What is syscall 35,36, lvl1,2..., Eboot???

[really_wacky]

Everybody is talking about syscall 35,36 and lvl 1,2 patches, but there is no topic that explains what it is... And googling it doesnt tell me much either.

Also a few questions about the EBOOT.BIN i know its to boot the game, the name speaks for itself. But what does it contain?

I think things like this sould be in the Beginners FAQ, since everone is talking about them.. So noobs like me know what u guys are talking about.

Also is there a way yet to fix games that boot to black screen for example Assassins Creed1. Im running Kmeaw CFW.

Sorry for the bad english, and the dumb questions, and thanks in advance.

[technomancer]

I have been lurking on this site since news of the original failoverflow hack was made public. I am not an expert but i believe that i understand enough to guide the basic newbie through what you need to know in order to navigate the PS3 scene. I saw your post and decided to register just to try and help with what little i do know

First lets start with the syscalls. i understand these to be sort of like commands in any operating system, for example in DOS you might type DIR to find out what files are in a particular directory. similarly sycall 6 is to execute a command normally refered to as peek which allows your program to look at the information of a particular area of memory. your program may take this value modify it in some way and then use syscall 7 to "poke" it which is a method for putting your own values into a specific area in memory. so that when the operating system looks in that area of memory for what to do (maybe which directory to look in for example) it will now use the value your software poked into memory. syscall 36 is a more complicated command refering to emulating the blu-ray drive on your ps3. and while i am not 100% i think syscall 35 is a modified version of the same thing (please someone that knows more correct me if i am wrong about this i dont want to give bad information) you can think of the syscalls as commands or little applications that perfrm duties that you dont have to code yourself into every piece of software that commonly uses those commands instead you simply code in appropriate syscall and the information it needs to do its job.

as for the level 1 level 2 hypervisor etc...think of these things like levels of access to the hardware. each having their own security etc that way if a less secure layer is broken others are still intact. bear in mind this is a rudamentary understanding of these features. but for the common newbie i think they work just fine, only developers need to know the real ins and outs of those layers if you ask me. the hypervisor is like the boss of the system. it makes sure that any patches to the system (firmware) is from a legitimate source ie. sony. since the metloaderkey gives the developers direct access to the hypervisor layer they can use this to patch the next layer or level 1 which handles the fundamental software of the system the os file handling memory handling etc this is where peek and poke syscalls reside. level 2 seems to me to be where access to the blu-ray drive and the gpu reside. again i may be wrong about that but it is close enough for your average newbie.
for some reason there were problems with the patching of level 2 on the firmware to start with. when geohot released his jailbreak and tools he told us not to patch level 2 or we would brick the console, the catch is of course that with peak and poke you can patch level 2 in memory and gain access to the gpu and BD-Rom.

the eboot is even more mysterious to me really, but in winows speak it is like an exe, for 3.55 users (for now at least) you dont need to modify the eboot. the modifications are to tell it to look for a different firmware version, or to teell the game to read its files from a different location such as the hdd. or in the case of the codemaster project (google it if you are interested) you can modify reagons to make cheats in games. eboots are coded for powerpc which is the main processor of the PS3. so modifying these for cheats or to change how the game looks up data is akin to modifying EXE files in wondows to alow you to playgames without the disk in the drive.


thats it in a nutshell this should be enough info to help you see these threads and understand what people are talking about. the truth is the avg newbie doesnt need to worry about lv2 and syscalls and all of that. you only need to know if lv2 must be patched for whatever software you are using. and if so is it already coded into it. as of this post i expect to see less automatic lv2 patching as devs try to protect themselves.

I hope this helps and if someone shouts and says im wrong then great tell the OP why im wrong and explain it better.

Technomancer,

PS. i know my spelling/grammar sucks but anyone that attacks me about spelling or grammer are using ad hominem arguments, which are logical fallacies and do not refute the material contained in the post.

[really_wacky]

Thank you very mutch, that was really helpfull. Those are idd some pretty complicated things But now i atleast know what people talking about, understanding it would be something else

So if i understand it right, games to come wil asks for example FW3.56 then you have to modify the eboot so it runs on 3.55? And the eboot tells the PS3 that the game is on the HDD and not on the blu ray?

[technomancer]

You are partially right. The Eboot for games that require higher level firmware to play will have to be modified.... but as for telling the system where to look for the files that is what syscall 35/36 are for. they emulate the BD-Rom from the files on your hard drive. those files and their locations are fed to syscall36 by the backup manager. which is the program that scans different locations on the internal and external drives for games. those locations are configurable in the options of multiman, i dont know about the rest but i am sure they have some way f changing settings as well. when multiman launches it scans the locations that are in its options file and looks for games in those folders. once those games are found they are displayed in the game select screens and when you load them they feed the information on the games location into the syscall36.

Again this is the way i understand it and in general i believe it to be correct although i may have some details wrong. this shouldnt hamper your ability to understand what to do and how to use these features though. I am sure somewhere there is a developer laughing at me and shaking his head...and thats good cause if they knew as little as I do we would all be sunk.

Technomancer

P.s Big ups to Failoverflow, Geohot, Kmeaw and DeanK, not that others in the scene dont kick ass, i just havent tried their setup because these developers did such an amazing job. There was no need to switch around and play musical firmwares. Thanks again and keep up the good work. and for those of you in the Sony meat grinder.... keep fighting the good fight

[really_wacky]

Ok it doesn't matter it isnt completely right, at least now i have some understanding of what it all is. I just wanted to know out of curiosity

And idd big up for those guys!

[vrum vrum]

Thank you so much technomancer. At least now i feel i have the basic knowledge to navigate. !!

[borninthematrix]

I have been lurking on this site since news of the original failoverflow hack was made public. I am not an expert but i believe that i understand enough to guide the basic newbie through what you need to know in order to navigate the PS3 scene. I saw your post and decided to register just to try and help with what little i do know

First lets start with the syscalls. i understand these to be sort of like commands in any operating system, for example in DOS you might type DIR to find out what files are in a particular directory. similarly sycall 6 is to execute a command normally refered to as peek which allows your program to look at the information of a particular area of memory. your program may take this value modify it in some way and then use syscall 7 to "poke" it which is a method for putting your own values into a specific area in memory. so that when the operating system looks in that area of memory for what to do (maybe which directory to look in for example) it will now use the value your software poked into memory. syscall 36 is a more complicated command refering to emulating the blu-ray drive on your ps3. and while i am not 100% i think syscall 35 is a modified version of the same thing (please someone that knows more correct me if i am wrong about this i dont want to give bad information) you can think of the syscalls as commands or little applications that perfrm duties that you dont have to code yourself into every piece of software that commonly uses those commands instead you simply code in appropriate syscall and the information it needs to do its job.

as for the level 1 level 2 hypervisor etc...think of these things like levels of access to the hardware. each having their own security etc that way if a less secure layer is broken others are still intact. bear in mind this is a rudamentary understanding of these features. but for the common newbie i think they work just fine, only developers need to know the real ins and outs of those layers if you ask me. the hypervisor is like the boss of the system. it makes sure that any patches to the system (firmware) is from a legitimate source ie. sony. since the metloaderkey gives the developers direct access to the hypervisor layer they can use this to patch the next layer or level 1 which handles the fundamental software of the system the os file handling memory handling etc this is where peek and poke syscalls reside. level 2 seems to me to be where access to the blu-ray drive and the gpu reside. again i may be wrong about that but it is close enough for your average newbie.
for some reason there were problems with the patching of level 2 on the firmware to start with. when geohot released his jailbreak and tools he told us not to patch level 2 or we would brick the console, the catch is of course that with peak and poke you can patch level 2 in memory and gain access to the gpu and BD-Rom.

the eboot is even more mysterious to me really, but in winows speak it is like an exe, for 3.55 users (for now at least) you dont need to modify the eboot. the modifications are to tell it to look for a different firmware version, or to teell the game to read its files from a different location such as the hdd. or in the case of the codemaster project (google it if you are interested) you can modify reagons to make cheats in games. eboots are coded for powerpc which is the main processor of the PS3. so modifying these for cheats or to change how the game looks up data is akin to modifying EXE files in wondows to alow you to playgames without the disk in the drive.


thats it in a nutshell this should be enough info to help you see these threads and understand what people are talking about. the truth is the avg newbie doesnt need to worry about lv2 and syscalls and all of that. you only need to know if lv2 must be patched for whatever software you are using. and if so is it already coded into it. as of this post i expect to see less automatic lv2 patching as devs try to protect themselves.

I hope this helps and if someone shouts and says im wrong then great tell the OP why im wrong and explain it better.

Technomancer,

PS. i know my spelling/grammar sucks but anyone that attacks me about spelling or grammer are using ad hominem arguments, which are logical fallacies and do not refute the material contained in the post.

The most intelligently well written thing I've ever read here. Thank you.

[really_wacky]

Thank you so much technomancer. At least now i feel i have the basic knowledge to navigate. !!

I feel the same way. Everyone was talking about sh*t i didnt understand at all. Now i understand it a little...

It would be nice to start a post with this explaination and make it a sticky. Basic information for noobs

[zylor]

I have been lurking on this site since news of the original failoverflow hack was made public. I am not an expert but i believe that i understand enough to guide the basic newbie through what you need to know in order to navigate the PS3 scene. I saw your post and decided to register just to try and help with what little i do know

First lets start with the syscalls. i understand these to be sort of like commands in any operating system, for example in DOS you might type DIR to find out what files are in a particular directory. similarly sycall 6 is to execute a command normally refered to as peek which allows your program to look at the information of a particular area of memory. your program may take this value modify it in some way and then use syscall 7 to "poke" it which is a method for putting your own values into a specific area in memory. so that when the operating system looks in that area of memory for what to do (maybe which directory to look in for example) it will now use the value your software poked into memory. syscall 36 is a more complicated command refering to emulating the blu-ray drive on your ps3. and while i am not 100% i think syscall 35 is a modified version of the same thing (please someone that knows more correct me if i am wrong about this i dont want to give bad information) you can think of the syscalls as commands or little applications that perfrm duties that you dont have to code yourself into every piece of software that commonly uses those commands instead you simply code in appropriate syscall and the information it needs to do its job.

as for the level 1 level 2 hypervisor etc...think of these things like levels of access to the hardware. each having their own security etc that way if a less secure layer is broken others are still intact. bear in mind this is a rudamentary understanding of these features. but for the common newbie i think they work just fine, only developers need to know the real ins and outs of those layers if you ask me. the hypervisor is like the boss of the system. it makes sure that any patches to the system (firmware) is from a legitimate source ie. sony. since the metloaderkey gives the developers direct access to the hypervisor layer they can use this to patch the next layer or level 1 which handles the fundamental software of the system the os file handling memory handling etc this is where peek and poke syscalls reside. level 2 seems to me to be where access to the blu-ray drive and the gpu reside. again i may be wrong about that but it is close enough for your average newbie.
for some reason there were problems with the patching of level 2 on the firmware to start with. when geohot released his jailbreak and tools he told us not to patch level 2 or we would brick the console, the catch is of course that with peak and poke you can patch level 2 in memory and gain access to the gpu and BD-Rom.

the eboot is even more mysterious to me really, but in winows speak it is like an exe, for 3.55 users (for now at least) you dont need to modify the eboot. the modifications are to tell it to look for a different firmware version, or to teell the game to read its files from a different location such as the hdd. or in the case of the codemaster project (google it if you are interested) you can modify reagons to make cheats in games. eboots are coded for powerpc which is the main processor of the PS3. so modifying these for cheats or to change how the game looks up data is akin to modifying EXE files in wondows to alow you to playgames without the disk in the drive.


thats it in a nutshell this should be enough info to help you see these threads and understand what people are talking about. the truth is the avg newbie doesnt need to worry about lv2 and syscalls and all of that. you only need to know if lv2 must be patched for whatever software you are using. and if so is it already coded into it. as of this post i expect to see less automatic lv2 patching as devs try to protect themselves.

I hope this helps and if someone shouts and says im wrong then great tell the OP why im wrong and explain it better.

Technomancer,

PS. i know my spelling/grammar sucks but anyone that attacks me about spelling or grammer are using ad hominem arguments, which are logical fallacies and do not refute the material contained in the post.

Thx for this

[Ant Davis]

I've been looking for this explanation for weeks. Thanks!