Easy Guide for Cheats

[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

[PetroRie]

@sergioad said in Easy Guide for Cheats:

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

That would take a lot of time. Most cheat files don't contain all the cheats which can be found on the internet. I have no idea how they made all those files because there are so many of them.

[herb_fargus]

@PetroRie cheats are just slight changes to code with minor binary injections. You can pretty much have an infinite amount of cheats if you want

[sergioad]

Of course

[PetroRie]

@herb_fargus said in Easy Guide for Cheats:

@PetroRie cheats are just slight changes to code with minor binary injections. You can pretty much have an infinite amount of cheats if you want

Yup thats true. Couldn't we have a RetroPie cheat database in which users could add cheats to the .cht files and download them like they had on the the Wii. Something similar like this: http://geckocodes.org/

It would be also nice if RetroPie has a cheat making engine so we could make our own cheats.

[herb_fargus]

@PetroRie if there are any quality cheats they should be pushed upstream to libretro instead of being forked.

[backstander]

https://github.com/libretro/libretro-database/tree/master/cht