Any interest in non-FMCB memory card exploit/jailbreak installation? (UK)

[mark_k]

Hi,

A while ago I posted about the Xploder Parental GameLock (see this thread (Using Xploder Parental GameLock as alternative to FreeMcBoot)).

The PGL installs an auto-booting program to the memory card, in a similar way to Free McBoot (though PGL came out in 2006, long before FMCB). If you already have the ability to run uLaunchElf, you can replace the BOOT.ELF which PGL installs with uLaunchElf, so the memory card boots into uLaunchElf. From there you can install Open PS2 Loader or whatever other software you want.

I have my PGL-installed memory card set up to load Open PS2 Loader directly. I can run uLaunchElf and other stuff from the OPL Apps menu. One advantage over FMCB is that it seems to boot faster and there's no splash screen.

If anyone's interested in having uLaunchElf installed to their memory card using PGL, let me know. I'm in the UK. (That might be of use if you don't have Swap Magic or any other way to run uLaunchElf or the FMCB installer yourself.)

[reprep]

interesting read. Especially more interesting if you consider it is even before memor32 which i though the first kind of these hacks.

But don't forget that by quick opening something might be missing.

For example matrix chips has a dev1 boot option which executes an .elf file from hdd. It is probably the fastest opening of a PS2. But it omits the widescreen values saved on the PS2 and because of this, some games (burnout series for example) work with wrong aspect-ratio setting.

Also another huge disadvantage is that, you can make multiple copies of FMCB if you have a FMCB installed memory card but that is not the same for your case. You need the disc everytime you need to install this exploit on a mc.

P.S. Well on the second thought, after the exploit is working you can use ESR for a backup of original disc to install it to new memory cards.

[SkyNet]

Interesting idea from Xploder. So they new how to do it in 2006y ? Amazing....

But the most interesting question is:

Can it work on SCPH- 90000 models ? Can some-one make tests? If it can work on SCPH- 90000 models--then it is possible to further evolve and develop FMCB....
So probably one day we will see , lets say version 1.9 or even 2.0 of FMCB ? How is that sound?

[reprep]

Interesting idea from Xploder. So they new how to do it in 2006y ? Amazing....

But the most interesting question is:

Can it work on SCPH- 90000 models ? Can some-one make tests? If it can work on SCPH- 90000 models--then it is possible to further evolve and develop FMCB....
So probably one day we will see , lets say version 1.9 or even 2.0 of FMCB ? How is that sound?

It won't. Those models don't look to memory card slots for OSDSYS which is the main exploit on these kind of hacks.

[mark_k]

But don't forget that by quick opening something might be missing.

For example matrix chips has a dev1 boot option which executes an .elf file from hdd. It is probably the fastest opening of a PS2. But it omits the widescreen values saved on the PS2 and because of this, some games (burnout series for example) work with wrong aspect-ratio setting.

Also another huge disadvantage is that, you can make multiple copies of FMCB if you have a FMCB installed memory card but that is not the same for your case. You need the disc everytime you need to install this exploit on a mc.

P.S. Well on the second thought, after the exploit is working you can use ESR for a backup of original disc to install it to new memory cards.

You don't need to install the PGL exploit from disc. You can copy the PGL installer ELF file to a USB stick or memory card and just run it using uLaunchElf.

You mentioned about not taking widescreen settings into account. I noticed something probably due to the same incomplete system initialisation. When playing Jak II (PAL) after booting a PGL-installed memory card (either loading the game via OPL or the original disc executed from uLaunchElf), the game language is Japanese. So the language setting isn't initialised correctly either.

I wonder if it would be possible to build a version of uLaunchElf or OPL which has its own system-init code, so it wouldn't matter that the memory card boot code doesn't do that.

[SP193]

You don't need to install the PGL exploit from disc. You can copy the PGL installer ELF file to a USB stick or memory card and just run it using uLaunchElf.

You mentioned about not taking widescreen settings into account. I noticed something probably due to the same incomplete system initialisation. When playing Jak II (PAL) after booting a PGL-installed memory card (either loading the game via OPL or the original disc executed from uLaunchElf), the game language is Japanese. So the language setting isn't initialised correctly either.

I wonder if it would be possible to build a version of uLaunchElf or OPL which has its own system-init code, so it wouldn't matter that the memory card boot code doesn't do that.

It's definitely possible, and I have done that when experimenting with the OSD settings on PCSX2 (Since it seems like PCSX2 does not initialize the OSD settings area of the kernel when you launch homebrew ELFs directly). But it shouldn't be necessary because the boot loader is responsible for that. If the boot loader doesn't perform initialization properly, the boot loader should be fixed.

Even Sony doesn't put the patches for the SCPH-10000's kernel is every game they release. So far it has always existed as an OSD update that gets stored on the user's memory card.

[reprep]

@mark_k:

You observed right. It is the exact same flawed boot process. It is not a full boot. As SP193 pointed out PCSX2 omits some of these steps, matrix infinity modchips omit some of these steps and PGL omits some of these steps. It is possible to implement the missing features but i doubt it is worth, it is always good to use a full boot initialization. So i would advise using FMCB in your case.

I have implemented the widescreen OSD setting fix in GSM for testing purposes and it worked perfectly well.

What i have in mind (though i doubt if i find time) is that. Normally modchips with DEV1 boot initialize a boot.elf in hdd. I will put the needed code to initialize the missing OSD setting for my system (As far as i know it is only widescreen setting in matrix infinity modchips and it can be called with configSetTvScreenType function) and then boot another elf which is boot1.elf. you can put opl or ulaunch to this boot1.elf and you will get the missing widescreen setting corrected.