Cheat Engine

Sectus · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Posts: 5

I'm having a really obscure problem when trying to edit memory in Dolphin (gamecube emulator). It works, but after enough changing values too much cheat engine will just fail to see the contents of the value and it won't be able to change it anymore.

The attachments below show Cheat Engine before and after the value freeze. The ?? appears after a couple of seconds and make it impossible to change the value anymore.

The really weird thing is that I don't get this problem at all when using Windows XP 32-bit, but I get the problem fairly quickly when running Windows 7 64-bit on the same computer. And I've never had this problem in any other programs besides Dolphin. I don't know if the problem is on the side of Dolphin or Cheat Engine, but does anyone have a clue what's going wrong in this case?

Dark Byte · Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:12 pm Post subject:

it could be the memory has just been freed, it happens. (also. what is the effect in the game? )

anyhow, get the same dolphin version as you used on XP and try that. (The version you are running right now is not the version you used in XP, as that had to be a 32-bit version, and this one is 64-bit)

Also, what is the reason you change those bytes to those specific values ? If they are operating specific addresses, those values will only work on one specific service pack of one specific windows version that does not support ASLR

Sectus · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Posts: 5

It's with Soul Calibur 2 and I'm trying to manipulate the player position (so those values shown are 3 float values in a row). The changes function completely fine until I get "??" to appear, and once that happens the freeze will either do nothing or make the emulator crash. I can't find the values again unless I restart the emulation.

I've tried a whole bunch of Dolphin revisions and it happens in all of those I've tried. I was using a 64-bit build of Dolphin with those screenshots, but it happens in 32-bit builds too.

I haven't heard of "ASLR" before but looking it up, that sounds like it could be related.

Dark Byte · Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 6:49 pm Post subject:

no, ASLR has nothing to do with this

Perhaps you are changing a few addresses to many. (there is only 1 address that has the actual effect, the rest are just display

Sectus · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Posts: 5

I'm pretty sure the values I am finding are the ones I want. I just tried with a few other things which are easy to find, like looking for values corresponding to options in the game. It works the same way every time, I find the value I'm looking for, I change it, it has the expected effect ingame, but then it turns ?? in cheat engine and I can't do anything with it anymore.

One oddity is that I'm noticing I'm finding the same value more than once at very different addresses. I assume that's just the emulator handling the console memory in some special fashion.

I find it baffling this works in Windows XP without any problems.

Sectus · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Posts: 5

I wrote my own quick program for poking the same values and that works without any problem. After testing it I tried to do a single poke in cheat engine, and while it did that poke successfully, poking it more does nothing. It's as if Dolphin immediately re-allocates memory once Cheat Engine changes any values in the emulated memory.

Anyway, I can get around the problem by just using Cheat Engine for finding values in Dolphin and then using another program for the poking, but it is a really odd problem. I've googled around and I haven't seen anyone else encounter the same problem.

Gniarf · Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 5:56 pm Post subject:

Out of curiosity , does it change anything if you toggle cheat engine->settings->extra->use the following CE...->Query memory regions... + Read/Write Process Memory ?

Aside that, the only times where I have a valid value in CE turn into ?? is when I stick ollydbg on my target and set a software memory breakpoint on that variable (it changes the memory protection on the region that contains this address).

Sectus · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Posts: 5

That did the trick. With those settings checked I can poke and freeze without any problems. I don't know why I'm getting this problem exclusively with Dolphin, but at least I have a solution now. Thanks.