Cheat Engine

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 2:46 am Post subject: Linux build

There's now an initial version of cheat engine for linux available for download on cheatengine.org

it uses qt5 but if requested i can make a gtk version as well

please report bugs you encounter

the windows version will come soon

ParkourPenguin · Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2026 2:16 pm Post subject:

Running on Arch w/ KDE desktop environment (Wayland). I got most of the way through the tutorial and didn't test most of the features.

v The binary `cheatengine-x86_64` links with `libQt5Pas.so.1`. This dependency should be mentioned somewhere, e.g. in the readme. On Arch, the package "qt5pas" provides this library; I've heard Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora also have relevant packages.
Long term, an appimage would be convenient.

v vI noticed the scandata files are saved in the `/tmp` directory. This is often mounted as a `tmpfs` filesystem that's backed by RAM. If the game is already taking up the majority of the system's RAM, scanning could cause bad things to start happening.
`/var/tmp` might be a better default for people who don't know what they're doing: by convention, it's expected files in this directory will persist across a system restart, so it must be backed by something other than RAM.
Dynamically switching between them would be best, but also complicated.

If the main window isn't in focus, right clicking a record in the address list doesn't work properly. If it's some window CE created ("Advanced Options" or "Table Extras" buttons), the popup window spawns out of place relative to the window that was in focus; if some other window is focused (e.g. the tutorial, a web browser, etc.), an entirely new window is created that's also out of place.

CE gets stuck in an infinite loop trying to allocate memory in the target process. Tested with both AA `alloc` and Lua `allocateMemory`.

Dark Byte · Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2026 3:43 am Post subject:

thanks. i'll get on it (did you try to allocate while the target was frozen ? as that's not an option at this time)

ParkourPenguin · Posted: Tue Apr 28, 2026 1:05 pm Post subject:

The target wasn't frozen.

The Lua function `allocateMemory` doesn't enter an infinite loop, but it doesn't appear to work either. Running the code `return allocateMemory(4096)` in the Lua engine shows the function didn't return any values.
The Auto Assembler entering an infinite loop on allocation failure could be a separate issue from the allocation failure itself.

Steps to reproduce:

Execute `sudo bash -c 'echo 0 >/proc/sys/kernel/yama/ptrace_scope'`
Run the executable cheatengine-x86_64 as an unprivileged user
Open the tutorial from the "Help" menu
Attach to the tutorial
Open an AA script window
Execute the code `alloc(foo,4096)`

The lag when typing also happens in the AA script window. These messages are output to the terminal when the lag spike happens:

Dark Byte · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2026 8:00 am Post subject:

for 4: when you say "attach to the tutorial" do you mean you click on "attach to process" or just doubleclick the tutorial, or click the tutorial and click ok ?

if you do "attach to process" which debugger interface method did you have selected in settings ?

ParkourPenguin · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2026 1:06 pm Post subject:

I click on the glowing computer icon in the top left of the main window to open the "Process List" window. The CE tutorial process is highlighted by default, so I don't change that. Then I click the "Open" button.

AFAIK the debugger is never attached to the process, but in Edit -> Settings -> Debugger Options -> Debugger method, "Use Linux(PTrace) debugger" is selected.
Executed in the Lua engine:

Dark Byte · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2026 2:08 pm Post subject:

weird. try running ce with sudo. Perhaps your security blocks the readout of maps for same user accounts

or you're way to dockered up (do not run ce in a docker) ce can usually deal with the target being inside a docker, but if it is inside one it may mess up

ParkourPenguin · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2026 4:21 pm Post subject:

Running CE as root didn't change anything. Memory allocation still failed. The tutorial was run as an unprivileged user, and no containers are in use.

Here's the full output of running CE as root, opening the unprivileged tutorial process, executing `return allocateMemory(4096)` in the Lua engine, and closing CE after that failed:

Dark Byte · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2026 10:06 pm Post subject:

can you paste the maps file of the tutorial to pastebin and post the link here ? maybe it's a parser issue for your version

ParkourPenguin · Posted: Fri May 01, 2026 12:07 pm Post subject:

https://pastebin.com/ZfMvXJRz

The first set of data is from /proc/[pid]/maps
The second is what CE shows in Memory View -> View -> Memory Regions

I don't know if this is related or not, but CE takes about 5 seconds to fail to allocate memory in the tutorial, but for a smaller program like `cat`, CE fails almost instantaneously. The output is the same.

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat May 02, 2026 4:41 am Post subject:

is the memory of libc readable (e.g in the screenshot read 7f1ae2bad000) and is it an ELF ?

and can cheat engine read the file at /usr/lib/libc.so.6 ?

ParkourPenguin · Posted: Sat May 02, 2026 2:34 pm Post subject:

Dark Byte · Posted: Sun May 03, 2026 2:18 am Post subject:

yeah, that was the next thing on my list to check. The routine I use to convert a relative docker path to the actual filesystem path. On most systems this works good, but I guess something went wrong in your case.

Dark Byte · Posted: Sun May 03, 2026 3:02 pm Post subject:

Here is an updated version of libceapi.so it should hopefully work better

https://mega.nz/file/hPBjVTpI#y_uxgUjgCCF_oIiBQemARa66_oXI7wsHc0aWqrLfFvM