CL-LiveDebug v3

[Gtlcpimp]

You should also really shift it right 25 bits so it would enforce a EE memory limit.
If like like being a picky person like me, you have 3 more bits available. I'd combine those with the current 4 code type bits. It could really come in handy.

After checking into it I guess it could work, good point! I was originally thinking it would throw me off and require an added handler, but then I busted out good ol' ps2dis to check the value shifts and turns out it could happen without any added mess.

The allocated space still sticks to 1 line codes according to the structure design. However like I said in the comment on the structure, I can always set the 32 bit value for on/off/write to include extra arguments for a code type.

Edit: 'Codes' Menu has been completely implemented. A simple cheat engine has been implemented. The only thing left now is to set the ELF to load the patches from a text document, because the PS2-side module is complete.

Edit 2: And done.

All menus are now complete, ELF features complete and the in-game features. An example of a text file for pre-loaded patches included.
Download: http://cheaters-lounge.net/files/CL-LD3.0.4.rar

Screen shot in attachment.

[Whipon]

This is great. I'm thinking in buying a PS2.
Maybe tomorrow after work. I'll have lots of fun with it.
I don't know if anyone has done it yet, but I would like to thank you for this great effort and success.
Do you have any Paypal account to send you a donation?.

[Gtlcpimp]

Always accepting donations!
http://cheaters-lounge.net/index.php?p=7

I appreciate your thought and compliments. It was to my understanding before I started this project that the task of forcing screen printouts during game play from a 3rd party application on the PS2 has never been done before. I was trying since 2008 to get it fully working without flaws, and so far LDv3 is pulling through on that!

The first form of it was very jacked up, and riddled with bugs.
Video of 1st working version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPXUgznS-Tc
Video of LDv3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZNfnQbDwLk

Ah, and I just got an idea. I want to add an exception handler, sort of like what PS2Link has. How would I go about hooking the exception handler? It could come in handy with debugging the issue involving the controller being shut off by the IOP. Also would help find out the cause if a game crashes with the debugger.

[Whipon]

Done ^^. Beer money sent n_n. Or maybe you prefer Gatorade? :P
Now to search for a PS2 in my local stores.
I'll have to buy lots of DVDs. Its warez time :P!!!!.

EDIT: Couldn't see the cheat search engine in that video.
Had a look at the screenshots in your site and it seems it only lets you search for specific values, but not relative searches like greater than, less than, changed, unchanged, etc.
Am I wrong?.

[Gtlcpimp]

Thanks!

And yeah right now the search performs a value search no > or <, because no one would throw any ideas at me! lol, but main focus here recently was finishing up the features so any further revisions can be made more simple by just modding what already exists if ya know what I mean.

The video was actually recorded before the search engine was completed, so it was just a shell menu on the video.

[bungholio]

I'm having many weird unknown problems with it now that I've tried. I'm assuming there's one unique detail I'm missing that's making it run incorrectly. I've been using 3.0.3 since 3.0.4 hasn't managed to get any game to start yet. None of this will sound good, no game was correctly usable. Just always make sure the game is ready before you start it otherwise it won't start ever.
I have a fat old PS2 for the NTSC region. No modchip, no hardware modification, nothing. I'm running livedebug3.0.3 from uLaunchElf. Livedebug is both being tried on my pen drive and memory card slot 2, and they are exactly the same so far if that matters.
Here's what I've tested:

Shadow Of The Colossus
Game lagged at about 10 FPS the whole time everywhere. Around the game menu stuff I couldn't seem to use livedebug because pressing START had no effect other than helping me escape the safe guard warning and it went straight back to the game menu stuff. If I didn't hold START, It would repeatedly re-enter into the safe guard. The actual game was unplayable. This game has a weird reaction to lag, which causes the game to treat the lag as if it is a part of the game or something. Livedebug is a little stretched to the right of the screen, causing it to cut off the 1/3 of the right side of the screen for livedebug. It didn't affect the game. When I selected search, it just returned to the game. After about 1 minute of running around, the game went black and then restarted in this game's special restart code. Most games that get a wrong code freeze on the spot, but this game usually just does a complete restart of itself.

Destroy All Humans! 2
After I enter in livedebug, the screen is split in half horizontally. The top half is on the bottom, and the bottom half is on the top with major garble to the point where it's like the worst of the flickering square graphics you encountered from bumping your old Nintendo while playing a game on it. Once out of livedebug, it stayed that way for the game too. I couldn't fix it, so I quit.

Fatal Frame 1
At the game start menu, I could exit livedebug. While playing the game, once I left livedebug the game didn't resume.

Jak 2
Visually perfect. Then I selected "Codes". Every game other than this one did nothing when I tried going to codes. This game it specifically freezes when I try to move in the livedebug menu. That or pressing DOWN in the LD menu.

Dynasty Warriors 5
Entered LD from the game's start menu and only saw the top left corner on the menu stretched. About every 3 seconds the screen flickered back and looped to the safeguard. I was trapped in it.

Resident Evil Outbreak File #2
The game's main menu background was gone and replaced with a black background. The game was slightly slow. The LD was slightly stretched and missing the top and right slightly. Entering and using LD's memory editor was perfect just like it has been for every game that let me into it so far. Search just resumed the game. Took about 4 minutes for the level to load and start. Very slowed down game.

At this point, I'm very curious of where your code is placed in memory? I'm certain that menu background error occurs when you modify data high up around 1800000 to 1f00000. Where are you placing it?

And now I just tried LD3.0.4 again on Resident Evil Outbreak File #2 again, and it worked. Maybe I forgot to make sure every game disk was ready before I tried it? Either way, the search function is great. Still got the same everything else otherwise. Same black menu background and lag.

I'm still randomly testing. If you need further specific testing or whatever from me though, just ask. I've just sort of randomly been typing and adding to this post for about 3 hours now.

[Gtlcpimp]

All useful information! The best explanation I have for the graphical user interface to be all chopped and/or stretched would be that LDv3 uses 640x480 resolution. Not all games initialize the GPU in this resolution, so when you start printing out pixels aligned to a different resolution the GPU automatically stretches it accordingly.

Everything is kernel, for your question on where.

I find that when it keeps looping the fail-safe screen, unplug your controller and plug it back in. This changes the controller status that the joker scanner searches for, and should force LDv3 to reset it's found jokers (exiting the screen indefinitely until it relocates the jokers again).

The joker scanner is the one you should blame for the lag. Some games can handle a medium size added loop without slowing frame-rate, but obviously not all. A solution, would be to make the joker scanner loop smaller, which would slow down the rate of locating the controller inputs. However, by the time the game finishes loading all the way up it should still already be found.

If you can, build a list of games that locks you up when inside the debugger menu. I'm not as worried about graphical choppiness at the moment, because if you can still tell what you're doing it should all be good lol. However I noticed with GTA3 that after like a minute of being in the debugger it locks up, even though the controller is still active. A list of games that act like that would be very useful. Kind of makes me wonder if some of these games manipulate data in 0x00080000 - 0x00081D00 and 0x00090000 - 0x000FFFFF...

Here is a data usage chart I wrote and built LDv3 based off of. Think of this as the memory blue-print I used for building LDv3:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CL-LiveDebug v3 Data Usage Chart
CheatersLounge Copyright ©
Written by: Gtlcpimp

Version: 3.0.4

Font Texture
Start = 0x80030000
Size = 0x00014400 : 82944 (8 bit aligned)
End = 0x80044400

Text Strings
Start = 0x80044500
Size = 0x00001AFE
End = 0x80045FFE

In-Game Patches
Start = 0x80046000
Size = 0x00001800 : 512 (96 bit aligned)
End = 0x80047800

Pre-Loaded Patches
Start = 0x80047810
Size = 0x00003800 : 512 (256 bit aligned: labels-128bit, code-96bit, extra-32bit)
End = 0x8004B010

Memory Search
Start = 0x8004B020
Size = 0x00004FD0 (32 bit aligned: 5100 results)
End = 0x8004FFF0

CL-LiveDebug v3 Engine:
Start = 0x80078250
Size = 0x00003D60
End = 0x8007BFB0
Start = 0x8007E880
Size = 0x000001E8
End = 0x8007EA68
Start = 0x8007F000
Size = 0x00000218
End = 0x8007F218
Start = 0x8007F800
Size = 0x00000154
End = 0x8007F954

Other Allocations:
Start = 0x00080000
Size = 0x00001D00
End = 0x00081D00
Start = 0x00090000
Size = 0x0006FFFF
End = 0x000FFFFF

Total kernel space usage:
Data = 0x0001FECE (130766 Bytes ;; ~127.7 KB)
Engine = 0x000042B4 (17076 Bytes ;; ~ 16.68 KB)
Approximate Free Space: 0x00018000 (98304 Bytes ;; 96 KB)

Total user space usage:
Data = 0x00071CFF (466175 Bytes ;; ~455.25 KB)
Approximate Free Space: 0x00000000 (0 Bytes ;; 0 KB)

Kernel Allocation Order:
1) Font Texture
2) Text Strings
3) Pre-Loaded Patches
4) In-Game Patch Data
5) Search Results
6) Free Space
7) Engine Data

User Space Allocation Order:
1) Engine temporary variables
2) DMA packet buffer

Pre-Loaded Patch Structure:

{
u8 Name[16];
u32 Address;
u32 DataON;
u32 DataOFF;
u32 ONorOFF; // 0x00000000 = OFF, 0x00000001 = Write once, don't update, 0x00000002 = ON (Always updating); May also be re-designed for holding extra arguments or properties
}

In-Game Patch Structure:

{
u32 Address;
u32 DataON;
u32 DataOFF; // Auto stored upon first data edit, non-editable
}

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Taking a step back and looking at the engine data usage... Damn that's a lot of hand coded ASM lines o.o The LDv3 Engine alone is 3928 lines and still isn't 100% done!

[bungholio]

Is there some sort of testing you need done right now? I kind of doubt I'm going to go back and check more games unless it's for some useful reason to somebody.

[Gtlcpimp]

I don't have a vast collection of games, and that's including the pirated ones. So you could help build 2 lists, if you have a good amount in your collection. List 1 would be perfectly working games, list 2 would be games with issues with in a comment next to the name of the issue it has.

For example (or even to start the list):

100% Working Games:
SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy Seals
SOCOM: Combined Assault
Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow (Online Mode)
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (Online Mode)

Issue Games:
Grand Theft Auto III ~ Locks up inside debugger after a minute

etc.

This could help out, especially details on the issues help with locating what's causing the problem.

[Skiller]

The joker scanner is the one you should blame for the lag. Some games can handle a medium size added loop without slowing frame-rate, but obviously not all. A solution, would be to make the joker scanner loop smaller, which would slow down the rate of locating the controller inputs. However, by the time the game finishes loading all the way up it should still already be found.

Taking a step back and looking at the engine data usage... Damn that's a lot of hand coded ASM lines o.o The LDv3 Engine alone is 3928 lines and still isn't 100% done!

u could again fix the Joker Finding issue again with alowing users to add them ..
or if u want to get Really userfrendly u could just have it Save a list of Found Usable Joker addresses .. that your Debugger uses .. if the games found in the list it Defualts to using them Jokers and not running your Joker Scanner .. this saving time and Not giving u lag

Example of Setup

Slus_123.45 = Address

[bungholio]

Adding a joker manually would be fine with me. I don't know about the saved joker list idea? How would that work for a game like "Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters" since the joker is different each stage?

I'm testing it. Here's what I have so far:

Half the time a game won't start. You might have some weird bug, because some games randomly start.

Why does R2 go to the memory browser if you're viewing search results?

Disgaea 1 = Severe lag, and makes most things disappear. About the only visuals left are the character sprites and the levels. Screen is very stretched vertically, so I'm missing the bottom half of the screen. Otherwise though, it still works completely.

Disgaea 2 = Doesn't work, the safeguard loops endlessly. Stretched LD screen too. Some lag too.

Dynasty Warriors 5 = This game truly loops the safeguard forever. It also seems that at random times the LD screen is different sizes. Once it was a perfect fit, and now it's mega big.

Dynasty Warriors 6 = Same as Dynasty Warriors 5.

Grimgrimoire = MEGA LAG. You'll most likely mistake the game for not loading, but I guess it does if you're fine with waiting for about 3 minutes. Otherwise, it's perfect and LD fits the screen perfectly.

Indigo Prophecy = Can't get past the safeguard while at the game menu. This is a little bit of a special case though. When I started a game and tried, it was reading the buttons for about 1 second and I got past the safeguard and made it into the debugger, and was going down quickly until it no longer read the buttons. I unplugged the controller and plugged it back in, and the analog light didn't turn on on the controller.

Jak & Daxter = Game stops at the SCEA logo intro movie. That or mega lag?

Jak 2 = Same as Indigo Propechy. Has a perfect LD screen size though. No lag?

Jak 3 = Same as Indigo Propechy. Has a perfect LD screen size though. No lag?

Obscure 1 = Game won't start. Just gets stuck at a loading screen. It could just be very severe lag too, like some of these games that took forever to start.

Obscure 2: The Aftermath = Don't be fooled by the long loading time at the start, this game works. Unusually long loading times. LD is a little big for the screen. I'm missing part of the bottom and right screen. It doesn't do that to the game. It seems to work perfectly otherwise.

Resident Evil 4 = It works in the game menu area. Once you start a game though, it's lag city.

Siren = Game doesn't start. But for some reason it works perfectly with version LD3.0.3. Could just be the random game start thing, it didn't work after 5 tries but LD3.0.3 worked both times I tried it.

For anyone that didn't notice, games randomly don't start. I don't know why. If a game doesn't start the first time, it will within the next few times.

[Gtlcpimp]

u could again fix the Joker Finding issue again with alowing users to add them ..
or if u want to get Really userfrendly u could just have it Save a list of Found Usable Joker addresses .. that your Debugger uses .. if the games found in the list it Defualts to using them Jokers and not running your Joker Scanner .. this saving time and Not giving u lag

Example of Setup

Slus_123.45 = Address

Nice idea, the only problem is you would have to write down the jokers. LDv3 has no capability of saving to a file during game play... However shortening the Joker Scanner loop would solve the lag problem. It may or may not increase how long it takes to locate the address, just depends on how often the game itself uses the Syscall command.

For anyone that didn't notice, games randomly don't start. I don't know why. If a game doesn't start the first time, it will within the next few times.

Honestly I've never had this problem o.o Don't know what could be the cause of it..

[bungholio]

I'm not sure why it happens either. I specifically know that if you don't let the PS2 get to the point where the disk is ready and you start LD, the game never starts. I don't know why it happens and can't figure out a way around it.

Before I left for work though, I played Dragon Quest 8. That has a similar problem to Destroy All Human! 2. The only difference is this game doesn't seem to have the major color problem, it's just that it's split into about 30 rectangular blocks with the wrong portions of the screen in place. The puzzle pieces are in the wrong places.

[Gtlcpimp]

That's odd. Well, LDv3 went open source! Available in the bounty source SVN repository.

[Lazy Bastard]

https://artemis.bountysource.com/svn/!tree