(CBT) HDLoader game installer

The documentation clearly states that it will accept only UTF-8 characters, with the following limitations:
1. title0 and title1 are limited to a maximum of 16 characters.
2. uninstallmes0, uninstallmes1 and uninstallmes2 are limited to a maximum of 60 bytes.
3. Must be convertable to UCS2.
4. ASCII (0x20 to 0x7E).
5. Non-kanji.
6. Level 1 Kanji.
7. Level 2 Kanji.

Anyway... UTF-8 is backward-compatible with ASCII by design, so typing ASCII there doesn't make the title non-UTF8. SONY probably mentioned it there because their support for UTF-8 is only partial (They only have fonts to display some Japanese characters and ASCII) and had to describe its restrictions in detail.

It's also possible that the limitation varies according to the character encoding (instead of a maximum number of bytes, there might be just a alternate limit on the number of characters), as this part says:

But.... they never specified the character limit for titles displayed with the variable-width font. And neither did anyone perform any tests to determine whether the limitation on maximum title lengh is the same across all HDD OSD versions.

Yes, somebody could go and discover what the actual limit for ASCII-only titles are, but I won't do that (There are so many other cooler things to fix, as l_Oliveira knows).

Besides, having 32-characters is already enough to put your game's savedata title there (Memory card saves have an absolute character limit of 32).

 

Its no problem as your right 32-characters is enough for almost all game titles, I was just thinking that maybe you can set it up so you can use more.. but not error free.
You know I once used "Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny: Rengou vs. Z.A.F.T. II" in just title0 but I'm not sure if it was UTF-8 or ASCII, however it worked but it was out of center like l_Oliveira posted.

Thanks for the great info, I'll just AKuHAK's Reworked HDL_Dump for now if I need more characters.

 

>_>
No, I meant that I need an actual limit to expand to. I don't want to have a broken feature, which will cause broken titles to be generated because of the user's input. I will get questions like "Y ish HDLGameInstaller not w0rking 4 mii wen I enter 'supppeeerrrrlllooonnnggg tttiiiitttlllee'?", and I do not want to entertain them.

We already have advanced tools that can do that (allows you to create custom titles of undocumented lengths). I want to create something simple, which the end-user can use with ease.

 

True, no need for a feature that may generated bad titles. I was just thinking that you can have two var. of the program. Its works great and the only thing I can of that will make it batter is a feature set to have the PS2 logo at game start-up of not, doing that will make it look like it was by Sony. (But is not needed, I just like seeing it)

Yes, like AKuHAK's Reworked HDL_Dump or using a Hex Editor on the HDD. The installer is very well made to me and is very easy to use, the old days of just using a Hex Editor are gone now.

 

HDLGameInstaller v0.809 released!

Changelog:

1. Updated to install OPL v0.9.3.
2. Updated to build with the latest PS2SDK revision and to have the fixes from it.
3. Fixed layer break value calculation.
4. Added support for reconnecting to resume an incomplete installation by the client.
5. Changed game list reading to read the HDLoader game information directly with a devctl call, to work around the performance issues that the APA driver struggles with when dealing with a HDD containing many partitions.

As older versions of HDLGameInstaller had a bug that prevented dual-layer DVD (DVD-DL) games from being installed properly, please re-install your DVD-DL games with the updated installer.

Finally, if it was not already done, this version should be now compatible with DEX consoles because the DVD-Video player flag has been undone.

Downloads/links:
HDLGameInstaller project page: [URL='http://ichiba.geocities.jp/ysai187/PS2/HDLGameInstaller.htm"]http://ichiba.geocities.jp/ysai187/PS2/HDLGameInstaller.htm[/URL]

 

Does King Of Fighter 2002 UM work on this?

Last time i gave it a try (years ago now!) i remember it didn't work as intended...

 

That link is broken, it points to a nonexisting elf file ( http://ichiba.geocities.jp/ysai187/PS2/HDLGameInstaller.elf )
The text of the links is correct though http://ichiba.geocities.jp/ysai187/PS2/HDLGameInstaller.htm

 

http://ichiba.geocities.jp/ysai187/PS2/HDLGameInstaller.htm

 

What (CBT) means?

 

CBT stood for Closed-Beta Test. The title wasn't changed because nobody updated it.

 

Not to veer of topic, but could somebody tell me how to get a hold of miniopl? Latest revision fixes some game issues that the included version has

 

The source code is available on the project page, near the download link for HDLGameInstaller itself.

 

Ok, thanks. Don't know how I missed that

 

I downloaded and looked through the source for GameInstaller, but can't seem to figure out where it grabs miniopl from, or where it injects it even. I have compiled the latest version of miniopl, but the only similear file i found was a boot.xlf file. Am I not seeing something? Sorry for the questions, just getting into PS2 dev and messing with the hard drive

 

It is first compiled and encapsulated in a KELF container (which results in the boot.xlf file). Next, it is embedded into HDLGameInstaller during compile-time (by Makefile rules).
HDLGameInstaller will install the KELF into the specified partition during installation, by code within system.c.

That is what I can remember for now. If you wish to learn about PlayStation 2 development, I don't think that you should be studying HDLGameInstaller because it is quite large, buggy and its code is quite messy. It was my second major project.
If you have further questions, please feel free to ask me.

 

Ok, what would you recommend me study instead of this. I mostly started looking at this because I wanted to update the version of opl that was installed.

Also, how does one get from an elf file to the xlf file? I'm assuming it involves signing the file at some point, as my understanding is that the ps2 will not boot anything off of the hdd unless its signed

Also, does gameinstaller replace the boot file in the partition if the game is already bootable or does it leave it alone

 

SCEDoormat NoME

 

Thanks

 

Perhaps start with the samples? It depends on what you want to focus on.
Like for example, if you want to learn about drawing, you should look at the sample for the graphics library that you want to use (i.e. gsKit)

If I am not wrong, the version of OPL installed was already updated to the latest one. I stopped working on OPL in September 2015 and there were no fixes to its core functionality ever since, while v0.809 was released in December 2015.

Yes, it will replace it.

 

Is opl really not being worked on anymore? I had found this repo (https://bitbucket.org/ifcaro/open-ps2-loader/wiki/Home) and someone on another forum is doing daily builds from it. It has a couple of new features like playing the PS2LOGO before the game starts if the console and disc match up. Unaware if there is any core differences, but it seems to play some games differently.