Cheat Engine

[h3x1c]

I'm curious as to what some of the approaches are in regards to dealing with values that jump around through different memory addresses, such as with garbage collection. I've been puzzled by this for many months in a particular game where I'm trying to find a value that, every time it changes, it also changes addresses.

Would scanning physical memory help? Does the value actually stay in one location in physical memory but the virtual memory address is destroyed? That's probably a really stupid question, but I'm still not quite sure how something like garbage collection works where physical memory is concerned.

Anyway, in the event that there aren't any strings or obvious references to go by, is this basically the point where you avoid dynamic analysis and jump to static analysis?

I think I'm getting to a point in my learning where dynamic analysis just isn't the right approach; however, I'm interested in learning all that I can with how you COULD approach scenarios like this with dynamic analysis.

Thanks for any tips!

[Zanzer]

Probably not a very clean approach, but it can get the job done.

First do a search for the value that your address will become once you perform the action.
For example, say you are holding 100 sticks. You know you'll have 90 after you drop 10, so search for 90.
You can clean up the search some by performing actions that won't cause it to change and continuously rescan for 90.

Once you're ready, execute the following Lua to save all found addresses.
Since your stack does not equal 90 yet, these will be the addresses you remove from the future search.

[h3x1c]

Neat idea; thanks for sharing, Zanzer! As far as it being a "terrible approach," at the very least, it's certainly better than no approach. And since Lua is quite new territory for me, it gives me a lot to consider, so this is great. Thanks!