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!cheats for blueMSX :hustlechumy Remark : this game, in his original version (ROM), requires a Japanese or Korean MSX1 computer. Apparently, the original version is incompatible with 50Hz and the MSX2/2+/Turbo-R VDP's.

Thanks to Jipe of the French MSX Café, there's a way to make run this game on more machines : you need to patch the rom at the address 0x0132 (will be 0x4132 in the MSX memory) by replacing 00 by F2.

Without the patch, the game runs only on Brazilian, Japanese and Korean MSX1 machines.

With the patch, the game runs on Turbo-R, MSX2+, MSX1 (with exception of the Arabic MSX1) and on the Japanese MSX2.

I'm not surprised by the problems on Arabic MSX1/2 and Korean MSX2 machines, their firmware can be in conflict with some games or applications. For other MSX2 machines, there must be a solution ... so the quest is not ended !

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openMSX does not have an integrated interface and you need to use the console to find or use cheats.

So? That only affects they way in which you can find new cheats; that's independent of the way those cheats/trainers are stored, imho.

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All the cheats come in one big file (trainers.tcl)

It's perfectly possible to separate all those tcl functions into separate tcl files.

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without alphabetical order, you need to edit this file to modify, disable or add cheats, and your changes become active only when you close openMSX, restart it and use the console to 'call' the cheats.

AFAIK, it's perfectly possible to load additional tcl files while openMSX is running.

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The other reason is the fact that even if the blueMSX trainer uses hexadecimal addresses, the text file uses decimal addresses, it's something that could be changed for more coherence (openMSX trainer uses always hexadecimal addresses),

It's perfectly possible to write 'poke 32768 0' instead of 'poke 0x8000 0'. Just a matter of taste/personal preference.

All in all, I still see no reason, why a common chaet file format should not be possible!
I think it should even be possible to just write a tcl script that uses a blueMSX cheat as input and runs it as a cheat in openMSX

If you aren't convicted by my answer, you should ask to Vampier, he's the only person in the openMSX team who knows exactly the differences between both emulators (because he uses Windows) and has even built an alternative launcher for openMSX with some very interesting features, also what concerns the cheat database.

Unfortunaly, he does not have time to make an official release of this launcher and the rest of the team does not seem to be really interested. I'm pretty sure that with such a launcher, the gamers should be more interested by openMSX and that a common format could be found more easily for both emulators. You know, what interests the gamers, is comfort and not to be forced to go many times in the openMSX console to write some commands in stead of some clicks in a good interface or launcher.

I think it would indeed be perfectly possible to use a common format. The format is not connected to how it is used in the emulator, it's just the way they are written on disk. This way it would be much easier to exchange cheats.

For openMSX (and also for blueMSX if we change it from the current format), it would mean a little code to parse the new format and some functions to enable and disable the cheats. This could be easily written in TCL, by some TCL expert like Wouter, e.g.

About that alternative launcher: you are wrong that we are not interested in it. We are! But we can't do much with it, because it is written in a Windows-specific language/environment. This means that none of the main developers can work on it or even run it.

As soon as we have our new GUI/launcher up and running, it would probably be interesting to add cheat finding UI to it as well.

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If you aren't convicted by my answer, you should ask to Vampier, he's the only person in the openMSX team who knows exactly the differences between both emulators (because he uses Windows)

I'd say: because he uses both emulators

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Unfortunaly, he does not have time to make an official release of this launcher and the rest of the team does not seem to be really interested.

Main problem with Vampier's launcher was that it was not cross-platform, which openMSX strives to be.
But indeed, Catapult has had very little 'love' lately, especially since we 'lost' tcm1998. The problem is not so much that we're not interested, it's more that other topics seemed more interesting/urgent... There are plans to rewrite Catapult from scratch, so if you've got any ideas how to make a better Catapult, please fire away!

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I think it should even be possible to just write a tcl script that uses a blueMSX cheat as input and runs it as a cheat in openMSX

There are also some subtle differences in both trainers, the most evident are the following ones :

- each openMSX trainer requires a parameter of 'frequency' for the application of the cheat ; in blueMSX, the cheat remains permanent until you do a reset or decide to disable it

- openMSX can have 'conditional' cheats, what's not possible in the current version of the blueMSX trainer

- after a reset, the trainer is still active in openMSX, what's not the case in blueMSX

So, with the 2 first 'subtle' differences, automatic conversion is not so evident (I know that, because I make manually the conversions in both directions ).

About the differences:
- the 'frequency' is just an artifact of the way it is now implemented in openMSX (it's rather hackish), so it should be removed from the new format
- conditional stuff: not every emulator has to implement all stuff from the format. BlueMSX could ignore this information for now and maybe implement it later. We do need to make a clever format design to incorporate this though.
- the reset thing: that is because of the way it is implemented in openMSX. Actually, openMSX doesn't implement cheats at all. You just load a TCL script that pokes some values using the debugger interface. This could be changed by a more extensive TCL script that's a bit more intelligent, e.g.

About the format, I think that we must discuss 3 things :

- the different parameters
- their writing form
- the format of the trainers/cheats package

About the 1st point :
It should be a mix of the required parameters for each emulator and I note that the 'frequency' parameter should be not useful in the future

About the 2d point :
Addresses should be in hexadecimal as it's the common writing in the emulation world.
For values, I should prefer decimal values but we can also make hexadecimal values acceptable

About the 3rd point :
I really prefer different text files (one per game) than the 'big' .tcl file in openMSX, because these files will be automatically in alphabetical order in the subdirectory and because it's more handful for editing, exchanging , ...

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AuroraMSX msx devil Posts: 666

Beware ! There's a MSX devil on MRC !

mars:
- the notation should be independent of the emulator. It should just describe everything you need for the cheats. So, if, because of some implementatin detail, an emulator needs the update frequency, it should definately not be in the format, as I already said in the previous post.
- the hex/dec notation: it's not really important I think, but we can use both, if we specify the notation.
- I propose one big XML file, that can be loaded by the emulator, which can then present a nice big list of the cheats in any order you like. XML permits us to use a well defined structure that is easy to parse and can be made in such a way that we can cleanly add all info to the file. We should have a discussion somewhere about the exact format. Let's do that on the openMSX development mailinglist, as most people involved seem to be a member anyway. I'll try to make a first proposal tonight.

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About the 3rd point : I really prefer different text files (one per game) than the 'big' .tcl file in openMSX, because these files will be automatically in alphabetical order in the subdirectory and because it's more handful for editing, exchanging , ...

Like said: it's just as well possible in openMSX to have each cheat in a separate tcl file. And I agree - having one file per game is easier to maintain, than having one big file containing all cheats.

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Quote: AuroraMSX msx devil Posts: 666 Beware ! There's a MSX devil on MRC !

Yay! (Darn, I shouldn't have posted this )

[Edit]

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AuroraMSX online msx neighbor of the beast Posts: 667

ROFL!
[/Edit]

Yes, we can continue the discussion on the openMSX mailing list.

I give here a short explanation of the format used by blueMSX, it will help you for your XML proposal :

- for each game, a text file with the .mcf extension (the files will be located in the Tools\Cheats\msx subdirectory of the blueMSX executable)

- the five data for each cheat :

* concerned memory type (0 = visible memory and generally all the cheats can be found in this memory, but we can also try to find cheats in the VRAM for example)
* memory address in decimal
* value to write in decimal
* by default always 0, it means that the cheat is not enabled, it becomes 1 when it is enabled in the trainer
* short description (in some cases, I add remarks for more explanations about items for example)

Internally, the blueMSX trainer converts the decimal addresses into hexadecimal addresses. You can also in runtime add new cheats with an hexadecimal address; if you save them to the .mcf file, they will be saved with a decimal address.

Note also that we use the same format for Sega, Coleco and SVI games. That's another reason why I prefer one file per game.

Mail sent. Let's start the discussion there in a more complete developer's scope.

!cheats for blueMSX :wizardslair
!(c) 2006 MSX Solutions - Fabio Albergaria
0,40491,99,0,keys
0,40492,99,0,ring
0,40493,99,0,diamond
0,40494,255,0,energy
0,40495,255,0,arms
0,40496,255,0,gold
0,40497,99,0,lives

Imagine what I am trying to do?

!cheats for blueMSX :barbarian
!(c) 2006 MSX Solutions - Fabio Albergaria
0,15647,9,0,lives
0,15609,99,0,arrows