Genesis ASM injector for MESS

[rimsky82]

Can't imagine too many people will care for this, but I know at least a few will. Since the mess dev won't fix the ability to change ROM while playing the genesis system, and seem to just not care about the debugger's functionality, I've made this little program to do so. It just allows you to input an address/value, or genie code, and poke it into mess.



I've tested it with mess builds from the last couple weeks or so. I can't guarantee it will work with all builds. If it doesn't work on yours, go find a daily somewhere.

Another note, if you tick the enable box and you see the little edit pencil next to it, hit enter. A nice little annoyance with that control that I haven't fixed.

In the future I may add par/ram support, though the mess debugger will change those values just fine. I may also add support for loading/saving code lists.

[Helder]

About god damn time something was done about it! Thanks!

[Helder]

Anyway you can have this attach to the MESSui as well as MAME executables?

[Pugsy]

That looks an interesting idea and workaround, certainly handy for people to quickly plug in some PAR/GG codes.

It's annoying as hell that ROM writing is no longer supported in megadrive/genesis, I can't see it getting fixed anytime soon either as if it had been simple it would have been fixed months ago. The best solution is surely to use an old version of MESS just for Genesis cheat finding/testing along with the latest softwarelist xml. MESS/MAME is about documentation...so newer versions are not necessarily any better for game playing or debugger use. I personally use an old custom MESS version for C64 cheat finding purely because the emulation is a LOT slower in newer versions.

[Helder]

Where would one get this updated software list? I use an older version of MESS for Genesis but it won't play the newer dumped roms like Pier Solar.

[Pugsy]

Where would one get this updated software list? I use an older version of MESS for Genesis but it won't play the newer dumped roms like Pier Solar.

It depends on how old the MESS you are using I guess, needs to be old enough for ROM writes to work and new enough for software list support. Generally I only use ROMs that are in the software list....just copy megadrive.xml from the hash folder in the newest MESS version you have or just rename the mess64.exe of the old version to say mess64genesis.exe and copy it into the new MESS directory.


Pier Solar is not in the software list in the latest MESS anyway, it appears to run fine on old MESSs I just tried it on 0.142 from early 2011 and it works as well as it does MESS 0.152.

[Helder]

I use the 0.144 version and it loads the game up but is stuck on the Initial Screen with Sega in the middle, not sure if it's the rom itself or there has to be some checks bypassed.

[Pugsy]

I use the 0.144 version and it loads the game up but is stuck on the Initial Screen with Sega in the middle, not sure if it's the rom itself or there has to be some checks bypassed.

Ah, it's probably me then as it might be an issue with the fact I've only found the beta version :- "Pier Solar (JUE) (Beta).bin".

There are supposed to be a few duff roms of that game floating around, does the version you have work with the latest MESS?

[Helder]

Latest MESS yes it does and all the checks that check for cheats were bypassed but it won't work on the older one. My game is version A not the Beta.

[Pugsy]

Latest MESS yes it does and all the checks that check for cheats were bypassed but it won't work on the older one. My game is version A not the Beta.

Ok, you just need a newer MESS version but not too new, there's commandline MESS 0.148 in my dropbox if you need it. Just extract the single mess0148.exe to your MESS folder and run mess0148.exe instead of 0144. It works fine with ROM and RAM writes.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8o8pmtospox8wee/mess0148.7z

[Helder]

Awesome! That worked fine with the rom and both Ram and Rom codes worked, so now I can make some more codes for the game.