I want a program that i can use to find save file locations for ANY game.

[Dawnbomb]

this probably exists but googling it is hard. IDK what the already existing one would do, but in my head, this is probably what i imagine one to do.

The program runs / is open.
It lets you select a target .exe
There is a on/off button (like CE's start scan / end scan button)
You turn it on, save a game, then turn off.
It tells you every file on your PC that was changed because of target exe.

using this, i imagine it very easy to locate the save folder for any game, and this extremely useful when you need to use internet saved to unlock additional content the game normally locks behind having a clear file (for no good reason other then developers not respecting your time / choices).

Can anyone hep direct me to programs that do this?

[nullable]

You can use gamesave-manager to manage saved games like this. Although I only ever used it for archiving. I've not tried to use it to locate save games. But it does have a database of locations and perhaps that is searchable. It would be worth a look.

https://www.gamesave-manager.com/

[Iceira]

and that is cheating, problem is depending on own progrss or load other ppl save that not game devs intended, and im not so sure steam will accept post like this,

you should have read Discussions Rules and Guidelines, better.

any exploits can and will or should i say can have serious issue depend on how steam will act on it, and its already to late for you they have post history log , you might want ot delete this post not because i say it more then the few that read this the lesser chance someone will report you.
ppl do that.

gl with whatever you do from here OP.


ps.
and also send a msg to all other players, what the crap do you even know about how to do in a game anyway, then you did not solve it, you do know there are game with achivement thats broken or cheater achivement you can only get if you did it.

im not so sure you know the backside of this.

i have seen games get ruin of such ways, that its know as byebye games devs, you have no idea how many that walk away from such games. that mean lost revenue, and then you might get it. ( most players here will not pay for a game thats broken like that and all because you load a save game not belong to you.

if lesser player play that game, the faster it die.

technicaly we should all report you.

and it actual dont matter if this is a single player game or not. / coup

[Dawnbomb]

I also want it for multiplayer games, and you can take your complains and (some extremely toxic comment).

I give 0 respect to any developer decision to make players strictly waste their time for content unlocks, unlike you Iceira, some of us can actually handle difficulty modes above baby and don't want to spend 100+ hours just to unlock something to see if it's even slightly challenging.

and anyone supporting that ♥♥♥♥, screw that to. Anyway to anyone searching steam forums in the future for this...

Google Process Monitor. Then you can use it.
1: at the top is some basic filters, disable Registry activity, network activity, process / thread activity, and profiling can all be turned off. (So only the "Folder" icon thing is active)

2: Ctrl + F the exe name, then right click it and make it a highlight.

3: Click filter (right of garbage can) and lets make one.
Change architecture to Process name - is - (whatever the exe name is) - include then hit OK.
for example: tales of Symphonia process name is ToS.exe

then, go to where you save the game. Hit the garbage can to clear events, then save the game. back to process moniter, a bunch of stuff will be logged. Look for one that has a directory path for your save location. Note that more then one of these may be logged, for things like path of the exe.

Anyway, it's not TO hard, but this method isn't ideal. Hopefully something better appears in the future, but this is "okay enough" for now.

If anyone knows a proper program for safe file hunting, hit me up.

[crunchyfrog]

Two points here.

(1) If you're after collating and making save files easier to find and backup then as another has already stated Game Save Manager is your go to. I've used it for many years and it's great. It makes clicking on the games you've played to back up to another drive dead easy.

(2) If you're after hacking or tweaking save games to alter the game then you don't need to as that's a long winded way to go about things. Cheat Engine does this for you and is easy to use.

But caution - DO NOT EVER use it in any game that has anything online about it. As not only is it against the rules and bad news for anyone else you're playing against but will get you banned quickly.

Use it in single player games and youre fine as I do a lot. I love to finish games and go back and mess around with it.

So those are your best two starting points.

[Iceira]

thats becuase you think game devs dont have a plan, and that was not so other can load other ppl game, its here you failed so see the big picture, game devs dont make games so you can get a save game and get 100% game achivement and pretending to claim i play that game, that is exatly what some will do.

you should see the meeting the do then they try make goal in the game, some companys actual use alot of research in this, and try make game challenge and fun or tactic in choise so you cant do all then you take game in diffrent direction, but i dont think you know this. and only has thern so i can open game for my little corner and get all unlocked.

see thats the problem here you want something you did not do.

its here the cheating part come in, and now some point it out then you dont like it. and now we are the bad guys.

there is many games that has multi solution and game consequence its ment to be this way not 1 solutions in a game.

[Iceira]

And maybe you should read steam rules more any game exploitsd is not allowed on steam.

you can backup own save game data all you want, but use other and you just busted yourself.

[Dawnbomb]

(1) Game Save Manager i tried, i'm not sure how you would use it to scan, but i'm assuming you must already know the name of the safe file (and you in most cases, will not. Not even most online save info places tell you the exact save file name) and before even getting to figuring out scanning for games it doesn't support, also it fail to detect saves automatically even for some games it says it supports. That said, if there is a way to attach it to a running program and have it detect any filepaths changed because of said program, im all ears.

(2) yes i know how to use cheat engine and im a game modder myself, but (as i said in the intro) thats not at all useful for using online saves.

(3) you mean competitive, simply using online saves for non-competitive online games is still fine.

(4) actually what i wrote out is a much better starting point, and it even works for emulators. game save manager also wont even run unless you use the unstable branch and (according to developer) this is a bug not supporting unicode characters and will be fixed when 4.0 comes out (no ETA on arrival) making it's already only partial support very useless. in the alpha, it's hard and confusing to use, while process manager is (although a little learning) easy to work with and tells you 100% for sure every location that could be where the save files are for any game (or process like emulators)

[Dawnbomb]

Iceira, you really have no idea what you talking about, just stop.

[Iceira]

Originally posted by Dawnbomb:

Iceira, you really have no idea what you talking about, just stop.

thast not what you asked load other ppl save game.
"use internet saved to unlock additional content"

this is being seen as i do something i did not do myself , and you think you can dodge that bullet i doubt it.

but gl to steam and games devs to catch ppl in this.


its like you forget what you did and your files is not same as other ppl files here, thats modification of content.

[Iceira]

Originally posted by Dawnbomb:

Iceira, you really have no idea what you talking about, just stop.

yeah gl with whatever you think is right, you dont even understand the basic here in whats wrong.

and i think you are up upset with someone point it out, go ahead cheat all you want i cant stop you anyway. ( thats not my job thats steam and game devs job to catch you doing it.

[Dawnbomb]

I'm not mad at all at being called a "cheater", and you can't tell because your not naively english and don't understand the conversation at all. Also, it is not against against any rules to modify anything (so long as it does not interact with competitive games, online economy, or similar metrics), only distributing them is the problem. Further, distribution is only a "written problem" to stop edge cases or people from tarnishing brands. For example, someone creating an extremely racist mod of skyrim, that would get banned quickly to stop the game from promoting harmful conduct, but if it's just a mod like "+10 ATK" then noone cares.

Also, entire games (like Dota 2, league of legends, phoenix point, etc) came about entirely from modifying game content, these games ONLY exist BECAUSE of doing these things. There are major multi-billion dollar businesses at this point, some of the largest names in gaming. You just are entirely out of your element and have no idea what your talking about (let alone proper english).

Game developers don't lock NG+ content because "it's cheating" either, they lock stuff behind clear files to prevent stupid people (like the kind who cant even understand what cheating is...~) from accessing content they can't mentally handle it (like most tales games max difficulties, FE engage random growths, star ocean galexy mode, or rabi ribi's bullet hell fest).

It is, ironically enough, because of people like you Iceira, that developers feel the need to cause harm to players like me, because they don't want people like you complaining on steam forumns that a game is to hard when they pick a mode they can't handle and their to stubborn to change to a mode they can handle. Fake pride is often handled by developers by just blocking anything actually difficulty behind NG+ so those twitch streams don't give a game a bad impression, thus improving a games sales and profitability.

But game profits have nothing to do with "cheating" and you don't even know what cheating is, selecting a higher difficulty is not ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ "cheating" unless your head is concave. It's what people that are far more skilful are after, and for the final time, please just go away.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by Dawnbomb:

I'm not mad

Just let it go.

[Iceira]

The porblem here you dodnt see it as cheating, but i can tell you it is, and steam dont like exploits in anyway, problem here gl with proof it and catch ppl in doing it. but then they do that you will eat your words and look stupid to all.

Steam had once tekst that explan this way more simple then now, its like steam have problem to proof this and have change its tekst about it.

Because it require they can proof you do it, afaik.

and someday there will be a game devs that dont like all gamer leave faster because all do as you do and they will make code in save game to bust your butt, not the original game owner, theay can do such and have the rights to do it.

and i recall Blizzard bust all cheaters in Diablo2 ( alot of account could kiss there games byebye ) again we are over in they catch and record all that did it.

its like you think we have not see this before, just because you can and they dont do anything about it dont mean its right.

Blizzard did nothing about it , untill well someday they did. ( man i doont even recall what ppl did anymore its so long ago now ) and do we even care now

and what about settlers Iron pig, ( as i said you are so clueless in what game devs actual diid to prevent pirates and cheaters, even catch cheater and put them on own cheaters server.

this subject end now because OP think he knows something and he dont, he might even lead you to think its okay load other owner save file, what a joke here.


we are not here to report you, but he dont get it, he think load a save game you did not make yourself is not cheting and somehow legal not according to steam old rules it was so much easy to read. now its in the Eula and change of files without gamedevs approval or way to do it thing what game devs allow you to do.

its clearly he has rights issue and he dont even understand basic steam EULA.

i bet he never got approval from a game dev and he never will, because then they have to do it to all users. or update its game to allow it.

[Iceira]

Go ahead make a single player game that all love and then make it so we can end the game faster then started, im sure you can see a problem with selling game and have players around that keep playing it. ( i dont understand why i need to bend this in neon )

You will not have dedicated players, you have trouble with kepp fans playing it, because we move on, and i doubt they will return ever.

and set serious issue with why buy other games from that company then its done and over in 2sec. ( just load a save game because game devs dont call it cheating here. )

gl with lost cash earning or try get other players to play your game,


and i dont even work for them or have anything to do with them im just a gamer over 40+ years experience and seen alot of how and story behind the game or other clip with what game devs try to get out of a game.

im sure you still try reason its okay to do, but im not so sure other game devs will agree with any here

they did not make games you can end faster then a play through that like pie on them.
they do have goals in time and cost and how challenge it has to be.

and problem here , you make a classic users mistake, game devs will not reply here, they will not dare anger any possible custommer, so you will only see gamers here, until steam moderator kick in and stop this. ( and maybe you will get a ban on the load other save game , but thats not thanks to me you did that on yourself, to even suggest and think its right to do. and maybe lead other into doing same its a double NO NO you did. )

we are not steam defender here, or game devs defender we are gamers that like spennd hours in our games just like OP explan, but he cross the line with other ppl files.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Dawnbomb:

(1) Game Save Manager i tried, i'm not sure how you would use it to scan, but i'm assuming you must already know the name of the safe file (and you in most cases, will not. Not even most online save info places tell you the exact save file name) and before even getting to figuring out scanning for games it doesn't support, also it fail to detect saves automatically even for some games it says it supports. That said, if there is a way to attach it to a running program and have it detect any filepaths changed because of said program, im all ears.

(2) yes i know how to use cheat engine and im a game modder myself, but (as i said in the intro) thats not at all useful for using online saves.

(3) you mean competitive, simply using online saves for non-competitive online games is still fine.

(4) actually what i wrote out is a much better starting point, and it even works for emulators. game save manager also wont even run unless you use the unstable branch and (according to developer) this is a bug not supporting unicode characters and will be fixed when 4.0 comes out (no ETA on arrival) making it's already only partial support very useless. in the alpha, it's hard and confusing to use, while process manager is (although a little learning) easy to work with and tells you 100% for sure every location that could be where the save files are for any game (or process like emulators)

Well all I can tell you is that for online saves, I would STRONGLY say not to bother.

Not only does this potentially alter your playing versus others, but is a breach of the rules of play. It's absolutely NOT recommended at all unless you want to get banned.