Cheats in SMS/MD emulators

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.