Hacking the FE13 ROM...

[MP2E]

Hey guys, thought you might be interested in this:

http://gbatemp.net/threads/release-3ds_ctr_decryptor-void.370684/

Apparently, they have figured out how to decrypt 3DS roms. The ROMs can even be modified and played on a Gateway 3DS, from the information I have been reading.

Looks like the 3DS world is blown wide open for ROM hacks, though you'll need a gateway and an old 3DS to do it, for now.

[PKL]

I just want growths ;_;

[Klokinator]

When the NDS was hacked and finally roms were available to use, how long did it take for an emulator to appear?

[shadowofchaos]

All I want is RAM hacking.

And I assume all Vincent wants it for so far is data mining it like FE9 and FE10.

Honestly Klok... *sigh*

[Klokinator]

Right shadow... you've never played a rom on an emulator. Lol.

[shadowofchaos]

It's not worth it, explaining it to you.

It's like talking to the people who are really enthusiastic about 3DS homebrew way back when smealum first hacked it and showed off Pokemon, and flooded his inbox.

I would take an interesting hacking discussion with Celice anyday, than that.

Edited August 30, 2014 by shadowofchaos

[Celice]

Though I am very eager to see emulation for the 3DS be playable sooner rather than later. My brother has a terminal disease that slowly kills his muscles. Right now he's essentially paralyzed from the neck down. I was able to rig one of his input devices to his PC, and through joy2key, he can play PC games and emulators still, which has been really great for his well-being. He still gets some agency and control in his life this way.

He and I grew up playing Nintendo, but as his disease worsened, it became more difficult to actually grasp a controller. And then Nintendo decided to develop games with motion controls and touch screens in mind, making many newer Nintendo games impossible for him to play. That is, until emulation got sufficiently playable. Then he could bind his own controls and play on his terms. I'm hoping he'll get a chance to do the same with the 3DS before he dies.

---

I forget where I read it, but through smealum's homebrew exploit, there was the idea of RAM hacking and alternate file loading in the making, similar to that Gecko SD thing? It was really popular with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I heard. I think someone even got a proof of concept thing working, but not a lot has been spoken of out in the open. smealum had also posted pics of some RAM stuff a long time ago, like with one of the LEGO 3DS games where he could set the stud count and other things manually. Hopefully smealum's work opens the hatch for a lot more people to poke around in the system.

[Celice]

A tutorial on how to take assets from a 3DS games can be found here:

http://gbatemp.net/threads/extracting-models-and-textures-from-3ds-games.370788/

These demonstrate how to get the models and textures. Extracting music has also been going on for a couple days. I'm still not completely sure on how the keys work, but I'm assuming that a standard game release should have one unique key, withstanding version differences. If this is true, a database of game keys will likely be created over the coming days, perhaps as part of scene releases.

[MP2E]

When the NDS was hacked and finally roms were available to use, how long did it take for an emulator to appear?

6 emulators appeared pretty-much overnight(iDeaS, YopYopDS, dualis, DSemu, no$gba and Ensata) but the only one capable of playing any retail games anywhere *near* fullspeed was Ensata, and that was a leak of an emulator distributed with the official Nintendo DS SDK, so there was no source to help other developers with(not to mention, I remember running it and it only ran one game with severe graphical glitches and slowdowns).

It took until about 2008 til the simpler games were playable (Pokemon, etc) at full speed but 'good' game compatibility didn't come about until 2010-2011. Currently the best emulators are Drastic(for Android), no$gba, and iDeaS. The best one, Drastic, didn't come about until 2013. It's pretty funny to me that an Android emulator is both more accurate and faster than the PC equivalents, but Exophase(the author) is a veteran in the field of emulation.

3DS emulation is currently in its infancy, but it is progressing rapidly. Citra still only plays homebrew demos, but apparently the author is in contact with smealum. The further the 3DS SDK and hacking come along, the further Citra will follow.

If you want my estimate, I'd guess that we'll see the first simple games playable in late 2015-early 2016 and we'll start seeing better game compatibility rates in 2018. 2020 is when you can expect 85-90% emulation.

But who can say? These are pretty conservative estimates, and emulators wildly vary. Maybe the 3DS won't need to be emulated on such a granular level as previous consoles because of the Operating System, and they'll be able to get away with HLE for most of the games? Maybe the 3D hardware is similar to the DSes(which is what took DS emulators so long, a DS GPU is *nothing* like a PC GPU) so the architecture will be easy to import vs creating anew like last time?

Trying to estimate what PC it will require is even more of a guess! I'd say, a faster (2.5ghz+) Sandy Bridge Intel i5 should be able to do it.

Though I am very eager to see emulation for the 3DS be playable sooner rather than later. My brother has a terminal disease that slowly kills his muscles. Right now he's essentially paralyzed from the neck down. I was able to rig one of his input devices to his PC, and through joy2key, he can play PC games and emulators still, which has been really great for his well-being. He still gets some agency and control in his life this way.

He and I grew up playing Nintendo, but as his disease worsened, it became more difficult to actually grasp a controller. And then Nintendo decided to develop games with motion controls and touch screens in mind, making many newer Nintendo games impossible for him to play. That is, until emulation got sufficiently playable. Then he could bind his own controls and play on his terms. I'm hoping he'll get a chance to do the same with the 3DS before he dies.

Oh my :( my condolences to you and your brother. It's great to see that emulators can do good beyond mere convenience.

I forget where I read it, but through smealum's homebrew exploit, there was the idea of RAM hacking and alternate file loading in the making, similar to that Gecko SD thing? It was really popular with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, I heard. I think someone even got a proof of concept thing working, but not a lot has been spoken of out in the open. smealum had also posted pics of some RAM stuff a long time ago, like with one of the LEGO 3DS games where he could set the stud count and other things manually. Hopefully smealum's work opens the hatch for a lot more people to poke around in the system.

100% possible with ssspwn, arbitary execution of userland code will allow for cheat code programs ala Gecko OS, Ocarina and other programs for Wii. I wouldn't be surprised if most 3DS ROM hacks end up modifying the game with a similar loader.

Smealum may even have something at release, he did have those hacked Pokemon, after all, so he's definitely poked around with the idea of modifying games with his loader

Edited August 31, 2014 by MP2E

[Bryan]

I can't wait! Please keep us updated. I would love to figure out how to change reclass sets. That's my main goal, anyway.

It shouldn't be to hard either. We should be able to isolate the character, promote them, and then look at their reclass data and then brute force change stuff to figure it out right?