Cheat Engine

azmodeus · Cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 41

I've downloaded the latest offical release (.5) and the updated version listed in a few threads below.

I am burning the .iso so a cd and trying to boot off of it.

My computer is a i7 950 www (dot) frys (dot) com/product/5954624

Most of the time, when I try to boot, it just going into a loop of restarting the computer. I see lots of numbers showing up then beeps, and restarts.

Sometimes 1-5 times or so, I will see a boot menu show up with things like 0 - start virtualization, 1 test keyboard, etc. But as soon as I press 0 to start virtualization, it either freezes, or beeps, and restarts the computer.

The other version (the newer one), will say Booting DBVM, and freeze there. It freezes so hard, that holding the power button wont reset the computer, I have to literally unplug the computer and plug it back in to resume. ONE TIME, it sayd something like If you are seeing this, then something horible has happened.

Please help. As I am on Win 7 64 bit, and desperately need some of the advanced features in cheat engine.

Dark Byte · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 12:34 pm Post subject:

hmm, haven't really tested win 7's bootloader yet

I take it your comp doesn't have a serial port ? (if you do and you hhave another comp with a serial port as well I could give a debug version that'd output more data to the serial port)

anyhow, does the newer version also reboot a lot during startup, or does it at least always show the initial menu (0- start virt, 1- keyboard, etc...)

The line "Something horrible has happened" occurs when the vm encountered a situation it didn't know how to handle and returns to the initial loop
Didn't it output any other information before that?
(but still, holding the power button for 10 seconds should usually work in this situation)

oh yes, how much ram do you have ?

azmodeus · Cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 41

The updated version always hangs at the Booting DBVM and a funky character that looks like a inverted L.

Thats all that shows up.

The older version, I can sometimes get the menu to show up. But not very often. Usually beeps and restarts before that.

Running 9 gigs of ram. DDR3.

I've gotten the same error on my last computer also that was Quad core q6600 and different motherboards.

No, I dont have a serial port.. unfortunately.

Is there a version that has line by line debug outs, where I can press enter during each to know where it is breaking?

Dark Byte · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 4:16 pm Post subject:

if you have a floppy disk, you could try writing it to such a disk instead. Or if your bios supports booting off USB (preferably as floppy emulation) try writing vmdisk.img to there (don't just copy/paste, raw copy)

Also, what is the EXACT message you see in the latest version?

"DBVM Bootsector..."
"x" (with x getting a random char each time until done, or freeze)
Smiley face is it fails at the start, any other character means it bugs out later

or just :
"Boot" ?

If first one, the problem lies with the bootsector (the part that loads stage 1 of the booting process)

If the 2nd one, the problem lies in the vmm itself , but that's only after seeing lots and lots of other data before, so I guess the first one

But I'll see if I can make one that adds some extra on screen debug data to the part of bootsetor->protectedmode system

azmodeus · Cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 41

Using the latest version, (dated 7/28/2009)

I tried usb boot with the .img and burning to a cd with the .iso.

It says at the top of the screen:

DBVM BootSector. . .
|_

And thats it. It hangs there forever.

Dark Byte · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:24 pm Post subject:

try this one:
http://cheatengine.org/temp/dbvm.rar

At boot, it should show 28 red dots followed by "done" and then continue with the rest

note: It this version will not go beyond the initial menu where you press 0 to start the virtual machine because it's compiled in debug mode it'll be waiting for input on the secondary menu which is only accessible with serial port , but it can be used to test some basic stuff

azmodeus · Cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 41

This one loaded the menu every time.

I rebooted several times just to be sure.

I ran the menu tests as follows incase it is helpful:

1. Worked or appeared to work
2. Skipped, not sure what hd 80 is?
3. Worked or appeared to work
4. Printed: Interrupt Fired - Since I captured one and didn't handle it, forget about using the virtual machine
5. Crashed. Output was: Setting a RW breakpoint at address 00000000
Going to write 12345678 to 0x00000000
THen hang forever
6. Worked or appeared to work
7. Printed 3 lines very fast, then blank screen, forever.
8. Just said press a key to return to the menu

I hope that helps.

Since I got the menu every time now, I am guessing that it is a timing issue?

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:37 am Post subject:

could also just be that in the meantime I fixed the problem. I do know I had a stupid bug in one of the releases where I had a critical section lock at startup because it didn't initialize memory to 0 (meaning it'd wait for another cpu to set a value to 0, while there's no other cpu running)

about hd 80:
if you have multiple harddisks in your system you can use this to specify what your bootup drive is. (the drive with the bootsector)
If you boot up with a usb stick and your bios doesn't support floppy emu and runs in harddisk mode, it'll shift all drives up. So 0x80 would be 0x81, etc...
Getting it to boot the proper disk can be tricky sometimes (might need a few tries)
But if you boot off a cd-rom this shouldn't be a problem, as the cd version is setup to run as if it's a floppy this the first harddisk is usually 0x80. But if that doesn't work, try 0x81, 0x82, 0x83.... depending on how many harddisks you have

I've uploaded a non-debug version at:
http://cheatengine.org/temp/dbvm.rar

azmodeus · Cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 41

Using that version, when I press 0, i see alot of information scrolling very fast. Then a blank screen with a flashing cursor at the bottom.

Then nothing.

If I try the option 7 in the boot menu for virtual 8086 test, I get a blank screen also and hang forever. Not sure if those 2 are related.

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 1:57 pm Post subject:

Do you have multiple harddisks ?
If so, before pressing 0, try setting the correct bootdisk. (might need some experimentation)

also, some bootloaders (like grub) can take a minute before they start to show anything

also, do you see the word WEEE, BOOT or RAAH briefly at the topleft of the blank screen ? (WEEE followed by BOOT is good, RAAH means it crashed)

and what type of boot media did you use for this test ? cd-rom (rewritable is recommended) , usb disk, or floppy disk ?

azmodeus · Cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 41

Do you have multiple harddisks ? Yes, I have 3. Is there an app to use to see what the number should be set to?

Not using any bootloader besides the win7 one.

also, do you see the word WEEE, BOOT or RAAH briefly at the topleft of the blank screen ? Text scrolls way too fast to see really anything. Tried several times, saw a few things that looked like vmx, and fat, but nothing of any use.

and what type of boot media did you use for this test ? I'm using a USB drive to boot from the vmdisk.img

I tried setting the HD from 80, to 86, but still the same thing for every attempt. It scrolls what looks like 2-3 pages of text, then a cursor on a blank screen at the bottom.

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 3:36 pm Post subject:

usually 80 would do, but since you're booting off USB that one is already taken (unless you configured it to boot as floppy in bios)

you're sure that screen is entirely blank ?
Not even one small piece of text at the topleft ?

If so that means that even the most basic vm entry failed

I'll see if I can make a version with some waiting inbetween and some extra checks to detect problems

azmodeus · Cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2009 Posts: 41

Yes, entirely blank, except for the flashing cursor at the bottom.

I get the same thing for the virtualization test (number7).

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 5:54 pm Post subject:

just noticed that due to the added ability of off-loading to dbvm at runtime I broke the entry at boottime, so I 'll have to do some debugging first

Dark Byte · Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:42 pm Post subject:

there was a small bug where a secondary cpu would setup the gdt which uses a different version of the gdt than the main

anyhow, try this version:
http://cheatengine.org/temp/dbvm.rar

perhaps it'll boot further.

also, it contains 2 wait for keypress states that contain the most important data in case something goes wrong