A wish of mine: A Source Code Extractor

[CodeMan89]

I wish there was a source code extractor that could extract game source codes from Xbox 360 games, PS3 games, PS2 games, N64 games, etc. In my opinion, If you made you own PC games from these codes and never sold them without permission, It shouldn't be illegal.


I just wish that someone had the time to make one. I'm not saying anyone has to make one, I am just wishing.

[brienj]

Using a disassembler is the closest you will ever get. The only way you can even come close to getting the original source code of any program, is from .NET applications that have no protection on them. The fact you don't even know this, makes me wonder what you would even be able to do with the source code anyway.

[CodeMan89]

I would make PC games for myself using the source codes because selling them without permission is illegal. Trust me, I know better.

[brienj]

Edit: Link no longer needed.

[CodeMan89]

Sorry if I didn't mention this but I have little in programming. Plus I want the source code from games, not the game engine (sorry if you misunderstood).

I would like the .XEX file of games to open in microsoft visual studio so I can look at the strings and try and open source the game for my PC. Thats all I want.


I so badly want the source code for Smackdown! VS. RAW 2011. To open source it for my PC, I would die happy.

[Mr.Mouse]

You have little experience in programming? Then why would you want the source code? Games like that are coded by experienced programmers. Even if there were a disassembler or decompiler out there, it will probably use generic variable names and function names to make things presentable as decompiled source. Not knowing which function or variable does what in the source code would be a large job to figure out for an experienced programmer, for a beginner it would take ages.

[CodeMan89]

Mr. Mouse

The reason I want them is to store them somewhere for when I do become experienced.

[brienj]

Well, getting the source code for SvR2011 is impossible, unless you broke into Yukes headquarters in Japan and stole, which I would never condone doing, but anyway, if you want SvR on the PC, they are making Smackdown Vs. Raw Online for the PC, and it will come out the first quarter of 2011.

Here is Gamepot's page about it:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/wwesm ... index.html

If you want to hack SvR2011, I have a hacking page hosted on this site, that deals with Xbox 360 games, but SvR is the main thing I work on:
http://xboxhackingportal.xentax.com/

But the only way to play SvR2011 on the PC, is by using the Dolphin emulator and playing the Wii version of it, or using the PCSX2 emulator and playing the PS2 version of it.

Even if you could get the source code, since you have no experience in programming, it would take a good 5-10 years of experience at a minimum to convert any to the PC, then it would take you a good 6 months to 1 year working by yourself to make the conversion. But as I explained in my first post, it's impossible to get the actual source code for anything other than some .NET program on the PC that have no protection on them. You are much better off just waiting for the SvR game that is coming out for the PC and then playing that, if the PC is your only means of playing a game.

[CodeMan89]

brienj

I don't understand. People crack a lot of stuff, but you tell me it is impossible to crack a .xex file?

There must be some way to get it.


Edit: I said I am going to college for programming & intend to keep the source codes for when I graduate.

[brienj]

brienj

I don't understand. People crack a lot of stuff, but you tell me it is impossible to crack a .xex file?

There must be some way to get it.


Edit: I said I am going to college for programming & intend to keep the source codes for when I graduate.

Your problem is you don't know the difference between the source code and the disassembly of an .xex file. I've "cracked" many .xex files, and made several trainers for SvR2010 and one for Dead Rising 2, and can hack SvR2011 as well, but hacking the games and actually making them run on the PC are as different as apples and oranges.

You can't get the source code of an .xex file, it's impossible. You can however, disassemble it or hack it, but you will never get it to play on the PC. It's just something that requires not only the actual source code, which as I explained, can't be gotten, but also many, many years of experience, combined with many, many man hours of work.

In any case, you are biting off more than you can chew at this point, and trying to put the cart before the horse. Learn a low level programming language, and by learn, I mean actually master it, and know it inside and out, then you can start worrying about disassembling a game. Everyone wants to try and take a short-cut to hack games, but you can't.

[CodeMan89]

Aww this sucks.

But I read somewhere that a group called "Team PI Coder" was able to get a source code from a game.


I just thought it wasn't impossible.

[invisghost]

When a game is compiled (The source code is turned into machine code) for final release, many optimizations are made. Math operations may be converted into bit shifts (for example divisions by 4 are converted to right bit shifts of 2), Unused variables are taken out, machine specific assembly instructions are used, and a whole load of other things are done. After all that the machine code hardly coincides with the original source code. There are tools that can get something that looks similar to the source code in a few situations but they hardly ever operate as intended and are almost never compilable unless its extremely simple.

A few have managed to get code from some games that were compiled as debug versions. Dark Cloud for the PS2 was shipped with the debug version of the game and because of that it has all the function names and other information in the code. But it doesn't mean you can convert it to the PC. They have different architectures. The ps2 has programmable chips that can do specialized processing while the main processor is off doing other stuff.

You're best bet IMHO is if an emulator created a tool that converts something into x86 or x64 assembly. But that would be extremely difficult.

(Oh and the original Xbox is based on the Windows NT kernel so that might have the best bet of getting converted. It has Direct X 8.1 and many other similarities to a PC, but the architecture is still different.)

[Rahly]

Depends on how the game is coded. For example, you could probably get most of the code, if the software used a gaming engine. This is because a lot of gaming engines use a scripting language, where the "script code" is either in plain text, or some pseudo code. In this case, you could get most of the logic code for the game, but the source for the engine would be MUCH MUCH harder to get. Being able to change all the scripts, would allow you to make a completely different game.

[invisghost]

That's only true for engines that are completely scriptable and I've only seen that in King's bounty. The common thing is to have some parts hard-coded. Be that the types of guns, the enemies, or the main menu. You rarely find a game you can mod like that. And lets say you do find out that they use text to define the game, they may do a checksum of the file which means you cant change anything in that file without the game knowing.. So...

[Rahly]

Usually those check sums are in the containing file, meant to not allow corrupted files. In fact, I've rarely seen it hard coded.