Sunday, November 28, 2010

Hex Editing Programs

So, I got obsessed over the past two weeks or so "solving" archive files. This involved trying to extract the resources from video game archive files. Even if I don't care about the result, it was like solving a puzzle to figure out how to get the resources out. I'll probably write about it sometime.

What I wanted to point out now is the hex editor I used. To solve archive formats, you need to open up the archive files as binary. I started off using Textpad, since it's my text editor of choice on windows. It's not that convenient though... after reading some tutorials, I settled on Hex Workshop.

Hex Workshop lets you easily copy and paste binary, allows you to easily set bookmarks to binary fragments, easily lets you color-code the binary, easily lets you jump to specific offsets, lets you have multiple files open simultaneously, and has a hex calculator. I heartily recommend it. It is pretty pricey (~$90)... but that's pretty much the price of two video games. I think it's worth it as I've had so much more fun doing this than playing games recently. Hex Workshop



On another note, on a slow day, I played around with Cheat Engine. It was a lot of fun. Cheat Engine lets you easily mess around with Windows memory. The most obvious use is changing game memory to give you unlimited whatever. It's really fun to play with in general and comes with a great tutorial that'll get you started. If you have some time, give it a try. http://www.cheatengine.org/