Hacking How to insert a tbl. file into a PSP game?

KamisamaLover

Well-Known Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
73
Trophies
0
Age
23
Location
In the heart of ramen land
XP
126
Country
Australia
Hi,
I want to help out with the BroCon PP english patch by learning how to insert the tbl. files into the game. I AM A NOOB btw so please keep that in mind otherwise...(Im sorry (ಥ﹏ಥ) ) I would also be great to get some basics on other ROMhacking so I can continue to help people with patch projects!
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,348
Country
United Kingdom
Step 1 is tbl is just a hacker helping format, nothing to do with any game I have seen and is unlikely to be and so inserting it makes no real sense. There might be another format called .tbl (see also why there are a billion different formats with the extension .bin) but that does not sound like the case here.

The .tbl is a listing of a hex values a text engine uses and what characters they correspond to. They are used in two points in a translation hack
1) Getting the text out
2) Getting the text (presumably translated or at least modified) back in.

On occasion the same file can be used for both, many times though the insertion one will be different because a) the encoding will have been changed (not all Japanese games include the Roman alphabet for instance) and b) the original table may have included multiple ways to generate the same character and you don't want to confuse your insertion tool.
You may also have multiple different encodings used within a game (often normal text can be one thing and menus quite another, some games change table all the time which gets really confusing) but it is still those two steps at its heart.

Going back to the a) encoding change thing. There are three main changes done
1) Overwriting characters
2) Inserting new characters
3) Changing the entire encoding (typically an 8 bit conversion)

Overwriting is much as it implies. The game has no concept of characters so if you find where the pictorial representation of a character is and doodle over that the game will happily display your modified doodle. Change say a kanji you don't care about into a Roman character (and indeed the next 70 or so for the rest of the alphabet, numbers and a few choice pieces of punctuation) and you can get the game to display text in English where it may not have before. Your new table would have to reflect these changes in the game.

Inserting new characters is harder for some things (some DS formats and tools to manipulate them make it easy) but still doable as there are usually gaps in the encoding that could be filled by something else. You then need to add these new encodings to your table.

Changing the entire encoding is not done so often these days as systems have memory to spare most of the time but is hardly unknown. Japanese has thousands of characters which typically means they want a 16 bit encoding (2^16 options for characters) where as mentioned above with 70 or so values you can do the entire Roman alphabet quite comfortably so you use an 8 bit encoding (2^8= 256 options). If you can change how the game pulls characters to be 8 bit you immediately then double the space available in the file or in memory. Both incredibly useful on the NES or something but only the latter really matters for the PSP as while I said they have memory to spare you can still run into troubles so some people do it.

We have a guide on hacking, it is mainly aimed at the GBA and DS but enough of it is similar enough across all systems and many of the things for the DS also apply to the PSP (it too is a filesystem based system that loads things into memory rather than reading directly from the disc).
http://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-rom-hacking-documentation-project-new-2016-edition-out.73394/
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    That's a far cry from it
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Is it a free to play bs, pay to get any good weapon/gear
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Not free to play but $35
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Inb4 kiiwii gives it a 0/10
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    6/10 rating on steam
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I would like a Predator game "Kill Team" it takes place in the Jungle of the first movie, your team is sent to hunt the predator, using current tech drones and a trained team. Set traps use strategy to hunt and trap or kill the predator.
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Ill stick with my Battlefield. Yea a predator hunting game like that would be cool. Esp if you can be Arnold and say "Get to da choppa"
    +1
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Maybe Arnold could do a cameo voice acting, he is the one briefing you on the mission
    +1
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Honestly surprised they didn't make a tie in game for Predators that movie was awesome
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I was kinda sad the Yakuza guy died sword fighting a predator lol
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    The Russian guy went out like a boss
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Double claymores to the face definitely kill a predator lol
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    I went today and looked at a motorcycle someone was selling. I get there and the battery on it was dead, so the guy grabbed a battery charger and hooked it up. He plugged it into the wall, and the motorcycle sparked and started smoking. Come to find out the bike uses a 6 volt battery and the guy had the charger set to 12v. I said sorry to the dude and walked away. I felt bad for him tho.
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Sounds like it would be an exciting ride....
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Not sure I would want something on fire between my legs
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    He ruined it basically. Sad cause it was a decent old bike. It would take more money to rewire the bike than it was worth tho.
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Yeah I'm sure at minimum the starter was fried
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Alternator and battery
  • BigOnYa @ BigOnYa:
    Prob alot of fried parts. It was still smoking when I left.
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    I would've said show me how it rides
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I always wanted one of those Smart Cars with a Hyabusa motor in it.
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    I'm getting sick and tired of cheap ass baking pans now
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: I'm getting sick and tired of cheap ass baking pans now