Homebrew Question State of RAM editing

[Elveman]

I'm truly concerned about online multiplayer in Mario Kart, Splatoon etc. While there is save editing, it doesn't truly give advantage during the online matches. However, during the Wii U era we had RAM editing, and it is way more dangerous. What's the current state of RAM editing on Switch? Does ASLR interfere with the the ability to modify RAM? Will it be possible?

 

[lilpataya]

There's probably someone, somewhere who can do this, but nothing's public right now

 

[nmkd]

Nothing public yet.

I would love to see a Cheat Engine equivalent on Switch, would be incredibly fun to hack around in SP games.

But yeah, Nintendo's anti-cheat measures have been a fucking joke in the past, so it's not looking too good for MP games.

 

[Eternam]

I'm truly concerned about online multiplayer in Mario Kart, Splatoon etc. While there is save editing, it doesn't truly give advantage during the online matches. However, during the Wii U era we had RAM editing, and it is way more dangerous. What's the current state of RAM editing on Switch? Does ASLR interfere with the the ability to modify RAM? Will it be possible?

Could you explain me what ram editing is? Thanks.

 

[Eastonator12]

Could you explain me what ram editing is? Thanks.

he means modding the game to give yourself infinite ability meter, infinite ammo, more damage for splatoon, and for mario kart i would imagine giving yourself infinite items

 

[Eternam]

he means modding the game to give yourself infinite ability meter, infinite ammo, more damage for splatoon, and for mario kart i would imagine giving yourself infinite items

So its like a game genie, right? I suppose it mods the data the game stores on the ram once it loads but isn't this detectable if you are playing online?

 

[Eastonator12]

So its like a game genie, right? I suppose it mods the data the game stores on the ram once it loads but isn't this detectable if you are playing online?

i would imagine nintendo would be able to detect this on online play

 

[Vorde]

he means modding the game to give yourself infinite ability meter, infinite ammo, more damage for splatoon, and for mario kart i would imagine giving yourself infinite items

I wouldn't say it's modding the game, because RAM editing doesn't really touch any of the code the console is reading. What RAM editing is, is when you have a tool or method of manipulating values in certain parts of the consoles memory. Eg Lives = 03 you could change to Lives = 99 and change it to 99 (I know this would be a different value since it would be in hex).

 

[notimp]

From what I read in a recent public article about the switch hacking scene, there is a certain "economic pressure" not let them be public anyhow..

Ram hacking is simply editing values of games in ram, while they are executing. If you've ever used a cheat engine, or one of the "cheat modules" on older consoles in the past, you know exactly - what it its. (8x1993840 99382893 type cheat codes.. )

Apparently there is a market of selling those cheats to "rich kids" that want to impress their friends and be on a god trip in ego shooter gaming. Not sure how big that would be on the Switch, but it exists.

Those kids apparently are willing to pay big bucks fpr invisibility, wallhacks, always first... Stuff like that.

Also - the worry that this will become widespread is - not necessarily huge, as Nintendo should always be able to detect modified system partitions an ban anyone doing it.

 

[Eastonator12]

I wouldn't say it's modding the game, because RAM editing doesn't really touch any of the code the console is reading. What RAM editing is, is when you have a tool or method of manipulating values in certain parts of the consoles memory. Eg Lives = 03 you could change to Lives = 99 and change it to 99 (I know this would be a different value since it would be in hex).

well, using ram modding on the 3ds and wiiu, you can give yourself infinite ammo/ink in splatoon, and in mk8 you can get inf items...at least in my experience, ram modding is modding the game

 

[linuxares]

I truely hope they ban the fuckers that cheat online, permanently on console level and NNID level.

 

[Vorde]

well, using ram modding on the 3ds and wiiu, you can give yourself infinite ammo/ink in splatoon, and in mk8 you can get inf items...at least in my experience, ram modding is modding the game

It temporarily modifies the way the game plays, yes. However modding is a term usually used to explain that files inside the game have been tampered with or swapped (eg. Skyrim mods, PC game mods, etc). Since its only temporary and not permanent, I wouldn't choose the word "mod".

 

[Eastonator12]

It temporarily modifies the way the game plays, yes. However modding is a term usually used to explain that files inside the game have been tampered with or swapped (eg. Skyrim mods, PC game mods, etc). Since its only temporary and not permanent, I wouldn't choose the word "mod".

i guess so, but you are "modding" the game, maybe not permanently however

 

[Shrike]

Eg Lives = 03 you could change to Lives = 99 and change it to 99

So its like a game genie, right?

Thats exactly how it works.. You can change the current values of the game variables.

I suppose it mods the data the game stores on the ram once it loads but isn't this detectable if you are playing online?

It makes no sense to modify the RAM in multiplayer games, because in multiplayer games the game variables are held on a central (online-)server. All your switch does is send input information to the server (like jump in direction x,y) and after that, the server will tell you what happened (for example you jumped into a hole and now you are dead). So in short you have no control over the game variables (well except playing the game). The only thing what you can do to cheat in multiplayer games is to enhance the information you get (for example sometimes the server sends you more information as the game shows you), or to enhance the way you work with this information to send your input (aimbot := gets the same information as you the player, but it can handle it (aim) much faster than you)

I hope this helps to understand how cheats work in Single & Multiplayer games....

<3

EDIT: You can of course design a multiplayer game such that local game variables are sent to the server and the server just accepts them as reality.. But this would be horrible game design for a comepitive game.

 

[softwareengineer]

So its like a game genie, right? I suppose it mods the data the game stores on the ram once it loads but isn't this detectable if you are playing online?

No let me clarify for you... Game Genie codes (for the old consoles that game genie was for) modified the bytes of the game program code, where as ram editing is more like action replay / gameshark (although action replay can do game code edits too).

Ram Editing:
3 lives memory location -> edit to 99 lives

Game Genie / Game code editing:

sub eax, 1
mov [livesMemoryLocation],eax

changed to:

NOP
mov [livesMemoryLocation],eax

NOP means No Operation = 0x90 byte for x86
It basically deletes the subtracting from the lives value, so that the lives value remains constant when dying so you never lose a life, therefore never need to edit it to 99 because you don't lose them in the first place.

Therefore I always made game genie codes when I could instead of memory editing, because it's more powerful!

 

[Shrike]

No let me clarify for you... Game Genie codes (for the old consoles that game genie was for) modified the bytes of the game program code

Thx, did not know that!

I thought every of those "tools" worked in editing the RAM..
So it did realtime assembler modifications? That's cool

 

[Centergaming]

I truely hope they ban the fuckers that cheat online, permanently on console level and NNID level.

I like to cheat offline or local play but not online. So, yeah, I hope Nintendo bans online cheaters!

 

[softwareengineer]

Thx, did not know that! r

I thought every of those "tools" worked in editing the RAM..
So it did realtime assembler modifications? That's cool

Yea the limitation of Game Genie was that it could not edit ram. As you know it connected between the cartridge slot of the system and the game cartridge. As the system would read the bytes of the game from the cartridge, when the game genie was in place it would have to do it through the game genie which whatever cheats were entered it would return a different byte for that particular address it was reading from.

Action replay or gameshark on the other hand, was able to inject their software into running along with the game, so it could keep modifying the certain memory locations you were interested in to keep them at a certain value, like keeping your health full But an experienced coder could also make the same cheat as a game genie one, it wouldn't have to keep setting your health full, because instead it would just prevent it from decreasing in the first place (as similar to my example above)

Game Genie = Changing the game code (because your modification to the code is how the game should've been in the first place right? )
Ram Editing = Changing the memory locations the game code works with

 

[:-infern:]

Still there doesnt seem to be anything I can find

 

[luiscesjr]

Anything that could work like Cheat Engine or Game Guardian, etc would be very welcome. Editing actual values would be much easier than going through encrypted save files.

And this kind of thing would mostly be useful for offline play anyway, only if a game is very badly developed and actually uses local values instead of server sided ones.

Thing is, it should work while the game was still on the background, running, but I guess most homebrews already are able to be opened even if the game is still running.

Edit: Oh about online gaming, it is actually possible to hack player positions and that kinda stuff which is console sided, LUA scripting and all that. But most values should be server sided.