[PS2] POPS stuff & POPStarter

Just to let you know that the wiki is now completely up-to-date with RIP 06 (quickstarter packs for newbies as well). If you noticed missing stuff, let me know.

Some commands (for CHEATS.TXT file) that were never mentionned in changelogs :

• $SUBCDSTATUS - A variant of $COMPATIBILITY_0×05
• $UNDO_MUTE_CDDA - Unmutes CDDA tracks in PS1CD mode
• $NOVMC0 - Use VMC1 only
• $NOVMC1 - Use VMC0 only

Besides, the list of all compatibility modes (thx to kHn who extracted it from src code) automatically enabled is also online now.

*
@Admin : can you do us a favor and update the first post of this thread ?

Addition (after the CUE2POPS part) :

"POPStarter 13 RIP :
POPStarter Revision 13, RIP 06 (2017/20/10) <- LATEST VERSION"

Thank you.

 

Understandable, though i'm sure most would still be very impressed to see how you managed to get it all to hang together. That said, many thanks for all your efforts with popstarter and wish you all the best in your next project.

 

Thanks for sharing that info. I know there are people who are more than willing to take up the mantle where you left off.

It's not every day you find an emulator that can run most games and run most of the at full speed.

Although I know you have did a lot of work on it and the community appreciates it a lot.

The psx era was one of the greatest for gamers.
When my cousin introduced me to the PlayStation back in the late 90's it was the only thing wanted that year.

And I also thank you for all you did to make more games work and run faster. Also the USB support, since I only have slim model. I also noticed USB has higher compat than internal HDD.

 

.

 

Does anyone know if the source code of ule_khn was ever released?

Look at / investigating if there are ways we can add gfx to that.

 

Well, there is an uncompressed ELF file of it.

Don't know if it's much help though.

 

http://psx-scene.com/forums/content/playstation-2-aio-project-berion-4683/

FYI looks like ule_khn version + source is on the link above... it may be an older version but it gives an indication of how .vcds are launched for anyone else is interested in developing a GUI.

Note - this isnt the source for popstarter its just khn version of the ule file manager that can launch popstarter vcds.

 

Hello!

I know the project is abandoned but I'm really hoping there is a solution somewhere in the commands. I've seen no mention of this in the documentation. And what I'm talking about are LIGHT GUNS.
My PS2 (9000x Matrix hardmodded) was having a tough time reading PSX cds (as sadly happens with every laser) and being a 9000x I was having an even tougher time trying to get PSX games to load from USB. In fact, the POPS quickstart (XX.NAMEOFTHEGAME.ELF) was the only homebrew I managed to get running on my model, not sure why. Even the regular POPS with title listing won't boot.
But I was already ecstatic of being able to play Castlevania:SOTN again. However, most of my setup and collection is dedicated to light gun games. I own 2 original PSX GunCons and a CRT display which I used to play normally before the system stopped reading CDs.
However, and I was already anticipating this even before testing, since POPS is an emulator that messes with the video mode, even on my CRT the game will not show the aim, meaning probably that the gun is not seeing the screen in the way it expects to. Is there a workaround for this? Anyway to make sure that the video being shown on the TV is on the same frequency and resolution as the native game?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help whatsoever!

 

Ive tried doing the same but with not much luck....

Here is what i tried...
http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1424

You can try injecting different irx.files but i couldnt get the guncon to work fully

I havent tried with the newest popstarter tho.

 

Before I even try, I have to say it's funny because I also got the game to recognize the gun and show calibration and working trigger, and I didn't do anything special for that haha I just ran a quickstart elf for the game and switched the controller for the gun while it was loading. By the way, any idea on why the XX.NAMEOFTHEGAME elfs work fine for me, but the normal games list elf won't boot?

 

What do you mean by "normal games list elf" ?
How does this ELF file differ ( from the ones you have working correctly ) ?
Are you booting/launching in the same manner ?

If you are referring to the currently-touchy-subject of launching your files through OPL, I would suggest removing ANY "conf_elm.cfg" files, by renaming or replacing it, with "conf_apps.cfg".
If your issue is what Im thinking it is, then this will fix it.
------------------------
@TiagoR2
@dekkit

If I recall correctly, I think @deba5er , was testing these features, and whom may possibly have some much needed information or answers for you both.
I tagged him for you, in the hope he may have the knowledge in which youre seeking.
Good luck!

 

Regarding light guns, testing with Gunfighter on v12 Slim PS2. From the PS1 disc in the PS2, everything works great.
From POPS it does not work. Tested with SMB, not with HDD or USB. That may be worth testing later. I believe AKuHAK is right that only SIO2MAN.IRX and PADMAN.IRX are needed. But why copy them from a PS2 game and rename as MODULE_0.IRX and MODULE_1.IRX when POPS already comes with them imbedded? Tested using modules from PS2 game Lord of the Rings Two Towers as this game has the correct version IOPRP252.IMG and there would be more likelihood for module compatibility with POPS. It did not work. CHEATS.TXT may also have an impact as there are interactions with display registers. Without some debug capability or krHACKen focus on the problem it would be by luck and against odds to get this to work (different games, different CHEATS.TXT, different modes USB,SMB,HDD - many permutations). On the subject of multitap tried with PS1 multitap and the MTAPMAN.IRX from a game with the version IOPRP253.IMG and it did not work either. Just much failure.

 

@krHACKen

I have a try on porting popstart to my own custom hardware called ps2netbox and ps2 network adapter with usb2.0.

It almost work now .

here is what I have done:
1) I write a faked usbd.irx and usbhdfsd.irx ,place them in mc0:/popstarter
2) Launch popstarter.elf as XX.Game.ELF after change byte 0x410 to 0x01 to enable debug mode.
3) every thing seems ok ,but stucked at last stage
4) I think some thing is right since
a) popstarter knowns it is launched as XX.Game.ELF
b) popstarter load POPS_IOX.PAK from mass and unpack it
c) popstarter found game2.VCD and start load it
5) In pcsx2 , pcsx2 crached , in real machine , ps2 return to browser interface
6) the same gam2.vcd ,pops_iox.pak works fine in real usb device

Can you give me some here to deal with this ?
The attachment is pcsx2 log file .

 

Due to the oddball video output from POPS, the G-Con 45 is probably unable to calibrate.
Adjusting the H/Vsync timings and fixing the VBLANK issues would be a good start, but then there will be another major problem : Other lightguns use IRQ10. IRQ handling sucks already, and POPS wont let you trap ports that are "unsupported". In other words, the deal is beyond the IRX juju I'm affraid .

Because of IRX interdependencies. Modules have to be loaded in a specific order and match the expected exports.
On a side note, the padman module of POPS isn't standard. It was built/designed specifically for POPS and doesn't come from the SDK set of libs.

@ps2netbox , lines 1017 and 1023 :

This does not look good. POPS isn't supposed to create VMCs. It's POPStarter's job. Sounds like fioGetstat from POPS has failed. Try this :
Go to offset 0x417, increase the value by one, retry. Re-do this till POPS is able to mount the VMCs.
If you're at value 0x05 and it still does not work, then the cause is somewhere else...

It's just an idea. I'm not sure why POPS kicks you out to the OSD. According to the log, despite the VMC file creation attempts, it could mount the VCD and parse its TOC, and init the core and the display anyway. Weird...

Also, try the last beta. USB mode was reported kinda bugged in RIP 06.

TLB Miss related errors are normal. POPS doesn't run on PCSX2. A matter of TLB config I guess.
OT : And, the PC address (00F71B74h) sounds good. It's within 2nd recompiler cache. But if the log is accurate, 5F000084h is not mapped, or at least should NOT be accessed. From what I recall, the PS1 RAM mirror belongs to 40000000h, PS1 SPM mirror to 5F800000h, PS1 BIOS mirror to 5FC00000h, registers to the PS2 SPM, the rest to the EERAM.

 

@kHn - based on what you know about the PS1 architecture and ps2, do you think there will ever be a chance to run ps1 software natively in ps2 mode?

I understand the IOPs is in effect the PS1 chip. On detection of a ps1 disk, the ps2 changes IOPS into ps1 mode.
In reading about the PS2 SDK, given IRX files are loaded into IOPs and run in a multi threaded environment, I'm wondering if it would it be possible to create a "ps1" irx (possibly based on a hacked ps1drv (stored in eeprom) that could effectively trick the IOPs to running native ps1 code while still being in ps2 mode (unless this is what pops is already doing?). Just a thought.

 

Thanks for your reply.

It is the normal behave in usbhdfsd.irx code in ps2sdk .
when open file in read write mode ,usbhdfsd always do this .
I change this code ,pops acts like before.

I have no idea to continue ....

Bye the way ,do you have any interesting on ps2netbox or ps2 usb 2.0 adapter ?
I designed the software and hardware. Both of them are highly popular in Chinese ps2 fans.

 

What does your fakeusb.irx module do? From your log file, I guess it is meant to replace the real USBHDFSD module, to redirect I/O to another device. If so, could you please explain how it works?

I have this feeling that POPS took different routes within PCSX2 and on the real PlayStation 2. Given that PCSX2 is an emulator, it is possible that some things work differently.

What code did you change?

From what we can see, POPS/POPStarter has opened the VMC file in O_RDWR mode, which kHn mentioned is an indicator that POPS failed to mount the VMC (and hence created a new file in its place). So that message appearing is normal for USBHDFSD.

Is this product yours? If you really created new, compatible hardware (i.e. new network adaptor) for the PS2, perhaps you may want to create a new thread to talk about it. I am personally hoping that someday, we can have a proper, compatible network adaptor for the PlayStation 2.

 

Yes, It is designed by me. In fact ,I have two production . One called Ps2netbox ,wich use a lighweight network protol to communicate to a fpga powered custom hardware with 2.5 inch SATA/IDE harddisk inside .The other called Ps2 network adappter with USB 2.0 ,which have a ps2 network adapter interface to ps2 fat ,and embeded a USB 2.0 Host Controller .

I write a custom ps2atad.irx to talk to my hardware.

Hundreds of them are sold in China . Many fans like it and like POPStarter . So I want port it to support my hardware .

fakeusb.irx is my module which redirect MassReadSector and MassWriteSector to my custom hardware .

Code in Fs_driver of usbhdfsd.irx
static int fs_open(iop_file_t* fd, const char *name, int mode) {
....

before :
if(mode & O_WRONLY ) { //dlanor: corrected bad test condition
changed to:
if(mode & O_WRONLY & (O_CREAT|O_TRUNC) ) { //dlanor: corrected bad test condition



@kHn
Thanks for you reply ! "It's within 2nd recompiler cache. " After I change PCSX2 to interpreter instead of compiler .
POPS launch the game succeeded. But on a real machine , it failed to OSD.

 

Do you have a link to an english website describing these two products in detail? Very interested

 

Ah, I see. Thank you for your explanation!

Ah okay. Just to confirm: you named it usbhdfsd.irx and placed it in the POPSTARTER folder, didn't you?
I do not know how kHn made POPStarter locate the usbhdfsd module, but if it goes by filename, then fakeusb.irx would be probably loaded as another module (and not usbhdfsd). When two instances of this module are loaded, then the later one may partially override the earlier, which can cause some malfunction.

While RegisterLibraryEntries will indicate if the library was already registered, this does not work when an older (before 10/10/2014) USBHDFSD module is loaded first. This export table was added on 10/10/2014.

I don't think you should need to do this; the check is fine, but POPS is really opening the file with O_WRONLY set.