ROM Article: Let's reverse-engineer how someone reverse-engineered a secret hiding in F-Zero GX for 23 years

4 hours ago by BurgerBaron to c/emulation

Plus: Open source FPGA hardware's going to give the busy Android scene a run for its money.

Hello again! We're back, and yet another fortnight has passed without me losing the last shreds of my sanity while trying to distinguish between the shoddily assembled AI rubbish piling up in every corner of this little hobby and the good stuff that I delight in sharing with you all. Check back in two weeks' time for another exciting update!

Oh, right: There's still a newsletter to do. Well despite being weighed down by said winnowing process, I've cobbled together some cool stuff for you, including a bit of insight into how someone found a secret hiding inside one of the best games ever made and a quick check-in on some of the emulation hardware we'll be playing our games on this time next year. It's not even Android stuff!

As is often the case, though, the best stuff may be down in the Translation Station, at least if you're a fan of Puyo Puyo or strange, Bionic Commando-adjacent PS2 action games (boy, am I!!). They're blessedly AI-free, and there are more people out there still fighting the good fight. Just wait for Mermanoid and Schrodinger no Neko from some crack teams!

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Discussion and News forum for all things video game emulation related, or tangentially. Platform agnostic. Mobile is welcome too. We'll keep it loose, but more focused on emulation. Piracy discussion is allowed, that's one reason we're on this domain.

Vibe slop AI decompilations/recompilations are now BANNED due to being inundated by them now. Slop spam.

A General Discussion will be stickied for the community to chat in about whatever. Staying on topic isn't important in any GD stickies.


Rules

#1: Obey our domain rules first and foremost.

  • TheDude abides. Try to be like The Dude here.

#2: Mundane Tech Support/ROM Sourcing Questions should to be kept to the sticky posts, unless it's something novel/interesting others might want to see.

  • if the community grows, the stickies should be renewed monthly.

#3: Unless it's at least tangentially relevant to emulation, no politics. Don't get your toque in a knot.

#4: Be nice, and consider reporting an offending hoser of #4 instead of responding to mean people to begin with.

Inspired by negative impressions of /r/ROMS:

#5a: Strive to be polite & patient with noobs asking questions.

  • We all start somewhere.

#5b: Doesn't mean be a doormat.

  • Report rude, unjustifiably entitled, or ungrateful users asking questions too.

#6: Projects that are AI assisted are allowed. Vibe coded slop and lazy AI ports of other people's hard work is banned. Especially lazy port jobs. Exceptions could in theory be made, just DM me first. Vibe slop AI decompilations/recompilations are now BANNED.

Human made Decompilation and Recompilations are accepted for now, rule may change.

I'm not sure if another community is needed, Fediverse is smol so at least for now I'll allow these. I am open to discussion about this if it ever comes up as a pain pont for community members.


Helpful Links

Good shaders for stuff like retroarch: https://github.com/...

https://docs.libretro.com/shader/crt_royale/

Boxart

https://r-roms.github.io/ Get all your games here, retro and up. r/ROMs reddit community's game link aggregator.

A Download Manager is recommended. JDownloader2, for example, download the clean installer here: https://board.jdownloader.org/...

Play ROMS online within your web browser emulators here, no setup required: https://vimm.net/vault

Myrient is shutting down unfortunately :( You can read about it here and about the rescue mission fan torrents:

https://www.tomshardware.com/...

More aggregators: https://shakil-shahadat.github.io/...

https://wiki.dbzer0.com/...

https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/... The wiki dedicated to all things emulation.

https://www.readonlymemo.com/emulation-101/


Fiddly Switch Shit

Prod Keys for Switch

Switch Firmware

Current prime Yuzu continuations:

https://git.eden-emu.dev/eden-emu/eden/releases

Or

https://github.com/suyu-emu/suyu-main

Ryubing probably the main Ryujinx fork for now:

https://git.ryujinx.app/Ryubing/Canary/releases

There's also:

https://git.ryujinx.app/projects/Kenji-NX

Switch games (Use adblock for the love of gods):

https://nxbrew.net/


Speaking of which...

For more fiddly emulators, their wiki sites provide tweaks/fixes/hacks, and explain any bugs that are still known issues.

https://wiki.pcsx2.net/Category:Games

https://wiki.rpcs3.net/...

https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/...

https://wiki.dolphin-emu.org/index.php?title=Wii


Hax

Account Required Pre-Patched ROM/ISO hacks and fan translations here: https://retrogametalk.com/repo/

DIY ROM/ISO patches: https://romhackplaza.org/

Browser based ROM patchers: https://www.marcrobledo.com/RomPatcher.js/

https://www.hack64.net/tools/patcher.php

https://www.ff6hacking.com/patcher/


Good Programs

The good (standalone) N64 emulator: https://github.com/Rosalie241/RMG

Quick and Dirty shaders in a window you can overlay on other windowed emulators: https://github.com/mausimus/ShaderGlass

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