Cheat search has issues

[Yacker]

In newer dev builds, cheat search has lost what was probably the most important feature it had: being able to compare against previous value. Without this, cheat search is monumentally less useful in many instances, to the point where I still find myself regularly using 5.0 just for this feature.

Another problem is cheat search seemingly has no way to search MEM2 on Wii games. I get that AR codes can't use MEM2, but cheat search is still such an important part of reverse engineering in general, and Gecko codes CAN make use of MEM2, so it's not even entirely useless in the cheat code department. This one has caused me some personal headache of looking for a value before deciding to just dig around in assembly for a while to find it being exactly what I thought it was, just in MEM2.

These two things would make Dolphin so much better for reverse engineering and modding games.

[Billiard26]

An issue report already exists for lack of MEM2.
https://bugs.dolphin-emu.org/projects/emulator/search?utf8=✓&q=cheat+search&scope=&all_words=&all_words=1&titles_only=&titles_only=1&issues=1&open_issues=1

I haven't used the cheat search in a long time but if "previous value" is missing that is a huge oversight.
I recommend you file an issue report.

[JosJuice]

(01-13-2020, 03:22 AM)Billiard26 Wrote: I haven't used the cheat search in a long time but if "previous value" is missing that is a huge oversight.
I recommend you file an issue report.

There is already an issue report: https://bugs.dolphin-emu.org/issues/11434

[Billiard26]

"unknown value" is not the same as "previous value".

[JosJuice]

Then what is "unknown value"?

[Billiard26]

@JosJuice "unknown value" is anyything, to populate the search list with every value.
"previous value" is self-explanatory.

Consider how you'd find where the game stores the value for a health bar (that has no numeric display).
You start with "unknown value". Hurt yourself. Search for less than previous value. Heal yourself. Search for greater than previous value. etc.

"unknown value" only makes sense when the list is empty.
"previous value" only makes sense when the list is populated.

I suppose one could turn the "unknown value" option into "previous value" when the search list is not empty and vice-versa.

[Yacker]

Alright, filed an issue report, thanks. https://bugs.dolphin-emu.org/issues/11950

Unknown value missing is also kind of a pain, but it doesn't really matter if you can't compare against previous value either.

Unknown value means you have no idea any context as to what it could be. Basically, it just returns every value. It's usually used in conjunction with comparing against previous value to find values you can't know the exact value of, but can influence, such as the position of something. You start with unknown value to get every value in memory, then use compare against previous to narrow down your options.