Compressed/Packed saves?

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01-25-2007, 12:56 PM
-MIPs-

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Compressed/Packed saves?

:chinscrat

Compare Phantasy Star game data save and system file save to other games save files and these files just look weird. The lack of any formating of data what so ever is what is leading me to believe that the files maybe compressed. Not a single readable string in either file either(some saves atleast have 1). The game data file repeats this(look below) for more than half of the file. I'm confused....I attached the files below if anyone is interested.

Hex: 1E53 512F 334D FCEE 1E53 512F 334D FCEE 1E53 512F 334D FCEE 1E53

ASCII: SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...
SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M...SQ/3M..
01-25-2007, 05:29 PM
gothi

You want to be comparing several saves each with a single change to the file, that way you can locate data structures/values and see if the file is compressed or encrypted in any way.

If I remember correctly the Socom series stored the passwords in a unique way to make them unreadable if the save was simply looked at in a hex editor
01-26-2007, 08:03 AM
-MIPs-

1 Attachment(s)

Yea, the save game data has got to be encrypted/compressed. A single minor change(time of save) and the entire file changes. With the exception of a few blocks of data scattered throughout the file, the rest is just a repeating sequence(which is different in each save). I don't want to let this deter my efforts just yet though. I've started looking through the game code for an encryption algorithm, no luck so far. Any advice/suggestions of where I should go from here are more than welcome.:chinscrat

Files attached:
01-28-2007, 10:24 AM
gothi

The only sure-fire way to discover the encryption/compression used is to dissasemble the executable and recreate the functions PC side. That's a topic far more advanced than I can go into I'm fraid.
01-30-2007, 06:13 PM
-MIPs-

Quote:

Originally Posted by gothi

The only sure-fire way to discover the encryption/compression used is to dissasemble the executable and recreate the functions PC side. That's a topic far more advanced than I can go into I'm fraid.

It's ok, I've gotten pretty familiar with MIPs asm in ps2 games so finding the alogorithm might be a fun project for later. To reach my end goal though, this would not be effective so ofcourse I've already switched gears and I'm exploring other options.

Thnx for the help. :)