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Bootable compilation of widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2019 12:37 am
by quake
There is a lot of effort happening in finding widescreen codes, especially over at the dying assembler forums

Well, i wanted to try some, and entering codes manually is busy work, so instead i converted them all into a savegame, everything could be found here:

https://we.tl/t-iq7QVhMwSp

I'm not the one who did most of the work, I just made that all into one file loaded on a dreamcast easily

readme:

Code: Select all

How to use:

Part 1 (need to do only once to copy vmu save)
1. Burn/mount in gdemu dreamsehllBETA4.cdi
2. Insert a vmu without codebreaker save data (FCDCHEATS) in a dreamcast
3. Boot dreamshellbeta4 (listed as bootdreams in gdemu)
4. Select File Explorer using analog stick and A button as mouse
5. On the right panel, and VMU, a1 (depending on vmu port)
6. On the left panel open CD, COPY2VMU, Select FCDCHEATS and copy (third icon on the top)
7. When FCDCHEATS is both on the left and on the right, wait 10 seconds then turn off your dreamcast.


Part II playing in widescreen

1.  For gdemu, mount "(dc) codebreaker.cdi" from the "codebreaker hacked" folder
   For a regular gdrom burn "(dc) codebreaker.cdi" and "(dc) codebreaker loader.cdi" and use loader to load codebreaker THEN game   
   "(dc) codebreaker loader.cdi" is not needed for gdemu
2. Start codebreaker, go to "cheat browser" using Dpad and A, select the cheats of your game, widescren hacks are listed first Z-A (sorry) followed by regular game cheats.

You can use both widescreen and other cheats together.

Many games are not "wide" until actually in-game. You will need to "stretch" the squeezed image for it to look correctly








Info:

There are many cool advancements in dreamcast hacking, mainly at:
https://assemblergames.com/threads/dreamcast-widescreen-hacks.58620/

Including widescreen and 60fps.

There are 2 ways to achieve widescreen, a memory address change, like a cheat engine, and hex editing the game files directly:
http://retro-magic.de/Dreamcast_WS_Codes_en

This is regarding the codebreaker method


What did I do? I copied the codebreaker cheats from http://retro-magic.de/Dreamcast_WS_Codes_en to fit into a text format accepted by xpdccc.zip
these can be found in widecodes.txt


When editing the file, make sure to have a break (press enter) at the end of the text, otherwise xpdccc will just crash

I used xpdccc to convert that text to a save file.
This is a something.vms file, you have to rename it to FCDCHEATS, without an extension
it's maybe for this reason it didnt work with vmu save managers and needed to be copied to a vmu through an older version of dreamshell

Both of these files and everything else that's needed are in tools folder

To transfer the save file without the use of additional hardware, i used an old dreamshell iso that i edited and added a COPY2VMU folder in the root of
The folder of this extracted iso is dreamsehllBETA4
To create a bootable iso from the folder, I used an oldass utility called BootDreams-1.06c, as disc juggler, data/data
Then you can burn the iso or add to to your ODE (optical disc emulator) like gdemu, etc

Wouldn't it be nice to just add the cheats to codebreaker without the need of a savefile altogether?
Yes, and according to neuroacid (author of gdmenu for gdemu) yes, and he released the files in the CBLoader_v0.1 archieve
He suggested to use xpdccc, and I did. However it read from a cheat bit file, but converted to a savegame, not a cheat.bin file
I couldn't get it to work right, and besides, because it's patching itself then asking for a game it doesn't work right with an ode like gdemu,
which itself detects codebreaker and offers to load a game directly with it.
If someone could patch a codebreaker directly and get rid of the savegame business, that would be great!

What about gdemu? Cant we load cheats directly with it?
Yes. That's also a thing: Loader and CBLoader GDEMU files.7z
but that is only for gdemu users, i wanted a way for everyone to experience widescreen

If you find a new code, please add here in the same exact format so others can use:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-u3Hx88o79UtLGk6bZQHRs3K7_8SdJYQJUl03CJTMYI/edit?usp=sharing


Who are you?
If you really want to chat, you can direct message me on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/user/_QUAKE_/







Re: savegame using existing widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2019 2:23 am
by SMiTH
Thank you for this.

Is this a .vmi, .vms, or a .dci file?

VMI file (DC browsers/info)
VMS file (data)
DCI file (Nexus cards)

Is it for use with codebreaker?

Or

Is this a save disk (selfboot .cdi with added save file)?
A save disk would be the easiest option for ppl to use.

Sorry for all of the questions.

Re: savegame using existing widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2019 2:39 am
by quake
I updated the first post with the readme from the zip

yes, it's a savedisk, essentially, i made sure to share it like that for that very reason

my own serial sd card reader doesnt work right now even.

it's a VMS file but it's without an extension, codebreaker requires it that way, i had trouble adding it to a vmu save disk, so i relied on a old dreamshell image i modified and added the save file to

Re: savegame using existing widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2019 2:48 am
by SMiTH
awesome work quake.
:)

Re: savegame using existing widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2019 2:14 pm
by mistamontiel
Dunno what title this save is for can't be arsed to bootdisc either

What am I doing here I've a 4:3 CRT monitor ^.^

Re: savegame using existing widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2019 6:45 pm
by quake
mistamontiel wrote:Dunno what title this save is for can't be arsed to bootdisc either

What am I doing here I've a 4:3 CRT monitor ^.^


all of these: http://retro-magic.de/Dreamcast_WS_Codes_en
Get a widescreen crt monitor ;-)

Re: Bootable compilation of widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2019 6:55 pm
by deluxux
Very cool thank you! I have yet to try my DC on a widescreen.

Re: Bootable compilation of widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2020 5:48 pm
by deluxux
Can I get a reupload please!

Re: Bootable compilation of widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2020 6:42 pm
by Anthony817
Last active: Sat Nov 16, 2019 3:27 pm

Damn...

Re: Bootable compilation of widescreen codes for codebreaker

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2020 6:49 pm
by deluxux