Thread: hacking?

i was just wondering how you actually hack games, like what do you use etc. i know that you have to edit the program or something, but how do you get that source code, because i doubt they would include the source code with the game.

i just want to do small hacks, like change the way my guy looks etc.

you use a hex editor, and advanced knowledge of x86 assembly language, and the Windows PE executable format....

Originally Posted by Ynot

Windows PE executable format....

huh? whats that

Originally Posted by slash112

huh? whats that

Its slang for Google.

Read my last post as basically "you can't"

Modifying the operations of an opaque binary is one of the hardest and most complex things to do

Just understanding what they're doing (and replicating it) is difficult enough
ever wonder why the various reverse engineering projects take so long?
Console emulators
Wine / ReactOS (Win32 API & environment)
Nouveau (Nvidia 3D graphics driver)
Etc.

If you want to start hacking opaque binaries,
ironically, cracking DRM is one of the less-complex operations
and an ideal starting point

Take 2 copies of the same program
one authenticated (valid serial number, or whatever), one not
and do hex dumps of their execution

At some point, there'll be some sort of check, and a jump
the authenticated one jumps one way
the non-authenticated one jumps another way
in a hex editor, edit the jump so it jumps down the "authenticated" path

Over-simplifying, but hey

Originally Posted by slash112

i just want to do small hacks, like change the way my guy looks etc.

Just look for mods - not hacks.

What game?

~

its just an old game, tony hawk pro skater 3.

but i was just going to go on youtube, there is always a vid which tells you how to do things. i wasnt actually going to do it myself.

anyways, i found this really small stupid pointless one on youtube, so i did it. but its not letting me into it once ive saved it, it says "...failed to start because mss32.dll was not found." what does that mean? and how do i fix it?

The best way you can is probably through the use of something like cheat engine and art money, which finds values and changes them. So if you got emulators, like I used to give myself infinite ammo on resident evil, you'd just have cheat engine find the program, search for the amount of ammo you have and change it, theirs a basic tutorial that comes with cheat engine that teaches you those things.

Sometimes when you download games you can find the texture files and change them in paint, I used to do it with a MMORPG called Bots but it only showed up that way to me, I could also change the music files.

As far as emulators go their are really detailed ways, some games like super mario 64 have programs that can edit them more practically to change the textures on things.

Originally Posted by LucidDreamGod

The best way you can is probably through the use of something like cheat engine and art money, which finds values and changes them. So if you got emulators, like I used to give myself infinite ammo on resident evil, you'd just have cheat engine find the program, search for the amount of ammo you have and change it, theirs a basic tutorial that comes with cheat engine that teaches you those things.

ok ill do the cheat engine thing, but i have no idea what emulators means

What do you actually want to do?

Originally Posted by slash112

ok ill do the cheat engine thing, but i have no idea what emulators means

Emulators like n64k that let you download roms and play console games on your computer like Nintendo 64 and Playstation.

Also some of those emulators can connect you to a multiplayer server, like when I play tony hawk pro skater 2 with n64k, it's hard to find a match, takes awhile, but games like smash bros 64, you can go online and play against other people if you've got the emulator and the rom for that game, basically what it does is read the other players inputs and matches them to your 2nd player controller, and vice versa.

Roms, have questionable legal matters, just like downloading music, but if you own the game, it is totaly 100% legal to own the rom, which takes only a few minutes to download. (and having a usb controller makes emulators so much more fun, because it feels like you own 1000's of games :p)

And yeah I'm a big fan of the tony hawk games, so if you download 3 I'll play with you.