PC menu: strings baked into the EXE

After ENGLISH.TXT was translated, part of the menu stayed in English: “Quit to Windows”, “Video Settings”, “Screen Resolution”, “Shadows”… One screen showed both «Назад» and “Back”. This page explains where these strings come from and how they were translated without modifying LEGOIndy.exe.

Where the text comes from

Searching for the phrases across all the unpacked game resources (9,903 files, 6.5 GB) found no match at all. The strings turned up in the EXE itself: two embedded tables of 38 entries each, (u32 id, u32 string_pointer), with a (38, 0) terminator.

Verified build: Steam, LEGOIndy.exe 7,847,936 bytes, SHA-256 c12f7348ec63aed61f56eb15d825f15b8340500668fa8c8dcf06c2f332e5e5fd, image base 0x400000.

Object	VA
Source English tables	0x921D10, 0x921E48
Active array (38 pointers, 152 bytes)	0x9D0C30
Initialization flag	0x9D0CC8
Initializer	0x521230
String getters	0x4B1EF0, 0x620A10, 0x6960B0

The code section of the Steam file on disk cannot be disassembled directly, so the addresses and instructions were verified against the memory of the running process (ReadProcessMemory, with no changes to memory). Simplified, the getter logic is:

if (!pc_strings_initialized)
    initialize_pc_strings_from_embedded_language_table();  // 0x521230
return pc_strings[id];

The initializer picks an embedded table based on the game language, zeroes the active array and copies the pointers into it. No file reading happens here, so changes to ENGLISH.TXT or TRC.CSV do not affect these menus. Switching the language only selects a different embedded table; Ukrainian is not among them.

That is why the same words exist twice: Back with ID 727 in ENGLISH.TXT was already «Назад», while Back with PC ID 10 is a separate EXE string.

PC ID	Original	Translation
1	Quit to Windows	Вийти до Windows
18	Video Settings	Налаштування відео
19	Screen Resolution	Роздільність екрана
29	Effects Settings	Налаштування ефектів
15 / 16	On / Off	Увімк. / Вимк.

FSAA: Edge AA is made of two separate strings — the name and the value. All 38 translations are in translations/pc_menu_ua.json.

Fix options

Approach	EXE unchanged	Verdict
TXT/CSV only	yes	does not work: a different text access path
Patching the EXE with new strings	no	possible, but modifies a game file and limits string length
A module that replaces pointers in memory	yes	chosen

How the replacement works

The plugin keeps the Ukrainian UTF-8 strings in its own memory and rewrites the pointers:

1. It verifies the EXE’s SHA-256 and every entry of both English tables: the ID, the pointer and the English string itself.
2. It rewrites 76 pointers (38 in each source table).
3. If the active array is already populated, it updates its 38 pointers too. If not, the game itself copies the already-Ukrainian addresses during initialization.

For example, PC ID 19 initially points to Screen Resolution inside the EXE, and after the replacement to «Роздільність екрана» in the plugin’s memory. The string can be longer than the original because it has its own storage. The module must stay loaded until the process exits: the game’s tables reference its memory.

When started early through the ASI Loader, the table pages have the PAGE_WRITECOPY attribute; later, PAGE_READWRITE. The plugin accepts both after fully verifying the entries; Windows creates a private copy of the page by itself. VirtualProtect is not needed for the PC pages.

Initially (0.1.4) this was a separate dinput8.dll proxy library that forwarded DirectInput calls to the real system library. Since 0.1.6 the PC-menu strings live in the UKRAINIAN/PC_MENU.UTF8 entry of the UAP package (null-separated strings), and since 0.1.8 the replacement is performed by the ASI plugin. The mechanism stayed the same.

Checks

• Reading the memory of the running game: 76 source and 38 active pointers, an exact match of the Ukrainian UTF-8 strings with the JSON.
• Every character of the translation exists in the main font.
• With a different EXE, the plugin skips the replacement and the game stays in English.
• The author checked «Вийти до Windows» (Quit to Windows), the video and effects menus and the option values in the game.

Not checked: every possible option value at every resolution, and switching the language during play.

The full evidence is in the author’s research archive.