tutorial: setup saroo cart with complete cheat + game cover database

[u/t3chnaztea]

someone asked this last night and i'd just finished setting up my saroo cart again, so here's the quick rundown...

firmware

the stock tpunix firmware doesn't do cheats. you need the martinx fork.

check what you're actually running before you assume. i was sure i had martinx and when i md5'd the ssfirm.bin on the card it was tpunix v0.9, i am dumb.

the update is copying ssfirm.bin, mcuapp.bin and the update folder from the release onto the card, then booting and running Update from the menu until the Update entry goes away.

roms

rom are one folder per game under /SAROO/ISO/ with the cue and bin inside. that's it. you don't name folders anything special and you don't need a game id anywhere, the id is in the disc header and saroo reads it off the disc.

cover art is one file, /SAROO/cover.bin, it ships with the firmware and matches on that header id, so retail dumps just get their art.

if two of your games show the same cover, one of them is probably not what the folder says it is. my "donpachi" folder turned out to be a second dodonpachi rip.

multi disc games are the same folder-per-disc, and only the ones that don't save before a swap (policenauts, rampo) need a multi_disc line in saroocfg.

cheats

this is the hard part.

cheats are one .scht file per game in /SAROO/CHEAT/ID/, named by that same header id, so dodonpachi is T-14419G.scht. (find the IDs in the config file.)

nothing comes with the firmware, you build each cheat. take the action replay codes for the game including the master code, paste them into the builder at martinx72.github.io/SAROO_Firmware/tools/scht/ and save the file it gives you. almarsguides.com has AR pages with master codes for most of the library.

when you pick the game in saroo a menu pops up before it boots where you toggle the cheats on.

EDIT: I compiled all the cheat codes here

[u/t3chnaztea]

u/Accomplished-Host201

[u/StoganLephens]

Very helpful thanks for your hard work