Recent Updates:

MP3Gain Express 2.4 & Sonic 3 A.I.R. for macOS

Details

Earlier this week I released version 2.4 of MP3Gain Express. This version fixes the undo feature, which was broken in 2.3.1 as it only processed the first files in your list. It also removes support for older versions of macOS in preparation for future modernization updates, but I also released version 2.3.4 with the same bugfix and this version will run everywhere it did before. Both versions are linked from the App's page here.

I have also ported Eukaryot's Sonic 3 A.I.R. to macOS. This is a great remaster of SEGA's Sonic 3 & Knuckles with widescreen support, higher quality audio, mod support, achievements and other modern features. It requires the original game purchased from Steam to run. You can find the port here.

GDIBuilder v1.3 released, MP3Gain Express 2.3.1

Details

Over 4 years after the previous version, I received the first bug report for GDIBuilder on GitHub. The application was not including empty folders in a disc image, and also not writing folder timestamps to the disc. Both of these problems have been corrected. In the process, I modernized the application for current machines. The Windows version now supports High-DPI displays. The macOS version now supports dark mode and is notarized for macOS 10.15 Catalina.

You can download the new versions of GDIBuilder here.

MP3Gain Express was also updated to version 2.3.1. This fixes a critical bug in the original AACGain library which would delete files that it was unable to process successfully. You can find the latest version here or just use "Check for updates" inside the app.

Minor site update

Details

I moved this website to a new server. No major changes have been made outside of some software updates. The upgrades required me to rebuild the links page, so I added a new link to my Github profile there.

In late 2018 I posted the source code to the Gamecube Disc Browser on GitHub. I will continue to open source older projects when there is interest if I am not working on them anymore.

MultiPatch 1.7 released

Details

MultiPatch has been updated to version 1.7. There are several changes in this release including fixes for applying PPF patches, added support for .RUP patches, and I replaced the IPS, BPS and UPS patchers with a more popular patching library. It also supports dark mode in macOS Mojave and it is signed and notarized for newer versions of macOS Gatekeeper so you don't need to right-click launch to bypass it. The latest version is available here.

Fruit Remover 1.5 and MP3Gain Express 2.3

Details

Last month I received a notification email that Fruit Remover would be pulled from the iOS App Store for not being updated in a long time unless I updated it. As a result, I updated Fruit Remover with support for the iPhone X family of devices as well as the new iPad Pro models. The timing worked out well because it meant Fruit Remover was one of the first games to support the 11 inch iPad Pro. The download count is pretty low on that, but it's nice to be able to continue offering my old projects for download which is the primary reason why I wanted to update it again. For more information, visit FruitRemover.com. While I was working on it I found some interesting things to post about, but I never got around to re-installing the blog after the site outage several years back. I don't think I'll re-install the blog software at this point, but I may bring back the content at some point.

Also, MP3Gain Express has been updated to version 2.3. More information on the update can be found on the page for that application.

The update to MultiPatch mentioned in the previous post was delayed due to the two other app updates mentioned above. Now that those have been completed, I'm currently planning for the MultiPatch update to be my next release.

Website HTTPS support, MP3Gain Express 2.2

Details

Earlier this year I enabled HTTPS support for this website. If you prefer to visit the site over SSL and your browser doesn't automatically redirect you to the secure version you can now manually change the URL in your browser to view the site over HTTPS instead. I've also updated the Projects link on the left navigation bar to point to the secure version as well.

MP3Gain Express has been updated to version 2.2. Version 2.1 was released in October 2017 and the "Check for Updates" feature will have automatically prompted users who don't check the website for news. Unfortunately some changes were necessary before I could update this page again so I did not get around to making an update to post about it last year. Version 2.1 featured new icons, a new translation, and several bug fixes. Version 2.2 updates the dark mode feature in MP3Gain Express to fully support the dark mode that was added to macOS 10.14 Mojave. It also includes an updated Spanish translation as well as a minor change to the "Add Files" dialog to disable selection of non-supported files. The application was already filtering out unsupported files after selection to prevent them from being used, but I received a bug report that made me decide to improve the rejection of unsupported files.

As usual, the latest version of MP3Gain Express is available here.

If anyone has followed my activity on GitHub recently, they may have noticed that I posted a new beta build of MultiPatch in response to a bug report that was filed recently. I hope to release a new version of MultiPatch within the next month that improves compatibility with PPF patches. I may address some other outstanding changes at that time.

MP3Gain Express 2.0

Details

MP3Gain Express has been updated to version 2.0. It can be found here. This update addresses every feature request that I've received and documented since the application was first released. New features include:

  • Album Gain Support
  • AACGain Support (.mp4 / .m4a files)
  • Multi-threaded processing, which as far as I know is not available in any other port.
  • Saved preferences
  • Refreshed UI with updated icons and Dark Mode support
  • Errors no longer interrupt processing

Aside from addressing any bugs that may have been introduced with this update, this may be the last update for a while. There are no additional features that I plan to add, any future updates will probably just address bugs or fix compatibility with newer operating systems. MP3Gain itself is a stable piece of software that hasn't been updated since 2010, which was prior to my first release of MP3Gain Express. I initially started the port as a side project for personal use and released it in case others needed it. It eventually became the project I received the most emails about, so in return I've given it everything that everyone wanted. Thanks to everyone who emailed me over the years about it.

Now that the MP3Gain Express update is completed, I plan to return to some other projects that have not yet been released. I don't have anything to announce right now, but I hope to update at least once more this year.

MultiPatch 1.6 and project updates

Details

MultiPatch version 1.6 has been released. A bug fix for UPS patch creation was contributed via GitHub, which is the primary reason for the new release. But I didn't want to post a new release just for a small fix, so I made some additional changes as well. Drag and drop is now supported, so you can drag files into the window instead of browsing for them. Also, the file extension for patch files is no longer case sensitive.

You can download the new release here.

I received several requests for updates to MP3Gain Express over the past 2 years. Last summer I began working on a re-write of a major portion of that so it would be easier to add much of the requested functionality. I only worked on it for a short amount of time before I went back to other things, so it's currently sitting about a third of the way done. I hope to have another release of that out sometime this year which should include several requested features.

MultiPatch 1.5

Details

MultiPatch has been updated to version 1.5. I received a report that IPS patch creation wasn't working correctly. This was broken in version 1.4, and is now fixed in 1.5. Additionally, the application is now signed for gatekeeper so you don't need to right-click it to run it for the first time. Finally, some changes were made to modernize the codebase to better align it with current development tools.

You can get the update here.

Reverse Engineering Games

Details

Back around 2002 to 2006, I used to make codes for cheat devices on various platforms. One of the most interesting things to me back then was discovering and playing around with unused or debug content in games. Some people may recall when I discovered and released a cheat device code to access a test level in the US Gamecube version of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, or the unused kart racing stages present in the first game, as examples. One aspect of finding interesting things like this (other than trial and error) was being able to trace though the game's assembly code to try and figure out how things worked. At the time, I wasn't very good at that and so any changes I made were usually single instruction changes if they involved assembly code at all. With time (especially after writing the HC11 emulator that I mentioned in the previous post) I became better and reading through assembly code for various processors and understanding the larger scope of what various logic was doing.

Recently I wanted to revisit some of the things that I couldn't do back when I was actively making codes back then. For example, I recently posted a cheat device code for the UK Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2 that allows the save file import feature to import files from the US version of the first game. (The Dreamcast version was cancelled in the US a few months before release, so most people including me had imported the English version from the UK) This required disassembling the game, locating the function that verifies the validity of the save file and modifying it to ignore the logic that checks the game region. Stuff like this is made easier using tools like disassemblers which can help by tracing the flow of assembly code, keeping a list of functions and their locations, and keeping track of text strings along with where they're referenced. But when it comes to disassembly of game console binaries, there wasn't really much choice when it comes to tools to do that. For example, with Dreamcast's SH4 processor the only option for a graphical dissembler was IDA Pro, which costs $1,129 USD. That's completely out of reach for anyone who wants to do this stuff as a hobby. The only other option was to compile some open source code that would disassemble into a massive text file, which doesn't give you any tracing or other advanced features.

A few years ago I found out about Hopper Disassembler, a much cheaper disassembly tool for Mac OS X and Linux. It costs less than $90 USD which is a fraction of the cost of IDA, and out of the box it supports both disassembly AND decompiling of both x86 and ARM assembly. The decompiler was an interesting feature too, because IDA charges an extra $2,350 per processor for theirs and Hopper has that feature included with its normal licenses. It also has a plug-in SDK to add support for additional processors, which is why I'm writing about it now. During the past few months, I released 3 plug-ins for Hopper to help with analysis of older games:

HopperSH4-Plugin adds support for the Sega Dreamcast's Hitachi SH-4 processor.

HopperPPC-Plugin adds support for the PowerPC processor used in the Gamecube and Wii consoles. There's also an additional plug-in in that repository to load Gamecube DOL files.

Both plug-ins are relatively basic at this point in time, but as I use them I'll be adding any features and fixing anything that will make them more useful to me. I hope someone else out there is able to use them as well. That's the only news I have for now, but I hope to update some of my older projects or start a new one in the near future.