GoldenEye 007 Nintendo 64 Community, GoldenEye X, Nintendo 64 Games Discussion

[Gahr]

I'm creating this because I could not find this info elsewhere.

I've started using again my Action Replay to use the solo multi GS codes for Goldeneye.

I've been using both N64utils (patched version) and GSCC to build a list for Goldeneye containing all the multi level codes. It seems to work well enough but I've had an issue where N64 utils will not compile my codelist, although I'm at around 5200 lines and I have no whitespace issue (to my knowledge). It's either crashing, or (better) it's saying there are too many codes for a game and given line (3215) is lacking an ".end".

So to circumvent this I started using GSCC instead to send the exact same codelist to my Action Replay. And sure enough the codelist is successfully uploaded to the Action Replay. At that point, I can boot the Action Replay but when I go to the codelist it freezes. I messed around with the codelist, checked if it was correctly formatted and it looks like so, I trimmed it down and now I don't get any freezing anymore but, toward the end of the codelist, I cannot activate any codes. The codes are there, I can edit them, but pressing "A" does nothing. I checked by trimming the codelist even further and by getting it down to around 4200 lines I can activate all the codes even the last one.

So now my question : is it some kind of limit that the GameShark / Action Replay has for a given game ? Or is it the memory of my Action Replay which is corrupted and won't let me activate those codes (but theoritically the device should be able to) ?

If find it weird that the master code lists I find nowadays are around 5000 lines long if the actual limit is way below for Goldeneye. Makes me think it is probably my device the issue, or I'm doing something wrong with the codelist itself (like using special characters without noticing, I want to double check that)

[zoinkity]

Please remember that most users post-y2k use emulators and none of those have the restrictions (or benefits) of actual hardware. They also allowed *bad* codes using unaligned addresses. 81/A1/D1/D3/F1 must have an even address, not an odd one. If they aren't they'll be mutated to avoid the address error and won't work as expected. Some emulators also support different code types.


.: Code List Limits :.

The saved code list has a maximum size of 0x10000. GSCC doesn't check that pretty sure, so if it's exceeded you get a crash when entering the cheat select menu. (It certainly doesn't check if you exceeded the maximum for a cheat.) How much space remains should be shown at the top of the game select menu. That should be a number from 0% to 99%. If it isn't something is wrong. That's the only end-user way of knowing how much room is used.

There's a limit of 127 cheat headings for a game due to the "on/off" state flag. Shouldn't be a limit on total games unless there's a buffer allocation somewhere you can overrun.
There is a maximum of 63 codes in any given cheat (0x3F). The upper two flags (0xC0) are used for the "default on/off" and "code on/off" features.

Names matter! Certain ones like "(M)" are special-handled. If written exactly as shown--spaces included--the following words are truncated to a byte:

Code:

F6  'Key ' F7  'Have ' F8  'Lives ' F9  'Energy ' FA  'Health ' FB  'Activate ' FC  'Unlimited ' FD  'Player ' FE  'Always ' FF  'Infinite '

(Whoops! Xplorer was missing "Key "!)

The entire list is compiled by:
1) Encoding the name of the game.
2) Writing one byte for total cheat headings.
3) Encoding name of the cheat.
4) Writing one byte for total cheats plus flags.
5) Writing six bytes for each cheat.
6) After all cheats, headings, and games, write a single zero.
All of that must fit within 65536 bytes.


.: Code Limits :.

Max codes at runtime is based off the size of the ASM they expand to, not a total count!

When "Code Generator" is OFF there is a maximum of 55 opcodes. (13 normal codes, though fudgable if you know what you're doing)
When "Code Generator" is ON the maximum is 1000 opcodes. (250 normal codes)

80/81/A0/A1 take up 4 opcodes each.
88/89 take 10 opcodes each.
D0/D1/D2/D3 take up 5 opcodes.
Add these together across all the codes you have on to know if you hit the maximum or not. There is no message or warning in the GS/AR itself!

50 type codes are always expanded. Treat them like *n copies of the code that follows them. This counts towards the final size! Using a serial repeat to copy the code following it five times counts as five codes.

F0/F1 types are free. They're only applied once, before the game boots. There's a limit of 49 of them iirc. Pretty sure any over that are just ignored.

All special codes (20, CC, DE, EE, FF) are free. These affect how the game is booted and the hook set up.

There used to be a calculator for all this and tools to double-check and outside manage larger codelists. Frankly, you're 25 years late to the game.

[Gahr]

Well first thanks for the thorough answer, I couldn't have got a more comprehensive one I believe. The 127 cheat headings is my issue I'm pretty sure, as I have around 20/25 multi levels which are 4 headings each + random codes on top of that.

Then yes it's 2025, I'm obviously not on time (never been a strong point my relatives would say). I was just completely unaware of all this scene in the 2000's. I'm catching up, in a way. Thanks for your patience !