SaveCracker / News: Recent posts

Check the screen shots section for a preview of the upcoming version 0.7 user interface... It's not as elegant as previous releases, but it is much more functional, and will provide users with a much more poweful interface. It was modeled to look very similar to the Visual Boy Advance cheat finder. So users of that program will feel right at home.

Yep, version 0.6 will be released today with some MAJOR changes:
- The GUI was streamlined. Class instances are only created as needed now, and deleted when no longer in use. This should greatly improve performance.
- Background images now display properly on pre-compiled version
- Added support for Signed QWord (64bit) comparisons
- Renamed value options from Byte/Word/DWord to 8bit/16bit/32bit, to avoid confusion.
- Added a "Restart Search" button, so that users can begin a new search at any time, without restarting the program.
- Began the daunting task of commenting and cleaning the source code. As soon as this part is done, I will release 0.6 as soon as this is done.

I came across a group of individuals at ps2scene.org who were talking about a program very similar to what my final project will be (view the thread: http://www.ps2-scene.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=36\) . I decided to release an alpha copy of the program, mostly to show people that this is not vaporware. The software really does exist and is being modified daily.

Be warned, this program is not optmized in any way, shape or form. The entire GUI was hacked together from the orginal GUI from several weeks ago. All resources are loaded up when the program starts, so the first time you run the program it may be a little slow to load if you're on an old PC.... read more

Another day of staring at hex, and another day without a hacked game save. I did more web surfing than coding today. Im still trying to hold off on a release, until I know more about checksums, but the requests for a release date are becoming more frequent.

I have been working closely with shelvey, a gscentral.com member, to hack some save game files for the Nintendo DS. This has proven that I dont know as much about checksums as I had thought. Were making little progress, and Im beginning to lose hope. Added a search method that allows you to search for values that have changed by a certain amount since the last save.

Ive decided to hold off on releasing SaveCracker until Ive successfully hacked a few game saves and can incorporate a few checksum routines. So far things are not looking good I decided to target the Nintendo DS as my first platform, and I have yet to successfully hack a DS save file. Finally added support for little endian and big endian data searches.

A few days off, couldnt be helped. The project has peaked the interest of a few, and Ive been receiving the occasional email or instant message requesting more information and a release date. Im trying not to give a release date. I dont want to disappoint anyone if I dont make the date.

Im moving from Seoul, Korea to Okinawa, Japan today, and starting a new job in just over a week. Im really not sure how much time Ill have to work on this once I get to Japan.

Implemented signed (+/-) and unsigned (+) data searches to the algorithm. Sourceforge accepted my proposal for SaveCracker. The project now officially has a home!

Continued to refine and streamline the file compare routines. They are working very smoothly now, even on large save files. Submitted request to sourceforge.net to host SaveCracker. It will be 2-3 business days before I find out if the project is approved.

Added Word (2 byte) and DWord (4 byte) data searches to the algorithm. Found a very interesting open source utility called Jacksum. It is a checksum generator, written in Java. The program included an API to interface with it. If I can successfully incorporate this program, it should save me several weeks of development time.

The code became unwieldy and I began to lose my train of thought whenever I looked at it. Stripped out the entire GUI and left only the file compare routines intact. At this point the program has absolutely no way to interact with the user. The files to be compared are hard coded into the source code.

After 14 hours of coding, I came to the realization that my original search algorithm was fundamentally unstable, and would not make for easy implementation of additional search features. Added the not equal value search.

Implemented search algorithm for Unsigned Byte data type. I also added greater than, less than, equal to and known value searches.

Today was a bad day. Wrote the entire GUI interface to SaveCracker. I grew so frustrated with the Swing interface I almost switched to Visual Basic. Thankfully I stuck it out, and the final product looks pretty amazing.

Work officially began on SaveCracker, although the concept was not initially well received, I managed to garner the support of at least two members of gscentral.com