taking gb/gbc/gba games and dumping them onto pc

[Legendeer]

Hi

I know you can get Flash Advance Linker/FA extreme or whatever, but what about normal GB/GBC games? Are they compatible with Flash Advance Linker or not?

Also - is it very easy to hack games and then send them to a rewritable flash card? The only game i have hacked is pokemon red and it was quite difficult.

thanks,

Legendeer
:huh:

[belmont]

There are also cards for older GB systems!

It is easy to patch hacks on GBA games.
Use any patchin utility.
I patch hacks and trainers and work perfectly with my F2A.

[Legendeer]

Hi

I didn't mean how easy it is to patch hacked ROMS, I meant to actually change the game. Like in Pokemon Red I changed the text that was in the game. I know how to patch games kinda, but I don't really understand what it does. I used HebeGB.

Do you know where I can get FA Extreme, or ones for GB/GBC and stuff like that? I assume it would be compatible with my European games, because I'm from the UK.

Thanks for the help, I just wanted to know because I would like to upload pokemon gold from my real GBC collection to my PC, change some of the sprites and text, then send it back to a gameboy cart so that I had my own personalized pokemon game. Would all that be possible?

Thanks again,

Legendeer

(btw I'm only 12 1/2 and I haven't had much experience with this sort of thing before, although like i said I did attempt to hack pokemon red once before).

[Jet Set Willy]

I don't really have any experience with GBA linkers etc., but as far as not understanding patches goes - keep at it. Hacking is called hacking because that's the best approach to it - just hack away and you begin learning very quickly. You're not even a teen and yet and you're well clued up, so I imagine you'll have a good grasp on things very soon. You might want to read up on hardware and how the GBA interprets the bytes in a ROM, as well as understanding how graphics and strings are stored. Maybe get some programming experience under your belt if you're really interested. Good luck. :-)

[Legendeer]

I would like to be able to play about with ROMS, etc, but I don't know any sites that have good guides or anything. Do anyone know any?

[Jet Set Willy]

Depends what you want to do really. Best thing to do is learn how things work - but that's more of a long term thing, hands on experience, book learning and all that. If you're interested in the basics of actual ROM hacking, stuff like this (http://www.romhacking.com/docs/gendocs.php) might come in handy. Knowledge of the machine's actual hardware is pretty much essential for successful hacking though.

[Legendeer]

Okay thanks.

All I know about the GBA is that it's 32-bit, and it's capable of PSone graphics. That's it. I don't understand all about chips and processers, etc.

I know this site tells you all the specs for the systems that it has emulators for, but I don't really understand them.

Thanks for all the help. I'll have 2 be going to be soon (It's 11:00pm here)

As a final word for today, can you tell me where the rules are for this forum, because you're supposed to read them before you post but I can't find them. Thanks a lot :D you 've been a big help.

[Jet Set Willy]

I dunno, they're somewhere. I don't read them. As long as you don't ask for games or illegal software you'll do fine.

It's 11pm here also, I'm also from the U.K.

[Legendeer]

ok

Hey can I just ask you something:-

How come emulator-zone has loads of emulators, but has no roms for them? I can understand that they don't want to for legal reasons, but it doesn't say where you can get ROMS from either, and there's no point downloading an emulator if there are no ROMS for it.

I already have roms, but newbies who just come onto the site would probably be confused.

The emulators themselves are illegal aren't they?

[Jet Set Willy]

Emulators are mostly legal, though the methods to make them often break reverse engineering rules - but since nobody can prove they were made illegally, they're not illegal as such.

Companies actively search the Internet for ROM sites and have them shut down. If this site were to start hosting copyrighted games, it would eventually be taken offline.

[Legendeer]

Oh ok. What about ROM sites that have a disclaimer about how "these roms are for backups for people who've bought the actual games" kind of thing? Then the website couldn't be shut down because it's not actually illegal.

I think you're allowed to have ROMS as long as you've bought the game, just in case the game breaks.

:D

[Jet Set Willy]

You're allowed to make a personal backup of the ROM, but you can't publish it online anywhere. ROMs that you download (especially living in the U.K.) are likely to be slightly different overseas versions of the games (most often American) and so it's not the same software, and hence illegal.

The disclaimers sites put up are absolute nonsense, and only intended to buy the site a little more time or convince their hosts that they are doing things for legitimate purposes.

[Legendeer]

Oh right. But that means that eventually there will be no roms available ever. If the companies have ROM sites shut down.

Could you get sued for owning a ROM site, even if it said on it that it was only to make it easier for people to get backups for the games they have bought?

I thought I might make a ROM site, because of how there never seems to be more than 3 working ROMS on any one site, but if they are regularly shut down, I don't think I will. Plus I'd rather not be sued if I can help it. :P Ah well,

[Jet Set Willy]

ROMs will always be available. The Internet is too vast and distributed to police entirely. Some sites get away with it by being sneaky (though most eventually get shut down) and by swapping hosts. Also, BitTorrent sites such as Suprnova are able to spread ROMs by only placing the torrent files (which contain no ROM data and hence are legal) allowing people to share directly from their hard disks.

And that's just the "Web" portion of the Internet, (HTTP). There will always be P2P apps, including decentralised ones which can't possibly be shut down. There's also IRC, manual file trading, USENET, etc. - piracy has always found a way, and always will. So don't panic about losing ROMs :-)

If you want to spread ROMs, opening a site probably isn't the best way, especially if you're relying on free hosts, as it WILL be shut down. What you could perhaps do is learn about IRC and BitTorrent and share through those.

[Legendeer]

My site is hosted at my ISP. But it's just a personal site.

Are IRC and BitTORRENT like Shareaza? Cuz I used to go on a game boy roms site but now you can only get the files through shareaza and it just doesn't download when you start it.

[Jet Set Willy]

Shareaza is annoying because it tries to intercept BitTorrent downloads. If the Game Boy site has torrents, you should use this (http://d.scarywater.net/bittorrent-EXPERIMENTAL-UNOFFICIAL-3.2.1b-2.exe) client rather than Shareaza. However, since you're only on dialup Internet you might have trouble using torrents - works best on faster connections.

[Legendeer]

How did you know I'm on dialup internet? :huh:

Could you tell me how the torrent stuff works? You said that some sites offer bittorrent files that have no rom data so are legal, but then where are the roms? They'd have to be hosted somewhere, wouldn't they? ;)

I think it has something to do with finding people who own a rom, and downloading it through shareaza or others from their computer to yours, or something like that?

[Jet Set Willy]

I knew you were on dialup 'cos of your IP address.

Torrents basically work by a site hosting a file, which directs your Bittorrent client to a "tracker". You connect to this, and it gives you the address of other computers sharing the file, and registers your computer as a sharer. So all the host does is keep track of computers - it's the sharers/downloaders who send all of the data. As you download the file you are also sending it to other people.

I hope that makes sense, it's a hard thing to explain. It's a lot like normal file sharing applications in a way, but also a lot like a normal Web site.

[Legendeer]

Okay, I'm just looking at bittorrent now, from that download link that you posted. Is it simple to use?

And it would be perfect legal to have a ROM site as long as there were no actual ROM files on it? (eg. they were all torrents or whatever)?

Would I still need to put a disclaimer?

[Jet Set Willy]

It depends. I expect most hosts are stills sensitive about torrents, as they're a gateway to illegality. You'd also have to find a tracker to use - since running your own is probably out of the question, you'd have to use one an established torrent site gives you access to, and so your torrents would be displayed on their site also.

[Legendeer]

Why would running my own tracker be out of the question? Is it difficult to do?

Maybe I should search the net for a site that uses torrents and trackers etc already, then I could look at how they do it and I would get a better idea of how it works.

[Jet Set Willy]

suprnova.org is perhaps the best known one, and the biggest, but it's very slow because of all the traffic (and I shouldn't really be posting it here, oh well).

A tracker would be hard to run because it requires having a machine permanently connected to the Internet to run the tracker. You can't just host it on free Web space unfortunately.

Some tracker information here: http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/57.html

You could potentially run one on a PHP & MySQL web account, but I doubt you'll find a suitable one for free, and it would probably be shut down by the host anyway.

[Legendeer]

having my own tracker would be out of the question then, you're right. Thanks for the link, I'm looking at it now.

But I don't think websites with trackers would see the point of letting me link to their trackers. And that would mean I couldn't choose what ROMS to link to, so it would be like a copy of their site. Hmm..... ;)

[Jet Set Willy]

No, you can create your own torrent files, which use their trackers to manage all of the download/upload organisation. You'd still have a .torrent file which you could host on your own site (and they'd likely host it on their sites too, as payment for using their tracker). A torrent can be hosted anywhere, as it's basically just a link to the trackers.

You might be interested in having a look at http://animesuki.com/, a site run by the owner of this site (I think it shares the same host machine as Emulator-Zone too). It's a good example of how a torrent site works. I imagine a lot of those torrents use a tracker which is not affiliated with the same site.

[Legendeer]

Okay, so first I need to find a site that would let me use a tracker (do I need just 1 tracker for all the ROMs, or 1 tracker for every ROM?).

Then I need to find out how to use trackers, or whatever I would need to do to find sharers of the ROMs I want to host (However you do that :huh: ).

Then I'm done. Is that right?

thanks!!!

Oh and by the way, I've installed bittorrent but I can't find it in Start>Programs. Plus, I've been back onto the game boy roms site, but I click on the download link and a box comes up saying windows cannot find SHAREAZA.EXE. I think you have to have bittorrent running, except it doesn't seem to exist on my PC even though I've installed it. I did Start>Search and typed bittorrent but I only got a couple of .ico files, some .dll's and a readme file.

[Jet Set Willy]

Shareazaa is probably causing all of those errors, it messes up file associations. BitTorrent would normally launch automatically. Perhaps you should uninstall Shareaza and reinstall BitTorrent.

You use a special program to build torrents (http://krypt.dyndns.org:81/torrent/maketorrent/). It will ask you for the filename and a few options, and the URL of the tracker you want to use.

For the torrent to work you'll need to always have at least one person sharing the file. Generally as the torrent gets popular this is never a problem, as there are always people with it open. If you get some torrents going I can help you there - I can make sure I'm always keeping some of your torrents open, as my computer is connected pretty much permanently.

[Jet Set Willy]

Once you have a torrent set up and shared, you'll have an interface like this to keep track of it:

(it's good etiquette to keep a torrent uploading until your share rating is above 1.0 - that means you've uploaded as much as you've downloaded)

[Legendeer]

If you get some torrents going I can help you there - I can make sure I'm always keeping some of your torrents open, as my computer is connected pretty much permanently.

Thanks for the offer, that would be great. So I only need to use one tracker? What websites should I be looking for to ask them to use one of theirs?

I have already uninstalled shareaza a little while ago. I dunno if it uninstalled properly or what though. but it's not on the system anymore.

The only thing I don't understand is how will the first ever person to my website download a ROM, because there won't be any sharers because no one will have downloaded it?

[Jet Set Willy]

Usually the person who puts the torrent up will keep it open on their own computer for a while so that people can connect to it and download it, so that it propogates to a few other people. That's called "seeding" the torrent - a seed is a person who is sharing the full file for everybody else to download. That's the reason I can help you there - you'll need somebody constantly seeding the file for a while.

I don't really know which tracker you should use. I know that maketorrent has some tracker links built in - I guess you just have to keep making torrents with different trackers until you come up with one which works. You'll know when it doesn't work because BitTorrent will say "Error connecting to tracker".

[Legendeer]

I've just made a torrent, but the tracker didn't work - I was just messing around and seeing how it worked. I'll try with the other built in trackers too. Thanks!

and would it be possible for me to ZIP the ROMS before I add them to a .torrent file? Then that would speed up download time too.

Do i just need to add a normal link to a web page to test the tracker? Like this:-

Link Text (location_on_my_pc.torrent) and that will work?

[Jet Set Willy]

You need to upload the torrent, it won't work as a link to your PC. Naturally torrents are very small files, as they are basically links theirselves.

It's best to ZIP the ROMs, yes.

I suggest you put the torrent links on some Web space you're not afraid of losing (in case the host takes offence at what you're doing). Good luck!

[Jet Set Willy]

You could try finding a working torrent and copying the tracker it uses. I'm pretty sure most trackers need registering with though. Worth visiting the Web sites associated with them.

[Legendeer]

I think I've found one and I'm trying to register with it now. I've got to go out shortly but I'll probably be back later to carry on experimenting with the torrents and everything.


it won't work as a link to your PC

I know I would have to upload the torrents eventually, but just testing it for myself I can just do it on my desktop, can't I?

[Jet Set Willy]

Yep, you don't even need to put it on a Web page though, you could just double click the torrent file from your desktop (as long as the file association thing is fixed).

[Lefteris_D]

Basicaly if you find the exact same file you wish to download in another tracker you will be able to resume. I've swiched trackers for a single file several times so I'm sure that it works. Just make sure it is the exact same file as just a small difference will result in a faliure.

Please remember that you cannot simply edit a torrent file to use another tracker as it would be kind of pointless if nobody knows that the certain file is being shared to that tracker. In every case that I swiched trackers the website that listed the torrents had all the trackers that supported that file as well.

[Jet Set Willy]

Why are you answering questions nobody asked?

[Legendeer]

why are you answering questions nobody asked?

Yeah, I thought that too. I think he just misread my question. Thanks anyway though Lefteris! :D

Lemon, this comes up when I list the tracker as exodus-track or something from the maketorrent built-in ones:-

http://mysite.freeserve.com/joes_storage/misc/bt.gif

I clicked on view the site and it said it had moved so I went to the new site and I can't find anything about trackers. shall I just try another tracker?

Ta,

:)

[Lefteris_D]

Didnt you say something about swiching trackers? To be exact you said: "You could try finding a working torrent and copying the tracker it uses".

I simply provided some extra information :)

[Lefteris_D]

"rejected by tracker" means that the torrent does not exist in the tracker's batabase so any connections are rejected.

You can only use the tracker that was originally available for that torrent.

[Jet Set Willy]

Originally posted by Lefteris_D@Mar 20 2004, 01:40 PM
Didnt you say something about swiching trackers? To be exact you said: "You could try finding a working torrent and copying the tracker it uses".

I simply provided some extra information :)
I didn't mean the same file, I just meant finding any old torrent which works, as a means of locating a valid tracker.

[Lefteris_D]

Originally posted by Lemon@Mar 20 2004, 03:45 PM
I didn't mean the same file, I just meant finding any old torrent which works, as a means of locating a valid tracker.
If that is the case then it should not be a huge problem. Some trackers (mostly the ones that run on virtual hosts) tend to be unstable sometimes and just go on and off. The tracker should be back in a few minutes or hours(at worse) but if that does not happen then you need to worry.

Just be patient for a few hours.

[Jet Set Willy]

...or find a working one, or stop repeating stuff we've already covered :angry:

[Mourgos]

This is educating.I think I'll try bittorent myself.

[Legendeer]

Okay, I'm gonna try and find a torrent. Dunno where from, but I'm gonna try and find a torrent. How will I know what tracker it uses though?

[Legendeer]

Does anyone know any sites that have torrents on them? I went to torrents.co.uk, but that has an error when I do it. It might be me not doing bittorrent right though.

By the way, what does this error mean? Is it me or the torrent i was trying to download that's the problem?

http://mysite.freeserve.com/joes_storage/misc/bt.gif

[Jet Set Willy]

I think it's the torrent, I expect it used a local reference for a tracker for some reason.

If you click Details you'll be able to see the tracker URI.

You can get torrents from suprnova.org.

[Legendeer]

I did look @ supernova, but you need to pay for an account.

[Jet Set Willy]

You don't, I download their torrents all the time, and have submitted a few (some of them are still active, months later!) - I am downloading a torrent from there right now, in fact. You could likely find some valid trackers from their torrents at least.

Try this one: http://trinity.zionmatrix.com/

I know it's a working tracker, 'cos it's from the torrent I'm downloading. Hopefully their accounts are free.

[Legendeer]

Ok, I tried trinity tracker, but the registration page is a dead link. However, I just realised that I was looking at SUPERNOVA.org, but I think the one you are talking about is SUPRNOVA.org. That's why I thought you had to pay. I'll try and find a working tracker on SUPRNOVA now.

[Legendeer]

I clicked on games, but that didn't work so then I clicked on movies but I got gateway timeouts for both. Maybe the traffic's too much. I'll try again in a minute.

[Jet Set Willy]

Yeah, the site is often down.

[Legendeer]

Well that's no good. Shall I just keep trying?

[Jet Set Willy]

Try tomorrow or something.

[Legendeer]

okay. Thanks

[belmont]

I bought mine from winsunx.
http://www.winsunx.com/
It hasn't cards for GBC.It is hard to find them.A utility called GB bridge does the trick.With this you can load GB\GBC roms in the F2A and play them on your GBA.

Thanks for the help, I just wanted to know because I would like to upload pokemon gold from my real GBC collection to my PC, change some of the sprites and text, then send it back to a gameboy cart so that I had my own personalized pokemon game. Would all that be possible?

No the GBC cardridges are not re-writable.
You can try to hack a rom and send it on a GBA flash card.

[Legendeer]

No the GBC cardridges are not re-writable.
You can try to hack a rom and send it on a GBA flash card.

That was what i meant. Upload Pokemon Gold from my GBC collection, then hack it, then send it to a flash card. would it have to be a GBC flash card or would it work on a GBA one too?

Thanks for the help

Also I don't think Flash Advance Extreme and GB Bridge are on winsunx. It seems like it's written by someone who can't speak english too. All things like:-


Partial rewrite possible, made for outdoors gamer, no need to worry for lose save data etc.

Just to check that FA extreme is the right thing before i actually get it (if i do get it), Flash Advance Extreme is the product that lets you upload real GBA games to your PC as ROMs. That right?

Thanks a lot, I'm new to ROM hacking and everything like that, and you've been a big help. Sorry i keep bothering you. :)

[belmont]

That was what i meant. Upload Pokemon Gold from my GBC collection, then hack it, then send it to a flash card. would it have to be a GBC flash card or would it work on a GBA one too?

It would work with Flash 2 Advance card connected with GB Bridge.

Also I don't think Flash Advance Extreme and GB Bridge are on winsunx. It seems like it's written by someone who can't speak english too.
I bought Flash 2 Advance from them.They don't have GB Bridge.It is true that they can't speak English well.

Just to check that FA extreme is the right thing before i actually get it (if i do get it), Flash Advance Extreme is the product that lets you upload real GBA games to your PC as ROMs. That right?
As far as I know this can be done with all GBA flash cards.I haven't tried it with mine though.

[Legendeer]

Ok -

Are Flash 2 Advance cards the rewritable flash cards that you need if you want to download ROMs to actual cartridges that can play on a real GBA?


I thought i needed Flash Advance Extreme, because that's the one with the usb cable, I don't know what flash 2 advance is.


As far as I know this can be done with all GBA flash cards.I haven't tried it with mine though.

But i wouldn't be doing uploading my games to the pc with flash cards, I'd be doing it with the game cartridges. Putting the real cartridges onto the PC as ROMs.

I'm getting a bit confused. :rolleyes:

[belmont]

Are Flash 2 Advance cards the rewritable flash cards that you need if you want to download ROMs to actual cartridges that can play on a real GBA?
Yes.In fact trere are many kinds of them.
More info for each one on this shop : http://www.success-hk.com/pp/item_cate_lis...8D-54B0E82E2AB9 (http://www.success-hk.com/pp/item_cate_list.asp?cateID=2A175684-46B0-4E67-B98D-54B0E82E2AB9)
or this site http://www.gameboy-advance.net/flash_card/compare.htm
The Flash Advance Extreme is an old card.You should buy a newer one.

But i wouldn't be doing uploading my games to the pc with flash cards, I'd be doing it with the game cartridges. Putting the real cartridges onto the PC as ROMs.

As I said this can be done with probably all flash linkers but although I have lots of original GBA games I haven't tried it yet.

[Legendeer]

Thanks very much Belmont, I understand it now and I have the answers to my questions.

End of this topic.

:)