Pokémon Gold & Silver Tileset Extension

[Tauwasser]

Hi,

so a few days ago user Melash asked me about "my 256-tile hack". Turned out, he confused me with HyperHacker.
However, I sat down and actually produced a tileset extension hack for the English, German and Japanese versions of Pokémon Gold & Silver.

However, I didn't have time to test these patches thoroughly, so use at own risk.

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Pokémon Gold & Silver Tileset Extension v1.1
--------------------------------------------

These patches will implement Pokémon Crystal's tileset system in Pokémon Gold & Silver.

Compatibility:

- English 1.0
- German 1.0
- Japanese 1.0/1.1

Features:
+ Up to 192 tiles per tileset
+ Up to 256 blocks per tileset

- Will only run on CGB (though no lock-out mechanism implemented)
- You lose the ability to have map-bank-dependant tile-palette assignments (not used in original games)

Changes:

Address	Length	Purpose
00:0143 (G, J, U)	0x01	Changed header to CGB only status
00:0D53 (J)	0x03	Change subroutine call for tile-palette assignment routine
00:0D6A (G, U)	0x03	Change subroutine call for tile-palette assignment routine
00:1FAF (J)	0x04	Change to support 256 blocks per tileset
00:2002 (U)	0x04	Change to support 256 blocks per tileset
00:202A (G)	0x04	Change to support 256 blocks per tileset
00:2900 (J)	0x26	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to support 192 tiles per tileset
00:2944 (U)	0x26	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to support 192 tiles per tileset
00:2971 (G)	0x26	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to support 192 tiles per tileset
01:7FA0 (G, U, J 1.1)	0x60	Added extended subroutine to support 192 tiles per tileset
02:4000 (G, J, U)	0x97	Change to support Crystal-style tile-palette assignments (two routines)
02:45D7 (G, J, U)	0x1A	Deleted lookup table for map-bank-dependant tile-palette assignments
02:7FA0 (J 1.0)	0x60	Added extended subroutine to support 192 tiles per tileset
23:43D4 (J)	0x03	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to load tiles for battle intro
23:45AF (U)	0x03	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to load tiles for battle intro
23:45B1 (G)	0x03	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to load tiles for battle intro
23:4728 (J)	0x05	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to change bg palettes for battle intro
23:4903 (U)	0x05	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to change bg palettes for battle intro
23:4905 (G)	0x05	Change subroutine to call extended subroutine to change bg palettes for battle intro
23:7FDA (G, U, J)	0x0F	Added extended subroutine to change bg palette to 0x07 for battle intro
23:7FE9 (G, U, J)	0x17	Added extended subroutine to load tiles for battle intro

Bugs:
No known bugs at this point.

Changelog:
Fixed wrong tiles on battle intro.
Fixed all versions: Byte at 02:45F1 restored. Was wrongfully deleted.

Please report bugs via the RHDN forums private messaging system.

© 2010 Tauwasser

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EDIT: 2010-04-29.

Download it and tell me if you find any bugs. I tested with the German version and everything worked, then ported the code over to the other versions and tested if they would run at all.
So yeah, have fun and tell me what you think.

cYa,

Tauwasser

[Melash]

One of the best mistakes I ever made. ;D

Thanks for posting this, it will definitely come in handy.

[BeNjaMMiN]

How exactly do you work this

[Tauwasser]

You apply the ips patch for your version of the rom and then you do it just like in crystal. Insert new tileset and change tile-palette assignments.

cYa,

Tauwasser

[Mateo]

Ah, what an awesome thing to find when I log on after being away from internet for the week!

Thanks for posting this Tauwasser, I look forward to testing it out.

[BeNjaMMiN]

i tried it with gold it locks up free movement, i cant move in the game

[Tauwasser]

Mar 13, 2010 10:52:55 GMT -5 BeNjaMMiN said:

i tried it with gold it locks up free movement, i cant move in the game

Are you sure you patched it correctly? I already played till Mr. Pokémon and nothing locked up for me.
Are you sure you have a clean version of the rom, or did you patch it onto your hacked version?

cYa,

Tauwasser

[BeNjaMMiN]

patched on a clean one. After i change the tiles it locks up

[Tauwasser]

What do you mean by "changing tiles"? Moving one step in any direction? That shouldn't be happening, as I can play just fine. We are talking about an English version, right?

cYa,

Tauwasser

[BeNjaMMiN]

yes, i used melash's tile set editor to change the tiles, or... does that mean i have to repoint my tilesets?

[Mateo]

well that tileset editor loads everything from the tileset header so i don't see why it would cause problems.

[BeNjaMMiN]

wait ive been editing those garbage tiles, is that why?

[Tauwasser]

Mar 15, 2010 21:14:06 GMT -5 BeNjaMMiN said:

wait ive been editing those garbage tiles, is that why?

Those garbage tiles first off, are called blocks. Tiles are the 8×8 pixel graphic units in VRAM of the NDS. I realize however, that English documents are not always clear on that distinction.

Those blocks you edited, is actually collision data for the tileset you edit. If you want to use more blocks, you will have to repoint the data first, so you have enough room.

The original Rom usually has the following data layout:

Usually, those will be tightly packed, meaning that there is no additional room after the data. So for you to be able to use more blocks, you will have to repoint the block data to an offset where you have 0x10 * (number of blocks wanted) bytes free. For collision data, this is 0x04 * (number of blocks wanted) bytes.

So for you to be able to use 0x100 blocks, you will have to repoint the block data to somewhere with a 0x10 * 0x100 = 0x1000 bytes free and collision data to somewhere with 0x04 * 0x100 = 0x400 bytes free. Then nothing will overlap.

cYa,

Tauwasser

P.S.: 0x10 bytes per block comes from the fact that a block has 0x10 tiles, which are all addressed using a single byte. Collision data is per 2×2 hero-sized parts of each block, therefore 0x10 / (0x02 * 0x02) = 0x04, as every collision type is also addressed via one byte.

[Miksy91]

Do you know, where can I find Collision data for the tiles in crystal?
The map editor shows where the offsets for tiles are but from there I can only edit 16 bytes of data which is just the look of the tile.

[Tauwasser]

It's at the same place where it's in Gold & Silver. The third pointer in the tileset header.

Tileset header:
Gold & Silver (U): 05:56BE
Crystal (U): 13:5596

[GFX PNT 3b][Block data PNT 3b][Collision data PNT 3b][Animation data PNT 2b][00][00][Tile-palette assignment data PNT 2b]

Tile palette assignment is in rom bank (RB) 0x02 in G/S and RB 0x13 in crystal.
Animation is RB 0x3C in both.

cYa,

Tauwasser