Cheat Engine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cheat Engine, also known as CE, is a free software/open source for cheating in games using a hex memory searcher and editor to allow people to modify variables while programs are running. It is currently the most popular cheating software used. CE has influenced a lot of online games, as it is open source and can be modified to their needs. This program resembles Tsearch and ArtMoney. It searches for values input by the user with a wide variety of options such as "Unkown Initial Value" and "Decreased Value" scans. Cheat Engine is also a standalone trainer maker (trainers that function on their own without Cheat Engine).
Cheat Engine can also view the disassembled memory of a process and make alterations to give the user advantages such as infinite health, time or ammunition. It also has some direct3d manipulation tools, allowing you to see through walls, zoom in/out and with some advanced configuring allows you to let Cheat Engine move the mouse for you to get a certain texture into the center of the screen. Think here about the heads of people in a first person shooter.
[edit] Undetected Cheat Engine (UCE)
The original Cheat Engine (created by DarkByte) is easily detected and blocked by most Anti-Cheating software like nProtect GameGuard. In order to bypass these protections, one must modify the original source code using Borland Delphi or other program source editors. This renames, but does not change, many of the functions in Cheat Engine thus allowing it to bypass the specific coding that Anti-Cheating software scouts for. Also, the insertion of external scripts and hooks are sometimes required..
Cheat Engine site has been closed, but there is no guarentee about when it's going to be re-opened. Possibily suspended due to the lack of hacks.
[edit] Coding
Cheat Engine is primarily coded in Borland Delphi, however it uses C for its Kernel module. The Kernel module (dbk32.sys) is useful in that it allows hardware breakpoints to be set and also bypasses APIs hooked in Ring3 and even some in Ring0
The fact that a kernel driver is required for the more powerful features, means that only users with administrator privileges can use those functions.
