Beginner here.. obvious question bugging me

[pyraetos]

How do the veteran hackers come up with codes that do certain things in the games in the first place?
I'm sure there's a simple answer, but right now i'm seriously under the impression that you just go through all the different combinations of digits until you've found one that does something cool in the game!

[toonlink444]

Do you have a usb gecko? And this should be in the off topic section sence it is'nt asking a hacking question.

[pyraetos]

Do you have a usb gecko? And this should be in the off topic section sence it is'nt asking a hacking question.

I suspected it was the USB Gecko, and you probably right, but i needed help and this was a help forum and i thought this was the only one

[dcx2]

A simple example would be infinite lives.

Let's say we start with 3 lives.  Using the USB Gecko, we dump the contents of the Wii's memory onto the PC.  An application searches through the dump for all the 3's.  Then we go get a 1up, and search for all the 4s.  Then we lose a life, and search for all the 3s.  Eventually, we find the address that holds the number of lives.  We then write a code which constantly writes 99 to that address.  Presto!  infinite lives.

[pyraetos]

i see, sp the application interprets which portion pertains to what aspect of the game, such as lives?

[toonlink444]

Well that's a way of putting it. The device itself just dumps the ram. Applications use process of elimination to find the addresses.

[dcx2]

The applications just streamline the process of interpreting the dump.  They cannot decipher that data directly; that responsibility belongs to the hacker.

The app I work on, Gecko.NET, does not find the address of lives automatically.  It's up to the hacker to do things in the game, and then to search through memory for data that fits what we're looking for.

Recall my above example, with finding lives.  It's up to the hacker to gain lives and lose lives.  It's up to the hacker to search through memory for "all values that are equal to 3" when he starts with 3 lives, or "all values that are equal to 4" when he gains a life.