Game Trainer Creation Tools Compared

As I just recently got back into creating game cheats I have been thoroughly looking for program tools - memory scanners, trainer builders, tutorials, etc. See the list on my Links page.

I did find one great new trainer creator Game Trainer Studio 2.0.0. I also found a tool called Trainer Maker Kit Patch v1.0 (also found at GameCopyWorld) that patches trainers created by Trainer Maker Kit to make them less likely to be flagged by virus scanners.

*Updated 01/16/2012

Trainers Compared

Below is a list of fully functional trainers that I created and tested. The list shows the program used to create the trainer, trainer file size, and the number of virus scanner false positives (with link to the virus reports).

Obviously there are other programs to create trainers with, and seemingly countless programming languages as well, that are not mentioned. The list compares the programs I have found most often online that I have experience with.

I created the trainers with three popular trainer creation programs (CE uses the Lua programming language), and three programming languages (Autoit, Lazarus(Free Pascal), and FreeBASIC). I used the online virus scanning service from Jotti.org to check for false positives, which uses 20 popular virus scanners.

The Lazarus trainer includes all debug symbols by default; however, removing the debug symbols with the strip command put the EXE at 591 KB.

Only the generated trainers are compared, and not additional features such as cheat lists, etc. - after all this is about trainers. For example Cheat Engine allows creation of trainer source files and cheat list tables, but can only be used by others that have CE installed on their systems.

Program Used	Trainer Size	False Positives
AutoIt v3.3.6.1	298 KB	0 (See Report)
Cheat Engine v6.1	3162 KB	0 (See Report)
FreeBASIC v0.23.0	14 KB	0 (See Report)
Game Trainer Studio v2.0.0	6 KB	0 (See Report)
Lazarus v0.9.30.2	591 KB	0 (See Report)
Trainer Maker Kit v1.51	788 KB	9 (See Report)
Trainer Maker Kit v1.51 – Patched	788 KB	4 (See Report)

Trainer Results

The results as you can see range widely on file sizes. All of the programs used allow a feature rich trainer to be created, unlike some other trainer creator programs I did not bother testing.

* Update - GTS trainers no longer have false positives with Avria.
One result to point out is Game Trainer Studio has only a single false positive by Avria, which is a very generic "threat" and experienced by many of their users. Here is the threat definition from Avria.com.

I ranked the programs for ease of use, which seems to closely follow along with file size.

For ease of creation in making a feature rich trainer, the programs Game Trainer Studio and Trainer Maker Kit tie winning.

Trainer Maker Kit (TMK), however, can not use pointers so depending on the game cheats it may not work. It is rapidly become a obsolete option - and due to the number of false positives you may wish to avoid it altogether.

FreeBASIC is a close second, especially if you use my FB memory functions - view my FreeBASIC tutorial. AutoIt is in third, refer to my AutoIt tutorial for basic trainer help and modified memory functions.

Coming in fourth is Lazarus (Free Pascal), there are several trainer tutorials online - Here is a list of trainer source files by Renan. I may release some tutrorials for it in the future when I have more time to use Lazarus.

Cheat Engine is last in fifth, as it uses Lua programming to create trainers beyond a simple list of hot-keys. Of course if you have experience with Lua and Cheat Engine coding then it would be might be higher on your list.

If true programming ability for custom trainers is your goal, FreeBASIC is the winner with the smallest trainer file size of any programming language. AutoIt trainers is second, and Lazarus (Free Pascal) bringing up third.

Smallest trainer file size is Game Trainer Studio at only 6 KB; however, FreeBASIC is very close at only 14 KB.

Many people argue that trainer file size makes no difference in the age of high speed internet; however, if you have limited file server space (as I do) or pay the bill for website hosting/bandwidth it makes a world of difference. After all a 6 KB trainer size (GTS) you could have 527 trainers, versus just one Cheat Engine trainer.

Luckily virus scanners have gotten better at false positives, so only the Trainer Maker Kit has a real problem with them. If the TMK tool called Trainer Maker Kit Patch v1.0 (also found at GameCopyWorld) is used on the TMK trainers, virus scanners are less of a problem.

Game Trainer Studio is the overall winner with it's ease of use, and smallest trainer file size. FreeBASIC is a very close second, and the overall winner if you are looking to program your own trainers. AutoIt is third in file size, and ease of use.

With everything said, for my trainer releases I plan to use the FreeBASIC programming language. I will however release some trainers using AutoIt and Game Trainer Studio as well. CE tables of my cheats will be released as well, although they will have fewer cheats than my trainers to protect my hard work.