hey guys,
Im new to romhacking. And I am still learning. so far ive hacked dragon warrior 1, was able to change abit of the text. Now as im still learning I am trying to change a little text in chrono trigger. But i cant make a table for a rom with compression. Can anyone help and show me what to do. I want to learn how to hack roms of this calbur independantly.

Ive been searching for an answer to this question for a very long time please help.

And how do i detect the compression types within roms.

Im sorry im really confused i know nothing about programming or C++.
There is no tutorial I have found so far that helps me with any of this. All i wanted to do is create a table for earthbound or chrono trigger for the snes. I used relative search and i get inconsisstent and a very variable hex results. so i was told they have compression.

Im new to all this and want to be good at translating, i was told compression is easy to deal with yet i have found nothing about it and ive been searching and googling for a long time.

EDIT:well i have found a document on DTE and dictionary compression but i still have no idea how to detect the kind of compression roms have.

So its nothing like nes. Thanx alot for that helpful information. Definatly DTE and dictionary dont seem like a problem, but you said nearly all snes games deal in LZ which is difficult and i know nothing about.

I tried what you said i used relative search, however when i put a space between the words or even when i put a (asterix) * it never detects anything, and when i put only one word it detects alot but some use diffrent hex combinations. Not only for this rom but others too. How can i add spaces between files for relative search. Ive read alot of tutorials and followed them exactly. Maybe its becuase im using windhex.

As for programming is it alot i must learn i dont mind incoporating this study within this new hobby. Please help becuase i want to be a rom translator lol.

is there a tutorial that shows me how to do this?

Eh, I dunno if this will help, but I'll tell you how I made a table for Chrono Trigger.

First, you're going to want to open the rom in your favorite emulator (I used ZSNES, I assume SNES9X or BSNES would work), get to the point where you name Crono. Name him whatever you want, go out, save, and quit. Go copy the .srm file, and put it somewhere else. Now, do exactly the same (and I do mean EXACTLY) thing, but this time, name Crono the same name as before, except backwards (so, if you left his name as "Crono", you would name him "onorC"). Save and quit. Get the srm file again, name it something different, and throw it in the same folder as the other .srm.

Now, open your favorite Hex Editor (preferably Hex Workshop), and open the two .srm files. Then, going through the menu (I don't remember exactly where it is), there should be an option for "Compare Files". When you go through the files comparing it, Hex Workshop will point out the differences between the two files. In this case, the only differences should be the names. This means you should see five hex values, all in a row, that are the exact opposite of eachother. (For Example, lets say the first .srm had "02, 22, 20, 19, 20" the second .srm should have "20, 19, 20, 22 02").

Now bearing all this in mind, you should be able to make a table that says this (note: these are NOT the actual table values, I'm just making an example!)

02=C
19=n
20=o
22=r

Now, for other characters ("?", "!", etc...) you can do the same thing, just name Crono using those characters, and you should easily be able to figure out their table values.

Because the letters are in alphabetical order (as many roms are), you can fill in the rest of the table yourself. Now, for the DTE/Dictionary characters, this is a bit more tedious. You will have to know the CT Script VERY well in order to finish that part of the table. Basically, everything that isn't DTE/Dictionary (I'm unaware of what system CT uses) will show up in a romhacking hex editor when you load your table. Now, you'll see holes in the script, and you'll have to play guesswork to figure out what each missing hex value means.

Hopefully that makes sense, I'm basically out of my mind right now, so it may not. But I tried.

~DS

->DarknessSavior
Wow    sounds really good. Thanx for the info im gonna try it out.

->Kitsune Sniper
Well i know how DTE works. When a hex value represents two letters. I heard i have to use trial and error with this type of compression. But where do i begin lol seems difficult. do i use a hex editor or do i have to decompress?

well i tried it out and it doesnt work. do you have to save for the srm. if so then you have to go all the way to the other world castle to save. unless you are referring to savestate.

i also tried comparing them and it didnt work. both will apear on hexworkshop but it doesnt highlight or show you where there are diffrences

p.s. i want to do it for the experiance

yep thanx its actually working.

but i still dont know how to detect what form of compression a rom has please someone answer me this question. how do i trace and what is a debugging capable emulator.

i can hack nes roms that have no compression but i just need someone to show me the way.