Metal Gear Solid HD EUR FIX plus how to make US/EUR work on external HDD?

[Jay-Jay]

WTF! It worked!!!!

After I renamed back all the files to the original EU names (including the folder EU), I tested it without editing the param.sfo from TB. When I tried to load it, I got a black screen. So William2004 was right. But....

Since I no longer had the original Param.sfo. So what I did was just edit the TB Param.sfo and replaced the game ID from the US version to the EU version. Rename from BLUS30847 to BLES01419. Once I did that and transferred the new param.sfo and then allowed multiMAN to do a rescan of the games, and saw that in the Game Menu it showed the new game version in it's properties, I launched the game and voila! It works! All three games works! Still discless and on Internal HDD for now.

I am thinking that the reason why this works is that this game requires no game data installation, so there is no other param.sfo file than the one on the disc, so whatever that file indicates as far as game id, it will work. Lesson learned--but not a new thing, it's happened before and I totally forgot to try that step also. Won't forget next time.

NOTE: I would still mention it to the guys that are only using the original param.sfo file and not the TB version, is that they should use the TB version so they don't get hit for game updates that will not work. TB params are modified so they don't get any game update alerts when they launch the game and they have their units online.

So now the new fix:
to make the EU game version to work with the US TB Eboot fix is to edit the game ID on the param.sfo file (Rename from BLUS30847 to BLES01419) and it should work. No need to go renaming files/folders. The only question is about the missing bin folder/files that the EU originally doesn't have (the Vib folder)??

[William2004]

lol im glad you also got a black screen at first Jay-jay, after reading the last few posts i was starting to worry
that i had mistakenly said it wasnt working.

[PatrickBatman]

Ok just wanted to double check, updated list over at crunch to reflect this.

[BahumatLord]

I haven't forgotten. Had to do some reworking for MGS2 to keep it in FAT32 limitations. Quite a bit of it should be able to be ripped from both games especially MGS2. MGS2 appears to contain both the full US and full UK versions of the game instead of like 3 where it uses redirections for the EUR versions to point to the US version if that makes any sense to you guys

Here's the repacked MGS3 directory structure. First run I'm trying to leave it completely untouched for the "purists" but I'll try to rip the EUR languages which should actually cut the game size in half so somewhere around 10 gigs total

Directory of Z:\GAMESTB\BLUS30847\PS3_GAME\USRDIR\MGS3

05/19/2012  04:34 PM    <DIR>          .
05/19/2012  04:34 PM    <DIR>          ..
05/19/2012  02:10 AM       173,100,688 fr.psarc
05/19/2012  02:16 AM        69,200,356 gr.psarc
05/19/2012  02:22 AM        68,780,799 it.psarc
11/08/2011  09:01 AM         1,691,281 mg1.sprx
11/08/2011  09:01 AM         3,481,440 mg2.sprx
11/08/2011  09:19 AM        75,937,393 mgs3_misc.psarc
05/19/2012  03:21 AM       495,546,066 slot.psarc
05/19/2012  02:27 AM        66,740,502 sp.psarc
05/19/2012  05:42 AM     2,287,366,956 stage.psarc
05/19/2012  07:30 AM    <DIR>          us
              9 File(s)  3,241,845,481 bytes

 Directory of Z:\GAMESTB\BLUS30847\PS3_GAME\USRDIR\MGS3\us

05/19/2012  07:30 AM    <DIR>          .
05/19/2012  07:30 AM    <DIR>          ..
05/19/2012  05:50 AM       478,316,861 bgm.psarc
05/19/2012  05:51 AM        54,348,063 bgm_2.psarc
05/19/2012  06:24 AM     2,484,705,623 demo.psarc
05/19/2012  06:38 AM     2,436,356,232 movie.psarc
05/19/2012  06:43 AM        52,003,446 slot.psarc
05/19/2012  07:19 AM       412,262,224 stage.psarc
05/19/2012  07:30 AM       636,315,879 vox.psarc
05/19/2012  07:30 AM           408,047 vox_2.psarc
               8 File(s)  6,554,716,375 bytes

[BahumatLord]

Progress report - Rebuilding the psarc files as listed above does work. However the files are indexed to the main psarc files to certain byte offsets for fast accessing in the game. Playing the games as above eliminates the long load times, but causes massive drag in-game. The index file would have to be completely reindexed to the new offsets for it to work effectively. It's doable, but there's too many for me to personally do it. This just isn't real high on my priority list. If somebody wants to attempt it, I can show them the index and how to get the right values after the files have been rearchived. It would require somebody to write a script and also a PC that is more up to date than mine for fast testing and processing.

So, this is where I'm at now. I see 2 options for making this work and I'm going to leave it up to you guys to decide what you want to see. I can gut the game and completely remove all traces of the EURO regions which would bring the file count to something that the PS3 can handle. I'm not sure how this would affect the Euro copy of the game. On the US version it has all regions included and from the list Jay-Jay uploaded it should be the same for that copy. How the Euro copy will actually function is something that will just have to be tested. If somebody has the Euro version already extracted, then create a temporary folder at the root of your usb drive and move the following folders to the temp location. In MGS2 move the eu folder. In MGS3 move the fr, gr, it, and sp folders. Normally we'd use PS3Rip to create dummy files, but the large file count is a problem for this game. After moving, test the game to see that it still works. This would be ideal, but would still leave a large file count that might still be too large to be practical

The other option is to leave the games intact after extraction, but to split the games into 3 separate games. They would appear in multiMAN as Metal Gear Solid 2 HD, Metal Gear Solid 3 HD, and Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker HD (or whatever it's called). You would have to load the game you want from multiMAN and remember to only select the game that you have loaded from the game selection menu. This does work. For this I would like to have the little pic box that appears in the bottom right of the XMB to identify which game is selected to cut down on the confusion. I suck at Photoshop if somebody can work that out.

Let me hear what you guys think

[PatrickBatman]

What files would you gut on US? Or is just the files PS3RIP guts already? I just want to add this to the compat list.

[BahumatLord]

In MGS2 move the eu folder. In MGS3 move the fr, gr, it, and sp folders

PS3Rip would make dummy files for MGS3, but the large file count would still be a problem so that wouldn't work so you'd actually have to move the folders out. Removing the entire eu folder in MGS2 is something PS3Rip wouldn't do but works for US. It should be the same for the Euro copy of the game because the files are the same but nobody's reported back on it yet

[PatrickBatman]

In MGS2 move the eu folder. In MGS3 move the fr, gr, it, and sp folders

PS3Rip would make dummy files for MGS3, but the large file count would still be a problem so that wouldn't work so you'd actually have to move the folders out. Removing the entire eu folder in MGS2 is something PS3Rip wouldn't do but works for US. It should be the same for the Euro copy of the game because the files are the same but nobody's reported back on it yet

I noticed it has language .psarcs like UC 2, UC 2 still worked without them (keep native obviously) I also notice PS3RIP wont remove these, so what games screw up without there language.psarc, do you know of any, I think Portal 2 also has language psarcs and still works without them. I take these psarcs are in the language folders

Why does PS3RIP make dummy files anyway, when it backs the files in question up into a ripped folder?

Sorry you dont have to answer these questions. just curious

[BahumatLord]

ignore that list with multiple psarc files. It was a failed attempt to repack the game. Well, not failed - it did repack and the game did run, but without reindexing the byte offsets it causes much more lag than just extracting them. Way too many files for me to sit and play around with. Treat all of those psarc files as extracted folders if that makes any sense. And yes, they can be ripped

[BahumatLord]

PS3Rip makes dummy files so it doesn't screw up data installations. When a game does the data install it looks for the file to copy. 99% of the time it doesn't check the size, just that it exists