utilities
The aim of this section is to give beginners a good selection of ROM hacking programmes geared towards translation hacking.
For more a greater selection of programmes and programmes geared towards ROM hacking in general, we recommend you visit ROM Hacking dot Org.
If you have a programme not listed here that you find very useful or have coded one yourself, why not let us know?
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Gideon Zhi recommends
Useful:
Romjuice, WinHex 32, Atlas, ASM2Hex, Script-E & Script-I
I use:
Hex2SNES, Lunar Address, LunarIPS, YY-CHR, tmod, tmod2, Jay's Romajisearch, & TaBuLar
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Inverse
comments
HEX EDITORS
Goldfinger
- Poops
Hexedit
- Eh
Hexposure
- Nice if you're hacking from a DOS system.
Thingy
- Eats ass.
Translhextion
- Eats the ass after Thingy vomits it out. (But people still use it cuz they suck.)
010 Editor
- Sounds geigh.
WinHex
GRAPHICS EDITORS
Tile Molester
IPS TOOLS
I'm fond of IPS XP which applies and creates IPS patches.
TABLE AUTO-GENERATOR is the greatest table making program ever conceived. It will soon be joined by the World's Greatest Relative Searcher, but that hasn't been released yet.
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format
hex editors
A pretty good hex editor for Windows. Has table support, searching and is easy to switch between editing hex and game text. |
A utility for all you happy unix romhackers who are above using Windows or DOS. It's a modified version of hexedit-0.9.7. |
Equivalent to Thingy on the basic hacking needs, Hexposure supports an easier to use GUI and more searching options. This is probably the best HEX editor to learn on.
Inverse: Nice if you're hacking from DOS.
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Written for hex editing in general, and now it includes tables support. However, a great set of features make this a great overall package, and one that advanced ROM hackers can find uses for. The base converter and calculator are of particular interest. |
It dumps and inserts not only script, but fonts. Works with NES and SNES, provided the font is 2bpp. |
necrosaro's famous hex editor. Table support, DTE, and a lot of other cool features make this a great utility.
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An impressive hex editor, has all the functions of Thingy and other hex editing functions. |
A shareware alternative. Review pending. |
graphics editors
An editor by (wraith) which supports a multitude of formats, which is always a good thing. |
DOS |
Louis Bontes |
1.8 |
1998 |
Another old tile editor which like Tile Layer is mostly here for practising on. It's claim to fame was that it could support formats that Tile Layer couldn't, but nowadays you can do with TileMod what you can do with NaGa. |
SnowBro's classic tile editor. Kind of old now, but here because a lot of tutorials are written with it as a tool to practice with. |
An updated version of SnowBro's editor, which adds support for more formats, a tile arranger, the ability to import bitmaps and a new interface. |
An excellent editor by Jay, which supports several formats and supports plug-ins to allow it view other formats. Also, has the ability to change the height of the tiles in any format, so you're not restricted to 8x8 mode. On top of that, you can import palettes and bitmaps. Oh, and it has the standard editing abilities too, as well as more flexible selecting of areas to be edited. There are also example decompression plug-ins. |
pointer hacking tools
A utility that will compare your hacked ROM to the original and write a new pointer table for your hacked ROM based on the text strings and pointer tables of the two ROMs. |
Programmers who make the names of their programmes descriptions of what they do put us description writers out of a job. |
IPS tools
Windows |
Januschan |
1.0 |
2000 |
A patch creator which will create a programme to patch the ROM and display information and stuff. Nice if you want to make sure people read the readme. |
Windows |
RiGaMoRTiS PRoDuCTioNZ |
2.51 |
1999 |
great GB rom utility. Will fix checksums on GB ROMs after patching, which is necessary for them to work. |
DOS |
WaveMaster $CePTiC |
1.2 |
1993 |
The original patching programme. No nonsense command-line patching fun for all. |
Creates a self-applying IPS, much like a self-extracting ZIP. |
DOS |
the M.C.A Elite |
1.2 |
1996 |
A SNES utility that creates and applies patches, performs header operations and various fun SNES copier stuff. |
DOS |
Chicken chip |
1.41 |
1994 |
A great all in one patcher/converter. |
Relative searching
A great relative searching tool, with some very useful documentation. |
SearchR2's big brother. Relative searching goodness in Windows form, though not as good as SearchR2. Use if you can't get SearchR2 to work. |
Searches for strings in romaji instead of English, but it's kind of awkward to use. |
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