Cheats — CHEATS.TXT

POPStarter's embedded cheat engine. Codes live in a CHEATS.TXT in the game's VMC folder; always start it with $SAFEMODE. The full recovered cheat documentation is below, followed by community additions and a quick-reference.

📎 from the recovered Special Cheats wiki page · merged across snapshots, primary 20241203112538

Special Cheats – Automated Codes

Some useful commands have been automated. Here are them :

• Sample : here

📎 from the recovered Cheat Engine wiki page · merged across snapshots, primary 20200920023545

Cheat Engine

POPStarter has an embedded cheat engine that supports Gameshark/Action Replay PS1 codes (PS1 RAW codes of types 30, 50, 80 and D0 are supported). Some basic rules about the cheat engine :

• codes will be stored into a txt file named CHEATS.TXT placed into the VMC game folder (each game will have his own dedicated CHEATS.TXT file) ;

• each code line has to start with the $ character otherwise the code is not enabled ;

• each code line must have a space between the adress and the value ;

Example :

Castlevania – Symphony of the Night [NTSC-U]

CHEATS.TXT location :

POPS/Castlevania Symphony of the Night (NTSC-U)/CHEATS.TXT

CHEATS.TXT content :

$SAFEMODE
$80097BA0 270F // Infinite Health

Notes :

• It is highly recommended to have to $SAFEMODE command code at the very first line of the CHEATS.TXT file ;

• Some PS1 games need mastercodes otherwise they crash (ex : Air Race Championship). Only type C0 are supported. Mastercodes of type C1 (aka activation on delay time) are not and will not be supported ;

• You can disable a code if you remove the $ character from the code ;

• You can enable a code for ALL your games if you place the CHEATS.TXT file in POPS folder ;

• You can find a list of useful generic commands here ;

• A massive PS1 codes list in PS1 RAW format can be found here ;

• Gamehacking.org is also a great place for PS1 cheats code ;

• You can also use POPStarter with a PS2 cheat device (ps2rd, Codebreaker, Cheat Device PS2). POPS Mastercode is 902377F4 0C0902EF. PS2 RAW codes of types 0, 1 and 2 are supported. A massive PS1 codes list in PS2 RAW format – ready-to-use – can be found here. In order to use a PS1 code with a PS2 cheat device, you need to convert it to PS2 RAW format : add $01000000 to the PS1 code adresses and comply with the code type definitions of the target PS2 cheat engine. For more info about how to convert codes, check this post.

Related stuff :

You may want to give a look at this :

• Special Cheats – Automated Codes.

• [CHEATS] Widescreen Codes Archive.

From the official thread — cheat clarifications

Sourced from the official psx-place POPStarter thread;
items marked krHACKen are from POPStarter's author and are authoritative.

• CHEATS.TXT must be UPPERCASE. A CHEATS.txt is silently ignored on internal HDD/PFS (case-sensitive),
  even though SMB is tolerant — this is the real root cause behind many "my cheat / $HDTVFIX does nothing on
  HDD" reports. In uLaunchELF press R1 to rename CHEATS.txt → CHEATS.TXT. (krHACKen / jolek)
• $SAFEMODE is ONLY for raw hexadecimal (GameShark/Action-Replay) codes — the built-in named $
  commands ($IGR#, $NOPAL, $NOIGR, $WIDESCREEN, …) do not need it. Leading every file with
  $SAFEMODE is harmless but unnecessary for named commands. (krHACKen)
• $IGR5 is the OPL-style In-Game-Reset — combo Select + Start + L1 + L2 + R1 + R2, with no
  YES/NO exit popup. This is the variant most people actually want for a clean, OPL-like instant exit.
  (krHACKen)
• Raw codes: put them in CHEATS.TXT in the game's VMC folder, prefix every code line with $, and
  lead the file with $SAFEMODE. Some unusual code types simply won't work or will crash the emulation.
  (krHACKen, hand-correcting a user's syntax)

Ready-to-use PS1 code lists

Massive collections of PS1 GameShark/Action-Replay codes in POPS-ready format (large pages):

All 4 wiki pages in this topic

Every recovered page filed under this section — including the deep-reference pages not embedded above.