[Tutorial] Converting CD Games to DVD for ESR use

[EppyK]

Originally Posted by l_oliveira

Ya have a point there ... but hey ... I think not having to swap is worth 100 times more than having to. Cheap asses XD

And of course thanks go to FFgriever for the idea and implementation. He did his thing from scratch just from looking the output from the memento patcher. That's impressive, not ?

Well I'd think that most of the people using swap magic over there don't own a pressed disc, they're probably all using the elf version which is exponentially bigger than esr. 700k vs 75k iirc. That would make it better for a memory card. You don't have to deal with any button presses either. I think the real problem is laziness. When you have a colection that big, it would be a pain to reburn every last one.

Oh and considering how well ffgriever knows some seriously low level stuff, I wouldn't be surprised if he had this worked out before memento did it. Maybe not code, but an idea at least. I mean he had to have known how to get down and dirty with the ps2 hardware considering his previous work.

[windrider42]

Originally Posted by EppyK

I'm pretty sure cog/flip swap was implied. It is afterdawn afterall so it would be pretty safe to assume that they're familiar with these things. And as for the cheap comment, if they weren't so cheap, they wouldn't have a collection of 100 burned games.

Your right on afterdawn we are familiar with such things, or at least the ones who have been around long time.

I didn't think it would work, and no he did not mention cog/flip swap.

I tried it for the heck of it, as I even had the swap pro tools in my one slim and it doesn't work.

I agree ffgriever has done one hell of a job with ESR, and thats why I bought memento in the first place was so I didn't have to swap.

Now I use memento and ESR.

[SlimPS2_Dude]

Well, I am trying to convert "Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland" to DVD, but its not working, I followed the tutorial exactly, and afterwards I tried to boot the image in PCSX2 and it just gives me a black screen..

So is there anything else I can do to get this working, I would really love to use it with ESR..

[ffgriever]

I've got some idea. Not everyone is skilled enough to make proper cd->dvd conversion for games that use static lba tables (and not always they're as easy to find as in some cases). I thought that it wouldn't be hard to simply allow user to burn isos (well... any 2048 bytes/sector image in fact ) of their CD games on DVDVideo disc (just the minimal system... exact same as created by patcher). Then choose the game to play from browser and launch it. It won't slow anything and shouldn't cause too much compatibility problems. The data is continuous, so it would be something like offset only... plus many games on one DVDV (well, there are some problems, but I think they can be ignored, as no games should really use this stuff).

What do you think? I'll try to check this in next week.

Oh... Does any of you know of a PS2 game that comes on a CD and uses CDAudio tracks? (well, you cannot just move cdda to dvd... and even if you could, PS2 wouldn't play it anyway). These games should work just fine without them (though, no music will be played), but I just wanted to test.

[katananja]

Go for it ffgriever!

I still need to find a game to convert that challenge me a little more, all my CD PS2 games was converted with 100% success.

[l_oliveira]

Originally Posted by ffgriever

Oh... Does any of you know of a PS2 game that comes on a CD and uses CDAudio tracks? (well, you cannot just move cdda to dvd... and even if you could, PS2 wouldn't play it anyway). These games should work just fine without them (though, no music will be played), but I just wanted to test.

Even thought the drive hardware do support it, SCEI still forbids the use of CDDA on PS2 titles. I believe it's to force the developers into using SPU CD-XA/ADPCM streaming.

A game would not get certified for launch with CDDA tracks so I'm 100% sure you can safely assume no PS2 game with CDDA tracks do exist.

[Codeman]

I would like to try this method with VF4 but I have a few questions relating to dummy files

In the old days when dealing with DC backups & homebrews dummyfiles were used to fill the CD's and pushing the game data to the outer edge of the cd thus speeding up load times.

Can the same be made with PS2 CD>DVD conversion? or would the dummy files interfere and mess with LBA's and such?

Also can Nero be used to build these DVD's or does it lack any vital options found in imgburn?

[katananja]

Originally Posted by Codeman

I would like to try this method with VF4 but I have a few questions relating to dummy files

In the old days when dealing with DC backups & homebrews dummyfiles were used to fill the CD's and pushing the game data to the outer edge of the cd thus speeding up load times.

Can the same be made with PS2 CD>DVD conversion? or would the dummy files interfere and mess with LBA's and such?

Also can Nero be used to build these DVD's or does it lack any vital options found in imgburn?

Dummy files are used to push some files back and forth or fill the disc, there for, it will change LBA. Dummy files must be used just to fill size, nothing more, friends and myself have build multi-game DVD that is working fine, so there is no need to get that crazy about LBA's.

To get NERO just for this is a big waste, NERO is heavy, installs a dozen files at you computer, consume big chunks of computer resources and most of the people don't use 10% of what NERO offer, many just use it to burn CD/DVD.

Some had problems to get their conversion to work because of NERO, so stick with imgburn.

VF4 works with this tutorial.

[Codeman]

VF4 CD>DVDV conversion worked great, thanks!

[crazymonkey]

Originally Posted by ffgriever

I thought that it wouldn't be hard to simply allow user to burn isos (well... any 2048 bytes/sector image in fact ) of their CD games on DVDVideo disc (just the minimal system... exact same as created by patcher). Then choose the game to play from browser and launch it.

didn't see this post before. I think it's a good idea

[geezer78]

Originally Posted by ffgriever

Oh... Does any of you know of a PS2 game that comes on a CD and uses CDAudio tracks? (well, you cannot just move cdda to dvd... and even if you could, PS2 wouldn't play it anyway). These games should work just fine without them (though, no music will be played), but I just wanted to test.

Hi there ffgriever!

First i'd like to say thanks for the hard work! You've done a briljant job so far and seem to keep going strong!

now @ topic: Dance Factory is a cd based game with cdda tracks, i've tried to make a dvd version of it already but can't get it to work because of those darn tracks! so if you get iso's on a dvd and make the ps2 think it's just working with a cd in the drive that would be super! pm me if you don't have the game.

Geezer78

[kevstah2004]

Originally Posted by geezer78

Hi there ffgriever!

First i'd like to say thanks for the hard work! You've done a briljant job so far and seem to keep going strong!

now @ topic: Dance Factory is a cd based game with cdda tracks, i've tried to make a dvd version of it already but can't get it to work because of those darn tracks! so if you get iso's on a dvd and make the ps2 think it's just working with a cd in the drive that would be super! pm me if you don't have the game.

Geezer78

This is because your backup dvd-v .cue file doesn't include the locations for the audio data tracks

the cue should look something like this:

FILE "CD.iso" BINARY

REM ORIGINAL MEDIA-TYPE: DVD

REM SESSION 01 ; Not supported by other applications (*)
TRACK 01 MODE1/2048
INDEX 01 00:00:00
REM MSF: 00:00:00 = LBA: 0
TRACK 02 AUDIO
INDEX 00 38:32:37
REM MSF: 38:32:37 = LBA: 173437
INDEX 01 38:34:37
REM MSF: 38:34:37 = LBA: 173437

REM (*) SESSION directives are unfortunately not properly supported
REM 'out there'. IsoBuster however supports them !

[BigTC]

Hi! I have the same problem as kevstah2004:

Originally Posted by kevstah2004

I tried it with Zombie Hunters 2 [SLES_545.69]
Black, Red, Blue, Purple, White, Light Blue, Black
Result: Failed produces garbled image where it checks for a memory card "I think" goes to a black screen and then doesn't go any further.

Dummy files on original CD:
http://psx-scene.com/forums/attachme...1&d=1214016993

LBA table of original CD
http://psx-scene.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=14143&stc=1&d=12140169 93

PCSX2 still reporting the disc to be a cd instead of dvd
http://psx-scene.com/forums/attachme...1&d=1214017086

The game I tried to convert is Age of Empires II (PAL). All menus are messed up, the videos are shown correctly, and when I press "New game", the screen turns black and nothing happens at all... :-/

[drummer198935]

Originally Posted by BigTC

Hi! I have the same problem as kevstah2004:



The game I tried to convert is Age of Empires II (PAL). All menus are messed up, the videos are shown correctly, and when I press "New game", the screen turns black and nothing happens at all... :-/

I have the same problem too.

is there a way to get it to work with esr ?

[BigTC]

I just converted Jurassic Park Operation Genesis (PAL, too), and it works without any problems (it just loads a bit too slow; but apart from that, the game works perfectly); but I did everything exactly the same way as with AoE, so I'm pretty sure it isn't my fault that it didn't work... :-/

[xboxmods2977]

Originally Posted by SlimPS2_Dude

Well, I am trying to convert "Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland" to DVD, but its not working, I followed the tutorial exactly, and afterwards I tried to boot the image in PCSX2 and it just gives me a black screen..

So is there anything else I can do to get this working, I would really love to use it with ESR..

I too have tried to convert this game and got to a black screen. ESR flashes all the colors it normally does with my other games but this one hangs at a black screen. There must be something special you have to do here to get this game to boot. I have used "THE BEST" software to convert this CD to DVD and to no avail. Anyone else tried to convert Harvest Moon:S.T.H.?
My girlfriend is gonna kick me If I don't get this done for her, Any help would be great cus I am tired of lookin at this sh!t.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I used ImgBurn to make an ISO from original game CD,
ISOBuster to extract taking note of the order of the files,
used DVD ScanLite 3.7 to patch IMG and SLUS Files and even went over all the other files in case I missed something,
Built a DVD image including dummy using CD/DVD Generator , (files put in correct order per IsoBuster)
used iml2iso v5.0 to build iso from iml,
Patched ISO with ESR
burned with ImgBurn on maxell DVD-R at 4x and I got nothin. Now..
Do I have to do some LBA surgery here, OR what?

[ffgriever]

Solution for this game has been posted a long time ago here:

http://psx-scene.com/forums/freevast...ml?#post428888

Just follow the steps and you will get this game working just as SlimPS2_Dude did.

Anyway, it's not ESR related problem (surprise! ). You just didn't do proper conversion (this game uses fixed lba table to access files).

[katananja]

Nice one ffgriever!!