How did this work? More specifically the nes version. Always

>>3955287
Someone looks at the game coding when the player has 2 lives... the code they see is 00000002.

They die one life and they take a look at the code which has changed to 00000001...

By using that they now know if they type 00000099 into the code they will have 99 lives.

Very dumbed down version

N64 had the best AR carts. Goldeneye unlocks included everything from Sean Connery to Cradle multiplayer.

>>3955302
You shouldn't try explaining stuff to people if you have no idea because that's not at all how the Game Genie works.
You explained RAM modification. The GG exclusively modifies ROM.
An NES GG code basically decodes into an Adress, a compare value (optional) and a modification value.
The GG is basically able to modify single bytes of the ROM that is read from the cartridge to the console, therefore altering the code of it basically.
The adress tells it what byte to modify, the optional compare value makes it check if the given byte at the adress is the given byte and if no compare value is given or if the byte at the adress matches the compare value, then the GG overwrites said byte with the modification value.
By doing that you can for example simply edit a simple ASM instruction from SUB to ADD and make the players life increase instead of decrease when dying and a whole lot of other stuff.
Now there are also a lot of more modern devices and I think even a pretty rare one for the famicom that came out sometime after the 2000s called the "xtreme commander classic" that do modify RAM so the other guy isn't completely wrong but all GG devices strictly modify ROM.

If it's ROM then wouldn't the value read always be the same? So then why bother with the comparison part, since that would mean the comparison would always fail or always succeed?

>>3955340
>modify
>rom
>read only memory
>burned into the cartridge

Truly you are a dumb shit.

>>3955349
for finding new codes

>>3955383
not him but he is correct. The gg sits between the system and the cart.

>>3955383

He's right. Pro action replay can do both, btw.

>>3955383
Damn you're retarded

>>3955383
Except that he's correct. That's exactly how it works. Truly you are a dumb shit who has no idea how any of this hardware works.

ITT: In a desperate attempt to fit in, retards try too hard instead of lurking and post about shit they don't understand. They promptly get BTFO. Top keks ensue.

>>3955324
That doesn't have anything to do with the console, it's just that one game happened to have a lot of dummied out content.

>>3955340
Ooh didn't know that. Pretty sure it was the N64 Game Shark that did constant writes to RAM to "freeze" values.

>>3955874
That's fucking sad you're so retarded you think only one person on the internet notices you're retarded

>>3955891
Seriously dude blatant samefagging like that will get you banned don't do it.

>>3955340
>an NES

>>3955893
If you pronounce it ENN-EEE-ESS as most people do the 'an' is correct you dumbfuck

>>3955386

The function of the comparison, if I understand right, is to make lots of codes do nothing instead of doing something. How does that help people find new codes?

I guess if you knew you wanted to change a SUB to an ADD then you could try only codes that worked on SUB; the comparison would enable this. But I dunno, it's hard to imagine knowing that... I guess it makes sense though. It's just a terribly crude and low-level mechanism for aiding in searches, but the code being searched would have been pretty crude and low-level too. I mean if I imagine searching the machine code in a modern PC game for some routine that did some specific thing, I figure that just looking for something as low-level as SUB would give me way too many results and they could be there for too many reasons--maybe just because the compiler's optimizer had decided to put them in there without any human even knowing (or caring) why it had done so. But yeah for Super Mario Bros. there would be a lot fewer instances of any given instruction and they would have been put there by hand I suppose, so their meaning would be easier to guess at.

It's literally just a fucking hex editor that can change or lock values in memory with the hex encoded in a more kid friendly way.

It's the hardware equivalent of Cheat Engine.

>>3955892
Top kek kid. Stay assmad retard.

>>3955287

Manipulating variable values in RAM. You go to adress X and overwrite it with whatever nonsense you like. That leads to unpredicatble effects.

Op here I've gotten like six different answers. Strange.

>>3956724
https://www.quora.com/How-did-Game-Genie-Game-Shark-work

But also there's this, which seems to be pretty fucking authoritative
http://tuxnes.sourceforge.net/gamegenie.html

>>3956268
>assmad

What the fuck does that even mean?!

>>3956285
>That leads to unpredicatble effects.
You almost had it

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>>3956813

>>3956813
assmad>butthurt

>>3955340
The only thing to add really is that Galoob felt that hex values that determined the address and value were too lame, so they mix the symbols up to be non-hexvalues to make it more mysterious. I can't remember if it's just a substitution cypher, or some sort of function.

In other words, it's a bitch to actually do deliberate hacking with one, not that the 3 password limit wasn't crippling enough.

Gameshark fixed all that.

>>3955302
That's how Action Replay works. Game Genie edits data as it's loaded into the cartridge itself, the hardcoded values.

>>3957219
>into the cartridge
Into the console, I mean.

>>3957219
No it's not. >>3955340 explained how it really works pretty well.

>>3955340
this guy scores

>>3955340
How does it modify ROM in games that use bankswitching? Is the value at that address going to be the same regardless of which bank is selected?

>>3957580
I have no clue

>>3957580
99% sure this is the case. the gg theoretically could have account for mapping hardware because ROMs have headers that define that kind of stuff, but Galoob would not have easy access to the information, nor would it be simple to account for the variety of mapper hardware available (and impossible future hardware that wasn't available yet).

Fortunately most games that use mappers mainly relegate graphics and level data to the mapped banks, while the banks always in memory typically contained the code.

>be little, get game genie for snes
>check code book that came with it
>half of the codes don't actually work
>go to barnes & noble, find third party game genie code book
>copy some down and try them at home before buying book
>90% of those codes don't work either
>try some codes from game informer
>most of them don't work either
>go back to code book that came with game genie
>it mentions you can try your own random codes to see if they do anything

Really? Really though? Most of the codes published for this thing didn't work and then on top of that they tell you to sit there and randomly try millions and millions of permutations that may or may not even do things that you may or may not even perceive?

It especially sucked that I couldn't find a single code for some of the hardest games I had like Maximum Carnage or Judge Dredd.

>>3957853

The second Game Genie came out Nintendo went maximum Apple on them. Many of their games from before got "revisions" in the form of re-issues that included legit bugfixes plus subroutines specifically crafted to fuck with the efficacy of the existing codes (by having nasty side-effects or nullifying any effect entirely). New games were built with anti-cheat in mind from the start.

This wasn't effective once the number of cheat device vendors started increasing.

>>3957580
No, the value will be different. If only they'd included something in the code to test that value so you'd know what bank you were in. lel

>>3957894

Which seems to help answer my question from
>>3956201

I mean clearly this isn't a thread in which to be asking serious questions about this stuff; this board is not handling discussion on this topic effectively. Too many fools around, not enough incentive for non-fools to explain things

>>3957580
that's the purpose of the comparison value

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>>3955340
>You shouldn't try explaining stuff to people if you have no idea
>modifies ROM

All of /g/ is laughing at you

>>3959641
He's right, you know.

>>3959643
You CANNOT modify

>READ ONLY<

memory.

>>3959671>
>3959641
You people really are fucking retarded you know that?
The GG doesn't literally write onto the ROM chip of the game.
It intercepts the data of the ROM that the console reads from the cartridge and then changes certain bytes depending on the codes input.
Now please do humanity a favor and go jump off a bridge or something.

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>>3959679
So it modifies the RAM, like every other cheating device. Good that everyone agrees that >>3955340 is a fucking moron.

>>3959685
You're either trolling or just too stupid to grasp the concept.
The console needs to read the ROM (not the RAM) from the cartridge for the CPU to execute the ASM routines.
The GG intercepts said data and changes it. It does not fucking change RAM.
How can one person be so dense.
>>3955340 might not be worded perfectly but its completely correct.

One more obvious proof for that would be that programs that hardpatch GG codes wouldn't be possible otherwise
http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/784/

>>3959702
WOW, so, like, data from ROM is being read by the console, INTO ITS RAM, where it is then modified!

>linking to a program that changes a binary copy of a ROM
Wow, good job. Totally the same as changing a ROM (which isn't possible).

>>3959727
Me 2

>>3959641
>modifies ROM
Reading comprehension samefag

>>3959685
Reading comprehension

>>3959720
Holy fuck you're stupid. It modifies the data being read from the ROM. It does not touch any RAM. Most data on those carts is never read into RAM. It's executed or used directly off the ROM. Also, 18+ sport.

>>3955893

This is absolutely correct grammar, so I'm not sure what you're trying to imply here.

>>3955383
is that you Babbage's gramps?

>>3955340
>You explained RAM modification.
No, he explained memory modification.
Cartridge based console address carts are memory space.

GG codes are address locations and what byte value to replace them with.

they do not modify the ROM, they intercept requests from data at a specific address and provide the byte the user specifies.

>>3955287
I remember entering a cheat used for a Batman (?) game on Castlevania for the GB and ended up with disabling gravity for the player (i.e., Belmont can jump up but the not fall down).

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>>3955287

All these stupid newfags claiming that GG modified RAM.

>MFW I thought it worked like modern cheat engines too.

>>3959924
So how does it work,
Cat-wizard

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>>3960020
People have said how it actually works a bunch of times now.
If you still have to ask you should probably go get your head checked out.

>>3955340
There is no assembly to modify you dumb shit

>>3960079
>samefag trying this hard
So fucking athetic

>>3960279
You would have to disassemble the binary in RAM or some place else for there to be assembly to edit. ROM is READ ONLY meaning you can't fucking write to it.

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>>3960306
KYS.
There is no data directly written to the ROM.
The GG simply takes the specified ROM data before it is read to the CPU and modifies that before handing it onto the CPU.
If that picture is not enough for anyone, i'm sorry but please never procreate.

>>3960037
I just see ten different answers and people fighting over small details

>>3960306
You're like the energizer bunny of retardation aren't you. You just keep shitposting and shitposting and shitposting.

>>3960356
You see the same thing we all do. You just can't understand it.

>>3960335
>The GG is basically able to modify single bytes of the ROM
>There is no data directly written to the ROM.
Pick one

>>3960469
That was my second post to this thread. How about you make up your mind on how GG is supposed to work instead of getting defensive when people point out your errors?

>>3960484
>People pointing out errors
You mean trolls and retards who simply can't grasp the concept?

>>3960489
1) There is no assembly anywhere on the ROM
2) The ROM may be copied, then disassembled, then modified, then reassembled, then run. It can't be directly modified.
Nobody can grasp your concept because you decided to disown what you wrote.

>>3960494
What did you even smoke?

>>3960497
Facts. Toke up my friend.

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>NO THE ROM ISN'T READ INTO RAM THE CODE GOES STRAIGHT INTO MAGICAL CPU SPACE WHERE IT FLIES PAST THE "HOW THE DEVELOPERS INTENDED IT" CORNER AND OVER THE NETCODE IF THE CONSOLE HAS AOL

...guys...

You're thinking about this in the wrong way. Think about the flow of data. The cartridge doesn't read data from the NES. The NES reads data from the cart. Putting the Game Genie in between the cart and NES allows it to change data sent from the cartridge before it's sent on to the NES.

4th post is correct, but people are getting up in arms because of the wording in a sentence. It modifies data FROM the ROM -before- it's read by the NES. There.

So did anyone else have a subscription to get new Game Genie code booklets in the mail? Getting updated and new codes every month or so was pretty sweet.

>>3955287
You people are stupid. It's in the title.

The cart inserted a genie into your NES game and if you knew how to speak his language he would manipulate the game for you.

>>3960484
I know exactly how it works. It's been explained pretty clearly ITT. If you're having trouble understanding it by now you might be retarded. Feel free to point out any error I made ITT. Protip: this is an anonymous board fucknugget.

>>3960494
You really are a pathetic little assmad autist. No one said there was assembly on the ROM. An anon gave an example of the type of modification one might do with a GG using pseudo assembly to illustrate how it works. You're retarded and can't read so you can't understand that.

To elaborate there is no SUB or ADD instruction on the 6502. You wouldn't know this because you're an ignorant retarded fuck. The actual instruction used when a life is lost is generally DEC. Changing it to INC would cause the life counter to increase instead of decrease. People who know what they're talking about understand that this means changing a numerical value. You are not that sort of person so it confuses you.

>>3955383
It doesn't explicitly modify ROM, it modifies access to the ROM. It's a hardware wrapper that intercepts read address instructions and responds with it's own data in place.

Simple analogy. Pretend I put you room in front of a phone book and asked you to read me the phone number of a specific person and address I call out for. I don't have the book, you do, You don't have to physically change the book if you keep if you keep a sheet written down with incorrect numbers you'll read back if it matches what I ask for. In this way to anyone asking, it appears as if you have a modified phonebook.

For people arguing that modifies RAM - using the previous analogy. The GG never goes and changes the paper that I explicitly use to write down the numbers I ask for for and which I use for other mental notes/calculations I'm doing with those numbers. It only changes what you told me I needed to write in the first place, never what I've actually ever written. It is functionally identical to having a different phonebook.

If you had a hypothetical game genie that had a code that changed every single address on the cart what you would effectively have is every fucking game the NES could ever have. In that way it would sort of effectively be a flashcart which none of us would argue that a flashcart is a RAM based modification software, because that's not what it does.

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>use GG code that adds a life to my current lives
>/v/ computer experts think that my current lives are stored in the ROM which for some magical reason despite not being writable knows my current life count

>>3959641
>gets completely destroyed for posting retarded shit earlier in the thread
>can't let it go, just lets the embarrassment and butthurt overwhelm him
>spends well over a day beating on google like it owes him money trying to read up on the topic in the hopes of reviving the "argument" again to get his revenge on the mean old 4chan trolls that laughed at him
>still doesn't understand what he's talking about, despite the availability of the entirety of mankind's collective knowledge at his fingertips

All of /vr/ is laughing at you

>>3960919
sbc = sub
adc = add

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>>3960654
I never had the subscription but still have my original book.

>>3961106
>doubles down on stupidity

>>3961360
>samefags and triples down

>>3961738
Nice. Yours is in much better condition than mine though, hah.

>>3959817
>get BTFO multiple times
>can only retort with reading comprehension and ad hominems

lmao just give up kid maybe /v/ is more appropriate for you eh?

>>3962818
Let me see it

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A ROM chip is Read Only Memory, you can't see it can be modified.

>>3955287
Op here
4th post for the win?

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>>3956201
>How does that help people find new codes?

You use a debugger. Once you have a specific memory address narrowed down (for example, the number of lives), you set a breakpoint on that address, so the system will freeze when it attempts to access that address, and you can see the current instruction (for example, a DEC instruction to decrement the number of lives on death)

Then you just write a code that will overwrite DEC $1337 with NOP NOP NOP or whatever.

>>3962883
>projecting this much

>>3963045
Yes
Unless you're >>3955302 in which case you cry like a little bitch until the thread 404s

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IT JUST WORKS

>>3964012
Anon, do you want to talk about your anger issues?
You know, we other Anons always have an ear open for whats troubling you.

>>3964029
It's a Jojoke, anon. A Michael Jojoke.

>>3964045
That's even more of a sign you're deeply troubled my friend.

actually read only memory can be rewritten:

Electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM)
Variant of PROM using floating-gate transistors that can be set to 0 using electricity or set to 1 using more electricity. Early solid-state disk devices were EEPROM based.

>>3964058
Okay, but game carts use masked ROM.

Which cannot be re-written.

>>3964058
What you are saying is completely irrelevant mate.
Back when the NES first came out EEPROM wasn't even a thing back then, only EPROM.
Even that producing carts with MASKROMs is vastly cheaper than with any kind of rewritable chips.

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>>3964049
Well I'm not the one making a Michael Jojoke. I'm just pointing it out.

>>3964071
its not irrelevant to th' thred tho, just to the game genie

>>3961738
That book has been through a lot.

>>3966482
I'm suprised I still have it

Is this the /v/ simulation thread?

>>3955340
> Not at all how it works.
> Goes on to explain an in depth version with the same results of the original guy's "very dumbed down version".

His dumbed down explanation was fine. You're a fucking idiot for trying to debate that when you could have just provided the detailed explanation like you did.

>>3967140
He explained RAM modification.
GG modifies ROM by intercepting data read from the cartridge to the console.
You seem to be too moronic to get the difference.

>>3967140
>Anon1: The universe was created when an Egyptian god masturbated it into existence
>Anon2: Actually it was the big bang
>Anon"3" (Anon1): The results were the SAME!!1!1!! You're a fucking idiot!

What are people even still arguing about I'm lost

>>3967159
>GG modifies ROM
Here we go again.

>>3967893
So you're one of those retards blindly spewing 'you can't modify 'READ ONLY memory'?
You always seem to ignore how it does that which does not at all imply writing to it.

>>3967893
>Here we go again
I think that's gonna keep happening until you learn how to read and get a refill of your meds.

>>3967910
>>3968324
No amount of rationalization will change the fact you can't modify ROM, kiddos.

>>3959685
Sort of. Unlike Action Replay, Game Genie just responds to ROM-addresses with static values.

If a game changes a value and never reads that address from the cartridge again, the Game Genie won't be changing that modified value.

The Game Genie is effectively going "Oh, you wanted this instruction/value that's stored on the cart? Have this one instead".

The Game Genie, from the console's point of view, just changes what's being read from the ROM of the cart. This is still really powerful, but you're stuck with what you can fit in the size of a game genie code and (if those limits didn't exist), the maximum size of a ROM.

Effectively, this is modifying a ROM. It doesn't change the cartridge, it just intercepts reads to it, and has no ability to force the console to write specific values into RAM. If someone is read from the cartridge once (such as an initialization value for lives), the console can change that value at will later. If you have 99 lives, it'll decrement to 98, 97... etc as you die. You get around this by modifying the code portion of your ROM to prevent it from decrementing, but this requires you to reverse engineer the game ROM, which is a pain in the ass without the right tools.


Action Replays and Gamesharks instead interrupt the console and force it to overwrite RAM addresses directly many times a second (literally sending the console a command to "write value X into RAM address Y"). That functionality can be used to do a ton of things, including forcing values to stay the same (always have 99 lives even upon death), or overwrite code portions of RAM to provide an interface that you can use to search RAM and manually change values (this included functions such as "return all addresses that contains value X", which could be applied to the results of the last search as well, allowing you to narrow down values as you play).

Game Genie's change ROM from the console perspective. AR and Gameshark change RAM from the console's perspective.

>>3967910
It's not EPROM, just ROM. The writable bits like game saves are stored in RAM with battery keeping it alive. You don't need to be a Game Genie savant to understand what can and can't happen. The data on ROM can't be modified. It can be copied, then modified, but not modified directly.

>>3968331
>you can't download a ROM
>you can't modify a ROM
>romhacks don't exist
>the GG doesn't work
>it's all in your head
>autism isn't a spectrum
>everyone just has a subset of me

>>3968520
>>you can't modify a ROM
Not once they're burned to a chip, you can't.

>>3968526
>burn ROM to chip
>modify ROM
>erase chip
>burn modified ROM to chip
Sounds like you might be retarded kiddo.

>>3968667
>>erase chip
That's not a ROM then. That would be either a EPROM, EEPROM, Flash ROM etc.

ROM is ROM.

>>3968331
No amount of rationalization will change the fact that no one claimed you could. No amount of rationalization will change the fact that you've been desperately trying to right about anything at all since you posted >>3955383 this gem way back at the start of the thread.

Jesus, everyone in this thread is clinically retarded.

It's like everyone forgot that there are nuances to the English language.

The original explanation, while not incorrect, had a shitty choice of words that made it sound like the game genie actually wrote to the ROM, which is obviously impossible.
Clearly what was meant is that the game genie merely modifies the data as it's read from the ROM, since the game genie sits between the ROM and the console.

Then there's retard claiming that you CAN write to a ROM, like >>3968520.
No shit you can write to the dump of the ROM.
It's called a ROM because it's a dump of the ROM chip, not that it's actual read only memory.

>>3968678
You mean MROM? You can't burn ROMs to those kiddo.

>>3968997
>claiming
Sauce?

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What's the weirdest game genie code you have ever seen?

>>3955287
magic

>>3970216
AEA8-D4FA
Link to the Past -- discovered by accidentally mis-entering the (almost) infinite magic code.

Walk through walls on the overworld, but only vertically. Can't walk up "jump down" ledges because you end up jumping down, so you must search for ways up that don't involve that.

Also can result in you getting stuck in a glitched "lost woods" or infinitely running to the left or right while the game looks for map data.

Once I was able to get inside a dungeon but it was using overworld graphical tiles. This was only once. Never could get back there again.

>>3971992
That's pretty awesome!