PSX CD Boot Layout

Quick question,

We all know you can change the boot screen Licence text on a PSX CD using a Hex editor but does anyone know what you have to change to alter the region from Japanese, USA, Pal etc? i know their are some tools that do this but i want to know what you need to change exactly, i tried looking with a few file compare tools and a few hex editors (xvi32, ultraedit, ultracompare etc) but the licence change when using Boot Edit 2 for example has some very stange results, was hoping someone would have a simple answer,

thanks,

Mystical

 

AFAIK there are three kind of licence : licensea.dat licensee.dat licensej.dat ...
Injecting these files you can change the licence information of your cd.
you can simply hexedit one of these files to find what you have to change to alter the region of your iso files.
I hope that helps
btw I think that the licence info are in the first 13 sectors of the disk ( not 100% sure eh )

 

cheers dude, nice avatar

 

Thank to you !!
You have some mp

 

In fact, you can't (well, you can, but that cause a lot of problems with some versions of the PlayStation BIOS) because some of the BIOSes check the logo data before launching the game. :shrug:

 

Wait wait ... wait a moment :
I think that he just want to inject the correct licence files for his region ...
It is not possible to change the "REGION LOGO" , because that logo in stored in the psx bios and noth in the cd sectors !

 

Actually, the USA BIOS for SCPH-1001, 3001, 5001 will take custom 3D logos. :nod:

No Japanese bios will accept such a logo. The earliest one will skip logo playback if it doesn't like it. All others will keep checking, locking down the system on a black screen ... :evil:

 

basically im trying to write an app to read the licence info from a Playstation disc and want to know what needs to be changed to alter the region, the licence files i have seen dont match the ISO's from ones i have changed using BootEdit, maybe im missing something but just not sure on what the differences are

cheers for your help so far tho guys its much appreciated

oh and a quick note: i remember seeing lots of various PSX startup screens, you could inject them with certain tools, do you know which sectors of a disc make up this info?

 

I was meaning the one squared in red .. I'm sure that this logo ("SCEA") is stored in the psx bios. I'm almost sure that can't be changed in the european version..
By the way, yes you can replace the Playstation logo with a 3d custom logo ( that eventually is a TMD file) ...
Oliveira , are you sure that the "SCEA" logo is replacable in the SCPH-1001, 3001, 5001 ? I think not ... due it is stored in the bios

EDIT: u can also change the licensing phrases ... I was able to find the offset of that phrase hexediting a game iso.

 

It's the first 16 sectors of the disc (first 32 KB), as with any CD based system (MEGA-CD, Saturn, Dreamcast ...) they aways put the licence data (and on SEGA's case, a small part of the game program) ... :nod:

Keeping in mind that on the Dreamcast case, the REAL data (SEGA LOGO program) is on the high density area of the GD disc.

SONY stuff is just data, but it's there to enforce the license so it is checked on some of the regions.

Make sure that if working on PS1 .BIN (CDRWIN BIN/CUE) format files to strip all the ECC data so you end with a 2048 bytes per sector image before trying to open on a hex editor for viewing. :nod:

 

Oh THAT you won't be able to change, because it comes from the MECHANICS CONTROLLER (mechacon) for the motherboard of the console ... :lol:

Edit: Aaaaand that's WHAT makes an ORIGINAL PLAYSTATION DISC an ORIGINAL PLAYSTATION DISC. It's what the mechacon reads from the disc wooble at the TOC... OR ... What your PIC based modchip made the MECHACON think it found on the disc ... :lol:

 

Eh this is what I'm talking about .. that SCEA logo is not stored in the CD licence file, so can't be changed.
You can just inject any licence file you want , but that logo will still display your original bios version ( SCEA = AMERICA / SCEE = EUROPE / SCEJ = JAPAN ) ...

 

That's not a LOGO, it's an ASCII string the BIOS read from the CD-ROM drive interface register array. It's output by the MECHACON (CD-ROM drive CPU) after it authenticated the disc and unlocked for readout of data sectors.

Edit: Also that's why no emulator emulates the complete Playstation boot. It seems like no emulator coder had enough patience to work that stuff out.

 

im reading the license data straight from an ISO image so is this necessary?

 

If you're using a RAW image stuff will be interleaved with ECC data so it will look wrong/misaligned. :thumbsup:

Also the LOGO data is just the 3D logo and the long text string below it.

 

Like this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHwFSsJjEcM&list=UUB7H3cW5ntWJTSilyQvSYoA&feature=plcp

 

yeah thats the idea and i have used those tools for years but i want to be able to do it within my own software and not rely on other peoples as alot of them already have problems running on the newer operating systems and dont provide the additional options i want

now i've gotta work out this ECC data stuff within the image, i wonder if this is to do with the fact that when i read an American ISO the license text has a gap in the "Amer ica" part, odd

 

Combine the information from the source code of mkpsxiso (click here) with information about the sector formats of a CD-ROM, and it's all you need to know.
You might want to checkout the source code of lictool as well. lictool is a program which can change the logo and the strings (well, not yet) inside a license file.

 

CDMAGE can strip and re-add ECC in CUE/BIN bin files.

http://cdmage.orconhosting.net.nz/frames.html

 

Sorry bump such an old topic, but i'm pretty sure the SCEA, SCEI, SCEE text is based on the name of the psx.exe
SLES_???.??
SLUS_???.??
SLPS_???.??