Cheat Engine

[Thunderstruck]

Ok, let me give a brief description of what my code does right now. Currently it uses a checkbox with a timer to freeze memory address to a specified value. It seems like there's more efficient way of doing this, similar to Cheat Engine's auto assembler scripts rather than writing to an address constantly.

So is there a way I can implement something similar to the auto assembler scripts using C#, for instance replacing the value with something that does nothing?

Here's my source right now. It scans for a four level pointer with a function and writes it using a timer function toggled with a checkbox.

Gets the health pointer.

[justa_dude]

That's pretty much the same way CE freezes values. To remove the code that alters the health, you use exactly the same method of injection (although you might have to allocate memory and toggle the execute bit on it if you require a code-cave). The matter of determining what to inject and where is the challenge, but it isn't really a programming challenge.

Cheers,
add

[Thunderstruck]

Isn't removing the code that alters health more efficient than constantly running timers though?

And how would I go about coding the script and injection into C#? I'm new to it and any links with more detail on this would help if you have any.

Thanks again.

[atom0s]

A more efficient way would be to create a cave and alter the actual code of the game to write the value you want each time it's called. In some cases it might be a quick and simple thing to do, but in more common games, health functions are shared between all objects in the game so you may need to add more checks and such to ensure you are only setting your health and not enemies, etc.

[Thunderstruck]

Is there a good place where I can learn this? Maybe with some examples of code?

Another question, would creating a code cave and writing ASM involve using a .dll and injecting that using my trainer or can I do it all in C#?

[atom0s]

[Thunderstruck]

Ok, I've done the tutorial all the way through. I might do it again though just to get a better grasp on code caves. I'll check out the tutorial section in the meantime.

Thanks again for the help.

EDIT
I have another question. When I find the pointer using my code above, is there a way to get the actual value of what's at that address? I'd like to increment the value by one. It seems like it'd be pretty simple and I could probably figure it out after some Googling but I figured I'd ask anyway while I'm checking out code cave stuff and ASM.

[justa_dude]

writeprocessmemory should do the trick.

[atom0s]

[Thunderstruck]

I figured it involved ReadProcessMemory. I'm guessing I have to read the memory and convert it using BitConverter just like writing it.

Thanks.

[Thunderstruck]

I finished, though I didn't alter code or use code caves yet. This just freezes values and uses multi-level pointers with a function that has a rather nice for loop (the parameter is a array of ints in hex). I'll post the source here in case it helps anyone. Any suggestions are also welcome. And thanks again for the help guys.

[atom0s]

You don't need if/else checks for your checkbox code, you can just use the sender argument's Checked property like this:

[Thunderstruck]

Thanks, I'll make that change. The pointer method works perfectly so far, at least better copy/pasting the same lines of code for each pointer. For my first C# program, I think it went pretty well. It's pretty close to Java which is was my first language and it certainly beats C which is what I'm studying at the moment along with ASM. Hopefully I'll understand code caves and scripts much better after this semester if I can learn before then.

EDIT
I was just looking more into using a assembly script in C# and I read ASM can't be written directly in the source like C++. It also said something about a dll call, where the assembly script is written in a .dll the called into C#. Is this what I need to do or is there a way to do the same thing with C# without using assembly at all?

[AhMunRa]

You can use ASM with C# but as far as I know C# will not handle it directly. You can call it from a dll though.

Some examples.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/msil/reflexil.aspx

http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/how-to-inject-a-managed-assembly-dll

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jmstall/archive/2006/09/28/managed-create-remote-thread.aspx

[Thunderstruck]

Thanks, those look very helpful. I'll definitely read through them.