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

Mod Your Game Boy

Hardware hacks for your favorite portable console.

What if you have an older-model Game Boy Advance and want backlighting? Suppose you have a newer Game Boy and miss the chunky bass sound of the older monochrome Game Boys. You’re not stuck buying a newer or older machine; there are reasonably straightforward hardware modifications you can do to fix both problems.

Game Boy Advance AfterBurner

First, let’s be clear: if you decide to modify your Game Boy Advance (GBA) with a frontlight at this stage in the GBA’s life, you’re hardcore. When Nintendo saw the immense popularity of the AfterBurner frontlight add-on in 2002, they introduced the Game Boy Advance SP, which features frontlighting of its own.

You’re also hardcore because there’s a definite failure rate when it comes to the tricky frontlight installation. An acquaintance ruined more than one GBA before getting it right! It’s also becoming difficult to find the AfterBurner kit because its creators at Triton Labs (http://www.tritonlabs.com/) have discontinued it in favor of composing music instead.

If all this doesn’t put you off, it’s still a challenging and interesting project.

Start by reading the Triton Labs FAQ (http://www.tritonlabs.com/?page=faq#11) to understand the requirements. You will need:

  • An AfterBurner kit. This comes with the light guide and source, electrical wire, and a dimmer switch you can choose to install or not. The dimmer switch can be a little unreliable if installed badly.

  • A soldering iron, solder, and wire strippers

  • A Dremel drill. You’ll need to remove some of the plastic under the screen for the light to fit.

  • A can of compressed air. While you have the screen exposed, it may attract specks of dust. They will stay there forever after you reseal your GBA—not good.

Fortunately, the AfterBurner kit itself comes with very good instructions. It’s worth running through the steps nonetheless:

  1. Open your GBA by removing the special screws from the back of the system. Multiple sources recommend using a 1/16-inch flathead screwdriver. When unscrewed, you can separate the screen from the GBA’s cover; be very careful here, because the two may be stuck together.

  2. Make sure that all dust is out of the way before you mount the antireflective film to the GBA’s LCD screen. This is one of the trickiest parts of the entire operation; the film is difficult to apply without trapping air bubbles in the film and extremely tricky to reposition when you’ve placed it. Be careful!

  3. Solder wires from the light guide to two points on the GBA specified in the AfterBurner instruction manual. Carefully reassemble everything, including the new light guide and light source. Use the compressed air to blow all specks of dust out of the screen area before replacing the front cover.

Presto. You should have a working frontlight for your previously vanilla GBA!

The Triton Labs site says:

You can expect to spend at least a half hour to an hour to do the job right, possibly more if you’ve never done anything like this. If you are completely inexperienced in electronics, you should consider going with a professional installer.

The frontlight definitely affects battery life, just as it does with the Game Boy Advance SP. Conservative estimates vary, but expect a reduction of at least 30% in battery life after installing a frontlight. Fortunately, the AfterBurner doesn’t take power in any underhanded manner; the GBA is under the impression it’s powering an external wormlight (an adjustable light that attaches to it). You’ll see no power-related glitches if you’ve installed the device properly.

Frontlighting Versus Backlighting

The whole concept of frontlighting and backlighting is a little confusing, with many people convinced that the Game Boy Advance SP has a backlit screen. This isn’t actually correct. Both the AfterBurner kit and the GBA SP add frontlighting, illuminating the LCD screen by projecting light in from the front (specifically, across the front from the sides). If mounted properly, this still provides excellent lighting, although some people claim noticeable issues such as washed-out colors.

Other portable consoles in the past have had proper backlighting, even as far back as the Atari Lynx in 1989.

Bass Sound Modding the Game Boy Color

Although this is a specialized mod, it’s pretty neat. The Game Boy is becoming increasingly popular as a machine with homebrew music-creation software ( [Hack #22] ). One of the limitations of creating sound on a GB is that the original, monochrome Game Boy produces better sound than any other version of the hardware. The Game Boy Color (GBC), an otherwise excellent candidate, has poor bass output and produces extra noise by the time the audio reaches the headphone socket.

The resourceful Timothy “Trash80” Lamb decided to open up the GBC to see what he could do. He produced an ingenious method (http://www.littlesounddj.com/awkiawki/index.cgi/Prosound/) of coaxing sound out of the GBC more directly without the garbling that happens through the current headphone socket. Your GBC can now also be a potent sonic weapon.

What do you need?

  • A soldering iron, wire strippers, and solder.

  • A Dremel or other type of drill. You’ll need to cut a small hole in the Game Boy Color’s plastic case

  • An audio lead with a normal male 3.5mm headphone jack on one end. It doesn’t matter what’s on the other end; you’ll cut it off.

Here’s Lamb’s procedure, step by step:

  1. Open the back of your Game Boy Color by undoing the screws holding it in place. As with opening up the GBA, you’ll encounter problems, because the screws are custom-made. Try the same 1/16-inch flathead screwdriver suggested earlier. If that fails, you can buy a Tri-Wing Screwdriver, specifically designed to open this type of screw, from online retailers such as ConsolePlus (http://www.consoleplus.co.uk/) in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong’s ever reliable Play-Asia (http://www.play-asia.com/).

  2. The volume potentiometer is easy to find: it includes five pins and connects to the normal headphone socket. Cut off the other end of your 3.5mm headphone jack cable and strip the wires as necessary. Solder the two audio wires into pin 2 (left) and pin 3 (right). This bypasses whatever junk causes signal degradation on the normal headphone socket.

  3. Unscrew the actual circuit board and turn it, looking for the connection labeled “4” under the headphone jack. Solder the last remaining lead, the audio ground, into that connection. Finally, make a small hole at the base of the GBC unit, just large enough for the audio lead, and close the GBC again. Congratulations, your Game Boy Color is now a bass monster.

Please note that this mod will work only for direct sound output, not for headphone output. This is good for recording to your PC when you’re done, but not so good for listening on the move. This is a minor issue compared to the extra bass boom it produces, however.