Hacks, Hardware & Emulation, Oh My

Comprehensive video on the launch PS3 YLOD repair history. I‘ve got one a friend gave to me for free I’ve thought about fixing (but it may be a retirement project at his point - lol)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0UMG3iVYZI

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I love my PS2 freemcboot setup. I love OPL. I spent tons of time making a custom minimalist theme and customizing box art for every game. I use a 1tb HDD that is now like $30 on Amazon.

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And yes I can network to it from my PC to add games. In my van down by the river

@"copySave"#332

>

its the minimalist PlayStation setup

Hahahaha I Fundamentally disagree with calling a model 1 PS3 or a PS5 minimalist in any way whatsoever, especially both of them side by side. Great video and gave them a follow too

@“Updog”#p93255 I probably have a spare MagicGate PS2 memory card lying around and could make you a FreeMcboot memory card if you wanted. direct message me if that‘s something you’d be into and are in the US.

Thanks! Ive got some options to weigh.

https://twitter.com/WobblingP/status/1593756410885668866?t=JhfRqUn4MVhJ4zwcGjOSqA&s=19

very sad, the carby gamecube component cables I got after selling my OEM ones already stopped working completely, the product is no longer supported so no options with customer service since it's no longer a supported product. will just have to repair them myself

@“hellomrkearns”#p93569 been using OPL a ton this month. I beat KH2 using OPL. and after that I added some more art to my already painstakingly customized OPL theme and coverflow. Now I‘ve also added more cheats for every game to remap X to O button, which is simple but also not as easy as you’d imagine. Going to play some MLB Power Pros 2008 tonight.

my PSTV tiptoes ever closer to my ideal of “poor man's mister”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar1_BJIjQsQ

@“Syzygy”#p94638

Okay here we go

I love OPL. Very good use of open sourcing. It‘s the most highly (& easily) configurable interfaces for retro game console libraries whether we’re talking ODEs, flash carts, etc. This website / forum, PS2-HOME has extensive tutorials for all things imaginable, and lists of compatibility and info needed for individual games, and cheats database too. It seems highly technical at times, but even the most technically advanced stuff is accomplishable if you are capable of following step by step instructions. And while 99% of users seem to be using HDTVs, and at first glance it seems like everything is assumed to be on an HDTV, OPL is entirely configurable for use on a CRT. (often assumed you want widescreen hacks for every game, haha)

For the most part, the vast majority of the time I prefer a console-wide Japanese format Playstation button layout, in BIOS, and in games. You know, what I said above, with O for select and X for cancel. Instead of writing that out I'm just going to refer to it as "Japanese format". BIOS is the least important though, games are super important. Any loader for playstation --again flash carts or ODEs or what have you-- worth its salt should have both formats available, at least for the loader GUI.

This was easiest on the PSP, if the BIOS was Japanese format, most games would follow suit. Same with PS3. This was easy to change on a softmodded system.

For PS1, depending on your device I guess, I have not found any way to change this on a per-game basis. Though this was the beginning of this format war, and lots of games had configurable controls (FFVII) or used the Japanese format anyway (MGS). So it's less of a concern, I guess. Even the BIOS was still figuring out controls at this time. A lot of games used triangle for cancel instead of circle, which is preferable if only because I'm a punk about it. It still does bother me quite a bit for certain games, though. I put up with it in the rare few wester games I play like Spyro.

PS2 is basically the same as PS1. The BIOS is always the format of the region of the console without hard mods I guess. I have a softmodded PS2 with freemcboot and internal HDD, and all the utilities use O for select and X for cancel, but not the BIOS.
On a per-game basis, for PS2, OPL has a somewhat roundabout option for remapping controls for any game. The PS2RD cheats engine. This is a totally decrypted cheats engine, unlike the plethora of commercially available cheat devices, the cheats are in RAW format. This also means that even mastercodes for other devices will not work without converting them. There are lists of RAW mastercodes and mostly widescreen hacks, but when you're like us, interested in more obscure stuff, practically every other game we want to play is depopulated on these lists, so we have to convert the codebreakers master codes ourselves, and this is where it gets complicated and frustrating. I still haven't gotten Evergrace to work :(
[PS2RD cheats tutorial](https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=100)
So to remap controls, you use this program, the [PS2 Controller Remapper (tutorial)](https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1403).
This is mainly used by most people to invert right stick camera controls. This is a fair bit more effort than the solution on SWISS for Gamecube, which just has the option to invert controls in the menu. But this offers full controller remapping for all PS2 games. You have to drag the ISO into the program to do it, then it spits out a RAW code for use in PS2rd.
So, if you're doing it for an obscure game that hasn't had it's RAW mastercode catalogued, or anything else goes wrong along the way, you're SOL.
Also, at least in my case, it required I use an older version of OPL at the time I set it up a few years ago. I still use this version. OPL changes so much with each release, since I found one that is good enough, this is the one I'm sticking with so as not to break anything. There's only a couple things I'd like to change in the GUI that is possible with newer versions, but if that means breaking more important stuff like cheats, or hours and hours more toggling, I think I'm ok with the less preferable logo and text alignment of my current version, haha.

But I've been using it to swap X and O for both KH and KH2, FFX original US release, DQ8 US, and for FFXII where I remapped the O and X as well as inverted the right stick. I did complete playthroughs of all these games with it, and it feels very natural and I forget it's there, except occasionally in kingdom hearts II where there are more on screen button prompts, but it's pretty ingrained in my head that O and X are swapped and the default is always to hit O. KH2 even has mini games where the goal is to select the O and avoid X's in the action menu, but in the US version you are using the X button to select the O, clearly a leftover from the Japanese format.
I also got it working on MLB Power Pros 2008, which is the only game in that series which was ever localized and released in the west, and it feels so right children to have O for select in that game.
Sadly, I haven't gotten it to work in Evergrace yet. I need it to work in evergrace, I just do. Even though I'm totally fine with US controls for King's Field, Armored Core, and Demon's Souls. Maybe I'll change my mind on that at some point.

@“treefroggy”#p94921 @Syzygy also forgot to mention there are two more programs involved in this process for games that don't already have their RAW mastercodes listed:


  • - omniconvert is how you convert (hopefully) the codes to RAW format
  • - if that doesn't work, then you have to use [PS2 Mastercode Finder](https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=92), open the .ISO in 7zip (I don't know why the tutorial still links to virtual mounting software, the link is broken and it's much simpler to just use 7zip), open the game file and spit out the RAW mastercode. I did this for Evergrace and I hope it will work, I may not have tested it yet.
  • I am now a DSi hackmaster. I have had a JP region DSi for years, waiting, while DSi hack scene was on the cusp. Thanks to all the zoomers who made this possible, today I hacked my Japanese DSi fully and changed it to US region. I have a second DSi I hacked for a buddy. Time to go deep. I have a ton of DSiWare which I pirated on my 3DS while the freeshop was still running. I‘m going to transfer all of that to my DSi to play on proper hardware. I’m finally going to play Pokemon with the DSi-enhanced features. It‘s time to go deep on DSi. They are still super cheaply available on ebay– that will not last forever, these things are going to quickly become commodified, I believe they are rarer than DS lite. It’s gonna take a while, and a few youtube videos, before the populace recognizes DSi as the ultimate cost effective portable– it can natively play GBA games, has a full size SD card slot, cheaper and easier to hack than a 3DS, and has better screen resolution for GBA and original DS games. It's sleeker and more minimal than anything in the 3DS family, and came in some gorgeous colors and textures.

    Jaguar coming

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIcAdJ0mf40

    For those of you who have changed save batteries in gameboy and GBC carts - where do you order your batteries? When I search for batteries that already have solder tabs I can only find packs of generic ones on sites like Amazon. Ideally I would get name brand batteries from a reliable source but when I search mouser or digikey I can’t find tabbed ones. Maybe I’m searching wrong?

    @“Syzygy”#p94983 yeah the gba emulation isn‘t good enough that I’d use it.

    I was just excited about softmodding some DSi‘s yesterday

    Spent all evening configuring and organizing it.

    Now I’m motivating myself to soup up the two DS Lite's I have. I think those are more important to me because I want to play DS games on CRT anyways.

    @"mindleftbody"#p95063 long time ago I bought them bulk from kitschbent and still have plenty left. nowadays the first place I go for parts is https://console5.com/store/ they're the best most reliable source for all things retro game component repair.

    @“treefroggy”#p95105

    Thank you!

    I have an all-call of my own,

    has anybody here replaced the fan assembly in their Nintendo Switch?

    It‘s the sort of thing where I can get a cheapo deapo $15 one on amazon, but want the full scoop on if those should be avoided.

    I’ve got my finger on the trigger, I‘ve got the money and it’s high time I repair my NS!

    @“robinhoodie”#p95032 Oh, I didn‘t realise that’s the guy who did the Jag emulation for the Atari 50th was allowed to do a standalone version. Nice.

    Side note: I managed to extract data from Atari 50th on the Switch and found regular Jaguar ROM files in there. Not smart enough to do anything else with it, but still interesting to see it's using emulation and not some weird interpreter or whatever.

    @“Shaneus”#p95194 If you watch to the end, it might be because the developer is very ill. It weird for this thing I am excited for to maybe someone epitaph.

    @“robinhoodie”#p95209 I hadn‘t watched the video with audio (I’m at work) but jesus, I feel guilty for asking him questions about features now. Of course, I really hope this isn't his epitaph :frowning:

    PS1 and PS2 memory card

    https://twitter.com/PhenomMod/status/1577484500027965445?t=-TadooOuR7sIjrbupWqZcA&s=19