Find Timer in Emulator game: RPCS3 Castlevania Harmony of Despair

[Faerlaingal]

Hello everyone

I'm trying to find the value for a timer in the game: Harmony of Despair, on RPCS3
But I just can't find it with scans.

I know the emulator use endians, so I did scan with those, but the usual scanning techniques for timer all returned nothing
I can manage the health and magic myself, but the timer is a real pain

I tried scanning for changing values, and decreasing values, calculating possible ranges by converting in minutes, secondes, and even milliseconds, but nothing

Is there some trick for emulator timers that I'm missing? Or I'm just way unlucky on this one?

[notpikachu]

...

Howdy, I saw your request but I'm gonna refrain myself from creating much emu table, as they tends to update, like quite a lot, especially rpcs3.

As for the timer, I can help on that bit. The value type is float big endian.

how?

It's start from zero when the countdown start, thus the real value is increasing instead of decreasing as shown like the visual value. So, the calculation is Initial Time - Time Shown = Real Value

Did try this game on the fan-made pc port one, albeit incomplete, had my shares of fun~ but the rpcs3 version is a pain to install without crashing for me .

Till then,
notpikachu

[Faerlaingal]

Howdy, I saw your request but I'm gonna refrain myself from creating much emu table, as they tends to update, like quite a lot, especially rpcs3.

Yeah, this was just me being lazy and hoping for a solution to drop. I'm not against doing the work, but if the easy way is possible, it cost nothing to try XD
I can't do tables myself because I've no idea how... I can find values (most times ^^") fine enough, but I never once managed to do the whole pointer thing....

As for the timer, I can help on that bit.

Yes!!! Thank you, with this hint I was able to work it out
Timer is written in seconds, and I had to do a couple attempt because the screen show a rounded up value, but I did got it!
thank you!

Did try this game on the fan-made pc port one, albeit incomplete, had my shares of fun~ but the rpcs3 version is a pain to install without crashing for me .

I didn't even know there was a fanmade port XD I'll look it up, I'm curious now XD

[ZTylerDurden]

@Faerlaingal & @notpikachu

Which technique did you use to find the address? Using float big endian, if the timer for a level starts at 30 minutes, I pause and set the exact value to 1800 seconds, then scan for decreased values. This hasn't worked, nor has new scan unknown + continuously scanning decreased values.

The closest thing I'm finding are rows of negative values that seem to be counting down to 1800 seconds. Locking all those rows doesn't affect the timer.

[Faerlaingal]

@Faerlaingal & @notpikachu

Which technique did you use to find the address? Using float big endian, if the timer for a level starts at 30 minutes, I pause and set the exact value to 1800 seconds, then scan for decreased values. This hasn't worked, nor has new scan unknown + continuously scanning decreased values.

The closest thing I'm finding are rows of negative values that seem to be counting down to 1800 seconds. Locking all those rows doesn't affect the timer.

Well the timer is in second, as said, and as notapikachu said, it's increasing, not decreasing.
The value on screen is rounded up though.

So when the game start, you'll be looking for a value very close to 0 or 1 second.
Then you look at the time and do the math.
If the timer says 25, then it means you're looking for a value that's bigger than 3 seconds, but smaller than 6
You can try with smaller brackets (4-5, or 5-6)
And then you just keep going. (I use the pause function of the emulator to give myself time to scan)

So like, at 20 seconds, I'll scan for a value bigger than 9, smaller than 11. (because 30-20 = 10, so the value I want will be around ten.)

I can't give you the value itself, it's not fixed, it changes every time you start the emulator, but this should help you find it

Once you found the value, set it to 1 (0 tend to make it bug I found) and then just play on infinite time

[ZTylerDurden]

If the timer says 25, then it means you're looking for a value that's bigger than 3 seconds, but smaller than 6

Thanks for responding!! I'm working on it now.


So when you say 25, you mean the seconds counter in the game reads 25 seconds (30:25.00)? Minutes/Seconds/Milliseconds

Did you mean 55 seconds, then? Because 5 seconds have passed, so my range should be the 3-6 you mentioned above.

[ZTylerDurden]

It worked!!

Thank you so much!!