Table of Contents for
Gaming Hacks

Version ebook / Retour

Cover image for bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition Gaming Hacks by Simon Carless Published by O'Reilly Media, Inc., 2004
  1. Cover
  2. Gaming Hacks
  3. Credits
  4. Contributors
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Foreword
  7. Preface
  8. How to Use This Book
  9. How This Book Is Organized
  10. Conventions Used in This Book
  11. Using Code Examples
  12. Comments and Questions
  13. Got a Hack?
  14. 1. Playing Classic Games
  15. Legal Emulation
  16. Play Commodore 64 Games Without the C-64
  17. Play Atari ROMs Without the Atari
  18. Use Atari Paddles with Your PC
  19. Run Homebrew Games on the Atari 2600
  20. Create Your Own Atari 2600 Homebrew Games
  21. Play Classic PC Graphic Adventures
  22. Play Old Games Through DOSBox
  23. Play Reissued All-in-One Joystick Games
  24. Play Arcade Games Without the Arcade
  25. Add and Manipulate a MAME Frontend
  26. Keep Your ROMs Tidy and Organized
  27. Learn Game-Specific MAME Controls
  28. Filter Inappropriate MAME ROMs
  29. Autoboot into MAME Heaven
  30. Play Emulated Arcade Games Online
  31. Play Classic Pinball Without the Table
  32. Emulate the SNES on the Dreamcast
  33. 2. Playing Portably
  34. Play Games on Your iPod
  35. Mod Your Game Boy
  36. Take and Print Photos with Your Game Boy
  37. Compose Music on Your Game Boy
  38. Explore the GP32 Handheld Gaming System
  39. Take Your Console with You
  40. Explore the Bandai WonderSwan
  41. Play Real Games on Your PDA
  42. Install a PlayStation 2 in Your Car
  43. 3. Playing Well with Others
  44. Practice Proper MMORPG Etiquette
  45. Understand MMORPG Lingo
  46. Grind Without Going Crazy
  47. Make a Profit in Vana’diel
  48. Write MMORPG Macros
  49. Build an Effective Group
  50. Catch Half-Life FPS Cheaters Redhanded
  51. 4. Playing with Hardware
  52. Build a Quiet, Killer Gaming Rig
  53. Find and Configure the Best FPS Peripherals
  54. Adapt Old Video Game Controllers to the PC
  55. Choose the Right Audio/Video Receiver
  56. Place Your Speakers Properly
  57. Connect Your Console to Your Home Theater
  58. Tune Console Video Output
  59. Tune Your TV for Console Video
  60. PC Audio Hacking
  61. Optimize PC Video Performance
  62. Build a Dedicated Multimedia PC
  63. Use a Multimedia Projector for Gaming
  64. 5. Playing with Console and Arcade Hardware
  65. Play LAN-Only Console Games Online
  66. Hack the Nuon DVD Player/Gaming System
  67. Play Import Games on American Consoles
  68. Find a Hackable Dreamcast
  69. Play Movies and Music on Your Dreamcast
  70. Hack the Dreamcast Visual Memory Unit
  71. Unblur Your Dreamcast Video
  72. Use Your Dreamcast Online
  73. Host Dreamcast Games Online
  74. Burn Dreamcast-Compatible Discs on Your PC
  75. Burn Dreamcast Homebrew Discs
  76. Buy Your Own Arcade Hardware
  77. Configure Your Arcade Controls, Connectors, and Cartridges
  78. Reorient and Align Your Arcade Monitor
  79. Buy Cart-Based JAMMA Boards
  80. Programming Music for the Nintendo Entertainment System
  81. 6. Playing Around the Game Engine
  82. Explore Machinima
  83. Choose a Machinima Engine
  84. Film Your First Machinima Movie
  85. Improve Your Camera Control
  86. Record Game Footage to Video
  87. Speedrun Your Way Through Metroid Prime
  88. Sequence-Break Quake
  89. Run Classic Game ROM Translations
  90. Change Games with ROM Hacks
  91. Apply ROM Hacks and Patches
  92. Create PS2 Cheat Codes
  93. Hack Xbox Game Saves
  94. Cheat on Other Consoles
  95. Modify PC Game Saves and Settings
  96. Buff Your Saved Characters
  97. Create Console Game Levels
  98. 7. Playing Your Own Games
  99. Adventure Game Studio Editing Tips
  100. Create and Play Pinball Tables
  101. Put Your Face in DOOM
  102. Create a Vehicle Model for Unreal Tournament 2004
  103. Add a Vehicle to Unreal Tournament 2004
  104. Modify the Behavior of a UT2004 Model
  105. Download, Compile, and Create an Inform Adventure
  106. Decorate Your IF Rooms
  107. Add Puzzles to Your IF Games
  108. Add Nonplayer Characters to IF Adventures
  109. Make Your IF NPCs Move
  110. Make Your IF NPCs Talk
  111. Create Your Own Animations
  112. Add Interactivity to Your Animations
  113. Write a Game in an Afternoon
  114. 8. Playing Everything Else
  115. Tweak Your Tactics for FPS Glory
  116. Beat Any Shoot-Em-Up
  117. Drive a Physics-Crazed Motorcycle
  118. Play Japanese Games Without Speaking Japanese
  119. Back Up, Modify, and Restore PlayStation Saved Games
  120. Access Your Console’s Memory Card Offline
  121. Overclock Your Console
  122. Index
  123. Colophon

Filter Inappropriate MAME ROMs

When people think of MAME, they probably think of cute, fluffy, kid-friendly old-school titles such as Ms. Pac-Man. The truth is that, among the gigantic amount of MAME ROMs, quite a few titles have lots of nudity, from Arkanoid clones with topless women through Qix clones with topless women and all the way to Puzzle Bobble clones with topless or more extremely unclothed women.

If you have kids (or even parents) who like playing puzzle games, you may not feel comfortable leaving them alone with your unsorted MAME ROM sets. Many of the ROM names don’t indicate that they cater to prurient interests. In fact, many have cutesy titles that attract the young. Sure, you could use existing frontends ( [Hack #11] ), but by fiddling with preferences, it’s possible to find masked ROMs again.

Alternately, if you don’t have any inappropriate ROMs, but you do want to categorize them better, you can use the same techniques. Better safe than sorry, eh?

MARRT, Your Friendly Neighborhood MAME Adult Filter

Enter MARRT (http://www.timsarcade.net/news/marrt.html), a Windows utility that can move or delete all adult-themed ROMs from your MAME directory, using the gamelist in mature.ini as the basis for its categorization. You’ll need Microsoft’s .NET Framework installed to run this.

Thanks to the Catlist project’s categorization of MAME ROMs (http://www.mameworld.net/catlist/), there’s no need for you to identify the adult titles: just fire and forget. Obviously, with the Catlist adult game list, you can probably code a simple Linux or Mac script to do the same thing, but MARRT is nicely packaged already.

Figure 1-10 shows the GUI; here’s how to use it:

  1. Install MARRT into the /MARRT subdirectory of your MAME install, using the handy and included Windows installer. Don’t run it yet.

  2. The distribution includes only a test version of the mature.ini file, so download the MAME32 version of Catlist (http://www.mameworld.net/catlist/files/cat32.zip), which includes a current mature.ini file. Unzip it into the /MARRT directory.

  3. Launch MARRT.exe and enter the ROM directory that you’re acting on, as well as whether you moved or deleted the files.

  4. To delete another game not in the mature category, type in the name of the ZIP file and click Add ZIP to add it to the list.

  5. Click the Move ROMs/Delete ROMs button, and MARRT will make it so.

The MARRT GUI

Figure 1-10. The MARRT GUI

If you hate puzzle games, you can slip the puzzle game list in there, instead. Open genre.ini in the MAME32 Catlist file, search for the Puzzle genre, and select only those files as mature.ini. Heck, you could also move all the adult-themed games into your MAME directory, just by moving all your ROMs to a new directory and making your destination directory your conventional MAME ROMs location. Be creative.

ROM Filtering Alternatives

There is an alternative to MARRT in the form of MCM, or MAME Content Manager (http://www.mameworld.net/mcm/), an older but still working piece of ROM management software that allows you to rename or remove not only ROMs, but also Snapshots, Flyers, Marquees, Cabinets, and Title Snaps.

This particular utility uses the CATVER.INI file, also available from the Catlist site (http://www.mameworld.net/catlist/files/catver.zip). Be aware that other versions of CATVER.INI, even those that claim to be up to date, don’t carry the Mature tag on genres, so you won’t be able to tell which games are adult.

In some ways, MCM is more comprehensive than MARRT, although it’s less specific with regards to adult games. As it’s had no updates in a year or two, it doesn’t quite deal perfectly with mature titles. You have to pick the mature version of each of the individual genres from CATVER.INI, so it takes more clicks than MAART to perform the same behavior.

However, the added ability to search for particular games by string, as well as the neatness with the removal of other non-ROM-related artifacts that could still cause kid-related consternation, means this is well worth checking out, especially if you’re not just interested in banning adult games.

There are still more alternatives for adult ROM removal, as suggested by an official MAME FAQ answer (http://www.mame.net/cgi-bin/wwwthreads/showpost.pl?Board=mamefaq&Number=254&page=3), on http://www.mame.net/, which covers the subject in detail. In particular, you can try the tactic of keeping a different MAME directory and user for adults and kids, and making sure you can’t access the adult version unless you log on to your Windows or Mac machine as a different user altogether.

On the other hand, software solutions that don’t require user-setting complications are good things.