tg3k save states/password hacks

[invictius]

I almost celebrated when I found this game could be emulated. 5 years ago, the local video store was going broke, and nobody EVER rented out the game, so a friend and I put the top gear pcb into another game cartridge, and put that other cartridge's pcb into the top gear shell, and returned it

Anyway, my question is - does anyone have any save states they're willing to share? I wouldn't mind racing on Kraz with all #6 items, or saves from any point in the game. Also, does anyone know how the password system works? There must be some way of knowing which characters do what, to determine what parts you have, your cash level, etc...

[grinvader]

You can get a max cash code under 10 minutes. Then restart a game with it and buy everything from the start.

[invictius]

I tried starting at Kraz with 3,500,000 credits, searched for that number, and got something like 150,000 results. I started a new game, searched for "0", got 90,000 results, and was told to return to the game. I finished a race, thinking I had to enter my new credit value, but there was no way to resume my search. What am I doing wrong?

EDIT: In fact, if I use the "all b's" password, and search for that money value, i get 0 results...

[grinvader]

It's a bit more tricky.
You have to think how the coders may have put the data.
In this case, it's stored in hex, directly.
The cash int (4 bytes) is stored at 7e038e, little-endian.

So, 12 345 678 cash -> 0x78 56 34 12
The 4 par codes are:
7e038e78
7e038f56
7e039034
7e039112

Of course, replace the last two digits of each code with what you want.
You can get 99 millions in a single code, 7e039199.

[invictius]

It's a bit more tricky.
You have to think how the coders may have put the data.
In this case, it's stored in hex, directly.
The cash int (4 bytes) is stored at 7e038e, little-endian.

So, 12 345 678 cash -> 0x78 56 34 12
The 4 par codes are:
7e038e78
7e038f56
7e039034
7e039112

Of course, replace the last two digits of each code with what you want.
You can get 99 millions in a single code, 7e039199.

Thanks. That really helped. Now I'm trying to think of a way to change your position from 20th to 1st (and hopefully fool the game into thinking you have finished at first). Since 20 in hex is 0x14 (thanks to google calculator) i lagged into 20th in a race, and searched for 0x14... i can't type x. Is it possible to do something like this in zsnes? Also, is there a way of "getting into" the palette, which in the case of this game, would show you the different screens used for different planets (both in the actual race and the map/description)?

[grinvader]

Is it possible to do something like this in zsnes?

You can choose between hex and decimal scans on the first window of cheat search.

Also, is there a way of "getting into" the palette, which in the case of this game, would show you the different screens used for different planets (both in the actual race and the map/description)?

No, these are retrieved by the game code during runtime, put in VRAM and used as necessary. You cannot grab the original data without reverse-engineering the game and making a ripping tool dedicated for it.
Myabe someone else already did this work and put it on the web, but it's not very often.

[aminalshmu]

5 years ago, the local video store was going broke, and nobody EVER rented out the game, so a friend and I put the top gear pcb into another game cartridge, and put that other cartridge's pcb into the top gear shell, and returned it

that's some funny shit. what a badass game. racing games don't have character like TG3K any more.

[grinvader]

racing games don't have character like TG3K any more.

My GC says that F-Zero GX wants to punch you in the face.

How's that for character ?

[invictius]

Is it possible to do something like this in zsnes?

You can choose between hex and decimal scans on the first window of cheat search.

Ok, this is what I've done. Start a race, lag to 20th, search for that value in decimal (0-255 of course) get to 14th, search for that value, then i got to 5th and that gave me 2 results. I added both to the cheat browser, telling it the new value should be 1, and slowed back down so i would be 20th. I was still told that i came in 20th, but also after the race wasn't told i came in first (and so didn't qualify for the next race). Would applying both make any difference, or am i screwing up somewhere?

EDIT: I've had another go, using a similar method:

7e0142 cv:1 pv:13
7e1e02 cv:1 pv:13

With the last one, my position ALWAYS flashes. But i still am not, or finish up as, first.

[grinvader]

I'd say that the game finds out who's first looking at the times.
At least that's how I would do it, as a coder.

The AI is also very easy to alter during the race with this method.

[PHoNyMiKe]

there's another dsp game that last time I checked wasn't working all that great. it was called something japaninish drift king. It's playable on a copier using the ballz 3d cart, and it was a kick ass game.