Streaming Games via Inlink

[Cliffjumper]

Okay, so I finally got a PS2 network adapter from Wal-Mart for $15. Neat? You bet.

So I started poking around, seeing what neat things I could do with it, and it turns out, there's a lot! The first thing I stumbled on was QCast, which seems to be pretty good, but I'm not sure if it's $50 good. I'll wait for the new PS2Reality.

And then I started playing with Pukklink and Inlink, and those are neat. I'm new to the PS2 scene (been tearing up my Dreamcast for the past few years, now it's time for the ol' PS2), so I'm not too sure how everything works. But I found a few ready-made ELF files, and loaded them up to the PS2 just fine, and I was pretty happy about that.

And then, I was wondering about streaming games to the PS2 from a PC through the network adapter. Not practical at all, since it's so slow, but it just sounds too damn NEAT to give up on. So I started poking around games' file structures, trying to get Inlink to send the game data to the PS2. I started off with a CodeBreaker, since there's so little data to transfer. It worked without any real modification (just had to rename SLUS_202.02 to SLUS_202.02.elf to get Inlink to take it), so yeah, I was real excited.

After that though, I couldn't get any other game to work.

I'm guessing, GUESSING that it has to do with how almost all games reference the disc it's on. Like, instead of doing relative referencing, I bet it calls the PS2 DVD device driver. CodeBreaker doesn't load off the disc but once, and I guess that's why it works. So I thought I'd give the ol' PS Ridge Racer a shot, since it only loads once, and never references the disc again. (Remember that? That was always fun, being able to replace the disc with a music CD.) But I didn't have a whole lot of luck. Maybe 'cause it's a PS game. Maybe somethin' else.

Now that you've sorted through all this rambling, here's the question I'm getting at. Are there any patch engines that will re-route a game's referencing technique so it'll look to relative directories? I know this isn't the most practical project in the world, but it sure would be fun to play with.

Thanks large, guys.

[ton23]

wow, i was wondering the same thing a week or so ago. i'm not sure about the patches, but i too was hoping it was possible without having to edit the code myself.

you are right in saying that it is calling the command cdrom0 or rom0 to load the game. also alot of ELF's are made to be used only with Naplink, Inlink ect. so they call host0 to retreive files.

anyways, hoping the same that someone tells us about a patch or converter program that i dont know about.

[Cliffjumper]

Arrrrrg, I'm still struggling with a lot of this PS2 stuff. It'll be a helluva while before I try out any dev stuff, that's for sure.

I feel kinda stupid making wild suggestions, when I don't really know how to implement them. But game enhancers like GS and AR2, how do those work? I mean, I know about the memory addresses and values and jazz like that, but how do they load and stay in there, even while the game's running? Does it intercept memory calls made by the game?

And if that's what it does, is there a way to make a loader that intercepts all calls to cdrom0 or rom0 and replaces it with a host0 call? Or even just modify an AR2 so it does the job? Doesn't everything pass through memory registers at some point?

Anyway cats, thanks for listening to a newbie jabber on.

[Cliffjumper]

BTW Ton23, thanks for your post. It helped angle my search in the right direction!

[aussiewan]

The AR2/GS2 discs load a driver into IOP memory, which is activated by a "trigger" like a vblank. Basically this means that every time the display is updated, the cheat software runs a routine to update the memory areas the cheats use.

There was talk of this idea somewhere else... perhaps on ps2dev forums... Whenever a game loads, it loads it's own version of the cdvd driver, sound driver, memory card driver etc. So theoretically all you would have to do was write your own alternate cdvd driver, referring all file requests to host0 instead of cdrom0. Doesn't sound too hard, except that you need to be able to code in the first place There was also talk of doing a similar thing to make games refer to the hdd.

Also, with regards to your comment about speed, I think there is another thread that talks about that, and the network connection (assuming 100Mbps) is faster than the CD/DVD drive. I dont know about the hdd, it depends on what ide chipset they use.

[ton23]

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
BTW Ton23, thanks for your post. It helped angle my search in the right direction!

no problem. did you find any good info in your search?

sounds like alot of things are planned for hdd. the only thing needed now is a driver...

[Cliffjumper]

Ah Aussiewan, thanks large!!! Looks like I need to head on over to the PS2DEV forums and see what's goin' on. Do you know a lot about how the drivers call devices? I'm wondering if the cdrom0 request goes through a memory register at any point. If that's the case, the code to change a device request would be quite identical to that of a game enhancer's, yeah? Kinda like, as soon as a register recognizes a call to cdrom0, you could slip in and change it to host0. And that might save me the worry of writing a driver, 'cause I sure as hell don't know how to do that.

And everybody, I'm just making WILD assumptions. If something sounds crazy, it probably is.

And another thing, I just saw a commercial for "Air Bud Strikes Back." The dog's playing volleyball this time. How many movies is that? Seven?

[Cliffjumper]

My apologies, it's actually called "Air Bud SPIKES Back."

...that's actually kinda clever.

[aussiewan]

I'd already had those ideas Cliffjumper. I made up a code for Action Replay to patch the hdd driver... and was then informed that the AR and GS can only modify information on the EE processor, not the IOP. Since all drivers are loaded on the IOP, that means you can not patch a driver with an Action Replay or Gameshark. You would have to physically modify the file, which isn't a problem since you would have all the files sitting on your hdd anyway

[Cliffjumper]

Ahhhh, thanks again Aussiewan, you've been a lot of help! I don't suppose you have any tips for easy file modding, eh?