How To Cheat In Every Computer Game With Poke

game-cheatsCheating at a game is bending the rules a little bit, to make it easier on yourself or to change the overall experience. Most of the time, cheats are implemented to give users the ability to tweak the gameplay in a way which they prefer.

Doing this is nothing to be ashamed of, at least if you’re playing it offline. Of course, opinions may vary widely on this subject.

Cheating can help you achieve something, which would otherwise be out of your reach. It also enables you to experience a game in the way you like it. I for one always use cheats while playing Grand Theft Auto, not because I think it’s too hard a game but just because I like it that way.

Another example. If you’ve ever played The Sims, it’s almost certain you’ve cheated.  Does “rosebud” ring any bells? I tried to play it once without using this money cheat, but I didn’t like it. The best thing in The Sims is building houses, so it bothered me having to go to work every day just so we could succeed in laying a carpet.

Most often, cheats are embedded by the game makers. We activate them by pressing a series of buttons, or by entering them in a specific menu. Sadly, not all games have cheats available.

For those games that don’t have any cheats, or to make the cheating easier, there’s Poke. This nifty application gives you the ability to cheat in nearly every game!

Poke

Several years ago, Márton Anka developed Poke for commercial purposes. However, it was never released as a product and was forgotten about. Now he has decided to give it away for free!

How does it work?

how to cheat on pc games

If you want to know how Poke works, you need to understand the basics of how games work, and how RAM works.

RAM is the temporary memory of your computer. In contrast to your hard drive, which is static memory and which will stay the same unless you or a program changes it, RAM memory is maintained for each computer session. As soon as you pull the plug, everything will disappear. This memory is, among other things, used by applications to store temporary data, like the contents of that Word document you haven’t saved.

Also in this memory is game data, like the amount of experience points you’ve obtained, or the number of bullets you’ve got left.

Poke searches through this memory to find out where those numbers are stored, after which you can change it to any value you like. If we go back to our Sims example for instance, Poke can find the amount of money you have, and change it to any given number.

How to use Poke

Upon opening Poke, you’ll be asked to choose a process. Select the game in which you want to cheat.

I’ll be using Far Cry 2 to illustrate the process.

game cheats and codes

As you can see below, I’ve got very few bullets left. We’ll be using Poke to find the memory location of the amount of bullets, and change it.

To do this, press the ‘Add’ button in Poke. In the window that opens, you’ll be able to set your search parameters. In the case of Far Cry 2, ’18′.

If you’re using a 32 or 64 bit application, you’ll have to search for a DWORD value type.

Enter the value and press Next.

poke

Poke will now look through the RAM and take all locations which contains the value 18. It’s normal that there are a number of locations where this value is represented, therefore we’ll narrow down the possibilities by performing another search.

Shoot a few bullets and search again with the new value. You can repeat this process until you’ve got only one location left. You’ll be prompted to name the value and it will be added to the main screen.

poke - video game cheats

You can change this number by pressing ‘Current Value’, and also set it by checking the box. This is something you should do in this case, as it will give you infinite ammunition, likewise with financial data.

That’s all there is to it!

What do you think of Poke? Easy to use?

Simon Slangen

I'm a writer and computer sciences student from Belgium. You can always do me a favor with a good article idea, book recommendation, or recipe idea. You'll also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

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Hide 52 Comments

  • Loodac November 4, 2008
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    There’s also Cheat Engine:

    cheatengine.org/

    It does the same thing, but I think it has more options. It’s open source.

    | Like
    • Simon Slangen November 4, 2008
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      Thanks, didn’t know that one. I’ll be sure to check it out ^^

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    • Joshua November 4, 2008
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      Ah yes, the Cheat Engine. That’s the one I’m familiar with. Kind of. It’s been a while.

      I have no idea how it works anymore, but I remember that the Cheat Engine came with a very handy and friendly tutorial, which I thought was very nice!

      Yeah. This is real cheatin’. Ha ha ha.

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    • Core November 6, 2008
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      Aye, I use cheat engine all the time – very useful application. You can also use it to make basic trainers and do more assembly and debug level stuff.

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  • Jonathan November 4, 2008
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    Hahah, I haven’t tried it, but that sounds awesome.

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    • Mobular Answers November 6, 2008
      0 likes

      CheatEngine + Artmoney = All You Need

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      • Titannick December 6, 2008
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        Agreed, Poke would have to be something different quite a bit to warrant me ever using it.
        Cheating gets boring anyhow, though. Trainers are eventually an easier alternative.

        | Like
      • Spense09 December 6, 2008
        0 likes

        With cheatengine, there are some thingz you can’t do

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  • The Windows Fix November 4, 2008
    0 likes

    OMG…this is friggin beyond awesome. I just wish I could get back into gaming.(The Woman)

    | Like
    • rade November 6, 2008
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      “OMG…this is friggin beyond awesome. I just wish I could get back into gaming.(The Woman)”

      - Standard.

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  • SE November 5, 2008
    0 likes

    Would this application (or cheatengine) work to extend trialware applications by changing the expiration time or resetting the number of uses?

    -SE

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    • Simon Slangen November 5, 2008
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      You could try it (at your own risk off course), but I highly doubt it anyway. These data (no. of days left and such) are usually put in more safe places than the temporal memory (e.g. registry, encrypted static file, etc.).

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    • DeadWildFire December 7, 2008
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      Cheat Engine is capable of doing that, there’s even a couple tutorials over at the CE forums covering tasks like this. Could be as simple as locking a timer or tracing the pointers, then using CE’s debugger to op out the related code. Or if you completed the tutorial that comes with CE then doing what you asked is possible, even if the software uses some more intensive protection.

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  • jan November 5, 2008
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    that sounds like something i used 10 years ago, cheat-o-matic. basically the same concept

    | Like
  • dasaaa November 5, 2008
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    i use “cheat-o-matic” (comatic) for hmm >5years i guess…

    believe me, using comatic is much more simple than those..

    | Like
  • Aibek November 5, 2008
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    Omg, that’s one awesome tool for gamers. Thanks!

    | Like
  • sp00t November 5, 2008
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    I remember when I used to do this kind of stuff back in the ol’ SNES days. I think the GameGenie or similar had this kind of function. :P

    | Like
  • Emma November 5, 2008
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    “This memory is, among other things, used by applications to store temporary data, like the contents of that Word document you haven’t saved.”

    Given that, say you’d just been typing in notepad – including, for example, the word ‘tree’ – and you accidentally closed notepad without saving. Could you use Poke to search for ‘tree’ and possibly turn up the location of what you’d typed? (Or is there another program you could use for something like that?

    Just wondering.

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    • gnaa November 6, 2008
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      Poke should be fine for this (IF you can make it search for strings!). Indeed, this is absolutely trivial to do. Like searching for “tree” with notepads search function – only you have to search a larger amount of RAM.
      Honestly, the hard thing on this “poke” thing must have been the nice GUI…

      A few years ago I accidently closed a chat window – and forgot to write down the phone number that girl gave me. Argh!!!
      But, thanks to Linux, I could find the number in RAM. I just copied /proc/kcore (which gives direct access to RAM) to a disk file and then just searched through this file. 8-D

      | Like
      • Likely story November 8, 2008
        0 likes

        >>phone number that girl gave me.
        >>Linux

        | Like
  • Bobarkinator November 6, 2008
    0 likes

    Cheat Engine is a little more complex and that much better because of it. For instance, you can save things in Cheat Engine to work on them later. I do like Poke however, simplicity is great.

    | Like
  • Ben Leonard November 6, 2008
    0 likes

    Would this also work on applications to see where programs store serial keys or dates of expiry?

    But awesome none the less! ;)

    | Like
    • Simon Slangen November 7, 2008
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      This is answered above :-)

      | Like
  • khendar November 6, 2008
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    I remember using POKE commands to cheat in Commodore 64 games.Infinite Boulder Dash lives !

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  • sd November 7, 2008
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    Cheats were never by default created to use as cheats.

    They were created to debug the games/software. So they didn’t have to play the whole to test for bugs.

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    • Simon Slangen November 7, 2008
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      Thanks, I didn’t know that ^^

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  • JD November 7, 2008
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    THERE IS A TROJAN IN THIS SOFTWARE – DO NOT INSTALL!! SPYBOT FOUND “zlob.xxxaccess” AS A TROJAN VIRUS. GEE THANKS MAKEUSEOF /SPITS

    | Like
  • ecoli November 7, 2008
    0 likes

    Another great piece of free software is artmoney from artmoney.ru, it allows for fairly advanced refinement of variables (if, for example, you don’t know the exact value but you know that it has gone down)

    Cheers!

    | Like
  • FPS / Gaming / MMORPG Forum - Gears of War 2 Runescape November 7, 2008
    0 likes

    poke looks good :D gonna test it out

    | Like
  • Stefan November 7, 2008
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    This is nearly identical to GameWiz32, which was the bomb while playing SimCity and the like.

    | Like
  • djnforce9 November 7, 2008
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    This is cool in that it supports x64 applications. I have an older application called gamewiz32 which does exactly the same sort of thing. The only problem I find with these is that you essentially have to run the search every time with certain games as the memory locations change each time the application is run. If you have a lot of cheats you want to implement, this could be a tedious and time consuming process naturally.

    I’ll give this a try though. At the very least, it’ll be a good replacement for gamewiz32. If not, I can always tried the suggested alternative “Cheat Engine”. I’ll assume it’s kept up to date and x64 compliant too. I always look for a “trainer” first though since the cheats are already built in for me.

    I would just LOVE more than ever to play the Serious Sam games with infinite ammo and without having to reload any of the guns.

    | Like
  • SteeL November 7, 2008
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    don’t u think this is really old old stuph !!
    CheatEngine n MHS r best ryte now for memory hacking of any PC games

    | Like
  • Wen November 8, 2008
    0 likes

    I’ve been using such softwares since 1996.

    | Like
  • Kevin November 9, 2008
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    Arf!
    it’s so funny to see people saying stuff like: “OMG This is so cool!, etc…”

    i was a kid when using the POKE command in BASIC!
    rofl, on Amstrad CPC, amiga 500, C64… it was the only way to obtain what you wanted.

    (other useful command: PEEK ;-)

    | Like
  • ISHA December 3, 2008
    0 likes

    I downloaded Poke software from this site and tried to install it but it was a fail installation giving the message Corrupt files and the software was not installed but what happen next my PC is running very slow and hanging now can anybody tell me how can i fix this problem please tell me i dont want to format my hard drive.
    thank you

    | Like
    • Simon Slangen December 3, 2008
      0 likes

      Problem lies probably with your computer (it’s the official mirror).

      Try uninstalling it through Configuration Screen – Software. If that doesn’t work, manually delete the C:\Program Files\Poke folder. That should remove all Poke files.

      I’m not sure if it’s a Poke-problem though, as Poke normally doesn’t run on start-up.

      | Like
  • x December 7, 2008
    0 likes

    nice program….but does it work with online games?????…..i tried it with online game but nothing :( :( :( :(

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    • DeadWildFire December 7, 2008
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      The majority of MMOs store the variables on a server, so you can’t directly change them from your computer.

      | Like
  • Devin December 13, 2008
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    A very neat concept. I think every game should have a console too. Makes the game your own. Just a technical note. The ram does not disappear immediately. There is what is know as a ghosting effect. This can last a couple minutes if the ram is cooled. It has some very significant cryptography implications.

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  • Niel December 16, 2008
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    I think cheat engine is better but i think that’s already been established by other people (like 50 times) but the only time I think you should ever cheat is when you’ve beaten the game with 100% everything…or else you just suck at the game and should just buy another one :/

    | Like
    • Simon Slangen December 16, 2008
      0 likes

      I’ve completed numerous games on the hardest setting without cheating, but I still like to fly around in my jet while playing San Andreas.

      It all depends on the setting.

      | Like
  • drew and not u December 19, 2008
    0 likes

    Cool, it’s basically a game-shark for PC!

    | Like
  • WisconsinGuy January 1, 2009
    0 likes

    Nobody remembers cheat-o-rama? Much simpler program, does the same thing, has been out for well over a decade? anyone?

    | Like
  • AgelessStranger January 3, 2009
    0 likes

    I used to use the keyword poke back in the 1980′s on a zx spectrum for exactly the same reasons

    | Like
  • bilal February 14, 2009
    0 likes

    chat shit

    | Like
  • Tech Blog March 31, 2009
    0 likes

    Im gona try it out, if you used it on an online game it would just edit the values for you though? right

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  • Rizi June 30, 2009
    0 likes

    I have tried this and it does not work in far cry 2 no matter what I do I cannot get more diamonds every time I try to change the value it just goes back down to the original number since you used far cry 2 as an example I thought it would work could you or anyone tell me how to actually change the value

    | Like
    • Simon Slangen June 30, 2009
      0 likes

      Don’t know why it doesn’t work for you, perhaps you have a patched/updated version of the game. Only ever tried it with bullets, though.

      Additional cheats for your poke problems can be found here. Sadly, no diamonds.

      | Like
  • Jesus August 13, 2009
    0 likes

    heat engine and t search did it first.

    | Like
  • spaceface August 30, 2009
    0 likes

    alt-tabbing out of a game isn’t desirable, a lot of games get a little buggy after it.

    I remember using a tool like this aeons ago to change my health in counter strike 1.0. good times :)

    | Like
  • Simon Slangen November 5, 2008
    0 likes

    It should work with any offline game/program that keeps numbers like these in the RAM memory.

    | Like