Cheat Engine Beginner Guide
This guide walks you through your first steps: installing CE, attaching to a process, scanning for a value, changing it, and saving your work. No prior experience needed.
Step 1: Install Cheat Engine
Download Cheat Engine from the Downloads page. Run the installer and follow the prompts. If your antivirus warns, add an exception for the CE folder—see Fehlerbehebung. After installation, you’ll find Cheat Engine and the built-in Tutorial in your Start Menu.
Step 2: Run the built-in tutorial (recommended)
Before touching a real game, run “Cheat Engine Tutorial” from the Start Menu. It’s a small program that teaches scanning step by step. Complete at least steps 1–5. You’ll learn how to enter a value, click First Scan, change the value in the “game,” then Next Scan, and finally change or freeze the address. This saves time when you move to real games.
Step 3: Start a single-player game and attach CE
Start a single-player game (no online mode). Note a value you can see—e.g. health 100, gold 500. Open Cheat Engine. Click the computer icon or File → Open Process. In the list, find the game’s process (often the game name or .exe). Select it and click Open. The process list will show the game name at the top when attached.
Step 4: First scan
In the Value box, type the number you see in the game (e.g. 100). Leave Value Type as 4 Bytes unless you know otherwise. Click “First Scan.” CE will search the game’s memory. You’ll get many results (thousands or more). That’s normal.
Step 5: Change the value in the game and Next Scan
Switch to the game and change that value—take damage so health goes to 80, or spend gold so it becomes 400. Return to CE. Enter the new value (e.g. 80) and click “Next Scan.” The list will shrink. Repeat: change in game again (e.g. health 60), enter 60, Next Scan. Keep going until you have a small list (ideally one or a few addresses).
Step 6: Add to the list and change or freeze
Double-click an address (or select it and press Enter) to add it to the address list at the bottom. You can now double-click the value in the list to change it (e.g. set health to 999). Check the box in the “Active” column to freeze the value—CE will keep writing it so the game can’t change it. Test in the game to see if it’s the right address; if not, try another from the scan list.
Step 7: Save your table
File → Save (or Save As) to save a .CT file. Next time you play, you can File → Load and load the table, then attach to the process again. Note: the address may change after restarting the game. To make cheats survive restarts, you’ll need to learn pointers—see the Guides.
If you get too many or zero results
Too many: do more Next Scans (change value in game each time). Zero: try a different value type (Float, 8 Bytes) or “Unknown initial value” with “Increased/Decreased value.” See Scanning guide and Tipps for details.
What to learn next
After you’re comfortable with basic scanning: learn pointers so your addresses work after restart; try Find what writes to this address for code-based cheats; and explore the Tutorials and Anleitungen for more techniques.