Open PS2 Loader Game compatibility

[wazup640]

WHITE SCREEN: Could not find or load the game starter elf file.

Your disc images are likely corrupted/damaged.

copy that and paste it on a text file, save it strip.py then rename the .bin file from your "iso" as in.bin. Double click the strip.py file and the out.iso file should open on winrar like a normal DVD iso.

I have around twenty CD based PS2 games and beside Beatmania and some other game I cannot remember right now which comes with Audio tracks I all read them the same way and used ultra iso to convert them to dvd iso.

Somehow it seems UltraISO failed. Maybe I broke some settings. Anyway I used your script and it worked. At least in CD mode the ISO of Virtua Cop is now working with latest OPL. Will try the other game as well.

Thanks man

Wazup

[l_oliveira]

I have around twenty CD based PS2 games and beside Beatmania and some other game I cannot remember right now which comes with Audio tracks I all read them the same way and used ultra iso to convert them to dvd iso.

Somehow it seems UltraISO failed. Maybe I broke some settings. Anyway I used your script and it worked. At least in CD mode the ISO of Virtua Cop is now working with latest OPL. Will try the other game as well.

Thanks man

Wazup

There's a ongoing trend of taking CD-ROM games and converting them into DVDs for ESR. I suppose you're a victim of that. You don't exactly know how this work and so were taken to believe you were doing some kind of conversion but the hard conversion work was already done by someone else.

Like I said, no SANE CD-ROM read/write program will let you dump a MODE2XA disc on 2048 sectors format that OPL requires. Also, converting CD > DVD involves bin-hacking the ELF and IRX libraries (finding CD/DVD check routines and patching them to match the intended disc type). Fail to binhack the game results on black screen. Somehow it seems like OPL CDVDMAN has a method
to "guess" what response the game want and usually get it right. I would refrain from restoring your converted games to discs if you eventually intended to do so as it would probably result on a massive count of COASTERS...

Glad I could help.

[wazup640]

There's a ongoing trend of taking CD-ROM games and converting them into DVDs for ESR. I suppose you're a victim of that. You don't exactly know how this work and so were taken to believe you were doing some kind of conversion but the hard conversion work was already done by someone else.

You are right about that. I have no clue how it internally works. I just read the disc using some old tool named MakeCD and place the iso file into UltraISO. There I change the disc size to 4,7 and turn the UDF switch on. UltraISO even displays "PS CD" and "PS DVD" before and after conversion.

Finally I place the isos into the DVD drawer for SMB usage and done. I usually do not burn any DVDs using ESR.

Worked for me, till today. Swapping back to real CD isos wouldn´t be a big problem, as I own the discs. It is just some work to dig them out.

Wazup

[fresh]

You are right about that. I have no clue how it internally works. I just read the disc using some old tool named MakeCD and place the iso file into UltraISO. There I change the disc size to 4,7 and turn the UDF switch on. UltraISO even displays "PS CD" and "PS DVD" before and after conversion.

Finally I place the isos into the DVD drawer for SMB usage and done. I usually do not burn any DVDs using ESR.

Worked for me, till today. Swapping back to real CD isos wouldn´t be a big problem, as I own the discs. It is just some work to dig them out.

Wazup

MakeCD?
You rock!

[SP193]

There's a ongoing trend of taking CD-ROM games and converting them into DVDs for ESR. I suppose you're a victim of that. You don't exactly know how this work and so were taken to believe you were doing some kind of conversion but the hard conversion work was already done by someone else.

Like I said, no SANE CD-ROM read/write program will let you dump a MODE2XA disc on 2048 sectors format that OPL requires. Also, converting CD > DVD involves bin-hacking the ELF and IRX libraries (finding CD/DVD check routines and patching them to match the intended disc type). Fail to binhack the game results on black screen. Somehow it seems like OPL CDVDMAN has a method
to "guess" what response the game want and usually get it right. I would refrain from restoring your converted games to discs if you eventually intended to do so as it would probably result on a massive count of COASTERS...

Glad I could help.

Ah yes. Sony added sceCdSetMMode(), which is meant for developers to bind the games to certain media types. When the game is booted from the wrong type of disc, all further calls to CDVDMAN will fail.

All game loaders don't have any smart way of determining the type of disc that the game came on, and usually require the user to input the correct disc type when the game is being installed.

If the game was installed from the original media with a Playstation 2 console, it's easy because the CD/DVD drive can return the disc type (Via CDVDMAN's sceCdGetDiskType() function).

If the game's disc image was 'converted' from one disc type to another but the call to sceCdMMode() was not either NOP'ed out or corrected, the game will be broken.

[wazup640]

Ah yes. Sony added sceCdSetMMode(), which is meant for developers to bind the games to certain media types. When the game is booted from the wrong type of disc, all further calls to CDVDMAN will fail.

All games I converted so far from CD to DVD worked fine.

Anyway, to my limited understanding if an iso is smaller than 900MB it is a CD and if it is bigger it is a DVD. So unless increased or shrinked dummy files to mess with the iso size, it should be quite easy to autodetect which type of media "was ment" i first place.

Wazup

[l_oliveira]

All games I converted so far from CD to DVD worked fine.

Anyway, to my limited understanding if an iso is smaller than 900MB it is a CD and if it is bigger it is a DVD. So unless increased or shrinked dummy files to mess with the iso size, it should be quite easy to autodetect which type of media "was ment" i first place.

Wazup

The actual minimum (guaranteed to work) size for a DVD disc is 1.4GB, regardless of the target platform. If you make a ISO smaller than that the recording program will fill the disc up until that minimum is reached. On IMGBURN you can see it doing that "dummyfying" when it prints "resynchronizing cache" on the last stage of the disc being burnt, right before the session is closed.

While it's not the RIGHT thing to do, what you said is exactly how HDLDUMP/DUMB detects media type. My suggestion on previous threads regarding this subject was that people kept using BIN/CUE format for CD media and refrained from "sharing" these broken 2048 CD images but you know how much people care. They only care if they burn a disc and it's a coaster... Well, screw them pirates.

I warned enough, though ...

[SP193]

However, since we are using a virtual drive that can have the disc type specified manually, we can shrink all the games as much as we want.
I've once shrunk at one DVD game to only 340MB, down from 1.50GB... so quite a bit of space can be saved by shrinking games like that.

The problem only occurs when you don't set the disc type properly, or if you use ESR with the wrong disc type (unpatched CD-ROM game on a DVD).

[mesiya]

Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty SLUS_201.44 NTSC U/C Not Working - Blackscreen & Strange sound before and company logo and i tested this various time sometimes and works and game starts like normal but not always.
its one best of ps2.

[7Z5T5mwXz]

hello,

i've purchased one of these SATA-HDD-NWA for the PS2 (from DX).
my hdd was recognized correct and opl showed also all of my installed games.
unfortunately the game compatibility with opl (and hdloader) isn't good.
i've tested some of my games, some working good, but most of them freeze at the title screen (or the developer screens) or have ingame glitches.
i think (or better hope) with some modifications of the opl-code a much better compatibility is possible.
at first i wanted to send this nwa back to DX, but if one of the opl-developers is interested in, i would like to give him my nwa for testing purposes.
so if you are living within europe (because of shipping costs) send me a message or a leave reply in this thread.
thank you.