On the state of GSHI, and the 'Scene' in general...

[Helder]

I use the Dark scheme here and there mainly because by default (until just now) it was in use and some people have the game name for hacked codes in light colors which make it difficult to see in the normal VB style but hopefully this will change with the default vB change.

[Hextator]

Blah, I don't have anything you can't get from the Gecko OS source that was FINALLY released. I was trying to get started by manually loading and patching games, then executing them - every time I got to the "execute" part the game would green screen and then crash, whereas Gecko OS would flash the TV screen green but successfully load the game. I had disassembled the crap out of Gecko OS and couldn't find anything different to what I had done, even after getting the source for the application years later.

Screw that >:/

[kh2k4]

What's this Ocarina people mention to me being included with neogamma or something? I don't have a Wii only a GC is there a build for the GameCube? is it only runnable on a usb gecko? I have a sdgecko and now a ide exi :-)

[Helder]

The Ocarina you're referring to allows you to use Gecko codes on usb loaders it's about 85% compatible with existing codes. I say that because I played Donkey Kong Country recently off USB and used the codes available (by GMO by the way) and the game would either freeze at the title or not load. So some codes for different versions worked and some didnt.

[kh2k4]

So it's just a cheat engine you can't find codes with it? I use sd-boot to cheat on gamecube backups atm as it contains reused GCARS-CS code infact i'm the person who asked emu_kidid to include it into sd-boot providing him with a link to fuzziqersoftware's website it uses .qch files, use qchedit to convert

.cod - raw codes
to
.qch files.

you have to add a cheat

eof
00000000 00000000
00000000 00000000

to the end of each game cheats list though as sd-boot has a bug where it doesn't display the last cheat otherwise.

swsis-gc is a continuation of sd-boot but with support for the ide exi.

What are Gecko codes? are they just raw codes ie: decrypted ar codes for the wii? or can they be used with the gc too?

[Helder]

The Gecko codes I was talking about are the raw codes made with Gecko ,Ocarina uses the same types but no Ocarina can't hack just use them.

[kh2k4]

Usb Gecko via Wiird to hack codes? I can't afford another piece of hardware to hack with so no Usb Gecko for me.
Ocarina is useless to me then as I can already cheat with raw codes.
Gonna have wait until ram dumping is added to swiss-gc, then use use Viper187's REx to compare them.
I dunno why but I keep getting Viper187 and Parasyte mixed up.

[misfire]

[...]
1. We must finally develop a working system of donation, incentive-based task accomplishment, and paid requests for hacking system functionality, for which we will require a highly-interested user base, willing to make such investments and confident that the developers will produce a product worthy of their contributions.
2. We must aggressively build awareness in the general public of the fascinating, entertaining, and enlightening arena of video game hacking, including the need for more developers and better incentive systems to attract, motivate, and retain them.
3. We must actively recruit developers to the cause, both as the unpaid trailblazers we see today, and the compensated ones we envision tomorrow.
4. We must concentrate on relevant platforms, including both the obvious - current generation video game consoles - and other, more pervasive platforms, such as mobile devices (those running Apple's IOS, Google's AndroidOS, HP's WebOS, etc).
[...]

Apart from the monetary aspect, I think what we really need are standard tools. We need a generic, platform-independent framework to do all the game hacking tasks for us. We need a standard trainer toolkit to compare RAM dumps and find cheat codes. We need a standard protocol for debugger-debuggee communication. We need a standard library to parse and write cheat codes in text format. We need a standard framework to handle code encryption. We need standard user interfaces (both command-line and graphical) to access these tools. We need standard file formats. We need proper documentation. We need automated tests.

Let's face it, most hacking tools are crap. They work more or less for the specific task they were built for, but when you look at the source code (if available), you can easily tell that it will most likely never be used again. I mean how many peek/poke tools, game trainers, and code converters/compilers are there?

With a standard framework in place, we can jointly concentrate on the most important thing - game hacking - without reinventing the wheel for each new system.

[misfire]

And btw, the funding platform http://www.kickstarter.com/ is worth a look.

I know that bushing of team fail0verflow used it to finance OpenVizsla.

[Helder]

A universal device and tools would be awesome and make cross platform hacking a simple transition without learning a whole new tool or software. Maybe try to get some of these hardware developers like the guys from Team Twiizers to see if they might be interested in helping to develop such a device.

[Lazy Bastard]

misfire: Yes! We should band together to get the ball rolling on the Scalable Remote Debugger Protocol...perhaps even dropping the Remote, and making it encompass both local and remote debuggers , and perhaps other hacking tools as well...

And that does look like an awesome place to get useful projects going. Perhaps we should make real attempts to kick-start both SRDP and individual hacking projects there.

[misfire]

misfire: Yes! We should band together to get the ball rolling on the Scalable Remote Debugger Protocol...perhaps even dropping the Remote, and making it encompass both local and remote debuggers , and perhaps other hacking tools as well...

And that does look like an awesome place to get useful projects going. Perhaps we should make real attempts to kick-start both SRDP and individual hacking projects there.

Yes, SRDP would indeed solve the "We need a standard protocol for debugger-debuggee communication" problem. Although the protocol has very high goals, not limited to video game hacking, and I estimate that its completion would take several man-years of effort.

As for the "standard trainer toolkit", I think that Viper's RenegadeEx has some good ideas. The tool supports multiple systems and understands what a basic game trainer is about. Unfortunately, its source code has some design problems (e.g. the search code is tightly bound to the GUI). Nevertheless, it's a start.

Pyriel's MAXConvert is - if you neglect the GUI - the best we have when it comes to a "standard framework to handle code encryption". But it's for PS2 only and more a device-dependent crypto tool than a generic framework. I don't think that we really need it at the moment anyway.

Though not really generic (yet), libcheats has become my "standard library to parse and write cheat codes in text format". With it, I was able to come up with a CodeBreaker "cheats" compiler only minutes after figuring out the file compression. This project looks promising and I've plenty of ideas for it.

[Lazy Bastard]

Yes, SRDP would indeed solve the "We need a standard protocol for debugger-debuggee communication" problem. Although the protocol has very high goals, not limited to video game hacking, and I estimate that its completion would take several man-years of effort.

True. We could always use a video game hacking tool framework as a baseline/test for building SRDP into a real protocol, molding it along the way. That way, both goals are furthered.

As for the "standard trainer toolkit", I think that Viper's RenegadeEx has some good ideas. The tool supports multiple systems and understands what a basic game trainer is about. Unfortunately, its source code has some design problems (e.g. the search code is tightly bound to the GUI). Nevertheless, it's a start.

Yes, Viper187's RenegadeEX is awesome. I think if it didn't rely on MFC, it would be perfect, or could fairly easily be made perfect. Not that I'm one to talk; the only GUI I ever made (aside from the patchwork GUIs I made for Artemis) was in VB.NET, heh.

Pyriel's MAXConvert is - if you neglect the GUI - the best we have when it comes to a "standard framework to handle code encryption". But it's for PS2 only and more a device-dependent crypto tool than a generic framework. I don't think that we really need it at the moment anyway.

Yeah, but any complete hacking system should include an encryption/decryption utility, so it's worth mentioning.

Though not really generic (yet), libcheats has become my "standard library to parse and write cheat codes in text format". With it, I was able to come up with a CodeBreaker "cheats" compiler only minutes after figuring out the file compression. This project looks promising and I've plenty of ideas for it.

Yes, libcheats should be adopted in full. It's essentially the only library of its kind, and it's fairly straight-forward and clean.


So what should be the first step? Should we get with Viper and see if we can rewrite RenegadeEX to be more portable?

[Helder]

So what should be the first step? Should we get with Viper and see if we can rewrite RenegadeEX to be more portable?

Sounds like a good first step in the right direction.

[kh2k4]

Java?, nooooooooooooooooooooooooo.