Cheat Engine

[AMK]

Hi
I wanted to mess around with tuning in NFS U2 by changing the values for NOS duration, ecu(torque/rpm), etc

I can find the values and after changing the values in game, I can see that the values update to the new value entered in CE or nearest limit but it will not apply.

For example: I change NOS duration from 1 to 100 seconds in CE. If I don't change the duration in game it will be 1 but if I freeze the value I found to 100 and try to change it in game, NOS duration will take the upper limit

I found no other values with "unknown initial value"

Any tips?

[Game Hacking Dojo]

Displayed elements may not always accurately represent the real value you need. Finding and ensuring that the useless value belongs to the required value, is a good start. You can try to see "what writes to this address" to see what is updating this display value to find out what the real code looks like. They have to be connected.

[AMK]

I did that but every code that writes to this address only reads and writes to this exact address (or group of addresses in other tuning options like ecu that has multiple values. multiple codes write to or read from one address or all 9 addresses in that section)

[Game Hacking Dojo]

Could you share the code at that location? And show me what instructions pop up when you use what accesses this address.

I couldn't fully understand what you meant but such values are very likely to be stored in a single-byte address or even bits. I've worked on NFSMW before and parts values were represented in 0,1,2,3... (not sure what size was utilised). Now I'm working on GTA V and all parts are in 8 bytes.

[AMK]

Thanks for reply
I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say. Sorry if my bad English causes confusion
By tuning, I meant the settings you apply on engine, suspension, NOS,etc and not upgrading or changing those parts. I can't post image links here yet. You can see what I mean by googling "nfsu2 dyno" or "nfsu2 ecu tuning"

The values for tuning are stored as float. These are the codes that access the first torque value of ECU tuning(first 2 codes access all 9 torque values in ECU tuning):
00522E91 - D9 5B 0C - fstp dword ptr [ebx+0C]
00531296 - D9 46 0C - fld dword ptr [esi+0C]
005101E1 - D9 41 04 - fld dword ptr [ecx+04]
005101E7 - D8 41 04 - fadd dword ptr [ecx+04]
00510218 - D9 51 04 - fst dword ptr [ecx+04]
00522F4F - D9 40 0C - fld dword ptr [eax+0C]

[Game Hacking Dojo]

Okay, there is something to note here. You mentioned before that you can find the values after editing them.

1- Does that mean you can't find the addresses using memory scanning unless you edit them?
2- Does that mean they don't populate at the instruction you're hooking?

If 1 then you're most likely dealing with display values since they don't belong to the class. And the fact that you can't make any use of them also solidifies the idea of being display values.

If 2 then there is a higher chance of you dealing with the needed values.

Bear in mind that the game has to know what the value is before displaying it. So if you are shown some values that accurately represent what you expect then that's the game retrieving the info from somewhere. And display values are connected in the same fashion.

[AMK]

No, what I meant is that when I edit values in the game, the displayed value updates to match the value I set in Cheat Engine (CE) only after I modify it in game

For example, if the NOS duration is set to 1 second and I’ve already found its address, I change the value in CE to 3. Then, when I modify it in the game, it changes to 3.1 instead of 1.1, meaning the value has actually updated.

However, I do adjust the values in-game to help me locate them in CE.

The issue is that changing the value I find in CE doesn’t take effect until I modify it in the game itself, and it won’t exceed the predefined limits. If I enter a value beyond the limit in CE, then change it in the game, the value I see is still outside the limit, but what actually applies to the car is within the maximum or minimum allowed values.

I think there might be another real address (which doesn’t match the one I found) that changes every time I modify the tuning, but I’m not sure how to find it. Another possibility is that the game double-checks the tuning values, though that seems unlikely

[Game Hacking Dojo]

The visuals only update when you make a change in the game because the game only accesses the UI update function when the game detects a change, through a hierarchy (starting from a button press)

You can't exceed a certain limit because the game is checking when you press the button and when you exit the menu if your values are within the predefined margins. If you want to modify those margins you have to be good at assembly, to say the least.