Cheat Engine

[vik]

Hi !

Pacman BattleRoyale is a game that runs on Namco System147 hardware (PS2 hardware with onboard rom of the game) - this game have not been dumped or emulated yet.

Namco also released a PC version of this game, in "Pacman Museum". However, they have made some modifications on the game for it to be unplayable on an arcade cabinet. (game field have an ugly frame that takes 1/3 of the screen for example)

I'd like to make edits on the PC game for making it similar to the arcade game (for playing it on a handmade cabinet).

Things I've done so far:
- I made a d3d9.dll proxy that intercepts and modify specific function calls for the game to run full screen without the ugly frame

Things I still have to do:
- Direct boot to the game without having to use the game selection menu

Things don't know how to do:
- Find a way to open the arcade service menu

While looking at the strings in the binary, I found that the arcade service menu strings are in here (BOOKKEEPING, COIN1 VALUE, MONITOR TEST etc...) ! So I think that this is the same game source as the arcade one, only with service menu deactivated / unavailable (maybe an XNA and so a .Net game compiled for multiple platforms).

So I tried to use tools like ILSpy .NET Decompiler, but they fail to open it (as it's a single .exe file with all the games in it, I think it's somehow packed, and not all games are in .Net format - I also tried depacking tools with no success).

I also tried a decompiler (x32dbg) to find functions that use these strings (found them) - and checked for parent references all the way up to no reference, but I don't know how to try to call some of them without messing anything (game breaks everytime). Is this the good way of doing this ?

Well... at this point I've no more ideas, so I would be glad if someone could help me on my reflexion.

Thanks !

[racer2e]

Do understand correctly. You have it running full screen already?

[vik]

Yes.
Since this post I also rotated players 3 and 4 for them to display like on the arcade cabinet.

The only thing missing would be to find how to open the service menu.

[racer2e]

Outstanding. I have been wanting to build a cabinet to do this but after I went and took measurements and pictures of the one at Ground Kontrol, I found out the ports are all terrible.
I assume you are using the digital download PC version? Can you make
it so all 4 players work using keyboard so a key wiz will work?
This is so great.
Jayme

[vik]

Yes I think you can, there are software that does simulate x360 gamepads from keyboards (ppjoy for example, not tested).

The cheapest/simplest/lagless option I use for now is to buy 4 usb SNES gamepad in china (they are like 3$ each shipping included), and to use x360ce for mapping them for the game. this works perfect. (and you can solder wires on their pcb for using sticks/buttons)

I'm going to write a nice tuto on all of this when everything is finished.

[Justin-Credible]

Have you made any more progress on this?

I also poked around the binary a bit, but it sounds like you've made it further than I did. My assumption was that they wrote a system 147 emulator and are simply running ROM dumps from the original arcade (albeit without button bindings for the service switch). I was hoping there would be a way to invoke the emulator directly without launching into the collection menu.

Would you be willing to share your DirectX proxy DLL / source?

[vik]

Progress, well yes, so far it is usable for a cabinet replica (only missing thing is service menu)

I intend to release this around 5 may 2017 during an arcade conference

this will be released here with source, instructions and etc :

github_com [slash] vikbez [slash] pacbrcade
(I can't post urls grrr)

[vik]

I released it early.