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

Autoboot into MAME Heaven

Create a self-booting CD to run your arcade games on any PC.

Thanks to enterprising hackers, you can now run MAME on your PC without even touching the contents of the hard drive. How? By using self-booting, Linux-based CDs created exclusively to run the arcade emulator. There are several advantages to this method; for example, you can give copies to less computer-savvy friends without worrying about complex installation and setup problems. The disc is also easily portable; if you want to play at a friend’s house, just take along your CD and pop it in her computer.

The Abundance of Self-Boot MAME Choices

There are several MAME-loving Linux CD kits around, so you actually have a choice. Each comes with its own advantages and disadvantages, which often include some practical problems you may run into trying to make them work. The following section details the most popular.

AdvanceCD

AdvanceCD is by far the most compact of the options; it packs a fully working autoboot MAME system into just 20 MB and leaves lots of room on the disc for ROMs. AdvanceCD uses the rather smart AdvanceMenu (http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/menu-readme.html) frontend ( [Hack #11] ), as well as the AdvanceMAME and AdvanceMESS emulators, which are particularly known for their custom code to produce the correct screen resolution. As the site explains:

The Advance versions are able to directly program the video board to always get a video mode with the correct size and frequency.

The AdvanceCD setup comes with three ROMs: Gridlee, Poly Play, and Robby Roto. The SYS2064 legal ROMs page (http://www.sys2064.com/legalroms.htm) describes these ROMs as freely distributable. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can build AdvanceCD from source in Linux (http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-buildcd.html).

Overall, this is one of the most attractive autobooting MAME packages, not least because it has frequent updates to keep in step with the new AdvanceMAME and AdvanceMenu releases. Although it’s not very customizable or full-featured in terms of the Linux side of things, you can switch to a Linux console by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F2 from within AdvanceCD.

For more information, see http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/cd-readme.html.

KnoppiXMAME

KnoppiXMAME is probably a second choice for most, but it’s still an excellent self-booting CD/DVD option. It has no games installed by default and uses nearly 150 MB for the installation without ROM files.

On the plus side, KnoppiXMAME is definitely more versatile because it uses the very customizable Knoppix Linux CD distribution (http://www.knoppix.net/), a great project in itself. It unfortunately lacks many of the more complex resolution-related features of AdvanceCD. Along with the footprint issues, this is less preferable than AdvanceCD, but is still an excellent effort.

Visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/knoppixmame/ to learn more.

XMAME on CD

XMAME on CD is mostly a roll-your-own project. It started in Japan and has spawned a separate site in the United Kingdom (http://www.phased.co.uk/xmame/) with step-by-step information on how to build your own self-booting XMAME CD from scratch (http://www.phased.co.uk/xmame/cookbook.html). Unfortunately, these instructions are old; they refer to Red Hat 6.2, released in March 2000.

Nonetheless, this provides an interesting guide to doing it yourself, particular with regard to making RAM disc images and creating a read-only filesystem in Linux. Maybe you could look at this page, pretend you understand it, and then download AdvanceCD.

See http://www15.big.or.jp/~yamamori/sun/tech-linux-2/index_e.html.

AdvanceCD Tips and Tricks

Since AdvanceCD is probably the best of the available options, let’s presume you will use it to make your own self-booting MAME CD. Here are some things you should know to make your games run with maximum efficiency.

Bundling and burning the image

To burn the CD image in Windows after you download it, unzip it to your hard drive, add all the ROMs into the correct directory (/image/arcade/), and then run makecd.bat to create the ISO (advcd.iso). Conventional CD-burning software should burn this correctly.

The procedure is similar for Linux users. Run ./makecd.sh instead of the batch file after putting the ROMs into /image/arcade/, then use your favorite Linux—not Windows—CD burning software. Cunning, huh?

Do be careful about the case of the filenames of your ROMs. Only lowercase names will work properly. This may be a problem; it’s easy to find ROMs with irregular filenames or all uppercase characters.

Running the CD

Even with intelligent, self-booting CDs, there are some known issues with a few video and audio cards. Onboard audio cards are the main culprits. AdvanceCD’s SourceForge page has a massive list of compatible video (http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-cardcd.html) and audio (http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-audiocd.html) setups. Read that ahead of time to forestall a nervous rush of confusion later.

This may be obvious, but it’s worth mentioning; if you have a relatively old machine, MAME may run into speed problems, even with self-boot versions. This is most evident on more complex and recent ROMs. You can’t just give the disc to your grandmother with the Pentium 90 and expect games to run at full frame-rate.

Study the manuals and details for AdvanceMAME and AdvanceMENU in detail to understand all the options for screenshots, flyers, background music, and so on. This advice isn’t specific to AdvanceCD; you can use these utilities on their own even outside of the self-booting CD. They are covered further in [Hack #11] .