Wild Arms Alter Code F NTSC-U Layer Break

[kadorna2]

As most of you know, this game is DVD9, i have a backup of the game, but i can't find the Layer Break value anywhere. Redump.org failed on this, the entry is there but there is no Layer Break info in this particular tittle. Halp?

[TnA]

As most of you know, this game is DVD9, i have a backup of the game, but i can't find the Layer Break value anywhere. Redump.org failed on this, the entry is there but there is no Layer Break info in this particular tittle. Halp?

If you want to burn it on a DVD-R DL, you can get LayerBreak-LBA from your original...
If you wan't to burn it on a DVD+R DL, you can patch it with Toxic-DL-Patcher.

[kadorna2]

Thing is, i don't have the original disc, and even if i patch it with toxic patcher (which i don't ever use, it ****s up the structure of the disc AND my modchip has dvd9 patching) it won't make any difference.

[TnA]

Thing is, i don't have the original disc,

Then I can't help you how to easily retreive the Layerbreak-LBA, but I bet it could be found somewhere.

and even if i patch it with toxic patcher (which i don't ever use, it ****s up the structure of the disc AND my modchip has dvd9 patching) it won't make any difference.

I colored the parts of your sentence I answer to...

Why?
Yes, I can understand this because I like untouched discs/ISOs also. Nothingtheless,... If you didn't get the ISO from the original, you can't be sure if it isn't modified in any way... This point is not valid in your case.
What does that change? It does the same patching, just on-the-fly in RAM. It still patches the IOPRPxxx.img to be compatible to those 50%-splitted layers...

[kadorna2]

Why?

Because, as i've said above, my modchip supports DVD9. Why would i want to use a patch that does the exact same thing my modchip does?

Yes, I can understand this because I like untouched discs/ISOs also. Nothingtheless,... If you didn't get the ISO from the original, you can't be sure if it isn't modified in any way... This point is not valid in your case.

Yes, you can be sure. Go to redump.org, check the hashes and the size of the disc and compare. Same hashes = perfect image.

What does that change? It does the same patching, just on-the-fly in RAM. It still patches the IOPRPxxx.img to be compatible to those 50%-splitted layers...

Do you even know what layer break is, what it does and how it works? You can't just grab the total sectors and divide by 2...

[kadorna2]

Nevermind found it, if anyone has problems with this, copy/paste this in notepad and save as WildArmsAlterCodeF.dvd

LayerBreak=2024000
WildArmsAlterCodeF.iso

you will also need to rename your iso to WildArmsAlterCodeF.iso, or edit the second line in order to match your filename.

[TnA]

Because, as i've said above, my modchip supports DVD9. Why would i want to use a patch that does the exact same thing my modchip does? ]

I intendet with my question to ask, why it doesn't make a difference.
How could you know (if the Toxic-DL-Patched would ran or not), if you never tried?

Yes, you can be sure. Go to redump.org, check the hashes and the size of the disc and compare. Same hashes = perfect image.

Look up on how hashes are generated and you know that there are the same hashes possible for multiple files... (a.k.a. 'Collision') [Else,...] Why would we use the complete file at all, if we'd only need the hash and it would be unique?

Do you even know what layer break is, what it does and how it works? You can't just grab the total sectors and divide by 2...

On Video-DVDs it is simply a 'marker' (in a file) which prepares the DVD-Player to jump to the next layer, a.k.a. a 'logical layerbreak'.

On DoubleLayer-DVDs, it simply defines the point where the last physical sector of layer0 is, a.k.a. 'physical layerbreak'.

The 'physical layerbreak' is present on all double/dual-layered discs and the 'logical layerbreak' is only available on double-layered Video-DVDs.


The 'partition' (how you would call it on an HDD for example) simply get's splitted over the physical sectors of a disc.

I mean,... You can define (just for example some values) the physical sector of layer0 let's say LBA1000 as first logical sector of the partition/filesystem.
Then let's say the part1 of the partition is only 1000sectors long, you can set the physical layerbreak at LBA2000 and then it'll uses the layer1 as the following sectors/it uses layer 1 as part2 of the logical partition.

You can't just grab the total sectors and divide by 2...

Tell that to my older (well working) PS2-Bckups, where I didn't set the LayerBreak manually... (thus, most burning-applications splits them into 50% per layer automatically).

...of course, you can...

It only becomes a problem, if an application (the one, which is on a DL-Disc for example) tries to access the physical LBAs of a disc instead of using the filesystem for file-access.


...and just btw.: I already told people years ago, that it might be better to set the layerbreak manually without editing/patching the game's files with Toxic-DL, just because of the thing I said about reading physical LBAs and because I don't like patched ISOs, like I said.


So now to answer your question fully.

Do you even know what layer break is,

We're talking about the 'physical layerbreak' and I know it for both.

what it does

Well, the 'physical layerbreak' only defines the physical end-sector of layer0.

and how it works?

IT doesn't work at all,... (does it do something on it's own??!).
It is only USED,...



Edit: Please correct me, if I'm wrong...

best regards,
TnA

[kadorna2]

I don't know if it does something in ALL the games, but AT LEAST in gow and gow2, if you don't manually set the correct value, when the game reaches the second layer it WILL freeze. I've spent too much blank DLs in trying to burn those 2 games (and believe me, where i live DLs aren't cheap at all) until i learned the lesson. I don't want to waste any more of these discs, so i prefer to do it the right way, even if the game doesn't need it, just to be sure.

[TnA]

I don't know if it does something in ALL the games, but AT LEAST in gow and gow2, if you don't manually set the correct value, when the game reaches the second layer it WILL freeze.

Nope, not in all games.
I think some RockBand-Games, or some Guitar Hero-Games have issues with both 'patch-methods' (Toxic-DL-Patching, or Modchip-DVD9-Support), but Gow1&2 should both work with either method.

Anyway,... If you specify the layerbreak before you burn it (like you did), it should work on all PS2s (not only modchipped with DVD9-On-the-fly-patching/'support', but also atleast with ESR-Discs).

I've spent too much blank DLs in trying to burn those 2 games (and believe me, where i live DLs aren't cheap at all) until i learned the lesson. I don't want to waste any more of these discs, so i prefer to do it the right way, even if the game doesn't need it, just to be sure.

Yepp, that's good.
I prefer that strategy too,...
If you search a few of my recent posts, I posted somewhere that I prefer to inject/patch sectors into images with DPM/RPMS-Info (copyprotection based on it), just that they behave like the original PC-Games, without being dependent on any burning-, or image-mounting-application, which suports RPMS-Emulation.
I simply don't want to install an extra-application on PC, to run those backups as if they were originals.
They should directly work like my originals.

Another application which I can 'keep away' from my PC, since most of those are illegal in the country where I live, so I don't have them installed at all.
...and the backups of my very few and old games, still behave like originals.