Ira disassembly

[ghosty777]

Hi all,

I was toying with the idea of translating one of the Diabolik series by Silumondo (2-12 are Italian only, Italian Bad Boys translated the 1st)

I've been through the files (Decrunched them) and tried disassembling with Ira but can't find any text. In fact, nothing's even appearing when viewing in a hex editor either, which is odd) Could anyone explain what the issue might be? (Aside from possibly being encrypted)

What I don't understand is previously if i've viewed a random file (Other software, not Diabolik series) in a hex editor I can see the text but in Ira most of the time nothing shows - Does this mean its not data so I have to convert from hex to ascii and back again?

I'm not a coder if you haven't already guessed lol.

Thanks.

[hooverphonique]

If you can't see it in an editor, it's not encoded in any regular encoding (e.g. ascii).

Are you sure Ira understands what's code and what's (ascii) data without some help?

[ghosty777]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

If you can't see it in an editor, it's not encoded in any regular encoding (e.g. ascii).

Are you sure Ira understands what's code and what's (ascii) data without some help?

I'm not sure of anything to be honest. I probably thought this would be easier than I imagined.

[copse]

If you can't see it with hex editor when decrunched then you won't be able to see it in Ira. Either it's still crunched or it's encoded in some way as hp says. Maybe you're going to have to find the way text is rendered and work it out.

[ghosty777]

Thanks copse; This might actually be more trouble than it's worth.

[Galahad/FLT]

Really easy way is boot up the game with text visible onscreen and then use Action Replay 3 to find the text.

If you use the FR command, if it can find the text, it will tell you the value the text is encoded with.

So you instance you would type:

FR "dylan" and then hit return.

If it finds the text, you can then decode it to find all other text


Or it could be that there is no text, it's pre laidout and drawn text

[SToS]

Had a quick look at the second game La Gemma Di Salomone...

Italian text in files under PLA directory.
Although text is visible, it is somewhat structured to a "format".

[ghosty777]

Thanks Galahad & SToS. I'll take another look at this over the weekend.

[WayneK]

If they haven't encoded the text as ascii, another way to find a known string is to look for something with the same distances (deltas) between the letters, eg:
"DYLAN" is made of letters at positions 04,25,12,01,14 in the alphabet.
So regardless of the encoding, there is a 99% chance that the second letter "Y" is encoded with a value that is 21 higher than "D" ("Y" is 25, minus "D" which is 04), etc...

A little python script or even a little bit of 68000 to search memory in AR3 should produce some results!

[copse]

Originally Posted by WayneK

If they haven't encoded the text as ascii, another way to find a known string is to look for something with the same distances (deltas) between the letters, eg:
"DYLAN" is made of letters at positions 04,25,12,01,14 in the alphabet.
So regardless of the encoding, there is a 99% chance that the second letter "Y" is encoded with a value that is 21 higher than "D" ("Y" is 25, minus "D" which is 04), etc...

A little python script or even a little bit of 68000 to search memory in AR3 should produce some results!

Best to avoid these kinds of fishing expeditions IMO.

[ghosty777]

Update: The Italian Bad Boys translation of Diabolik 01 is a bad crack. I've been playing it this afternoon & part way through the game it prints "ILLEGAL COPY" and your character falls through the screen* It appears the 2nd game in the series was cracked by Skid Row (Only version available), so i'm not getting my hopes up it's been cracked 100%, lol. Another update to follow..

*Obviously this means the current WHD version of Diabolik 01 isn't 100% either. Maybe some accomplished cracker cares to fix this. I'll upload a savestate for WinUAE; My current savestate was created on FSUAE on Linux (With the illegal copy message) & doesn't appear to be compatible with WinUAE.

Thanks & regards,
ghosty777

[hooverphonique]

You could try suggesting it over here: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=116023

[ghosty777]

,..,

[SToS]

Originally Posted by ghosty777

*Obviously this means the current WHD version of Diabolik 01 isn't 100% either. Maybe some accomplished cracker cares to fix this.

Probably not until a "virgin" untouched SPS appears one day.

[ghosty777]

Update: I used the following TOSEC version:-

Diabolik 01 - Untouchable Criminal (1993)(Simulmondo)(It)[cr IBB][m Mini-Nuke][t +1 Heresy].zip

..But it's bad.. It appears someone has bolted the Heresy cracktro/trainer onto the genuine IBB crack (IBB announce they cracked it in the actual game) which throws up an illegal copy message mid-game.

I can't recreate the issue in the vanilla IBB crack, so this appears to be a bad version.

Intrigued as to what triggered the message, but one to put to bed!

Thanks to Galahad for offering to look into it - Sorry for wasting your time.

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by ghosty777

Update: I used the following TOSEC version:-

Diabolik 01 - Untouchable Criminal (1993)(Simulmondo)(It)[cr IBB][m Mini-Nuke][t +1 Heresy].zip

..But it's bad.. It appears someone has bolted the Heresy cracktro/trainer onto the genuine IBB crack (IBB announce they cracked it in the actual game) which throws up an illegal copy message mid-game.

I can't recreate the issue in the vanilla IBB crack, so this appears to be a bad version.

Intrigued as to what triggered the message, but one to put to bed!

Thanks to Galahad for offering to look into it - Sorry for wasting your time.

Its all good, if it means we tick another one off the non-working list, i'm all for it.

IBB cracked it and translated it.

Heresy also cracked it and didn't translate it.

At some point, either Heresy or someone else took the files from the IBB version that had all the converted texts and overwrote the Heresy version, and I think here is where someone screwed it up.