Force Low Quality Item Boxes

Force Low Quality Item Boxes
Author:	AdolescentSeagull
Version:	v1.0
Date of latest version:	2024-01-04

Overview

Force Low Quality Item Boxes is a gecko/AR code created by AdolescentSeagull. It forces the low quality item box model (and reduced animations) for all modes, except time trials, where the item box appears. This low quality item box appears in the vanilla game in LAN mode under certain circumstances.

Codes

Japanese (NTSC-J)	American (NTSC-U)	European (PAL)	July 2004 Debug
041fb648 38000001 041fb700 38000001 041fc9bc 38000001 041fb364 38000001 041fc0a4 38000001 041fc94c 38000001 041fca68 38000001 041fcae0 38000001 041fb2a0 38000001 041fb2dc 38000001 041fb594 38000001	041fb620 38000001 041fb6d8 38000001 041fc994 38000001 041fb33c 38000001 041fc07c 38000001 041fc924 38000001 041fca40 38000001 041fcab8 38000001 041fb278 38000001 041fb2b4 38000001 041fb56c 38000001	041fb5f0 38000001 041fb6a8 38000001 041fc964 38000001 041fb30c 38000001 041fc04c 38000001 041fc8f4 38000001 041fca88 38000001 041fca10 38000001 041fb248 38000001 041fb284 38000001 041fb53c 38000001	0422e45c 38000001 0422e514 38000001 0422f820 38000001 0422e178 38000001 0422ef08 38000001 0422f7b0 38000001 0422f8cc 38000001 0422f944 38000001 0422e0b4 38000001 0422e0f0 38000001 0422e3a8 38000001

Media

Movitation

By forcing this low quality item box, less memory on the heap is allocated overall. This means that crashes due to running out of memory are less frequent.

Technical Information

The global variable gRaceInfo has a byte field (at address 0x0) which is returned by a getter function named isTinyProcess, this is a flag that is used to improve performance by disabling some animations (such as hair physics), removing the big damage from items like the Bowser shell and downscaling the item boxes. In the vanilla game, this variable is set to 1 in RaceInfo::setRace if there are more than 2 viewports and the number of karts participating in a race/battle is more than 4 - this is only possible in LAN mode in normal gameplay.
This variable is read in many places, but the functions where this is read to adjust the item box appearance are:

GeoItemBox::getBmdName
GeoItemBox::getBmdFileName
GeoDoubleItemBox::getBmdFileName
GeoItemBox::getSizeAnmTbl
GeoF_ItemBox::GeoF_ItemBox
GeoDoubleItemBox::GeoDoubleItemBox
GeoDoubleItemBox::getAnmTbl
GeoDoubleItemBox::getSizeAnmTbl
GeoItemBox::initialize
GeoItemBox::getAnmTbl
GeoItemBox::createModel

The cheat codes overwrite the lbz opcodes in these functions to always load the immediate value 1 - effectively forcing the low quality item box.

Version History

Version	Date of release	Information
v1.0	2024-01-04	First revision

By the same author: AdolescentSeagull

Distributions:
Trophy Trial
Gecko Codes:
3 and 4 Karts in Grand Prix – Balloon Modifier – Character and Kart Randomiser – Skip Lakitu Countdown – Boot straight into stage – Force Low Quality Item Boxes
Custom Items:
Bullet Bill