[Other] 32Mb rom advantage

[UmbreonNo.]

Is there any advantage using a 32Mb rom for hacks? Is XSE exist a tool that double the size of the ROM and i'm thinking if it would be good for a great hack.

 

[miksy91]

All the GBA pokemon roms (well, perhaps except for Emerald) have more than enough free space on their own so expanding them isn't necessary (unless you plan on building something crazy (like a game inside a game) that tools such as XSE aren't capable of).

For example, > 50% of the data of a FireRed rom is "empty" (filled with 0 bits). And the used data (< 50%) contains all the in-game functions - not just the maps, scripts or graphics. So running out of free space shouldn't be possible (even if the same scripts were multiplied inside the rom like XSE probably does).

Most of this won't probably make much sense right now but I wrote it as an informative post for others too :)

 

[daniilS]

Well, expanding is very useful if you plan on implementing major things, such as high-quality music or animations. Otherwise the available free space is more than enough.

 

[UmbreonNo.]

So, i was planning on insert more than one region in my hack, and i need to create too many maps, if it reach the limits of the rom then i will need to expand?

 

[Shiny Quagsire]

So, i was planning on insert more than one region in my hack, and i need to create too many maps, if it reach the limits of the rom then i will need to expand?

Yes, and expanding isn't actually a bad thing. A lot of people look at it as a bad thing because the patching formats were unfortunately designed to only support 16MB ROMs. That and a lot of tools don't support it, despite the fact that expanding gives you an entire 16 extra Megabytes to work with, which is 2x more free space than without expanding. So my suggestion would be to fill up the first 16MB, then expand if needed.

 

[UmbreonNo.]

So i'll begin create my hack and if i need i'll expand.Thanks for helping me.