PS1 backups on PS3 - editing PS1_rom.bin?

[coolvortex]

Hello. First, I don't know if this is the right section to post this... somebody will move it if it's not, I think. Anyway, I don't have great hacking or developing skills, let's say I don't have any, but it's been a while I've been looking for a way to run PS1 backups (or homebrew) on my jailbroken PS3.
This machine has a great PS1 emulator inside it, after all Sony made it, so I thought that it'd be better to use that, instead of writing/porting another emulator like some people are doing. Nobody seems to be really interested in that, so I've been doing some research myself, as far as my knowledge goes.

So, to the point, I tried swapping the bios in ps1_rom.bin, and now when I boot a PS1 game I don't just get the "Sony Computer Entertainment" PS black screen, but the white one with the red square too. Not only that, but if I eject my disk I even get to the Memory Card/CD player menu, and I can even use the PS1 cd player to play audio cds. And if I put a backup inside, it even sees the tracks (from the cd player). Guess what, it doesn't boot though! And the menu becomes really slow just like a real PS1 would do.
I think this is useful to know, because it means that the disk you put in is still mounted and the emulator sees it, and now it's the PS1 bios doing it's own security checks I think, not the PS3 software... right? So I was wondering, does anybody know (if it's possibile) what to edit inside the PS1 bios so that it doesn't check anymore?

[scarmullet]

In all fairness, the one on the PS3 sucks (its passable). It would be best to use an alternative like a port of ePSXe, which has the ability to use stuff like custom shaders to improve (or change) the graphics in any way you want, as well as run PS1 games at higher resolutions than its native, because the emulator doesn't take the native resolution and upscale it, it re-renders at the definition you define.

That goes for PS2 and PCSX2. I recently started to play around with that emulator, and I am very impressed, although I still need help getting proper settings down, but I can run many games at 50 frames at full HD, maybe I should just do 720p.

[Wutangrza]

In all fairness, the one on the PS3 sucks (its passable). It would be best to use an alternative like a port of ePSXe, which has the ability to use stuff like custom shaders to improve (or change) the graphics in any way you want, as well as run PS1 games at higher resolutions than its native, because the emulator doesn't take the native resolution and upscale it, it re-renders at the definition you define.

That goes for PS2 and PCSX2. I recently started to play around with that emulator, and I am very impressed, although I still need help getting proper settings down, but I can run many games at 50 frames at full HD, maybe I should just do 720p.

Disagree. Hacking the built-in emulator has a chance of working and will have 100% compatibility. ePSXe is closed source, so that's not an option, and honestly the odds of ever porting an open source PS1 emulator to the PS3 and having anything close to good compatibility is probably a pipe dream.

The tools to get working PS1 backups on the PS3 already exist. All that is needed are the npdrm keys, but the two or three devs that know them aren't sharing. Mathieulh has confirmed he is able to convert PS1 .iso's to working eboot.pbp's.

edit: Also, to the OP, the PS3 never mounts the PS1 disc, it just checks that it's an authentic PS1 disc. Once you try to fire it up, it passes control of the drive over to the emulator. This is the reason that swap disc tricks are still possible to load PS1 burned CD backups.

[CoBrA2168]

Disagree. Hacking the built-in emulator has a chance of working and will have 100% compatibility. ePSXe is closed source, so that's not an option, and honestly the odds of ever porting an open source PS1 emulator to the PS3 and having anything close to good compatibility is probably a pipe dream.

The tools to get working PS1 backups on the PS3 already exist. All that is needed are the npdrm keys, but the two or three devs that know them aren't sharing. Mathieulh has confirmed he is able to convert PS1 .iso's to working eboot.pbp's.

edit: Also, to the OP, the PS3 never mounts the PS1 disc, it just checks that it's an authentic PS1 disc. Once you try to fire it up, it passes control of the drive over to the emulator. This is the reason that swap disc tricks are still possible to load PS1 burned CD backups.

Well if they can find them, then it's only a matter of time until someone else finds out and tells everyone, right?

[Wutangrza]

Well if they can find them, then it's only a matter of time until someone else finds out and tells everyone, right?

I'm not looking to get sued, are you?

[barnhilltrckn]

Well ive been messing around with it some more and have also found out that if you edit iso.bin.edat it will ask to sign into psn and activate the game.

What i did was swap the eboot.pbp with one made from psx2psp. We know that doesnt work but i wasnt finished there. When you open up iso.bin.edat in a hex editor you can see the disc id. So what i did was change the disc id to the one of the new eboot.pbp i put in there. All it wants to do now is sign into psn and activate the game.

Idk if its worth anything but like i said im trying all sorts of things and yea i think you are right Wutangrza, we need those keys so we can pull this off.
Or if someone knows how to disable the checks all together then that would probly work also.

Doesnt nas_plugin handle all that stuff? If so what do we need to do with it to disable the checks?

[CoBrA2168]

I'm not looking to get sued, are you?

I feel like if I could get these keys, it would be very easy to anonymously release them, somewhere. It's not like I even have the knowledge to do something like this anyway. I'm just a C++/Java developer.

[scarmullet]

Disagree. Hacking the built-in emulator has a chance of working and will have 100% compatibility. ePSXe is closed source, so that's not an option, and honestly the odds of ever porting an open source PS1 emulator to the PS3 and having anything close to good compatibility is probably a pipe dream.

The tools to get working PS1 backups on the PS3 already exist. All that is needed are the npdrm keys, but the two or three devs that know them aren't sharing. Mathieulh has confirmed he is able to convert PS1 .iso's to working eboot.pbp's.

edit: Also, to the OP, the PS3 never mounts the PS1 disc, it just checks that it's an authentic PS1 disc. Once you try to fire it up, it passes control of the drive over to the emulator. This is the reason that swap disc tricks are still possible to load PS1 burned CD backups.

Now, I would like to have the ability to make PS1 eboots/packages on ps3 like on PSP. I have toyed around in my head about the idea of simply changing the path of the eboot to a PS3 path, but that wouldn't work.

And I was sure the ePSXe was opensource, but I looked it up and was wrong.

[barnhilltrckn]

Now, I would like to have the ability to make PS1 eboots/packages on ps3 like on PSP. I have toyed around in my head about the idea of simply changing the path of the eboot to a PS3 path, but that wouldn't work.

And I was sure the ePSXe was opensource, but I looked it up and was wrong.

As far as i know there arent any open source ps1 emulators that are worth a shit. I know anom was working on a port of pcsx but i think he has given up on the project and walked away. Real shame too.

[CoBrA2168]

How does the PS1 emulator for PS3 homebrew work? I haven't tried that out yet.

This solution seems promising if done. There was a thread a few days ago about PS2 playback working on a non-BC console. Getting full PS1/PS2 playback on all PS3s (hacked, that is) would definitely make me go out and buy another one just for online play.