are you a pro?

[IRS]

how do you define a pro hacker? what are the minimal requirements? :P

RAM hacking=noob

pointer codes and gecko register functions=interemdiate

ASM coding (consistently LONG ie 7 lines+ often 24 lines)=Pro

dcx2 and the original trilogy=godly

where do you fall? what are your categories? :P most of my ASM hacks average 14 lines.. sometimes they reach upwards of 34 (and they work)

[IRS]

o.o wow........................ not even bothering to count the lines lol...

my C2 hooks first line was this though.. (you do not get the address >_> secret code)
C2XXXXXX 00000024

its function? to swap some maps around for my favorite game.

i have another code (teleportation) that is only 4 lines shorter than that one. and its as compressed as it could ever get :P there is no other way of making the code work other than using my code too.. games kind of a pain like that.

[Deathwolf]

do you know Phantom Wings?
alot of ASM

File Patch Code v3.5.1: [Phantom Wings]
E0000000 80008000
225664EC 00000000
0401BFE0 4858BE20
065A7E00 00000070
38A00067 38810020
3CE0805A 60E37C18
4BE52531 38A0007F
3883FFE8 38610020
4BE52521 38A00068
60E47C18 38610020
9421FF80 BC410008
38610088 4BA74DB9
7C7C1B78 2C030000
4082000C 38210080
4800001C B8410008
38210080 4BE524E5
38610008 4BA742E1
7C7C1B78 4BA741E8
040223E0 48585BC0
065A7FA0 00000020
77239000 2C030000
4182000C 7FDDC850
3BDEFFE0 93DB0008
4BA7A42C 00000000
0401CD0C 4858B1F4
065A7F00 00000038
2C030000 4182000C
4BA7DD51 4BA74E04
80780008 2C030000
41820014 8118000C
7C634214 7C7B1850
48000008 8078000C
4BA74DE0 00000000
043EE9D8 48000014
043EEBD4 48000014
043D8B9C 48000018
043E9B4C 38600000
043E9D38 38600000
043D8C80 60000000
80000000 80406920
80000001 805A7C00
8A001001 00000000
045A7C10 2F525342
045A7C14 452F7066
80000001 805A7B00
8A001001 00000000
065A7B10 0000000F
2F525342 452F7066
2F736F75 6E642F00
041C6CE0 483E0D20
065A7A00 00000028
9421FF80 BC410008
3C60805A 60637B1F
4BE52931 B8410008
38210080 4BE52995
4BC1F2C4 00000000
065A7900 00000078
9421FF80 7C0802A6
9001000C BC810010
9421FF00 7C872378
54B2BA7E 7CD33378
38800000 9081000C
90810010 90610014
90810018 3880FFFF
9081001C 38610020
90610008 7CE43B78
38A00080 4BE529F5
38610008 4BA752A1
60000000 80210000
B8810010 8001000C
7C0803A6 80210000
4E800020 00000000
043E399C 481C3F04
065A78A0 00000010
80BC0020 7CA59214
3A400000 4BE3C0F4
043DBAEC 481CBDE4
065A78D0 00000018
800302A4 2C130000
41820008 7E609B78
3A600000 4BE3420C
041CDF7C 483D9884
065A7800 00000098
818C0014 9421FF80
BC410008 3D009034
61089D94 7C034000
4082003C 7C882378
3C60804D 60630000
3C80805A 60847B00
7CC53378 38C04200
80E40080 2C070000
40820014 60000000
480000B9 2C030000
41820010 B8410008
80210000 4BC26724
70A501FF 3868FFFF
3C80804C 6084FFFF
7C842A14 38A04001
38A5FFFF 8C040001
9C030001 2C050000
4082FFF0 B8410008
80210000 4BC2670C
141CCF90 483DA770
065A7700 00000048
9421FF80 BC410008
7FE3FB78 3C80805A
60847B00 38A00000
38C04000 480001E5
90640080 807F0008
907A0014 907A005C
907A0074 B8410008
80210000 807F0000
4BC25854 00000000
E0000000 80008000

crazy code and only hacked by a single hacker! lol

[IRS]

that is a hell of a lot lol. what game is it for? (i only really play the game i hack which is why im asking :P )

i could make a long code.. but the hard part to do is when the code is super "short" in how efficient it is with the ASM but still crazy long...

[Deathwolf]

super smash bros brawl.

[IRS]

LONG code lol...... my game i hack is dead though... :\ ill try to post pics maybe sometime.. idk.. (dont really want other hackers trying to hack the same game.. i dont want the codes released and neither does my friend [also a hacker])

[dcx2]

You can't really use line count to determine hacking competence.  Sometimes, the most elegant hack is accomplished by a single line, but the skill required to find that line is what will set one hacker apart from another.  It took me hours to find the bl that determines what surface Mario is standing on, and it took only one line to make every surface from lava to quicksand safe to stand on.

A true professional can use temporal and spatial locality to locate hard-to-find values by first finding easy-to-find values.  For instance, in Resident Evil 4, I wanted to stop the sniper rifle from swaying.  Unfortunately, the sway values are hard to find.  However, the sniper rifle zoom value was quite easy to find, and the sway values were only a few bytes away.

They know how to use read and write breakpoints to "surf" from one piece of code to another.  Set a write breakpoint on an address, then a read to see who reads from it next, etc.  They know how to read ASM like it was The Matrix, as if a story was being written and the registers were characters.  They can backtrack to see where different values come from, even across function call boundaries.  They know what the stack is and how to use it.

They are aware of the exotic operations that a PowerPC can do; using bl for integrated data areas in a code, rlwinm, cntlzw, floats, int -> float conversions, paired singles.  They can debug ASM codes.  They can recover the game from some crashes without restarting.

[Deathwolf]

TNTkryzt have done something like this!
C2 as 07 with useless values.

you also can use "load into address" and write the original values.
that makes your C2 code longer.

[IRS]

fine then :P complicate the idea of ASM hacks.. i dont know how to use the rwlimi ideas.. but i do know how to find the values via "surfing" the read/write breakpoints. and the love of BL's and all those fun branches ;) and true.. some of those ASM codes are fairly short.. one of my favorite for the game i am hacking is 1 line long. it allows us to walk through walls. from that we located the axis.. then we might fairly soon have our loading points.. the flags in the ctf games.. etc.. and fairly soon maybe even bullets ;) i do know for a fact though the game i am working on.. unless you know ASM you arent writing codes for it.

[Bully@Wiiplaza]

my pro list (they are NOT in a specific order)

ZiT, brkirch, kenobi, dcx2, ThomasLin, mdmwii, XeR, Y.S. , James0x57, Phantom Wings, Skiller, LINK (forgot him)

I counted people with great ASM skills and epic codes, maybe I forgot someone, don´t be angry :confused:
If you are wondering, why exactly this guys? I can proof the skills of all these people by showing their codes ;)

[hetoan2]

long asm codes do not necessarily make you a *good* coder. Just because they are longer does not by any means mean that you're shortening it to its fullest potential.

dcx2 made a guide on how to walk the stack and turn a normal ASM code that would have been around 7 lines to a code that was 1 line and could do the exact same thing.

I have some very long ASM codes myself, but the extra lines are mostly for protection.

[Link]

I guess many of us already created very long ASM codes. Most of the time when I tried (barely do any hacking anymore) I attempted to keep them short however I admit that I by far do not know all possibilities with PowerPC assembly. I do know a good bit about it but that's about it.

I guess my biggest assembly achievement is on PC side: rewriting vdappc so that it parses gekko instructions properly. That took me 2 days to get that disassembler properly working. But that wasn't a code^^ - most complicated asm code I did was probably the mushroom stacker for Brawl.

[dcx2]

BTW Link that reminds me, there's a bug in vdappc with the paired singles instructions...Lines 1638 and 1642 of the switch are backwards.  I think it's psq_nmadd and psq_nmsub

BTW hetoan2, you don't need the Walk The Stack guide anymore.  Gecko.NET can pretty much do it for you.  There's a Call Stack list box on the disassembler tab now.

[Link]

BTW Link that reminds me, there's a bug in vdappc with the paired singles instructions...Lines 1638 and 1642 of the switch are backwards.  I think it's psq_nmadd and psq_nmsub

Please P.M. me directly about the error, I am not aware which switches you mean, I will fix it as soon as possible.

[hetoan2]

@dcx2 yea i know, i'm just saying that that is an example of a shorter version being more elegant.