[PS2] POPS stuff & POPStarter

Joseri, you tested Digimon World 3? if you go to Inn located on Protocol Forest and go to Basement (Inn) the game crashes

 

I really admire your amazing dedication, great work, thanks for share this amazing piece, joseri!!

Greetings.

 

Eu demorei mais de sete meses para terminar a lista, eu fiz em ordem alfabética, então, eu testei este jogo nos primeiros meses, os jogos foram testados no início de 15 a 20 minutos, todos as informações que eu digitei na lista, foram baseadas neste tempo de teste, eu explico isso no texto “MUITO IMPORTANTE_VERY IMPORTANT.pdf”, dentro da pasta “Explicações e outros_Explications and other”. Eu não poderia gastar mais tempo, se eu fizesse isso, eu nunca terminaria de fazer a lista.
Dica: Coloque o personagem parado na frente de onde você vai entrar e espere uns 6 a 8 segundos, antes de pressionar o botão para entrar. É que eu lembrei do jogo “EHRGEIZ_GOD_BLESS_THE_RING”, por isso, estou pedindo para você fazer isso. Pode ser que funcione ou não.
Obs: O jogo é “NTSC-U” “SLUS_014.36”?

Translated by Chrome

It took me more than seven months to complete the list, I did in alphabetical order, so I tested this game in the first months, the games were tested at the beginning 15 to 20 minutes, all the information that I typed in the list, were based this testing time, I explain that the text “MUITO IMPORTANTE_VERY IMPORTANT.pdf”, inside the folder “Explicações e outros_Explications and other”. I could not spend more time, if I did, I would never end to make the list.
Tip: Place the character just in front of where you will enter and wait for about 6 to 8 seconds before pressing the button to enter. Because I remembered the game “EHRGEIZ_GOD_BLESS_THE_RING”, so I'm asking you to do this. It may work or not.
Note: The game is “NTSC-U” “SLUS_014.36”?

 

Hey guys, I hope someone can help. I originally set up my HDD to use __POPS partition and everything worked perfectly. I then decided to move to individual partitions for each game i.e. PP.ROLL_AWAY and although the games boot and play fine my saves located in the POPS save partition are showing as corrupt data!! Any ideas? I can access them with uLaunch and they appear to be ok, they just show as corrupt. If i move the .VCD back to the __POPS partition and boot from there they save perfectly again... Confused!!!

 

Thanks for reporting that. The function which exports the partition icon to the VMC directory was broken, I removed it.

Download mirror 1
Download mirror 2

 

Any changes in WIP 03?

 

WIP 03 was released on a french forum when ASSEMbler was down...

 

Hello here !
I realize that i missed a whole part of POPStarter update (i've stucked to WIP02). I even don't noticed the previous release on Metagames :/
I'll have to study all that i've missed !

 

Ya. Sorry for not publishing the WIP 03 on ASSEMblergames. ASSEMblergames was down when I compiled it, then I went through a depressive and difficult moment of my life...
Anyway. WIP 03 (and WIP 04) had no emulation/compatibility improvement. Just bugfixes. I released that semi-worthless WIP 03 build because I bugfixed uLE the same time too. So I put uLE in the same package as POPStarter...
EDIT : oh ya, and there's a VCD to bin+cue converter in the package too lol

In a nutshell fixes are :
- WIP 03 -
* Titles in icon.sys should be written "correctly" now
* The user ID is properly inserted in VMC file names
* The PS logo is back for all region, not just NTSC J (as long as the game has a valid bootsector with the genuine PS logo)
- WIP 04 -
* The bug that was reported by cde (thanks again) was fixed. POPStarter no longer save a garbage icon in VMC directories.
- Unofficial LaunchELF with POPStarter support -
* Now it works on slimlines. No more crash when you launch an ELF/VCD

 

Hello kHn.

Je suis toujours présent sur la scène PS2 et je met à jour les listes pour les supports Disques Internes et pour USB. J'ai aussi fait des tests avec des disques internes Sata, c'est presque identiques à quelques exceptions près. Tu peux me contacter sur ce site ou à l'adresse suivante : "a-l-l-a-n-g-o-l-l-e-m@g-m-a-i-l-point-c-o-m". À bientôt.

In Engrish :

I'm always on the PS2 this stage and I will update the lists for media drives Internal and USB. I also did tests with internal Sata drives is almost identical with some exceptions. You can contact me on this site or at the following address: bla bla ...

Kind regards.

 

Hi,

glad to see you again, the files pops.elf and ioprp252.img from WIP 02 works for the WIP 04 right?
There is no any change in this two files?
Thank you very much for your work.

Best regards.

 

Thanks krHACKen, all working fine now. VMC saves are perfect. ElPatas, i'm using my original POPS.elf and IOP.img with no problems..

 

Eu ainda não tinha testado as versões 0.3 e 0.4 em “USB” (eu não tenho PS2 Fat), acabei de fazer isso. Veja o resultado.

Jogos testados:
--AMERICAN_POOL (SLUS_014.88);
--CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED (SCUS_942.44).

Como eu fiz o teste:
Eu criei uma pasta “POPS” no USB, e coloquei dentro da mesma, os arquivos:
“AMERICAN_POOL.VCD”, “CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.VCD”, “PFS_WRAP.BIN” e “POPS.PAK”.
Depois, eu criei mais três pastas na raiz do USB, com os nomes de “WIP2”, “WIP3” e “WIP4”, coloquei dentro das pastas, os seguintes arquivos:
“XX.AMERICAN_POOL.ELF” e “XX.CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.ELF”.

Dentro da pasta “WIP2” (POPStarter_r13_WIP_02):
“XX.AMERICAN_POOL.ELF” e “XX.CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.ELF”;

Dentro da pasta “WIP3” (POPStarter_r13_WIP_03):
“XX.AMERICAN_POOL.ELF” e “XX.CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.ELF”;

Dentro da pasta “WIP4” (POPStarter_r13_WIP_04):
“XX.AMERICAN_POOL.ELF” e “XX.CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.ELF”;

Resultado:
POPStarter_r13_WIP_02 e POPStarter_r13_WIP_03: Funcionam perfeitamente (USB);
POPStarter_r13_WIP_04: Tela preta (USB), nos dois jogos testados.

Translated by Chrome

I had not even tested versions 0.3 and 0.4 in “USB” (I do not have PS2 Fat), just do it. See the result.

Tested games:
--AMERICAN_POOL (SLUS_014.88);
--CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED (SCUS_942.44).

As I took the test:
I created a “POPS” folder on the USB, and put in the same, the files:
“AMERICAN_POOL.VCD”, “CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.VCD”, “PFS_WRAP.BIN” and “POPS.PAK”.
Then I created three more folders in the USB root, with the names of “WIP2”, “WIP3” and “WIP4” put inside the folders, the following files:
“XX.AMERICAN_POOL.ELF” and “XX.CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.ELF”.

Inside the folder “WIP2” (POPStarter_r13_WIP_02):
“XX.AMERICAN_POOL.ELF” and “XX.CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.ELF”;

Inside the folder “WIP3” (POPStarter_r13_WIP_03):
“XX.AMERICAN_POOL.ELF” and “XX.CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.ELF”;

Inside the folder “WIP4” (POPStarter_r13_WIP_04):
“XX.AMERICAN_POOL.ELF” and “XX.CRASH_BANDICOOT_3_WARPED.ELF”;

Result:
POPStarter_r13_WIP_02 and POPStarter_r13_WIP_03: Work perfectly (USB);
POPStarter_r13_WIP_04: Black screen (USB), the two tested games.

 

Thanks for the report. Now that's horribly odd. I've read joleks' report @ PSX-Scene and did some USB tests, the USB mode appears to be completely broken in WIP 04 indeed :facepalm: . Here's where it freezes :

Spoiler

just after POPStarter tries to run POPS. POPS does not even init the display... It sounds like a memory corruption or a POPS.PAK decompression failure... I'm gonna give a try with the raw POPS ELF.

EDIT : Nope. ELF + IMG = No go . Hmmm, what the hell ? I haven't touched the USB code though :/ .

EDIT2 : This is sick. I've un-commited the last change (restored the broken icon function) and now USB works O_O...

 

@krHACKen
Could we launch ELF + IMG in USB mode ?
Or how to decompress POPS.PAK and compress it back on Win 7 ?
I hope to modify POPS.elf for some reasons.

 

Thank you for the confirmation

Best regards.

 

@ElPatas
Yes, same POPS.ELF/IOPRP files. Since POPStarter patches POPS by itself and the POPS files are original $ONY files, I don't need to put my hacks on them for now. Perhaps I'll need to physically modify them in the future... in order to possibly make POPS run in the System2x6 for example lol.

@GXB
Yes, the POPS ELF and IOPRP files are loaded in USB mode if POPS.PAK is not present. They do work in USB mode in all the POPStarter 13 WIPs (except in WIP 01 which has no PFS Wrapper support and in that last WIP 04 which has its USB mode totally broken).
There's no unpacker for POPS.PAK. And even if one managed to recompress a modified POPS.ELF, POPStarter would refuse to load it because it verifies the PAK file "integrity" (so the user can see "IS NOT POPS" in the debug texts if he inadvertently put a wrong file).
POPStarter does check the raw ELF too, but it's way less agressive. I think it just verifies that the built-in PS BIOS of the ELF is the original one (because POPStarter does patch it, so it has to be the original one). So maybe it's possible to run an edited POPS ELF as long as the BIOS is the good one...
Factually, the user must craft a PATCH or TROJAN bin file to patch POPS, or use a cheat engine.

@all
I found what's wrong in WIP 04. The IOP reset system gets unaligned when POPStarter is in USB mode (weird huh ?). I fixed it, will publish yet another fixed binary as soon as I can pack it.
USB users, downgrade to WIP 03 (POPStarter_r13_WIP_03.zip), as it seems to work OK in USB mode. I'm sorry comrades.

 

@krHACKen
Thank you for your reply.
In fact, I want POPStarter to run a BIOS-modified POPS.ELF because I found that some games were refused to boot with a modifed BIOS.BIN alone in USB mode. I want to test whether it would boot or not with built-in BIOS modified.

 

Ah, OK. Well I think that POPStarter will not load the POPS ELF if you replace its BIOS.

When you use a BIOS.BIN, POPStarter replaces the built-in BIOS with your BIOS.BIN the same way you do with an hexadecimal editor (it overwrites the POPS BIOS in the memory), so even if POPStarter allowed you to run the modified ELF, it would surely give you the same result as when using a BIOS.BIN.
Such test can be done with POPS-00001, but less the POPStarter 13 compatibility modes .

 

Then, why the game not boot with a font-modified BIOS.BIN while without BIOS.BIN the game boots successfully?
Is it related to the mechanism of BIOS check of POPS ELF itself?