Cheat Engine

LalzDS · Newbie cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2013 Posts: 11

Hello. I've been using cheat engine for a few years but I hardly ever succeed into finding pointers. There are times when just a few adresses pop-up like they tell you in tutorials but almost every time I try I got tons and tons of adresses. And thats not the only problem. Everything I find are pointers pointing to other pointers pointing to other pointers... What I try to say is I never get to get the static source.

I know I'm doing the process right as a few times I get to find some 4 or 3 level pointers. But it doesn't work most the time.

Please take into account I know almost nothing about pointers and therefore have some little patience and understanding with me.

Gniarf · Posted: Tue Sep 17, 2013 5:53 pm Post subject:

Are you searching pointers the way it's described in the tutorial, with find out what*** + manual scans?

If the answer is "yes": you shouldn't. The tutorial shows you what a pointer is in memory, but as you noticed, it is impractical for real-life scenarios. Instead you should use the pointerscanner (right click on your variable->pointer scan for this address).

If the answer is "no": well, there are programming languages/game engines for which it is impossible or very hard to find stable pointers, even with the pointerscanner. For example: flash, python, rpg maker games (ruby language?) and some games using a lua interpreter. I heard you can add java to this list, but I haven't checked personally.

LalzDS · Newbie cheater Reputation: 0 Joined: 17 Sep 2013 Posts: 11

Ok. I'll try using pointer scan the next time and I'll let you know how it went.

calciumantacid · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 28 Dec 2011 Posts: 5

Gniarf · Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2013 6:13 pm Post subject:

@calciumantacid: try using a java decompiler and editing the game's source code.

Dark Byte · Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2013 6:43 pm Post subject:

The pointerscan isn't really recommended for java (a self compiled openjdk might be more suitable. E.g one that exports a list of all classes and disables garbage collect on thing that are not destroyed)

Anyhow, if speed is a problem then pause the java process. Also, after the pointerscanner has finished the initial phase (progressbar at bottom) you can even close the target and the scan will continue without a problem.

calciumantacid · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 28 Dec 2011 Posts: 5

Thanks for the suggestions. Editing the source code and using a self-compiled openjdk sounds a bit complicated. Pausing the process sounds like an easy idea to start with. Problem is, I just tried it and I got an error during the automatic scan:

ReverseScanWorker:Stream write error

This is running inside a VM, so perhaps I need to allocate more ram to it.

Edit: Ah, I think I know what happened - the PTR files are huge, CE wrote about 30 GB and the VM disk got maxed out.

Dark Byte · Posted: Fri Sep 20, 2013 7:41 am Post subject:

Yeah, pointerscan results can even grow up to several terrabytes depending on the level and structsize (e.g bigger than 10 will usually guarantee a result too big for your harddisk)

Also, since you're saying your scans where affected by the garbage collector, which is weird, make sure that the address you're scanning for actually has an permanent effect in the game when changed.
A common mistake is that people look for pointers because changing the value has no effect in the game at all, or only temporary visible. (In case of a display variable, or online game) Pointers won't help in those cases

calciumantacid · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 28 Dec 2011 Posts: 5