Random Gaming Thoughts

[RCBH928]

There are many, actually. I'll list the ones I have experience with:

Back in the DOS days, I used Game Wizard 32
https://anapan.525lines.moe/Game%20Wizard.htm

In Windows 98 & XP times, I used GameWiz32 1.42; 1.43 is here but if it isn't the registered version I can provide the version I used if someone wants it. It still worked in windows 7.
https://gamecopyworld.com/games/gcw_game_tools.shtml

The last few times my nephew needed some help in some games on the computer I found the solutions using Cheat Engine (their forums are full of memory value tables for most windows games)
https://www.cheatengine.org/

All of these work on emulators for their respective OSes, they just search for changing memory values (HP, defense, etc) and can then modify or lock them into a value.

Just be aware that online games will not allow these things. I don't play games online, but I hear you can use a Chronus device for stuff:
https://www.cronusmax.com/

looks like cheatengine.org is the answer, but I am not sure how it works on emulated games as in playstation and others. Does not seem very user friendly either, have to look more into it thanks!

The other options seem outdated?

[Anapan]

All of them do the same thing and all work for emulators in their respective OS. You tell the cheat program which program (memory block) you are trying to manipulate, then search for your number (lives, for example). Lose a life, and search for your lesser number of lives. Lose or gain another life and search for this again changed number. Repeat until the program narrows the address down to one (or even a few), then change and lock (them all).
If you wish to get more advanced you can, but that search sequence takes care of HP, time limit, ammo, lives and any other OSD displayed values.
With the community stuff you can just load a table of all important stats and values. You probably don't even need to search, just apply a template. If you did need to search, it's for an easy value, then the cheat table can be indexed to their correct memory addressed by offsetting to that one known value.
For many emulators, loading the bios file of a cheat hardware or disc under the rom or iso can allow cheating through the original method. GG.bin for NES, and PAR.bin for Playstation. I might be complicating things here. I know I've successfully used those programs I listed on emulators in their OSes (just to see if they could). Be prepared for multiple copies of your search - the emulators seem to keep multiple coppies of the games in memory. If you don't lock and change them all, your cheat won't work.

[Golgo 14]

This is a Boomer question, but is there a way to set up an 8BitDo controller to play a game on Facebook that doesn't have controller support? I've been playing a new game called Pac-Man Community and it's fun, but playing with the arrows on my keyboard makes me feel like I'm back in 1982 playing Munch-Man on a PET.

[Gucci]

Is Xpadder still a thing? I think you might be able to map individual keyboard keys to controller inputs with the program.

Is that what you’re looking for?

[Golgo 14]

Is Xpadder still a thing? I think you might be able to map individual keyboard keys to controller inputs with the program.

Is that what you’re looking for?

Uh, maybe! It's definitely the kind of thing I'm looking for. Just need something basic to map the d-pad to the arrows, or vice versa. I'll look into it.

Thanks, Gucci!

[RCBH928]

All of them do the same thing and all work for emulators in their respective OS. You tell the cheat program which program (memory block) you are trying to manipulate, then search for your number (lives, for example). Lose a life, and search for your lesser number of lives. Lose or gain another life and search for this again changed number. Repeat until the program narrows the address down to one (or even a few), then change and lock (them all).
If you wish to get more advanced you can, but that search sequence takes care of HP, time limit, ammo, lives and any other OSD displayed values.
With the community stuff you can just load a table of all important stats and values. You probably don't even need to search, just apply a template. If you did need to search, it's for an easy value, then the cheat table can be indexed to their correct memory addressed by offsetting to that one known value.
For many emulators, loading the bios file of a cheat hardware or disc under the rom or iso can allow cheating through the original method. GG.bin for NES, and PAR.bin for Playstation. I might be complicating things here. I know I've successfully used those programs I listed on emulators in their OSes (just to see if they could). Be prepared for multiple copies of your search - the emulators seem to keep multiple coppies of the games in memory. If you don't lock and change them all, your cheat won't work.

thanks for the help Anapan much appreciate it, do you know if I can do more than changing values, like skipping levels and increasing speed of movement?

[marurun]

do you know if I can do more than changing values, like skipping levels and increasing speed of movement?

Changing values in memory is how you do those things. You might have to look online to see which memory values to manipulate and how to manipulate them in order to get the results you desire.

[MrPopo]

So Game Genie is actually more clever than just overwriting RAM; it fully intercepts calls to memory addresses and replaces them if a match is found. So it actually dynamically overwrites ROM code. To generate the codes you have to reverse engineer the game code to figure out what's going on. Infinite health tends to be an easy "always return this value when it checks where health is stored", but you can also pull off things like skipping collision detection (as an SMB1 code lets you do for horizontal collision) by overwriting how the check works.

[Anapan]

I still use Joy2Key
https://joytokey.net/en/

[Gucci]

Is Xpadder still a thing? I think you might be able to map individual keyboard keys to controller inputs with the program.

Is that what you’re looking for?

Uh, maybe! It's definitely the kind of thing I'm looking for. Just need something basic to map the d-pad to the arrows, or vice versa. I'll look into it.

Thanks, Gucci!

No worries! It’s been a number of years but I believe you were able to map pretty much any key to a controller button. However, this was during the days where the Xbox 360 controller was top dog.