[PS2] POPS stuff & POPStarter

I have to know since I can only hear some murmuring going about, is there now a problem with the USB drivers? There's no need to defragment the files, unless you are using OPL because OPL's in-game support for USB has no filesystem driver.
I saw this misinformation first appear on ps2-home, but I no longer set foot there.

I would say that anything up to 2TB should be supported now. I attempted to make disks up to 2TB compatible, but I have not heard any user-feedback ever since that was done.

 

Bonjour @craftierspace.

Pour la clé USB, vous pouvez utiliser une capacité de 64 ou 128 Go. Je peux vous le confirmer car j'ai une clé de 64 Go de type USB3 qui fonctionne très bien avec "POPStarter rev13". Les jeux sont parfaitement lancés. Un Disque dur externe USB fait aussi parfaitement l'affaire.

Cordialement.

For the USB, you can use a capacity of 64 or 128 GB. I can confirm it because I have a key to 64GB USB3 guy who works very well with "POPStarter rev13". The games are fully launched. USB External Hard Drive is also just the job.

Best regards.

 

Thanks @AlGollan84 and @sp193 for letting me know I've been asking around forums and finally someone told me.

 

Só estou informando o meu caso particular.
Eu nunca usei 2TB, mas, eu uso uma gaveta para HD e um HD 3.5” 1TB com 670GB de espaço ocupado, e funciona perfeitamente pelo USB.

Translated by Chrome

I'm just informing my particular case.
I never used to 2TB, but, I use a drawer for HD and HD 3.5” 1TB with 670GB of space occupied, and works perfectly through USB.

 

I'm quite unsure of whether there's a problem with the USB or not. All the POPStarter builds that I posted here at ASSEMblergames were compiled with the same old USB drivers. The users can load their own in-game USB drivers but I never felt the need to check if loading the latest ones improves or breaks anything.
When building the betas, I replaced the USB drivers two or three times just because we tried to get POPStarter working on backward compatible PS3s. POPStarter WIP 06 Beta 3 (compiled on 07/12) has USB mass driver and filesystem driver which were compiled on 2015/07/02. FMV stuttering issues began here. The problems with FMVs have ceased after I rolled back to the old drivers of POPStarter WIP 02, in POPStarter WIP 06 Beta 6 (compiled on 07/27).

In a nutshell, the most recent USB drivers I tried were compiled on 07/02 and the game FMVs stuttered with them (several users also reported the same behaviour). I didn't try the later drivers with the august 1st commits.

As for the file fragmentation, I haven't yet verified my theories about modding IOPCD for less intensive file seekings. All I know is that forcing IOPCD to cache just one sector, with a 64K cluster FAT32 formatted USBHDD and a fragmented disc image, obviously ends in an odd crash lol (while it works no problem using an internal HDD).


At the moment I can't play around with PS2 stuff... haven't been on ps2home for a while either. Though the gentlemen around told me the last beta works well . To summarize what has been done/added to the beta :
- A fix so POPS does not disable the controller vibration when you push the analog button
- A POPS-internal texture filter that can be enabled/disabled by pressing a button combo
- The ability to use GameShark/Action Replay cheat codes you write to a text file
- The ability to mimic the CD lid open/closed status (totally useless to the end user for now)
- You can now choose which VMC folder to use with your game (folder name must be specified in a text file)
- Multiple VCD folders are now supported in USB mode
- You can enable the compatibility modes with a text file, and even disable the PAL patcher
- The USB delay value of the PFS wrapper can be set. Here too, with a variable in a text file
- The OSD.BIN handler is fixed (broken in the WIP 05... who cares)
- Bugfixes, bugfixes, bugfixes... and LibCrypt shit completely redesigned
- EE memory allocation for hooking subroutines safely
- 5 more game compatibility fixes, for Alundra 2, Crash Bandicoot, Crash Team Racing, Cybernetic Empire and Super Tokusatsu Taisen 2001
- 2 disc swap fixes, for Metal Gear Solid: Special Missions and Driver 2

 

Hi krHACKen,

the last beta do not works well, not only the last beta, also all the betas and all versions from the WIP 03 version.
We discovered, that most games are broken, do not starts, they freezes in black screen, happens more in the
USB devices but also in the internal HDD, for example the game Castlevania Chronicles.

Maybe you not readed the last informations in the compatibility thread on ps2home? check it:

http://ps2home.freeforums.net/thread/197/official-popstarter-game-compatibility-lists?page=2

Starting with the comment of ruffonetas about he needed use the psp 6.60 bios for make working
games that they don't need nothing before for work.

Then i tested all the emu versions until i discovered that something changed from WIP 02 to WIP 03
brokes the games, and the games which are PAL and NTSC-U.

The PAL and NTSC-U broken games needs now use the psp 6.60 bios or use the Mode 6 for initiate, or black screen,
while in WIP 02 they don't needs nothing.

Seems the problem is related to show the PSX logo, if this is true i think is better you remove it completey from the emu,
is preferably not to having to check now that a game worked before now freezes, and need to put a Mode each time
we need play it when before no needed nothing.

You can take a look please?

Best regards

 

Thank you for clearing this up. There are two drivers, USBD and USBHDFSD. You know what the two do, and that they have two different sets of changes made to them.
For compatibility with the PS3, only replacing USBD is strictly required. Actually, it was more than just a compatibility fix for the PS3; the glitch was causing the OHCI controller's interrupt mask to be incorrectly cleared. Somehow, it seems to speed up the loading of USBD on even fat PS2 consoles, although I did not conduct a study to determine what its actual effects were.

As for why performance might be worse, I think that it's because I added some useless code into two places, that loads a word from 0xBFC00000 to $zero. Honestly, I have no idea what they're supposed to do, but I copied them from the SONY USBD (3100) module. I have no idea why their engineers wanted to do that, but I wanted to ensure best compatibility across all consoles and so I copied that weird design too.
Other than issues with the PS3 in general, our current module has (or had?) a problem with some USB devices on slimline consoles. There's something about a timing issue (I remember that it's too fast, that the device won't have time to repsond properly to some part of the USB communication process), so this was an attempt to solve such issues... if they weren't actually caused by these devices actually not being compliant with OHCI.

I am planning to make adjustments to USBD in due time, but right now I am effectively without the PS2 for 5 days a week because I have moved into the hostel in my campus. Without my consoles.

BTW, I wasn't referring to your statement about fragmentation and I didn't know that you made such a statement anyway. A long time ago, there was a statement that the new USB drivers requires total file defragmentation on ps2home, by another user. But I can't find that post anymore. Anyway, thanks for clearing things up.

This is very weird because I have not heard of anything similar happening in the application of USBHDFSD in other software. Neither do I have a clue as to what's wrong, given that it still works fine everywhere else. :/

In the meantime, everything should work fine (with the exception of the poorer performance), if you used the new USBD module and the old USBHDFSD module.

 

Hello Krakhen

Happy to see continue to support Popstarter project.

Is it possible now to play with multi disc game like Metal gear Solid FF series (NTSC/U), and how?
If yes work fine or issues?

thanks

 

AFAIK, these multi-disk games still requiere to be combine to work with POPS, using kits.

- FFVII is reported having a black screen during battles (impossible to see characters/enemies and the background)

- FFVIII & FFIX : Somechump reported that earlier in thread :

kHn also said :

- MGS should work (the cutscene that prevents POPS to run it at some moment in the game - dont remember which one (Darpa maybe?) - is skipped).

 

I gathered in a single post (in french) all the explanations scattered for the new POPStarter features, I thought it could be nice to have it here in english also. I hope kHn wont mind. (All explanations are of course from him)

• Last POPStarter beta : 2015/07/28 (Beta 7)
• Last uLE_kHn : uLE_kHn_20150727 (bundled with beta 6)

_________________________________________

A POPS-internal texture filter that can be enabled/disabled by pressing a button combo

• Filter enabled = Select+L1+R2
• Filter disabled = Select+L2+R1

The filter can be always enabled using a cheat code.

Screenshots :

Spoiler: Tomb Raider II

Filter disabled

Filter enabled ​

_________________________________________

The ability to use GameShark/Action Replay cheat codes you write to a text file

Create a text file nammed CHEATS.TXT, placed in the VMC folder of your game. In this text file, write $, then your code in GameShark/Action Replay format. Ex : $800AC402 0800

! Each game will have his own CHEATS.TXT file
! Some PS1 games need mastercodes otherwise they crash (ex : Air Race Championship). Only type C0 are supported.
Mastercodes of type C1 (aka activation on delay time) are not and will not be supported.
! You can enable a code for all your games if you place the CHEATS.TXT file in /POPS/ folder inteasted of the VMC folder

Some useful codes have been automatised :

• $SAFEMODE = Disable the cheat engine and only activate it after POPS has left the PS OSD. Some game codes do patch the memory area where the PS OSD is loaded, causing crashes and other garbage...
  
• $SMOOTH = Enables the smooth texture mapping at startup
  
• $CACHE1 = Makes POPS buffer 1 sector instead of 16
  
• $FAKELC = Loads a null LibCrypt magic word into the cop0 register. May be needed by some discs that have a messed up LC protection

_________________________________________

You can now choose which VMC folder to use with your game (folder name must be specified in a text file)

! Characters that are obviously not allowed are / \ and :
! VMCDIR.TXT will not be loaded if it's bigger than 103 bytes or if it contains more than 1 line
! New folder must still be placed in /POPS/ folder
! Can not be used to swap disk for multi-disk games
_________________________________________

Multiple VCD folders are now supported in USB mode

Folders mass:/POPS/, mass:/POPS0/, mass:/POPS1/... to mass:/POPS9/ can now received your VCDs (and will be read in this order). The usual files for /POPS/ folder (POPS.ELF, IOPRP252.IMG (or POPS.PAK), PFS_WRAP.BIN & the TM2s) must remain in /POPS/ folder.

! If you use any BIOS.BIN, PATCH_#.BIN, TROJAN_#.BIN or VMCDIR.TXT file in /POPS/ folder, you must copy them in all /POPS#/ folders.
_________________________________________

You can enable the compatibility modes with a text file, and even disable the PAL patcher

Works using the built-in cheat engine. Codes for this :

• $COMPATIBILITY_0x## = where ## is a hexadecimal value. Activates a compatibility mode. You can write as many $COMPATIBILITY_0x## as you want
  
• $NOPAL = Disables POPStarters' PAL patcher (similar to PATCH_9.BIN)

_________________________________________

The USB delay value of the PFS wrapper can be set. Here too, with a variable in a text file

Works using the built-in cheat engine. Code for this :

• $USBDELAY_# = where # is a number. Sets up the PFS wrapper USB delay

_________________________________________

Im not sure I covered everything. I hope there is no mistake in this post. Feel free to say if you see one, so I could fix the post.

Have fun guys and thx to krHACKen for his work.

 

Hi Dasa, is the Official POPStarter USB Compatibility List from you ? how can we make some changes on it? i saw your previous post with a link to report changes but link looks like down

 

@infesto : nope, it isnt from me. AlGollan84 is managing it.

If you want to make changes on it, use the form (even if the game is already listed). You report will replace the previous one - I guess.

 

Non, son rapport entrera en complément car les anciens rapports sont toujours valables. Ils servent pour comparaison entre eux.

Bonne journée.


No, his report will complement because the old reports are still valid. They serve for comparison between them.

Good day.

 

@DaSA Okay thanks for the link !

@AlGollan84 j'ai envoyé via le formulaire des infos sur des jeux testés
Bonne nuit

@AlGollan84 i sent informations in the report form about some games tested
good night

 

@krHACKen, I did some tests with the USB modules, and I can't seem to really find much of a performance difference... On the contrary, it seems to be better with the newer modules (lol).

With current modules:

With old USBD:

With old USBHDFSD module:

With old USBD and USBHDFSD modules:

The "new" modules were from the head commit, as of today.
The "old" modules were from commit c5adad0, dated August 30 2014.

The file read, is a 7.5MB PNG file that is stored on a USB SanDisk device. The read buffer is a 512KB buffer in IOP RAM.
The time format (for unlabeled numbers along the "Done" line) is in seconds, followed by microseconds.
I'm thinking that perhaps the performance issue, is caused by an increased latency of the USB functions. Perhaps still within the USBD module.
I was originally in a discussion with AKuHAK on making some performance tests, but I am now concerned that perhaps the performance issues will only occur when under certain conditions (like say, when used by POPS). If I were to compile a set of USB modules for you, would you be able and willing to put out a few test builds for people to give feedback on? Or would I be better off making my own tests?

 

Hello, I just wanted to join the forum to express my utmost gratitude to all who worked on and supported the POPStarter project ! I am but a humble noob... I took 2 days straight to set up the system, but it works now, albeit with a few hiccups and niggles.

Thus far, of those games I've tried, only two had problems; Gran Turismo 2 with its texture-less car models, and Need for Speed 3 with the unplayable music tracks. I've tried a few patches, but thus far, no luck.

I hope to keep track of the POPStarter project and submit more compatibility reports in the future. You guys are the best ! Thanks again.

 

Thanks for sharing your performance test report.
POPS is so oddball with the USB... It appears to start behaving abnormally when one or a few sector read aren't completed "in time". I don't think it's directly caused by the USB mass driver or the filesystem driver. Some users encounter problems that other users do not. POPS uses that infamous IOPCD module, which redirects CD commands to PFS. In USB mode, Delcro's PFS wrapper redirects PFS commands to mass. That's quite hacky. On the EE side, the POPS executable has timings for the CD drive emulation that I believe, were strictly crafted for reading data off the HDD. I still don't know exactly how POPS deals with physical disk sectors.

Well, I can't touch my PS2 stuff, and due to the recent events (you know what I'm talking about) I decided to leave the POPStarter project stalled for the moment.
POPStarter users can load external USB modules that are used in game... if they're willing to try out and report.
Modules get loaded from :
mass:/POPS/USBD.IRX
mass:/POPS/USBHDFSD.IRX
Max size of USBD can be 29952 bytes. Max size of USBHDFSD can be 50080.
Sorry, I can't try out myself nor publish test builds.

 

All those links are dead. Could you point me to where I can get a "kit" for MGS?
I tried making my own image once but multi-game loader doesn't work with folders, it straight up loads CD2 no matter how i set up the cfg. And MGS needs folders if it's going to be on one disc as the filenames are identical on both discs

 

Hello SP193.

Si kHn est d'accord, j'accepte volontiers de faire des tests sur USB pour améliorer votre Driver USB. Parlez-en en privé avec kHn, il me connaît et il sait ce que je suis capable de faire pour lui et pour vous ainsi que pour toute la communauté PS2/1.

J'attend vos réponses en privé ou sur ce Topic.

Mes respects.

 

@americandad

https://app.box.com/s/b02715f2fe91cdc42fd1/3/241393537

(please note that I did not try to combine that game myself)