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How to freeze the target application when searching cheats?

 
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GH56734
How do I cheat?
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 10:18 pm    Post subject: How to freeze the target application when searching cheats? Reply with quote

Hi there Smile

I've been used to do basic text/graphic romhacks for SNES/NES games and as such I'm somewhat familiar with using cheat codes as a mean to do quick playthroughs just to test stuff up.

I did basic cheat codes like infinite HP, Gold, Ammo, Time (always amusing how I'd do two searches for stuff that appears on-screen like, say, 99, i'd search for the actual hex value (63), then if that wouldn't work I'd assume it's stored inside as (99) in hex, with digits A-F possible yet unused)
I also did some more adventurous stuff, like doing tons of "different value" searches for stuff like changing party members in RPGs, and the like.
Figuring out invincibility codes, walk through wall codes.
Sometimes figuring out hidden music, and debug menus hidden as out-of-bound choices in menus (Valkyrie Profile PS1 comes to mind). Found entire unused languages in some games.
In a DS translation I was involved in, it would be also useful to figure out character tables for games we don't know if they include English support at all.
My biggest failure being never managing to this date to muster enough patience for finding good map select codes in a couple of ds games to find some debug maps - I swapped the files eventually to see some of what's there yet not all :/ (which might mean i'll need to learn asm to do this properly - assembly, my greatest bane!)


So I got this Cheat Engine which is every bit as wonderful as everyone who laud it claims it to be, and it has been helping me a lot with PC games... I wanted to do some of this exciting stuff with a freeware doujin platformer on PC I'm translating, that has a vertical learning curve that's more of a brick wall. I can manage playing through it with my nerdy superpowers but it takes time.
The issue though is that this game is so hard infinite HP codes just don't cut it. And the later levels have lots of translated stuff I need to check multiple times (text speedy)

My problem is:
This game has no practical pause button.
I want to do codes of the variety of multiple jumps and invincibility. (some might add walk-through wall codes if this was a 2D rpg)
For those codes, you need to freeze the game proper so that:

1/ you NEED to capture the value you're targeting in a specific very narrow time frame
for invincibility: the invincibility variable changes for 1 or 2 seconds when the character is hit and becomes blinking
for multi-jump: the "is double jump allowed" counter changes from "allowed" to "not allowed" when a character double jump
for walk through walls: the "is walking allowed" counter is active only when walking in a specific direction in 2d rpgs (different axis have each a different variable), when you walk in a clear zone it's "allowed", when you walk against a wall it's "not", when you're still it's useless garbage data.
2/ then you compare it to another state of the same variable.

This is possible on emulators because they have buttons to pause emulation at opportune moments like this.
Not so much on PC.
It's impossible for instance with this game, where the "pause option" goes on for a few seconds before entering in full effect, and isn't even easily accessible.

Is there a way to freeze the target application of Cheat Engine whenever I want, like a pause button I can toggle on/off with the keyboard?
Thanks in advance Smile

PS: Also, any way to assign hotkeys to cheat codes? Needing to disable the "infinite HP" code each time the character falls in a pit so that the game doesn't crash can get unnerving at times.
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++METHOS
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes and yes. CE can pause the target application (as well as slow it down or speed it up with speedhack). CE also allows you to assign hotkeys to cheats as well as CE features (such as pause and speedhack etc.).
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GH56734
How do I cheat?
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 11:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

++METHOS wrote:
Yes and yes. CE can pause the target application (as well as slow it down or speed it up with speedhack). CE also allows you to assign hotkeys to cheats as well as CE features (such as pause and speedhack etc.).


You're a life saver! Thanks a million for the answer Smile
CE's interface is a bit bare bones on the outside so I didn't pay attention too much to that tiny tiny Edit tab with Settings.
I understand why this wasn't more mentioned - because it was so obvious Smile

Mods can lock this thread if it brings nothing new. I already reported it before because tutorial subforums were the wrong place for a question thread in the first place as I found out after the fact.
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atom0s
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 02, 2015 1:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Moved to General Gamehacking as this is not a tutorial.
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