Newbie Guide: Basic Hex Editing

[Idlehands88]

Hey guys, here is a Tutorial on how to find and change your game's values using Hex Editing. First thing to know is that gamesaves are different from each game, and could be really easy to mod, or difficult to mod. An example of an easy game would be the saves that use text (ASCII or Unicode) to indicate what the game is reading. Whereas a difficult save could be no text, encrypted/compressed or have a checksum. So lets get on with the Tutorial.

REQUIREMENTS

• A Hex Editor ( I prefer Hex Workshop and will be using it in the Tutorial)
• Horizon (to extract your save from your USB)
• Computer's Calculator

GAMESAVE EXAMPLES

EASY GAME EXAMPLE
LOST PLANET 3


DIFFICULT GAME EXAMPLE
SAINTS ROW IV

For this Tutorial I will be using a Saints Row IV save.

How to Extract Your Save:
1. Save your game to your USB or move the Save to your USB from the System Setting on your xbox
2. Plug your USB into your computer
3. Open Horizon and you should see the "Device Explorer" open
4. In Device Explorer go to the Games folder and open the game's folder you want to mod
5. Right-click the save file and select "Extract"

Now that you have your save you will want to make a backup of it. You can either click it and press "Ctrl+C" and "Ctrl+V" and it will make a copy of it, or you can copy it to a new folder.

How to Find Your Value in a Save:
1. First you need to write down the values for the things you want to mod. Let's say I have 12,736 Gold.
2. Open your Calculator and type in your value (make sure you have Decimal selected). Then select the Hex option.
3. Your value in Hex will show. Copy it and Open your save in Hex Workshop.
4. 12,736 is 000031C0 in Hex (Int32), so once your save is opened press "Ctrl+F" and enter 000031C0 in the Value Textbox (Make sure Hex Values is selected for Type).
5. Press "OK" and it should find your value (sometimes it could find more then one, it's always best to have a high value to search for).
6. If you find your value then you can go onto the How to Mod a Save part of the Tutorial, if you can't find it then continue reading.
7. So now you need to try searching for the value reversed (Little Endian).
8. Search now for C0310000.
9. Press "OK" and it should find your value (sometimes it could find more then one, it's always best to have a high value to search for).
10. If you still can't find the value then the value is most likely going to be a Float(32) value.
11. In Hex Workshop click the icon that looks like a blue Gear (Base Converter).
12. Setup the Base Converter options to look like this (just put in the Decimal value and the Hex value will appear): IMAGE
13. Copy the Hex value that it give you.
14. Close Base Converter and press "Ctrl+F" again.
15. Paste in the Hex vale you got in Base Converter and press OK.
16. If you find your value then you can go onto the How to Mod a Save part of the Tutorial, if you can't find it then continue reading.
17. Try reversing the Float value. 46470000 becomes 00004746.
18. If you find your value then you can go onto the How to Mod a Save part of the Tutorial, if you can't find it then the save is probably Encrypted or Compressed.

How to Mod a Save:
1. Now that you can find your values you are ready to mod them.
2. The highest value you can set an Int32 value to is 2,147,483,647 (7FFFFFFF) and 99,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 (749DC5AE) as Float(32).
3. I would recommend not setting the value at the max, as you will either go negative or back to 0 if you increase the value in-game any higher.
4. The value I set it to is 2,000,000,000 (77359400) That way you still have a lot and you are still 147 million away from the max.
5. For Float values the max isn't always set as high as I have mentioned, sometimes the max is the same as Int32's max.
6. So just test it and find out what the max for it is in the game you are modding.
7. To change the value to whatever you want you can just highlight the value and on the right side you can see the value: IMAGE
8. Just type in the new value in the correct Hex value type (Int32 or Float) and press Enter. Your new value will be written in Hex.
9. After you are done modding your values, Save it and close Hex Workshop.
10. Open your modded save into Horizon and press the "Save, Rehash and Resign" button.
11. Press the "Save to Device" button and if it asks you to overwrite, press "Yes".
12. Plug the USB into your xbox and load the game.
13. If the game says the save is Corrupt then that means that there is a checksum on the save (don't ask me about those lol).
14. If you freeze that that means that you modded the wrong value or you set the value too high.
15. If the save loads but you still have the same values, then that means that you modded the wrong spot or there are more then spot that you need to mod in the save.
16. If your save loads and the values are modded, then congrats, you have successfully modded a game!

[undertakerwlf]

Thank you for posting thius, you can never have too many of these guides :)

[thegutta]

Awesome job on the TuT Idle :D

[Dragonkid]

It's going to take a while to get use to doing hex editing

[actualmanx]

This should go on the 360haven Wiki. a good bit of info for people in that

[Kindness]

Thanks Idle surely this will help out :)

[Serious_M]

very nice tut about hex editing idle

[UrK]

Thanks, Nice guide.