Project Artemis

[Lazy Bastard]

Hmm...maybe it wasn't your intention, and I'm all about benefit-of-the-doubt, but that seemed pretty rude to me.

Since it was called a hacking system in the first post in this thread, it should be inferred that it's not just a cheat system we're endeavoring to create. Though you could always read some specifics in the spec sheet threads in this forum, Artemis will be a complete RAM-dumping, dump-comparing, re-injecting, breakpointing (and several other things) hacking system. It will allow users to create their own codes, and, as a base, act as a cheat system. This is something that has not been achieved for PS2, as opposed to a basic cheat system, which has (misfire's PS2Cheat, Driver's Cora, sjeep's Cosmic Cheat, CodeMajic, etc).

If Cora is pitiful, then perhaps you should help us write a good base for Artemis

Or, you might consider sharing some source you've already written in this respect? Rather than telling us how much you dislike what's already been done, perhaps you should tell us what you like about what you've already done, assuming that is actually something. Pardon the half-assumptions, but there are far too many people in this scene that talk all day, and produce nothing.

All you need is to utilize the MIPS commands in your C coding along side ASM to accomplish memory patching

Sure, but that's like saying all you have to do to achieve cold fusion is mess with some particles. Could you provide us with a better cheat system core?

[Gtlcpimp]

For interest's sake, cYs Driver's original, openly available proof-of-concept PS2 cheat engine can be referenced here: http://www.codemasters-project.net/v...=proof+concept

...and the download, whose original link has since become dead, can be found here: http://GSHI.org/downloads/Cora.zip

Keep in mind that this source must be compiled using the PS2SDK, a pre-built, updated, fixed version of which can be found in this forum

Thanks, of course, go out to Driver, for this very clever piece of work, and to misfire, for his invaluable pointers and advice.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Cora is a pitiful example for anything. Even if it is just a concept your trying to point out, it's still very pitiful to use as an example...

I'm not to sure what this project you speak of is supposed to be over. If your trying to have just a simple cheat device that patches memory on the PS2, then you don't really need some fancy company or a programming team / group. All you need is to utilize the MIPS commands in your C coding along side ASM to accomplish memory patching. If that's not the whole purpose of this project, then please explain, what exactly is this project supposed to do or be used for?

[Lazy Bastard]

Ah, heh.

OK. I've been augmenting my PS2SDK, with gslib and a few fixes here and there.

[misfire]

Hehe, actually I neither have a working PCSX2 installation nor a camera atm.

I'm gonna try to continue working on ps2cheat tomorrow and at the weekend...

[Lazy Bastard]

You, my friend, are a lazy bastard

Heh, I'll take some shots later. I figured I'd give you the chance to take them, since PS2Cheat was your creation. No matter.

Yes, but I do like to have an idea of what our general goals are. I'm not going to start writing the PC-side client app or anything (though, I could probably build most of it out of what's already in my unreleased version of Majestic Porter), and I don't know enough C/C++ to go around writing GUI apps, nor DLLs. It might even be wise to enlist the help of one of the other scene members that've written a few GUI apps in C (Viper187 comes to mind).

I'll try to start on the PS2-side GUI code tonight. We can always integrate it with PS2Cheat later (I'll be anxiously awaiting your cleaned-up version of PS2Cheat), and we can really begin doing some rapid revision once we have a version control system in place (LMZ is likely going to install SVN while we bandy Mercurial around, so we'll have a repository in the meantime, and can always import it into Mercurial later, if need be).

[misfire]

ps2cheat has no GUI and is pretty ugly, but you can take some shots if you want.

I really think it's to early to talk about the client GUI as this is one of the last things we have to be concerned about.

[Lazy Bastard]

Ah, good idea. I believe you mentioned the idea of writing a DLL in C, and using it in a .NET project.

Once I've thrown together some basic GUI prototypes, I'll take some screenshots and post them. Mind taking a shot or two of PS2Cheat?

[misfire]

Yes, somebody has to take care of the PS2-side GUI.

Although it's a bit early to talk about the client GUI, I think .NET is okay for Windows users (and maybe even for Linux with GTK#).

Anyway, the core parts should definitely be portable amongst various operating systems and independent from the GUI. Which means that we could create a DLL on Windows and a shared library on Linux (.so) based on one and the same source code (written in C/C++). You can then import the DLL's functions into your VB.NET application, for instance.

[Lazy Bastard]

I suppose I should get a good set of fonts, and begin making a PS2-side GUI for Artemis. Shall we use .NET for the PC-side GUI, or should we aspire to a bit more portability? Obviously, we can save time and effort by using something like VB.NET, but users would be restricted to either running Windows, or trying to emulate it (Wine, etc).

[misfire]

Well, after a long time I finally had a look at my code again. Everything seems to build nicely on Ubuntu. Now I've got a rough idea of what I've done many moons ago...

What I can come up with is a working cheat system. I wrote most of the code back in 2005 as part of a program I called ps2cheat. For it I "borrowed" the cheat engine from CodeBreaker (and fixed some bugs in it). I added a boot loader with the ability to read cheats from a text file; another feature is video mode patching (incl. y-fix). I can say that it worked quite well and I never had to use another cheat program again.

I suggest using ps2cheat as Artemis' base for further development. For technical reasons, we gonna need a cheat engine anyway (we have to hook the game for both cheating and hacking). So I think this is a good first step.

Of course, there's lots of work to do. For example, there's no GUI yet and for obvious reasons, the cheat engine has to be rewritten.

Opinions?

[misfire]

LMZ, if you get it working, please tell me how you did it. Is there any information on setting up an online Mercurial repository? I'm interested. Also, I recommend using hg.gshi.org or mercurial.gshi.org for repo access.

EDIT: Wikis are quite useful.

http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wik.../ServerInstall
http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wik...ngRepositories

[LiquidManZero]

Mercurial is greatly confusing me trying to set it up. I suspect my lack of understanding how it works is the problem. The documentation hasn't helped much so far.

[Lazy Bastard]

Yeah; hopefully as many people as those that are interested will be interested in contributing

LMZ is working on setting up Mercurial, so we'll hopefully have a working version control system soon.

Feel free to prod Driver concerning his unreleased code, as well.

[misfire]

I hope that the participation will continue to increase when I've contributed some code. Many people seem to be interested in the project. Only time will show if the scene is really ready for such an open source project...

[misfire]

This can be seen as an extension of the planned upload feature. Might be a good idea (if it's feasible at all).

To get the project rolling, we'll need some working code to start with - a solid base for further development. Then we can continue our efforts and provide patches until we achieve our common purpose.