Cheat Engine

[saintx18]

Before Reading:
Red is used for important values
Blue is used for important side notes and things to acknowledge

Open CE and select your emulator from the process list.

Open desired game.

(Use Exact Value for all scans)

Use the following Scan type (Byte) for: Ammo, Items, Levels, Stats, 1-Ups, Upgrades and Power-ups. (Sometimes HP/Energy Amounts)

Example 1 - Say you have 10 potions.
Step 1:Scan 10
Step 2:Use one
Step 3:Scan for 9
Step 4:Repeat 2&3 Till one or few addresses remain.
Step 5:You can either increase it to 99 or freeze the value

Example 2 - Energy (Super Metroid as an example).
Step 1:You have 99 Energy
Step 2:Take a hit
Step 3:Say you have 85 now Scan that
Step 4:Repeat 2&3 until you have Step 5
Step 5:you should have about 3 values left
Step 6,7 and 8:Select them > Freeze > God Mode On.

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Use (2Bytes) for: Most of the time its money. Exp, HP, MP and Energy. Follow Example in 4byte below for money.

HP - just follow Example 2 above.

Example - EXP(For next Level used to get to next level faster)
Step 1: Say you have 256 (<-Scan) exp and you need 782 for your next level.
Step 2: Enter a Battle/Kill something and wait till the end of the fight.
Step 3: Check your status screen again... say... 362 is your new Value (676 needed for next level now)
Step 4: Scan it.
Step 5: Repeat 2,3&4 till 1 or few values remain.
Step 6: Add that value with remaining exp and subtract 1 and you'll only need 1 Exp (For Example 362 + 676 = 1038 - 1 = 1037)
Step 7: See Tips.

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Use (4Bytes) for: Money (GP Gil Silver Whatever), Scores, Exp and other values that exceed 255 or 65535.

Example - Your score is... 0009450
Step 1:Enter Value 9450
Step 2:If more than 1 value comes up do the Following
Step 3:Kill something or whatever and end up with... 0010450
Step 4:Scan 10450
Step 5:Repeat 3&4
Step 6:Change to desired amount (If its score, Make it look legit if you wanna impress someone or beat a friend's score)

[(Money works the same way for above example) Replace Step 3 with: Earn or sell for money. Certain games use 2byte.]

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Use (8byte) For: Scores.
Few games go over the billion mark [4byte (0-4,294,967,295)]

Extreme Pinball for PSX I think scores for one of the tables go up into the hundred billions. Not sure. Been a while. But just follow the Example from above and go impress your friends lol.

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Use All (byte to double) if all else fails.
or
Unknown Value

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Tips:
-For RPG games its better to hack the exp instead of levels so you get the full effect per level. Say if you skip from level 6 to 99. You'll miss out on everything in between. Such as acquired skills and such. So if you're up for a little challenge just skip to level 99 with no benefits.

-Name your addresses by using descriptions. Double click "No Description" and name it to anything that fits it. (e.g. 'Ammo = 9mm,etc' 'Score' 'Character Names: LockeStr, LockeHP, LockeEXP2byte, LockeEXP4byte' 'Money')

-SAVE! always save your work. Remember when you save. these turn into cheat tables, and you can share them with friends or amongst the community. Go To: Flie>Save or Ctrl+S (Shortcut) You may end up with a lot of values and it'll be a pain in the ass to do them all over again. I'm pretty sure the values stay the same since they aren't flash games. Game Shark and etc. use these values too. (Confirmed with FF3)

-Its worth all the work to build these CT's so you don't have to keep going back and entering Game Shark codes or w/e.

-Reason why I have exp in 2 byte and 4 byte is because when Exp and Exp needed for next level exceeds 65535 (e.g. Exp = 60422 and for next level = 5894 Comes out to 66316) The address changes and the Byte changes. Found this out with Final Fantasy 3. So you'll have to find the address again, but keep the old one still. You'll have a 2byte exp and a 4byte exp.

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This guide should work for most console based emulators, if not its mainly for SNES then. If anyone can confirm it works for other emulators go for it. I'm too lazy. Ill experiment with PSX and such if I have the time. N64 will be the next thing I try. Hopefully this guide was easy to follow.

Any errors, typos, or whatever let me know. If you want to add anything to this guide feel free to PM me.

Update: Works with Mupen64 so its obvious it works for any emulator. Confirmed on Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask: You can freeze rupees, arrows, bombs etc. Increased my rupees in the bank to 5000. May be possible to freeze time and life. I haven't tried.

Update2: Doesn't work with Visual Boy Advance, because Visual Boy Advance has a built in memory reader and ram search.

Short Tutorial on the Ram/Cheat search here:

[KGM1973]

Hello saintx18,

Thank you VERY much for your EXCELLENT tutorial! Yes, this would DEFINITELY apply to me (as I'm using the VICE Commodore 64 emulator on my Windows XP machine, using a game ROM entitled "Might and Magic 2: Gates to Another World").

My initial post was under the ROLEPLAYING section, entitled: Might and Magic 2: Gates to Another World (Commodore 64) . When I read YOUR tutorial, I didn't really think that it would be able to assist me in locating the values I want to change (character statistics, which are MOSTLY static values). However, I read ALL the way down and you stated:

"Something I forgot to add: It makes everything easier on Cheat Engine if you scan something 256, and below at 1 byte, and its something like exp, or money. You can right click the value in the box below and switch it to a 4byte type and enter any desired amount"

Thanks! That MIGHT assist me with altering the characters' remaining statistics (6 characters total, with 7 statistics/character and a total of 42 values). Thus far, I SOMEHOW "stumbled" upon successfully altering 3 values between 2 characters (maybe I just got "lucky")? Well, I'll let you know if it works, and thanks again for your EXCELLENT tutorial!

[SinStar87]

Worth noting that earlier systems(snes) and some games on later systems, use reverse address bytes(I don't know/remember the technical term) normal example, you have a value of 255 in game 00000001 will be 255 00000002 will be 0, a value of 256 00000001 will be 0 and 00000002 will be 1. Example of what I'm talking about you have a value of 255 in game 00000001 will be 0 00000002 will be 255, a value of 256 00000001 will be 1 and 00000002 will be 0. 2 byte 255 normal example 00000001 will be 255. What I'm talking about 255 example 00000001 will be 65280.

[KGM1973]

Hello saintx18,

I just wanted to let you know that I've successfully located and altered another statistic value. However, I selected 1 Byte for the value type (as you stipulated at the bottom of your post) and changed it to a 2 Bytes value (NOT a 4 Bytes value). Who knows? Maybe it's the way that THIS particular game is; nonetheless, it's operating correctly. Also, as I mentioned in my initial post in the ROLEPLAYING section, ALL of the values, THUS FAR, tend to be within a SPECIFIC memory range. Therefore, with selecting 1 Byte as the value type, it'll DEFINITELY help me narrow down my results a LOT better! Once again, thanks for your EXCELLENT tutorial! (Also, if anyone else reads this and what I've posted here, it MAY also benefit them.)

[Lord Blade]

So I was bored and popped open Gens to run Starflight.

I tried using CE to find the credits value, but I couldn't seem to find a thing. Is there any specific trick to it?

[Cake-san]

[Lord Blade]

I was searching using All.

[Cake-san]

[Lord Blade]

Ah, okay. I didn't realize that "All" wasn't actually searching everything.

So I found the value I wanted under 2 byte, however I need to get more than what 2 bytes can handle.

I'm playing Starflight specifically, and there's stuff that costs 500000. I can't got over the 65k thing though. So how do I get more?

EDIT:

Having the same issue with Warriors of the Eternal Sun.

Did a search for XP. For two characters, I find 1/2/4/8 byte values, while for the other two I only find 1/2 bytes.
The XP needed gets well over 100k, so how can I change the values properly? With 2 bytes, I can't go over the 65k cap, and if I try to change the type to 4 bytes, the values don't work anymore (it shows the character needing the 65k value to level and they don't gain any more XP).

[Cake-san]

Actually, the credits in Starflight is 4 bytes variable.
The other 2 bytes is backward.

[Lord Blade]

Er... okay, now I'm confused.

Backward?
When I do a search, I can't find a credit value under 4 byte.

[Cake-san]

[Lord Blade]

Okay, I think I get it.
Essentially the first address is "full" by the game's limits, so it starts using a second to keep track of the increased value. It's that second I need to edit.

[ParkourPenguin]

So, the upper word is in big-endian, but the lower word is in little-endian? That's weird.

Anyway, here's a custom AA type for that if you want it:

[PinPoint]

In terms of FFVII just searching and filtering the value you see wouldn't work for items.
It uses 2 bytes of information for every item (usable/armour/weapon etc). and there are around 310 items in total.

Usually in most games like final fantasy the potion is the very first item with a 00 value. so you could search for 0 then increased on another item and back to 0 with the potion. assuming you are using the first item slot, this would give you the address for that(where the value corresponds to the item type).

The next byte is the amount of said item. However, with FFVII its not as simple as just what you see. As there are more than 255 items, more than 2 bytes would usually be required to hold the item information. (item id and amount) FFVII gets round this and keeps its 2 byte system by using an odd/even or doubling/doubling +1 method of the value.

For example, say you have a 2 potions in the first slot, the corresponding bytes will read 00 04. this means there are 2 potions in the slot. if it were 00 198 this would mean there are 99 potions in the slot.
How would it signify the 256th item then? just +1 to the amount byte. so 00 04 changing to 00 05 would mean 4 iron bangles in the slot as the iron bangle is the 256th item. so odd values are used for items 256-310 and even values are use for items 0-255.

Just anothter method of how items are stored I thought i would mention.