Game Patches

Beta. Game patches are new in 0.4.3. They pass the automated tests against the simulated console but have not yet been tried on a real PS5.

Game patches are small changes made by the community for one exact version of a game: a higher frame rate, a different resolution or quality mode, a debug menu. CheatSpecter reads them from PS4-PS5-Game-Patch, the collection that etaHEN (PS5) and GoldHEN (PS4) also use, and shows them as switches.

Where to find them

On the Cheats tab, below the cheat tables, the Game patches card looks for patches for the running game by itself.

• While it looks it says how many patch files it has checked, with Cancel.
• The first time, a PS4 game can mean checking many patch files (about a megabyte). The card asks first: press Look for game patches to go ahead. After that it is quick.
• When it is done you see one switch per patch, or a line saying there are none for your version.

Your browser downloads the patches straight from GitHub, as it does community cheat tables; the PS5 needs no internet access. The list of patch files is kept for 12 hours, and what each file covers is remembered in the browser, so the next look only reads files that changed. When GitHub is limiting how often it answers, the card says so; try again later.

Which patches are offered

A patch is made for one exact game version, because it changes fixed places in the game. Only patches for exactly the version you are running are offered, plus patches written to work on any version (they find their place by a byte pattern; the row says Any version). When there are patches only for other versions, the card says which versions they are for.

Some patches cannot be applied safely by CheatSpecter. They are listed dimmed, with the switch off and the reason, for example:

• the patch writes new code into free space it has to find in the game;
• it changes which function a call in the game leads to;
• it uses a kind of line CheatSpecter does not know, or is for another part of the game than its main program.

Using one

• The switch changes the game now. Before it is switched on the first time, the bytes in the game are read and kept, so switching it off puts them back. The TV shows a notification, as for any cheat, and Restore everything switches off what was switched on here.
• The start set: a game patch that is on when you choose … → Save what's on as this game's start set (in the cheat file bar) is switched on each time the game starts. See Making and Managing Cheats.
• Add to your cheats copies the patch into Your cheats as one of your own. There it can be renamed, grouped, or marked Keep on, like any of your own cheats, and it is no longer listed on this card.
• Already in the game: a patch whose bytes are already there when the card looks, with nothing known about what was there before, is shown as on and locked. It was most likely applied by etaHEN's own game patch setting when the game started. Switch it off there.

Saved on your PS5

The patches for your exact version are saved into the game's cheat file on the PS5 the first time they are found, next to your own cheats (not mixed in with them). From then on the card opens them from the PS5, with no download, and says "Saved in" the file's name "on your PS5", with the date.

• Check for updates asks GitHub whether the patch file changed. When it did, Review update shows which patches are new, changed or removed, and Update replaces the saved copy. Your own cheats are not touched. The card also checks quietly each time it opens.
• When the cheats showing came from another version's file, or you deleted the file during this visit, nothing is saved by itself. The card then says the patches are not saved, with a Save them into button followed by the file name.
• Delete from PS5 in the cheat file bar deletes the saved patches along with the file. They can be downloaded again.

Game patches change the game's code. Like any cheat they can crash a game: save in the game first, and switch one on at a quiet moment.

Where the files come from

The card names the file it used, with a link to it. PS5 games' patches are in the repository's patches/xml_prospero folder, PS4 games' in patches/xml. Nothing from the collection is stored in the CheatSpecter repository.