[PS2] POPS stuff & POPStarter

Error 200 means that there a module inter-dependency error. MTAPMAN requires SIO2MAN v2.x.

 

Test results

FFVII
- When starting up, string: Sony computer entertainment loads in ~20seconds instead of original ~9seconds, so slowdown. Also some flickering
- Fails at new game (FMV problem?)
- Using gamesave: when leaving exploding power plant, screen freezes
- Test all modes to make new game working, but no success

FFVIII
- Slight flickering at intro. Opening FMV loads perfectly, conversation with quistis and walking as well.
- Freeze after Balamb FMV, just before quistis' instructions in classroom for Field Exam (classroom is already slightly visible)
- No modes tried yet

Chrono Cross
- Slight audio stuttering and a ticking sound at times. Also weird audio noises after battle and when entering world map. Playable, no freezes encountered yet.
- When entering menu, image trembles a little
- No modes tried yet

 

Thank you for the report.
We've encountered similar problems with some other games during our betatests. The compatibility mode 0x04 is able to fix them in most cases.

To force that mode, download PATCH_0.BIN, copy it in the VMC directory of Chrono Cross, launch the game.
If the compatibility mode 0x04 (which is forced by the PATCH file above) didn't improve anything, you can go back in the VMC directory and delete the PATCH file.
Otherwise if something "works" better in the game with this mode activated, please let me know it; so I could integrate its auto-activation in the next build of POPStarter.

Loading freesio2.irx before freemtap.irx seems to work... At least I got no inter dependency error when I tried :

MODULE_0.IRX = freesio2.irx
MODULE_1.IRX = freemtap.irx

Also, remember that POPS isn't yet running when the user's IRX are being executed. It goes like this :
Buffering the user's IRX -> Resetting the IOP with IOPRP252.IMG -> Executing the user's IRX -> Executing POPS -> POPS executes its own modules -> Emulation threads are run.

 

krHACKen, make usb version plz

 

Any chance of being Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX: Maximum Remix getting fixed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzpnYfxxhi8&index=1&list=UUEIL2pPdjalDWPfl8KLdLFg

The game works, but there is some graphic blackness
and the rider disappears when playing.

The only way the game is playable is when you change the view in the options menu to "above".

Tried a BIOS.BIN in the VMC folder and the patches with no effect.

I was thinking of a Gameshark code to move the view back a bit, it might do the trick.

 

Pops USB version is probably already done but KrHacken must wait for permission of the USB patch author first, as he already have written:

 

@krHACKen Hi, I want not bother you dude, but I just was thinking for all us (the USB users), if you can just make a patch to disable the network requirement for the old POPS-00001 version? why I'm asking you for it? since, I can see you will not add USB support for new versions if you can't contact Delcro (and from what I can see, it is very difficult to contact him), so this can be the best solution for us (the USB users) until you can finally be able to contact Delcro.

Thanks for your attention.

 

Game Identification Data Extractor (IdentRip) v1.00

For those who want to contribute by reporting compatibility modes that are needed for particular games, here's a disc identification tool :
IdentRip v1.00 (recommended for batch/command line users)
IdentRip v1.00 with pause (press any key to close the terminal)

That thing combines blobs of your BIN/CUE/VCD and saves them as a small file. The small file is the stuff needed by POPStarter for identifying the VCD and activating the compatibility modes or LibCrypt cracks automatically. It will be integrated in the next POPStarter build, along with the compatibility mode(s) and the game title + game ID you've reported. Then thanks to you for Great Justice, the compatibility modes will be automatically activated.


USB. Sorry Gentlemen, but I can't make a PPF for disabling the PFS Wrapper components in POPS-00001, for two reasons :
1) The stuff that wants you to use the NIC and plug the ETH cable is in the PFS wrapper itself. I am not the PFS wrapper author, and distributing cracks for butchering a homebrew without the author's agreement isn't my thing. It has been done like that to be used as-is.
2) POPS-00001 was a proof-of-concept and I discontinued it... ... more than one year ago.
I feel your pain mates, but please understand that if I start speading PPFs/hexedits of programs I'm not the maker of (without the permission of the author), I should then stop coding my own suff, marry Yeshuachrist, and make the ISO zone my HQ lol.

 

After freesio2 and freemtap loading all joypads just stopped working (it even without multitap). So you can test if mtap library is applied fine if first joypad still is functional

As about Crash Bandicoot Racing (SCPS-10118) which is marked as playable now - I can confirm - this great game is working fine except of such annoying thing that I cannot finish any race. After race I can see those chess flag and thats all.

 

Sad. So unfortunately it needs a full implementation with subroutines for initing the mtap libs properly.
Yesterday a tester told me that Gran Turismo PAL freezes at the copyright notice when a second pad is connected.
The controls of Heart of Darkness FR only respond after you've unplugged and re-plugged the pad.
The IGR menu takes only the 2nd pad inputs when 2 controllers are connected.
AlGollan84 told me the Negcon does not work correctly (I can't remember what the matter is)...
... so it seems that the pad stuff is quite bugged in the emulator.
Oh, wasn't the 1st minigame of Bishi Bashi Special 3 Demo playable with a footmat ? Perhaps the controller problems are related to a "special" juju designed for that stuff.

Yep, all I could do to that one is add a boot fix so it does not crash when it's launched. But the f**king voices are played constantly so we can't quit the single race, start a race in adventure mode, and the intro animation (which starts when no button is pressed in the main menu) freezes. I didn't manage to find a way to stop the voices playback .
As for European and US versions, the boot fixes I made work, but the voice issue cause them to stall at the $ony Computer Entertainment presentation, so I did not include them in POPStarter, useless, unplayable at all.

 

@krHACKen I understand and respect you dude, but personally I doubt Delcro going to bother if you use his function for the USB support (of course, you should give the corresponding credits to him), I mean, which could be the problem if you give it to good use? But anyway, like I say before, I respect you.

Greetings.

 

I agree with krHACKen's stand. It is stupid to hack another author's program.

And hacks are not clean jobs.

At most, we'll write our own replacement.

 

Yep, will try mode4 with Chrono Cross. As seen in post #535 in this thread, the use of mode4 makes sure FFIX battles load all graphics succesfully now, and mode1 fixes BGM for Spyro 2! So perhaps you could integrate those two fixes/improvements in the next popstarter build?
On a sidenote, testing a game with all possible modes (including combinations of modes, taking in to account that mode 1,2,3 and 5 may not be combined), 19 in total, can get kind of tedious. If all available BIOSes for a region are tested as well with all modes, it could be about 19x5 or sth testing possibilities per game... If one also does test different areas in the game with does variants, i.e. with the use of savegames it gets even worse. However, if combinations of modes don't interfere with each other, say mode 1, 4, and 6, it's useless to test them apart but instead put a patch file in the VMC folder of the game where all three modes are activated at once. That could save time.

 

Clever idea.
I made a camera hack and gave it a try. http://youtu.be/tF5mEQmHxtU
As you can see, the camera is way behind the rider. The floor textures are still disappearing, but not the rider and the BMX (only a few times, we can't really notice it).
I also tried to put the camera even more away from the rider, got the same floor texture problem and it turned into some kind of "fish eyes" view that made the game inconfortable to play.
So yeah, perhaps moving the camera angle upward (like the "above" camera type does, but not so high) could fix the floor texture problem... I'll try to do that another day.
The hack is uploaded here. Copy it in the VMC directory of Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX: Maximum Remix if you want to use it.
It's for SLUS-01347 and I'm not sure it'll work in every levels and game modes.

Sure. If possible, please send me the identification files of each disc. Identification files can be generated using the IdentRip tool I've posted.
Without the disc identification data, POPStarter could not recognize the VCDs, hence why I need those important files for making the auto-activation of compatibility modes possible.

Thanks for testing and reporting the useful modes. AlGollan84 also told me that mode 4 makes his French copy of FFIX work, but I couldn't verify it since I never found the time to make the bloody LibCrypt cracks for the PAL versions. Mode 4 is probably what all the Final Fantasy IX versions need.
As for Spyro 2, poor PAL version owners can't play it IIRC. It stays an outrageously long moment on the Insomniac logo and does not load any level...

The documentation I gave about the compatibility mode effects is vague, because the modes can impact games in different ways.
Some examples :
Mode 1 :
Restores BGMs in Tekken 3 (nothing else)
Restores BGMs in Castlevania SOTN and also helps in loading levels (because the level loading problem is caused by the BGM playback problem)
Fixes the character speeches problem in Apocalypse (speeches were played randomly/continuously without that mode)
Restores BGMs and voices in MediEvil, and also helps in reaching the next menus/screens

Like the documentation states, modes 1, 2, 3, and 5 are variants of the same hack. We can't combine them, because if we do, they will override and overWRITE themselves in the EERAM.
So we can say it's only worth trying these modes one by one with games that have BGM/SFX problems (mute BGM, anarchic voice/SFX playback...) and with games that take ages to load levels (because it may be related to an XA decoding failure or a SPU timeout like in Castlevania SOTN...).

Mode 4... what can I say about that one... it can do MIRACLES or nothing at all. $ony made the GPU emulation module store a fixed value in two virtual GPU registers. Some game don't like that at all. In "cases of games that don't like that", we find Rapid Racer (flickering), Gran Turismo 2 (slowdown), Enigma (missing transparency/green backgrounds), Clock Tower (AV out of sync and slowdowns), Colony Wars (cracking noises and fatal emulation crash when the ship is launched), PaRappa The Rapper (flickering that makes the emulator CRASH when you start playing)... all these problems were solved by activating the compatibility mode 4.
Mode 4 undoes what $ony did. It is worth trying it with any game that is messed up (even with games that have a very minor emulation problem).

Mode 6 forbids the POPS built-in BIOS to load and execute the PS OSD (by PS OSD, I mean the shell which auths the disc and displays the PS logo). With mode 6, the kernel is inited as well and the OSD never sees the light of the virtual PS1 RAM's user area. Useful when a game gets stuck during the disc auth, the SYSTEM.CNF parsing or the main PS-X EXE loading. The game that made me implement this mode is the Japanese version of Dead or Alive, and it's the only game needing that mode I've found so far.

As for BIOSes, I don't know if the use of another BIOS might be needed. I'm not even sure it could improve anything.
The very lame way I've hacked the built-in BIOS in POPStarter 12 and the previous versions is history. Now POPStarter 13 puts a softer hack to the built-in BIOS and its kernel is inited correctly.

Well, for performing my test during the POPStarter development, I made 1 ELF per game for each mode (like written in 3-ADVANCED.TXT, it's possible to hardcode a single compatibility mode in the ELF so it's permanently activated). Each mode was tested individually to see their benefits on installed games. The setup looked like this :
hdd0_mode1/MY_GAME_1.ELF
hdd0_mode1/MY_GAME_2.ELF
hdd0_mode1/MY_GAME_3.ELF
hdd0_mode2/MY_GAME_1.ELF
hdd0_mode2/MY_GAME_2.ELF
hdd0_mode2/MY_GAME_3.ELF
hdd0_mode3/MY_GAME_1.ELF
hdd0_mode3/MY_GAME_2.ELF
hdd0_mode3/MY_GAME_3.ELF
......
and so I was sure that the tested mode was really needed. Making PATCH files with combined modes indeed saves time, but can also cause a lot of hassles once you have to determine what unneeded mode can be disabled. Not to mention that activating an incorrect mode can also lead to disastrous results and compatibility loss.


EDIT : By the way, did anyone try the POPStarter 13 KELF tha old school way with PP. partitions ? Does it work ? I didn't try it before making the bundle oops...

 

krHACKen I'm sure Delcro will not mind if you use PFS WRAPPER in good order, and many peopels use slim models, popstarter actual only for fat users

 

Boot.kelf works fine
BTW about IGR - is it possible to get original pictures? Cause I dont know actual sizes and formats for proper replacing

yeah XA emulation was the most difficult part of all homebrew emulators (as I know)

 

Alright, if i understood well for use a mode is needed copy it to the VMC directory,
and then make a file with the IdenRip tool for send it to you and integrate the mode
in the build, but where are all this modes for try them?

From what i see you posted the patch_0.bin of mode 0x04 in the 543 post on this thread,
but where are the other 5 modes?
I see there is 3 patch_bins in the folder Documentation (7, 8 and 9), this are also
compatibility modes?

And how i can make a subrutine patch for the LibCrypt protected games?

I like make it for games, or some language versions of games, which never got
a LibCrypt patch, like this ones:

Technomage: Return to Eternity (PAL)
TOCA: World Touring Cars (PAL)
Lucky Luke: Western Fever (PAL)

I added a lot of games in the new compatibility list, tested with the standar r13,
but without try the compatibility modes.

Kind regards.

 

Well I've fallen at the first hurdle - I'm having problems setting up the partition for the games. I use uLaunch ELF 4.42e and I've been trying to create a 100gb partition but it keeps failing for various reasons - sometimes it just fails to create a partition, sometimes it creates one but it's the wrong size (usually 2gb) and once it created a 100gb partition but reported that it was 160gb used so there was -60gb of space left. I tried using WinHIIP to format the drive and repair the drive structure but after that uLE 4.42e would still only make 2gb partitions. I tried 4.40h and that successfully created a 100gb partition but then I found that any partition called '__.POPS' isn't visible in hdd0: so I can't copy any files into it. I renamed it to +__.POPS, which made it visible, and then copied a game into it, but now uLE won't let me rename it back to '__.POPS' so obviously POPStarter now can't find the game.

I realise this is more of a uLE problem but can anyone here help?

 

Use ule wip7 I fixed such a problems in that build.

 

Thank you very much for that krHACKen!

I have the original disc that I can play on my PS2 or PS3....would be nice to play with the Infinite Time Gameshark code which makes the game much more enjoyable lol. I was thinking of buying a Gameshark Lite from eBay just so I can use codes on that game (can't remember if it works on the PS2 though). I have a modded 7501 model PSX with a custom flashed Action Replay plugin unit, but unfortunately it's not running very well.

P.S. I played The Need For Speed: High Stakes with a couple Gameshark codes on, it was so great! Thank you again for the PS2rd POPS stuff you did! Do you take donations?