Posted by: Do0ks - 03-27-2024, 12:14 AM - Forum: Cheat Engine
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Cheat Engine is a powerful tool that can make the impossible possible in your favorite games, but diving into its functionalities like scanning for pointers can be anything from mystifying to downright daunting. Whether you're aiming to tweak your game, or just curious about how game hacking works, this guide aims to illuminate the path to using Cheat Engine like a pro.
What is Cheat Engine? Before we plunge into the mechanics, let's understand what Cheat Engine (CE) is. CE is an open-source memory scanner/hex editor/debugger created by Eric "Dark Byte" Heijnen. In simpler words, it's your go-to software for cheating in computer games, or more technically, it allows you to modify single-player games running under Windows to make them harder or easier depending on your preference. If you haven't already, I highly recommend reading thought the previous threads, HOW TO INSTALL CHEAT ENGINE CORRECTLY (TUTORIAL) and HOW TO SCAN FOR VALUES IN CHEAT ENGINE (TUTORIAL) as they will play into this tutorial.
Why Use Cheat Engine for Scanning Pointers? Scanning for pointers is a fundamental task when you're trying to hack a game. Pointers are variables in a program that point to other variables, and by finding and manipulating them, you can have the game do your bidding, like keeping your health points from decreasing. Pointers will also survive through restarts of the game and depending, possibly through updates. CE's ability to scan and modify these pointers makes it an invaluable tool in your hacking arsenal.
Understanding Pointers and Addresses Before scanning, a quick crash course on pointers and addresses. In the realm of computer games, every entity like your character's health or ammunition is stored at a memory address. Pointers are special because they point to the memory address of these entities, making them a target for game modifications.
Step 1: Selecting the Process Launch CE and your game. In CE, click on the computer icon to select the process (your game). Make sure you’ve chosen the right one; otherwise, you're aiming darts in the dark. Rarely, you may need to fish around under the "processes" tab for the currently running process. In this example, I'll be attaching to a game called "Game Store Simulator".
Step 2: Finding the Initial Address Locate an attribute in your game you wish to modify (e.g., money). Use CE's initial scan to find the memory address of this attribute by entering its current value in CE and starting the scan. Again, at any point you find yourself hung up, read the tutorials provided at the top of this thread. Now, I ready put it to this game, so I have a lot of money already. The first scans probably going to yield enough results where you will have to rescan again, and again until you get a manageable list. After, using the scientific method if you will, find a conclusion based on the best result and test it. If changing the value gives what's expected, great! In this example I found 213B660FC94 to be the best option. Be sure to add that to your address list.
Step 3: Pointer Scan(s) I have 3 main methods of pointing out addresses with cheat engine. One being more on the advanced side that requires coding in assembly that can be found here: How To Make Pointers Through Opcodes (Tutorial), One that will be covered in a later tutorial, and this method. If you choose you can skip ahead to the advanced methods, follow the provided link. If you're just learning I highly recommend you sticking this out and completely read both methods. Baby steps is the key.
Step 3.1.0: Using Pointer Scan Method After pinpointing the address, right-click it and choose "Pointer scan for this address." then a new window will populate with the address pre-filled out. Default settings are okay here (if you're a pro user, what settings do you use?), just click the button "OK". Another window will pop up asking you to save the pointer map to a location on your computer. I recommend you put it in your CE junk folder for now as they can be taxing on disk space. Now wait as CE does its black magic.
Step 3.1.1: Filtering and Refining Results You will likely end up with a slew of potential pointers, sometimes in the 100 thousands. By changing the in-game value and rescanning, you can filter out the false positives, narrowing down to the real pointers. To go even further, restarting your game/computer and importing the saved pointer map back in will filter out more false positives. I wont go into details on how to load back up the pointer map, but ill give the steps. (restart game/computer -> attach cheat engine -> right click on the old, dead address -> click "Pointer scan for this address." -> exit out of the first popup window -> click "File" -> "Open" -> Navigate to your junk folder and select your pointer map). After I did these steps, I was just left with 2 consistent pointers.
Step 3.1.2: Validating Pointers Finally, test the potential pointers by trying to modify the in-game value through CE. If successful, congratulations, you've found a true pointer.
Just messing around on Supermarket Simulator. Found some pointers someone might find useful. Nothing constantly writes in this game so you'll have to spend some money to get the values to show after activating the pointers. Might update this to something better someday.
Posted by: Do0ks - 03-22-2024, 02:24 AM - Forum: Cheat Engine
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Cheat Engine is a powerful tool used by gamers all around the world to modify single-player games. It allows users to scan for and change game data, such as the number of lives, coins, or any other value. Understanding how to effectively scan for values in Cheat Engine can significantly enhance your gaming experience, adding an entirely new dimension to how you play your favorite games. This article will guide you through the basics and into more advanced techniques for using Cheat Engine. Each topic will be a brief overview, as I make more tutorials, links will be added to each subject.
Getting Started with Cheat Engine
Download and Installation Before diving into the world of in-game modification, you need to have Cheat Engine installed on your PC. It's available for free from their official website. Follow the installation guide carefully, ensuring you opt-out of any unwanted additional software. You can find an installation and settings tutorial Here.
Overview of Cheat Engine Interface Once installed, open Cheat Engine and familiarize yourself with its interface. It might seem daunting at first, but it's pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it. Let's take a look at the main interface.
This is where you can select a process to open. Cheat Engine can attach to more than just games.
This is where you can load an existing cheat table that either you've made or downloaded elsewhere.
This will save your cheat table with any updated modifications.
The recent scan window shows all the found addresses that matched your last scan.
Memory view will open a new window displaying points and operations within the currently selected process.
Typically where the cheat tables will load including scripts, recent double clicked memory scans, and values.
Deletes everything in your cheat menu (6).
Pulls down all selected values in your recent scan window (4) and places them in cheat table (6).
Starts the initial scan. (Works injunction with 12, 13, and 14).
Preforms the next scan. (Works injunction with 12, 13, and 14).
Undo's your last scan once.
A known value you would like to search for
The method of the scan value (exact, bigger and smaller than, between, and unknown).
The value type (integer, float, string).
Add a known address and pointers to the cheat table.
Preparing to Scan for Values
Picking the Right Game Not all games work well with Cheat Engine, and using it with online multiplayer games is not recommended for both the ethical reasoning and complexity of anti-cheats, far grater than this tutorial will cover. Pick a single-player game to start with, ideally one that stores its data on your PC. Even if someone already has a cheat table out, try to make some of your own cheats. Opening a Process in Cheat Engine The first step is to open the game process in Cheat Engine. Click on the computer icon on the Cheat Engine (1), choose your game from the list of processes, and click "Open".
Understanding the Types of Scans (13) Exact Value Scan This is the simplest type of scan. If you know the exact value you want to change (like your current amount of gold), you can directly search for it.
Unknown Initial Value Scan If you're not sure of the exact value, you start with this scan and narrow it down by playing the game and changing the value.
Comparative Scans: Increased/Decreased Value Useful when the exact number is unknown but you can determine if it has increased or decreased during gameplay.
Conducting Your First Scan
Choosing the Value Type Determine the value type (e.g., 4-byte, float, etc.) before scanning. Most games use 4-byte by default. Money is typically a float giving the decimal. If you're unsure of the type, you can scan all the value types (14).
Setting Scan Conditions Set your scan conditions based on the type of scan. For an exact value scan, enter the known value and hit "First Scan." If the value isn't visible, choose "Unknown initial value" in the scan type (13). For the value type (14), use your best judgement. You may have to repeat scanning with different options before obtaining the correct value in memory.
Initiating the Scan After pressing the "First Scan"(9) button. Cheat Engine will process and display all instances of that value. You'll probably get some crazy amount of results (could be in the millions). We know our value is somewhere in there so we will have to refine our search.
Refining Your Scan
Narrowing Down the Results After changing the in-game value through gameplay, return to Cheat Engine and use the "Next Scan"(10) with the updated value to narrow down the results. You may (probably) have to do this more than once. Try to get it down to a manageable amount of values. I like working with anywhere from 1 to 200 results.
Changing Values to Identify the Right One Once you've narrowed down the results in your list of found addresses(4), you can start changing values in Cheat Engine to see if they affect the game. Be cautious and change one at a time, or you can be like me, freeze and change every value to see if I'm even in the ball park, hoping I don't crash the game.
Using the Found Values
Modifying Values To change a value, double-click on it, type in the new value, and press Enter. You should see the change reflected in the game. If it doesn't change right away, that means its not being constantly watched or nothing is being constantly written to the value. You may have to preform the appropriate action in game for the new value to take.
Pointer Scans for More Permanent Changes For changes that persist even after restarting the game, you might need to perform a pointer scan, which is a bit more complex but yields more permanent results. Not much will be said about pointers in this tutorial, but know its a thing.
Advanced Tips and Tricks
Dealing with Dynamic Addresses Game values might change memory addresses each time you play because the space in memory the game was in is cleared making room for other programs and games to load into. Learning how to find static pointers can help you modify values more consistently and make it so you don't have to scan for the same value time and time again.
Scripting in Cheat Engine for Automation For repetitive tasks, Cheat Engine allows scripting in its Lua engine, automating the process of searching and modifying values. I'll be diving more into this later on.
Ethical Considerations and Tips
Fair Use Policy Modify values responsibly. Enhancing personal gaming experience is fine, but affecting others negatively in multiplayer settings is frowned upon. Game hackers already have a bad name due to neglect from others. Don't be that guy, and if you are, keep it to yourself.
FAQs
Is using Cheat Engine on online multiplayer games recommended? No, using Cheat Engine on online multiplayer games is not recommended and can lead to bans.
Can Cheat Engine be detected by anti-cheat software? Yes, anti-cheats will always detect Cheat Engine and can lead to potential bans. Nothing you do at the user level will bypass a good anti-cheat.
Does Cheat Engine work on every game? Cheat Engine works best on single-player games that don’t store their data server-side or on games that doesn't have counter measures in place against Cheat Engine.
Is Cheat Engine safe to download and use?
Yes, if downloaded from the official website, Cheat Engine is safe. However, be cautious during installation to opt-out of any bundled software.
Ghidra is a powerful open-source software reverse engineering (SRE) framework developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) under the Apache License 2.0. Ghidra is widely used by security researchers, malware analysts, and software developers for analyzing binaries and understanding their behavior. Similar to IDA, Ghidra's capabilities make it a useful tool for analyzing and understanding the inner workings of game binaries. This tutorial focuses primarily on the installation of Ghidra on Microsoft Windows Systems.
Installing Ghidra:
As always, download any software from the official software's website or Github. In this tutorial, we will download Ghidra from the offical Website at https://ghidra-sre.org
Click "Download From Github"
At the time of writing, the latest version of Ghidra is 11.0.1. Regardless, always choose the latest release.
Navigate to your download directory, right click the zip file and select "Extract All...". A new folder should pop up. If it doesn't the unextracted content will be in the same directory as the Ghidra zip file. In that folder, navigate to "ghidraRun.bat", double click.
You'll most likely be greeted with a java error like this, if not you can skip this part.
Ghidra needs JDK to properly run. Following this link, https://adoptium.net/temurin/releases/?version=21 and download the appropriate JDK file your system needs. Because I have a 64bit OS running Windows, I'll choose Windows for my operating system, x64 for my Architecture and JDK for my package type. Download the .msi version.
-x86 is referring to 32bit systems. If your unsure, you can check this by right clicking your start menu, clicking "System" and referring to your "System type".
Navigate back to your downloads directory and run the new JDK installer.
After the JDK is installed you can go back to your Ghridra directory and run the "ghidraRun.bat" again and you should be good to go. It is recommended you take this folder and place it somewhere safe like on your desktop or documents, as this folder contains all the necessary files for Ghidra to run properly. If you have any troubles, as always feel free to leave a comment.
The website https://www.cheattables.com doesn't have any affiliation with us, and I'm unsure of the state of the domain. I've been watching this domain for a bit now and it appears to be a failed project. However, if they do arise I just wanted to make it known. If the domain isn't renewed on November 29th, 2025 I will seek to add this domain to the pool.
Posted by: Do0ks - 03-16-2024, 01:16 AM - Forum: Cheat Engine
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You might have encountered concerns about Cheat Engine being flagged as a virus by antivirus software or experiencing random program installations. Let's address these issues.
Firstly, regarding antivirus alerts, it's true that some antivirus programs might flag Cheat Engine due to its low-level operations, which involve manipulating memory addresses to interact with programs (aka, your game). Additionally, the installer that includes adware (We will talk about this next). However, it's essential to understand that while Cheat Engine might trigger antivirus warnings, it isn't a harmful virus. Instead, it operates similarly to one, allowing users to modify in-game values. Think of it as having the power to drive a vehicle safely, rather than being at the mercy of a virus.
As for the potential of random program installations (adware), this is entirely avoidable. Cheat Engine is a robust and continuously evolving project, with a rich history dating back to my childhood. Its ongoing development speaks volumes about its quality and relevance. The project is open source and free for anyone to download. The adware included in the installer serves as a means to support the project financially, ensuring its sustainability.
Downloading Cheat Engine:
Cheat Engine can be found in all counters of the internet. Some are good, most are horrible ideas to install. Unless you know exactly what your doing, the best and the most trusted place to pick up a copy of Cheat Engine is from the official website. (Cheat Engine's Website or Cheat Engine's Github).
Referring to the official website, Click the big green Download Icon at the top of the page
Go to your download destination, open the installer, agree to the administrative prompt and select your language.
After hitting next, you will see the adware offers being prompted. Do NOT hit skip all, you must decline each offer.
After declining the offers, Cheat Engine will do its thing and install. After, you'll have a fresh copy of Cheat Engine that doesn't include the adware. Reading is key to success, and you've done it.
Cheat Engines Basic Settings:
Cheat Engine out of the box will work, but were going to make it a little better. Cheat Engine will build up a lot of junk really fast. Before you know it your hard-drive will be full and you'll be stumped as to how or why. Also, we will take a look at the debugger options,
Lets edit some settings. Click Edit > Settings then in General Settings were going to tick on "Show all windows in the taskbar". It's nice being able to see and choose what window you need, especially when you have 9 open at once (trust me, you will).
Now head over to "Extra Custom Types" and enable all the above (2, 4, and Float Big Endian). This will allow you to work with different emulators.
Now head over to "Scan Settings" and locate the box, about in the center labeled "The 'all' type includes" and tick "All Custom Types". I enabled them all, though I don't think you have too. Also, while we are here, lets also tick "Don't store the temporary scanfiles in the windows tempdir", make a directory somewhere easy to access and assign Cheat Engine to dump the temp files there. This will allow you to easily delete the files before they get out of control.
Last, go over to the "Debugger Options", locate "Debugger Method" and tick "Use VEH Debugger". Idk, I guess its a better debugger to use so I always just used it.
Cool, that's all! You have installed Cheat Engine, Virus Free and Adware Free.
If I missed something, Leave a comment!