Cheat Engine

Dark Byte · Last edited by Dark Byte on Sat Sep 13, 2003 4:15 pm; edited 1 time in total

I'd like to know what people want of Cheat Engine.
This way I can arrange some priorities when working on Cheat Engine.

for example, the network version is at the lowest priority right now...

A explenation for the poll answers:
Better stand-alone trainer: There are a couple of things I can add to the trainer, and I keep getting new ideas.

Faster scanning: I finaly found out that most compiler use memory allignment to store variables, 2 byte addresses are on a addres dividable by 2, 4 bytes on a address dividable by 4, etc... (This wont replace the current scanning, but gives you a option in the setting to use a new scan engine to make use of this)
If you're wondering how this can speed up things: Right now cheat engine increases the memory pointer with 1 byte and compares the memory, but with this it can increase the memory pointer with 2,4 or even 8 bytes, and doesnt have to compare the memory inbetween thus giving a very great boost in speed. (But it may happen that it misses memory if it isn't alligned, for example when someone programmed it in assembler and didn't care or know that aligned memory is faster)

Real debugger options: In the memory view there is a disassembler, and I can put in stuff like a register view, stack view, stacktrace, single stepping,stepping over, setting breakpoints, and other stuff... (usefull for people that know assembler)

Single line assembler: I'm planning on building a simple 1-line assembler in the disassembler view, so you can rewrite code. Also the option to reserve a page of memory (or more if you're insane) will be in so you can write a call/jump to that location and write the code there. This is usefull if you encounter a game that uses the same routine to handle the other player too. (if you remove the line to decrease money it may happen that the computer also never loses money)
Of course, this is for hard-core programmers...

Just make your choice and I'll see what is wanted the most, so I may release versions of CE inbetween features. (cause if I add all this it may take a while till a release, kinda like the time between 2.3 and 3.0)

wh1t3y · Posted: Sun May 18, 2003 9:59 pm Post subject:

well heres what i would like to see in order of importance to me...

1. better standalone trainer maker
2. real debugger options
3. single line assembler
4. faster scanning (even though this isnt very important to me... i have patience Confused

)

man.. to have all of those options would rock.. the registry and stack viewer as well as the stepping in the debugger would rule.. kinda like softice but maybe a little more user friendly, and that single line assembler - cant say enough about that... maybe a little jmp action Very Happy

emperor · Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2003 2:49 pm Post subject:

1.stand alone trainer would be my favourite since the stand alone trainer is what i use frequently
2.faster scanning : well although the scanning for values is only needed to be done once for a value in a prog/game it can be quiet annoying if you only know that the value is changed in the ram so you have to do 25+ searches or another thing that can be problematic is when a prog/game is paused for too long problems can occur
3. single line assembler:great but i cannot think of any use to me..
4. real debugger options : useless to me...

just in case you wanted to read more opinions like mine Razz

wh1t3y · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2003 1:17 am Post subject:

if cheat engine had all of those features in the next version or release then it would be by far the best memory scanner/game hacker program of all time.. it would encorporate 4 completely different program functions into one beautiful executable that everyone would have to take notice of and start using... cheat engine, maybe the greatest scanner of all time?

emperor · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2003 6:15 am Post subject:

oh yeah there would be one feature that would surely be easy to make and i've been hoping it would somewhen come:
an option to disable clearing all addresses in the found (left) when switching to another program. Sometimes there are opportunity in which it would be best to restart the game/program to get the basic value again , on other occasions the game crashes/has to be restarted/doesn't maximize anymore and when that happens, after restarting the program if i chose the same prog again the found list is empty again Crying or Very sad

previously i used game cheater 1.2 with which you were able to keep all addressess and i think it was great, so i was wondering,maybe it's not too hard to make an option that disables clearing the list on program change? an option that disables something is hopefully not too hard so maybe you could waste a thought on that after you don't know anymore what to implement Razz

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2003 9:03 am Post subject:

The reason Cheat Engine clears the list is because there is more than 80% chance the address you where looking for changed, and doing a next scan would result in 0 addresses found.

But I gues I can put in a option to disable that.

If you know what you're doing:
when the game crashes, copy all .tmp files to a backup directory. Then restart the game, and use cheat engine on it.
just do 1 scan for a value (to increase the speed make the radius it scans very small, but make it so it does find memory) then copy the .tmp files from the backup dir back to the cheat engine dir, and continue your scanning as when it was before the crash.
(This won't work if your previous scan was a unknown initial value scan)

emperor · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2003 1:06 pm Post subject:

well maybe i am only using this for easy programs and games because usually the values don't change when restarting? if they did the tables would be quiet useless ,wouldn't they? or am i too stupid to understand
well thanks for telling me how to resume the search but usually it's the unknown initial value search that takes long time, with exact values i didn't experience to have to scan more than 10 times, well however if it's like you said and the chances are below 20% that it has any use then it's useless, okay i understand sorry for my stupidity then

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2003 1:45 pm Post subject:

what i meant with that it won't work with unknown initial value is that if you havn't done a next scan it wouldn't work, but it does work if you do a scan like increased value after that.

Tables for games where the address change are always usefull because you can use one address in the list to help you recalculate the others.
Example: When you quit the game the health was at 01000000 and the ammo at 01000008, but next time you run it you find that the ammo is at 0100000A. As you see, the address is 2 bytes higher than it used to be, so it's easy to assume the address of health is also 2 bytes higher than it used to be. (so health would be at 01000002)

And of course, if you know that the address hasn't changed having the list not cleared is usefull.

emperor · Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2003 3:13 pm Post subject:

you just made me realize how stupid i was up to know, not knowing the recalculation. Very Happy

one really made me problems because for example
01D122AC changed to 020422AC and
01D14F30 to 02044F30 ...i see so they changed by 3342336 bytes i guess. With the recalculate all and change address function is really easy (as was to be expected from cheat engine) Very Happy

thanks for your help and sorry for posting something offtopic >_<