Cheat Engine

[Zhoul]

Recently , a lot of games have been blocking debuggers, so I'm having to revert to stealth mode more and more, which drills heavily on CPU usage and generally makes scans soo much slower.

I've worked around this, by launching CE_1 with my normal 'scan-only' settings, then CE_2 (in a completely different directory) in stealth mode, for debugging.

What I've noticed, is that CE is picking up its settings from the registry. This forces me to reset one or the other, each time I use it (and since I use them both during the same 'session', I'm find myself re-setting each CE window more then once. :\

By now, it's about time for me to bite the bullet and DL the source , but im sure other people are having this same issue.

Suggestions:
- Either... Command line options to load and/or generate a specific config file.
- Or, a simpler route - a command line option that can specify a sub-tree in the registry to load/store settings.


(hmm, maybe memhack , side by side, isn't such a bad idea *wink*)


*Edit*

Yep, MemHack is teh suk. It makes 'continuious scanning' a pain in the arse, since I usually run CE one-handed with hotkeys on my 2nd PC. Further-more, it's "Pointer Search" is a joke. It simply does a search for 1 level deep pointers. Past that, The hex editor blows =) The one good thing I can say about it, is it gives the ability to save large ammts of memory to 'templates', then insert them, but even a system that could be simplified is completely over-complex.

That aside: I have created a ghetto-fix for the issue I described above. I created a .bat that loads my registry settings, using the registry /s command. This is a great tool to use, even if you don't run two scanners simultaniously, as you can simply make a batch file for every 'Settings Instance'. I.e. One for normal scanning , maybe another for stealth scanning. In the copy I have, it uses command line args to determine some of the settings, cutting out the need for multiple batch files, but I figured this would be easier for the non script/DOS-head to understand and work with.

Here's how it works:
- Copy/Paste the below code into notepad.
- Save it as Start_CE.bat in one or more CE folders.
- If you are going to use this for launching CE from the same directory, just make as many copies of the .bat, with new names, as needed.
- Edit the .bat's variables to match your configuration. What you should edit is actually between "User Options Begin" and "User Options End"
- The REM command, tells a .bat file not to run that line. I have included a few extra REM'd commands as examples.
- Load up CE your usual way and configure it the way you'd like it to launch, then close CE.
- Click "Start" then "Run" - type regedit.exe hit enter
- Navigate to the following path....
- HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cheat Engine
- Right-click on the Cheat Engine folder, and choose "Export"
- Save this to your preferred CE directory. The default names in the .bat are CE_No_Stealth.reg and CE_Stealth.reg
- In my case, I have 2 separate CE folders, as I run two copies at times, with 1 .bat file in each (just slightly modified for each situation).



REM --------------- Begin Start_CE.bat ---------------

@echo off
echo.

REM ===== User Options Begin =====

set CE_Path="J:\Games\Cheat Engine\"
REM set CE_Path="J:\Games\Cheat Engine - 2\"

set CE_EXE="Cheat Engine.exe"

set CE_Reg="CE_No_Stealth.reg"
REM set CE_Reg="CE_Stealth.reg"

REM The below 'set'line is specifically designed for those who
REM use terminal services to run CE.
REM If you want to use this feature...
REM - Define your Username in the set line below these instructions.
REM - If no username is defined, CE will be launched normally.
set CE_Username=

REM ===== User Options End =====



cd /d %CE_Path%

if NOT EXIST %CE_Reg:"=% (
echo Could not find [ %CE_Reg% ] in [ %CE_Path% ]
echo .
echo Please make sure you have done the following ...
echo - Modified this .bat file to reflect your system settings.
echo - Created an export file of the following path in the registry.
echo - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cheat Engine
echo - Name it %CE_Reg%
echo - Place %CE_Reg% in your Cheat Engine folder.
echo - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cheat Engine
echo.
pause
start .
goto End
)

echo Merging %CE_Reg:"=% ...
regedit /s %CE_Reg%

echo Launching Cheat Engine ...
if "%CE_Username%" == "" (
start "Launching Cheat Engine..." /d %CE_Path% %CE_EXE%
) else (
runas.exe /savecred /profile /user:"%CE_Username%" %CE_EXE%
)

:End
set CE_Path=
set CE_EXE=
set CE_Reg=
set CE_Username=

REM --------------- End Start_CE.bat ---------------

[Dark Byte]

Or just create 2 admin users.
The settings are stored in the user profile, so a different user means different settings. Just use run as... and chose the 2nd account

[Zhoul]