.

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First we need to setup a directory for the cheat files. We need to create one first, we'll make one into the ROMS folder so we can acces and edit our cheat files easily trough SMB. So go to:

/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/

Or if you're on Windows you can do it trough SMB which is easier in my opinion. In that case just go to:

\RETROPIE\roms

Once you're here we need to create a new folder. Lets create one and name it CHEATS. Now we need to add this directory to the main retroarch.cfg file. Go to:

/opt/retropie/configs/all

Or if you're on Windows:

\RETROPIE\configs\all

Open the retroarch.cfg file and search for cheat_database_path and add the directory between the " " so in our case its going to look like:

= Path to cheat database directory.
cheat_database_path = "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/CHEATS/"

Note: you cannot use the SMB paths you need to use the local paths of the directory. Save the file and happy cheating!

Now you can acces the cheat files right trough SMB which is a must for Windows users. It's going to be much easier to edit the cheat files trough your computer.

Dochartaigh

There seems to be 3 cheat systems: Action Reply, Game Genie, and GameShark. Do we have to specify which code system we're using in the .CHT file somewhere?

And we would just go an lookup those original codes which used to come in the little manual that came with a Game Genie for example, right?

herb_fargus

@PetroRie no you don't need to set up a cheat directory. That's thinking too hard.

There is already one in

/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/cheats

You load the files through the RGUI so there is no need to set the cheat path if you use the default one already provided.

As far as the multiline cheats if they don't work (which I confirmed last night) then those will need to be fixed in their respective cores.

Eg:

https://github.com/notaz/pcsx_rearmed/issues/80

herb_fargus

@Dochartaigh there are also others (see chart on docs) but yes those tend to be the main ones.

How RetroArch does it is they specify the type of cheat in parenthesis in the filename, though it is not required in order to work. Just keeps things nice and tidy. The only difference in cheat files are the code types and it should recognise those automatically if they are supported.

There are of course more detailed nuances when creating your own cheat files, some are explained on this openemu guide which I got the chart from:

https://github.com/OpenEmu/OpenEmu/wiki/User-guide:-Cheat-codes

backstander

@herb_fargus

There is already one in
/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch/cheats

Isn't there a user local version here?
~/.config/retroarch/cheats/

hooperre

@herb_fargus Think it may be prudent to include that cheats with lr-picodrive are hit and miss at best. Thanks for the addition, Herb.

herb_fargus

@backstander it's symlinked to the path I referenced above which SHOULD make it accessible through samba by default. None of this extra folder creation nonsense.

Code reference:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/emulators/retroarch.sh#L88

herb_fargus

@hooperre but of course, no system is perfect ;)

I'm sure the RetroArch team would probably appreciate proper patches or updates to the cheats. I'm not sure of the process for it or what their requirements are but if you find any improvements that can be added to the main code so everyone could benefit I'm sure everyone would appreciate it.

backstander

Thanks @herb_fargus for updating the Cheats section and the new Docs are looking sharp!

I've always been kind of unclear how to exactly use the cheats but what @PetroRie said about the Multiline Cheat Codes bug, this makes since to me (especially with PSX games). I've never got PSX cheats to work and even tried typing in my own but I was putting them on the same line. I'll have to revisit this when I get a chance :-)

markwkidd

@herb_fargus said in Easy Guide for Cheats:

@hooperre but of course, no system is perfect ;)

I'm sure the RetroArch team would probably appreciate proper patches or updates to the cheats. I'm not sure of the process for it or what their requirements are but if you find any improvements that can be added to the main code so everyone could benefit I'm sure everyone would appreciate it.

In my experience libretro-database is very welcoming to Issues and even moreso to Pull Requests. That's where the cheat files are based.

Edit: Except for the MAME cores, which use their internal cheat engines.

hooperre

@herb_fargus @markwkidd IIRC, when I looked into why cheats weren't working with Picodrive a while back, it seemed like it was an issue with Picodrive itself, not so much the LibRetro core. I just thought that info might be useful to include in the wiki to avoid a bunch of "SEGA GENEISIS CHEATS NOT WORKING" threads that seem to flood r/retropie.

PetroRie

@hooperre The cheats do work with lr-genesis-plus-gx but a while back they didn't work either on the lr-genesis-plus-gx. If you want to use cheats use the lr-genesis-plus-gx emulator. DGen does support GameGenie codes but I could never figure it out. I will check out the version of my lr-genesis-plus-gx emulator later.

@herb_fargus: Can't we have cheats for the lr-fbalpha?

@backstander: even if you add them like I mentioned, sometimes the cheats will still cause the game to glitch. I was playing Legend of the Dragoon (PSX) I had a multi line cheat so all my characters cannot die. On the PSP the cheat works fine, on my PC it works fine but not on the lr-pcsx-rearmed emulator. The enemy couldn't die either. This is definitely a bug.

With same game I tried an another cheat, with this code one character has unlimited HP (its an RPG game), the code ends on 270F(hex) which is 9999 in decimals. On the PC it works fine, on my PSP same story but not on the lr-pcsx-rearmed emulator. The HP still decreases but when you start a new fight you have 9999HP again. I played with the value and it worked after I changed the value of the health from 270F(hex) to FF(-1). Kinda strange because in game it displayed 0HP but I still couldn't die at all. The code wouldn't work anymore if I used anything in battle to restore the health. This rarely happens but if you have a problem like this, try to change the value to FF and see how that works out. It's not the perfect solution but so far its all we got lol.

This is definitely a bug, probably the codes don't get injected in memory properly.

herb_fargus

@hooperre I'm pretty sure the cheat I tested last night with sonic and knuckles was with lr-picodrive and it worked fine. So idk. Might have just been a faulty cheat code on your end

AlexMurphy

@herb_fargus Are you intending to add a guide for MAME cheats? A lot of people would appreciate it I'm sure. It's relatively straightforward to enable in the libretro MAMEs but requires editing configs in the non-lr MAMES.

AlexMurphy

@herb_fargus Hey, sorry Herb! I see the instructions are on the MAME setup pages. Maybe stick a link in at the bottom, just a thought.

herb_fargus

@AlexMurphy sure thing. I don't really use mame so i didn't know.

I'll update it when I get back to my PC.

hooperre

@herb_fargus Ah fair enough. Thanks for letting me know.

sergioad

Or... Why not fork the RetroArch cheats repo and make the necesary changes? Will be hard to have it up to date with the original repo but due the fact that many systems has more than 20 years with not oficial support it would not be as hard as with an active system