Disc Combining Kits

shalma · February 10th, 2009

Some multi-disc games can be merged into 1 bin/cue file for emulators or PSP (non-DVD5 games).

Alone in the Dark - The New Nightmare (# = 1)
Chrono Cross
Countdown Vampires (*) (preview build)
Dragon Warrior VII (*) (preview build, # = 1)
Driver 2 (# = 1)
Fear Effect (*) (preview build)
Final Fantasy VII
Final Fantasy VIII
Final Fantasy IX
Grandia
Heart of Darkness
In Cold Blood (*) (preview build, not done)
Legend of Dragoon (*) (preview build)
Lunar - Silver Star Story Complete
Lunar 2 - Eternal Blue Complete (*) (preview build)
Metal Gear Solid
Oddworld - Abe's Exoddus (*) (preview build)
Parasite Eve
Parasite Eve II (# = 0)
Star Ocean - The Second Story (*) (preview build)
Star Wars - Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire (# = 1)
Syphon Filter 2 (# = 0)
Tales of Destiny II (*) (preview build)
Wild Arms 2 (*) (preview build)

Certified status:
(*) = not fully tested with ePSXe
(#) = confirmed working by people other than toolkit creator
( ) = no remaining problems

ePSXe_DVD5:
Latest build

Master files list:
Attachments - Emuforums.com

Code:

Currently testing:
2009-11  --  Countdown Vampires
2009-11  --  Wild Arms 2

Last updated:
2009-11  v1  Parasite Eve II               released - completed
2009-11  v1  Syphon Filter 2               released - completed
2009-11  v1  Driver 2                      released - completed
2009-11  v1  Alone in the Dark 4           released - completed
2009-11  v1  Final Fantasy VII            completed
2009-10  v2  Final Fantasy VIII            completed
2009-10  --  Fear Effect                   preview work
2009-10  --  In Cold Blood                 preview work
2009-10  --  Wild Arms 2                   initial work done
2009-10  v1  Rebel Assault II              released - completed
2009-10  v4  ePSXe_dvd5                    released
2009-09  v1  Grandia                       completed
2009-08  v1  Heart of Darkness             completed
2009-08  v2  Final Fantasy IX              v2 rebuild + ePSXe_dvd5
2009-08  --  Star Ocean - 2nd Story        initial work done
2009-07  --  Oddworld - Abe's Exoddus      initial work done
2009-07  --  Countdown Vampires            initial work done
2009-07  --  Tales of Destiny II           initial work done
2009-07  --  Dragon Warrior VII            initial work done
2009-07  --  Legend of Dragoon             initial work done
2009-07  v1  Chrono Cross                  completed
2009-07  v2  Metal Gear Solid              completed - all versions
2009-03  v1  Lunar 2 - Eternal Blue        released (preview)
2009-02  v1  Lunar - Silver Star           completed
2007-06  v2  Parasite Eve                  completed

WARNING:
Do not re-rip your CD image using CloneCD / Alcohol from a virtual drive to create a 'bin' or 'img'.

MagicISO / ISOBuster supposedly works to convert img, iso, mdf, bwt to 'bin' or 'iso'.

Games bought from the Sony PSN store are DRM-encrypted and cannot work with these kits unless you decrypt them and convert the PSP eboot. No support will be given in this thread.

PROBLEMS:
Try looking at this post HERE which will let us examine your files.

OPTIONAL:
If you want to verify that your PS1 discs are accurate before merging..
1) Download the latest beta of CDMage (freeware) @ CDmage - CD image handling tool
2) Run CDMage
3) File -> Open (cue, ccd, bin, img, ..)
4) Action -> Scan for Corruption -> OK

0 errors = :)
1+ errors = :*( - bad opcode, glitchy movie, or you may never notice the problem in-game

You can visit here if you want to verify your discs:
redump.org PSX discs

Attached Files

CDmage1-02-1B5.rar (551.8 KB, 8 views)

Last edited by shalma; 11 Hours Ago at 16:17.. Reason: updated list

Squall-Leonhart · February 10th, 2009

Only for the PSP, it will not work on any PSX emulator.

__________________

VBA-M | Xtemu | NGOHQ | Post Impact Productions | TNHW | XBCD 0.2.6 | Satanic666's Emulator Compiles
Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct
Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!.
If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help.
Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

shalma · February 10th, 2009

I've used the parasite eve one with epsxe 1.7.0 (ISO loading). Played start to finish perfectly with no problems. Including ex-game.

Playing the lunar one with epsxe 1.7.0 (ISO loading). No problems so far (start to end-game tower).

Note:
The tools create an ISO but creating the EBOOT (PSP) is a seperate process.
Maybe I'm completely mistaken though (..?)

Squall-Leonhart · February 11th, 2009

This interests me, maybe possible to combine the 4 FF9 CD's into a DVD?

__________________

VBA-M | Xtemu | NGOHQ | Post Impact Productions | TNHW | XBCD 0.2.6 | Satanic666's Emulator Compiles
Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct
Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!.
If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help.
Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

dolphin1984 · February 11th, 2009

Sound interesting may save some time in the long run.

__________________
My System: E8500 @ 4.2ghz

, 1gb hd4870 , 4GB corsair dominater ddr2 ram

shalma · February 11th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squall-Leonhart

This interests me, maybe possible to combine the 4 FF9 CD's into a DVD?

The ff9.img files have different sizes. They'll need merging and rebuilding. I don't know if it can be safely done (conflicting file contents?). The structure doesn't seem horrible to work with.

I think a DVD could be possible during a long-term project.

Squall-Leonhart · February 12th, 2009

multidisk psx games tend to mirror the textures of all area's on each disk, with usually only the fmv's being different... unless you count FF8, of which theres 1 or 2 FMV's on disk 2 that are also on disk 3..... iiirc... been awhile since i was in the debug room.

__________________

VBA-M | Xtemu | NGOHQ | Post Impact Productions | TNHW | XBCD 0.2.6 | Satanic666's Emulator Compiles
Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct
Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!.
If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help.
Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

shalma · February 12th, 2009

Began checking the first two FF9 discs more closely. I think you are right. And the game looks to use internal file IDs, making collisions probably remote.

If I had more HDD space, I'd dump all 4 discs and rig the extractor to do sector comparisons for safety. Then create some test images.

Don't know anything about how the disc swap check would work.
Otherwise, your idea seems more concrete.
I'll give the builder more thought in the meantime.

FF9 Extractor
http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=5481.0

fireblaster_lyz · February 12th, 2009

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squall-Leonhart

This interests me, maybe possible to combine the 4 FF9 CD's into a DVD?

Yes. It can be done using Popsloader.

EDIT: Popsloader only applies for the PSP. I don't think there's a way to compile it into a DVD.

__________________
Regards,
fireblaster_lyz

Plugin(s) Configuration:
ePSXe/PSXeven/SSSPSX
Pete's OpenGL GPU v2.7 | Eternal SPU v1.41 | P.E.O.p.S CDR Plugin

Plugin(s) Links:
Pete's Bernert
Lewpy

Configuration Guides:
Troubleshooting FAQ (READ ME FIRST)
Kane

General Configuration Guide (in Japanese)
Click here. (Dumping BIOS, Everything)

"Because i want my computer to stay a computer. I dont want to be just a psx. "

Last edited by fireblaster_lyz; February 12th, 2009 at 19:33..

shalma · February 13th, 2009

Code:

Lunar 2 - Eternal Blue Complete [SLUS-01071 / 01239 / 01240]

This will combine your 3 game CDs into 1 disc
Tested only with epsxe 1.7.0

WARNING:
You'll need ~6GB to finish the operation

This isn't fully tested:
- start to finish
- in-game 1->2, 2->3 swap points

This is an experimental release.

Attached Files

lunar2_multi_v1.7z (143.4 KB, 21 views)

Last edited by shalma; July 20th, 2009 at 00:03..

momochi · February 17th, 2009

I might do FFIX, combining FF9.IMG will be easy since every file has a unique ID that's stored in it's FAT. I just hope that the video files are accessed through the ISO table and not by hardcoded sector values (FFVII did this)

shalma · February 18th, 2009

Okay, I'll hold off for the moment. Finished the merger program but if someone else wants to work, don't mind at all. (:

(confirmed)
- Movies are loaded via ISO table
- FF9.IMG can be relocatable
- CD checks are done by looking for the presence of specific SLUS_* files
(I don't know where this happens yet)

KrossX · February 18th, 2009

This sounds interesting.

Could you use the attachment instead of Megaupload?

__________________

shalma · February 18th, 2009

Code:

Lunar - Silver Star Story Complete [SLUS-00628 / 00899]

This will combine your 2 game CDs into 1 disc
Tested only with epsxe 1.7.0, ISO loading.

WARNING:
You'll need ~4GB to finish the operation 


Tested versions:
- 1999-05-01  Original

Current: version 1

Attached Files

lunar1_multi_v1.7z (84.6 KB, 16 views)

Last edited by shalma; July 20th, 2009 at 00:06..

Squall-Leonhart · February 18th, 2009

did someone screw the uploads folder again.

__________________

VBA-M | Xtemu | NGOHQ | Post Impact Productions | TNHW | XBCD 0.2.6 | Satanic666's Emulator Compiles
Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct
Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!.
If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help.
Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

momochi · February 18th, 2009

I'll give it a go, like everything I do it'll be quite the hack job haha. If you're wondering about the disc check, the routine is stored in FF9.IMG (like most Square games lots of code for different segments of the game is swapped in and out to save RAM). It's loaded at the address 0x0a8234 in the RAM and looks like this:

03004010FF00022498A0020C21204002

If you change it to...

03004010FF0002240000000000000000

... then it'll bypass the jump and link function to the disc change screen and the game will load as usual.

Edit: And it may be the spacing issue, seeing as the game uses the next file's start sector to determine how large the current file it's loading is, the game may be trying to load 0x800 of free space where it can't.

Edit2: Good work on your Lunar merge kits BTW, I think I'll use M2CDMaker for FFIX as well... may make things easier.

Eidt3: 4:30 AM and I'm not thinking quite straight. In case you didn't know, I go by the name of psychospacefish on some message boards.

Last edited by momochi; February 18th, 2009 at 15:28..

shalma · February 18th, 2009

Thanks, I see it now. :)

Got lucky with the Lunars - friendly enough for cd2dvd. Normally I work with PC conversions (cd-2-dvd) but the Eve1 got me interested.

Make sure to use the Lunar2 one - fixes some stupid root dir LBA bugs. And m2cdmaker wants all the root files listed first, then any sub-directory ones. There's also another current bug with subdirectory extraction - doesn't handle spanning yet.

Don't plan to do any more conversions for awhile - they appear much harder than I'd thought. Grandia and Star Ocean might be fun to try though (MGS has differing contents for RADIO and STAGE but merging all those files looks damn tough). I've heard that Chrono Cross actually hides its files. >=o

EDIT:
Out of curiosity, checked out Grandia. There's a few conflicting files with same names.. :|

Merging all the FF9.IMG files together is a little too large for the RAM to handle. Re-creating the FAT table maybe could be possible, which looks like a lot of work for any determined person. :frustrated:

Last edited by shalma; February 19th, 2009 at 20:31.. Reason: notes

momochi · February 20th, 2009

Do you mean that the game can't handle directory tables larger than 2 sectors (thus requiring some ASM work to get the game to read them)? Or do you mean that when recreating the FAT you have to account for the fact that some directory tables will be more than 2 sectors?

Grandia may be tricky because I think that the voice/music file's indexes are relative to the disc (meaning that for example the game may reference file 125 on disc 1 and file 125 on disc 2, but they'll be different files for different purposes). Also Grandia has that nasty disc-swapping mechanism that requires you to reset and reload to continue playing, not sure how you'd get around that.

shalma · February 20th, 2009

Normally the game DMAs about 11-12 $800 blocks to the tail-end of RAM (full directory info, ~1F3700). Merging all the files expands to 15 blocks, passing the RAM barrier and creates a hard crash.

merger wip:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8H2STXJF
(create folders cd1/cd2/cd3/cd4/out; place FF9.IMG in each disc folder, out is ~675MB)

Recreating FAT:
- replacing directory table sector #s with real offset values
- (directory 0) + (directory 1) + (directory 2) all in the same $800 block.

Problem areas noted:
$8001debc - this controls how many blocks to DMA. Used a ADDIU v1,r0,$7800 to hard-code it.
$8001df08 - used to load directory 0 (?)
$8001df70 - log says it's loading sector c (#10)
more ex. SLL 00000009 (v0), 00000009 (v0), 0b (11)

Got a migraine from trying to understand everything. Currently my build just infinitely repeatedly CD-ROM reads the last directory sector after grabbing the directory data.

Haven't played Grandia in a long time. That sounds really nasty. o_o

momochi · February 20th, 2009

So you've clumped all the directory tables together in one big block? I'm looking at the loading routine now, wouldn't it just be easier to hardcode the DMA address to 1F0000 or thereabouts? I suck at coding, so I'm writing an extractor/rebuilder/mess right now... the extractor part's working, haven't looked at the rebuilder yet.

Last edited by momochi; February 20th, 2009 at 04:08.. Reason: My grammar fail.

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February 10th, 2009	#2 (permalink)
Squall-Leonhart Behind ur girlfriend :D Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 18,844	Only for the PSP, it will not work on any PSX emulator. __________________ VBA-M \| Xtemu \| NGOHQ \| Post Impact Productions \| TNHW \| XBCD 0.2.6 \| Satanic666's Emulator Compiles Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!. If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help. Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

February 10th, 2009	#3 (permalink)
shalma Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: N/A Posts: 152	I've used the parasite eve one with epsxe 1.7.0 (ISO loading). Played start to finish perfectly with no problems. Including ex-game. Playing the lunar one with epsxe 1.7.0 (ISO loading). No problems so far (start to end-game tower). Note: The tools create an ISO but creating the EBOOT (PSP) is a seperate process. Maybe I'm completely mistaken though (..?)

February 11th, 2009	#4 (permalink)
Squall-Leonhart Behind ur girlfriend :D Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 18,844	This interests me, maybe possible to combine the 4 FF9 CD's into a DVD? __________________ VBA-M \| Xtemu \| NGOHQ \| Post Impact Productions \| TNHW \| XBCD 0.2.6 \| Satanic666's Emulator Compiles Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!. If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help. Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

February 11th, 2009	#5 (permalink)
dolphin1984 Purr Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Back from the future Posts: 119	Sound interesting may save some time in the long run. __________________ My System: E8500 @ 4.2ghz , 1gb hd4870 , 4GB corsair dominater ddr2 ram

February 12th, 2009	#7 (permalink)
Squall-Leonhart Behind ur girlfriend :D Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 18,844	multidisk psx games tend to mirror the textures of all area's on each disk, with usually only the fmv's being different... unless you count FF8, of which theres 1 or 2 FMV's on disk 2 that are also on disk 3..... iiirc... been awhile since i was in the debug room. __________________ VBA-M \| Xtemu \| NGOHQ \| Post Impact Productions \| TNHW \| XBCD 0.2.6 \| Satanic666's Emulator Compiles Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!. If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help. Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

February 12th, 2009	#8 (permalink)
shalma Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: N/A Posts: 152	Began checking the first two FF9 discs more closely. I think you are right. And the game looks to use internal file IDs, making collisions probably remote. If I had more HDD space, I'd dump all 4 discs and rig the extractor to do sector comparisons for safety. Then create some test images. Don't know anything about how the disc swap check would work. Otherwise, your idea seems more concrete. I'll give the builder more thought in the meantime. FF9 Extractor http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=5481.0

February 17th, 2009	#11 (permalink)
momochi Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Banana Posts: 26	I might do FFIX, combining FF9.IMG will be easy since every file has a unique ID that's stored in it's FAT. I just hope that the video files are accessed through the ISO table and not by hardcoded sector values (FFVII did this)

February 18th, 2009	#12 (permalink)
shalma Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: N/A Posts: 152	Okay, I'll hold off for the moment. Finished the merger program but if someone else wants to work, don't mind at all. (: (confirmed) - Movies are loaded via ISO table - FF9.IMG can be relocatable - CD checks are done by looking for the presence of specific SLUS_* files (I don't know where this happens yet)

February 18th, 2009	#13 (permalink)
KrossX Registered User Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Argentina Posts: 922	This sounds interesting. Could you use the attachment instead of Megaupload? __________________

February 18th, 2009	#15 (permalink)
Squall-Leonhart Behind ur girlfriend :D Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 18,844	did someone screw the uploads folder again. __________________ VBA-M \| Xtemu \| NGOHQ \| Post Impact Productions \| TNHW \| XBCD 0.2.6 \| Satanic666's Emulator Compiles Don't be a NOOB, READ THE NGEmu/EmuForums Rules of Conduct Need Help with ePSXe? This is your first stop!. If you don't post all the required information, you don't get help. Everytime someone posts a romsite, God kills a beautiful woman.

February 18th, 2009	#16 (permalink)
momochi Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Banana Posts: 26	I'll give it a go, like everything I do it'll be quite the hack job haha. If you're wondering about the disc check, the routine is stored in FF9.IMG (like most Square games lots of code for different segments of the game is swapped in and out to save RAM). It's loaded at the address 0x0a8234 in the RAM and looks like this: 03004010FF00022498A0020C21204002 If you change it to... 03004010FF0002240000000000000000 ... then it'll bypass the jump and link function to the disc change screen and the game will load as usual. Edit: And it may be the spacing issue, seeing as the game uses the next file's start sector to determine how large the current file it's loading is, the game may be trying to load 0x800 of free space where it can't. Edit2: Good work on your Lunar merge kits BTW, I think I'll use M2CDMaker for FFIX as well... may make things easier. Eidt3: 4:30 AM and I'm not thinking quite straight. In case you didn't know, I go by the name of psychospacefish on some message boards. Last edited by momochi; February 18th, 2009 at 15:28..

February 18th, 2009	#17 (permalink)
shalma Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: N/A Posts: 152	Thanks, I see it now. :) Got lucky with the Lunars - friendly enough for cd2dvd. Normally I work with PC conversions (cd-2-dvd) but the Eve1 got me interested. Make sure to use the Lunar2 one - fixes some stupid root dir LBA bugs. And m2cdmaker wants all the root files listed first, then any sub-directory ones. There's also another current bug with subdirectory extraction - doesn't handle spanning yet. Don't plan to do any more conversions for awhile - they appear much harder than I'd thought. Grandia and Star Ocean might be fun to try though (MGS has differing contents for RADIO and STAGE but merging all those files looks damn tough). I've heard that Chrono Cross actually hides its files. >=o EDIT: Out of curiosity, checked out Grandia. There's a few conflicting files with same names.. :\| Merging all the FF9.IMG files together is a little too large for the RAM to handle. Re-creating the FAT table maybe could be possible, which looks like a lot of work for any determined person. :frustrated: Last edited by shalma; February 19th, 2009 at 20:31.. Reason: notes

February 20th, 2009	#18 (permalink)
momochi Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Banana Posts: 26	Do you mean that the game can't handle directory tables larger than 2 sectors (thus requiring some ASM work to get the game to read them)? Or do you mean that when recreating the FAT you have to account for the fact that some directory tables will be more than 2 sectors? Grandia may be tricky because I think that the voice/music file's indexes are relative to the disc (meaning that for example the game may reference file 125 on disc 1 and file 125 on disc 2, but they'll be different files for different purposes). Also Grandia has that nasty disc-swapping mechanism that requires you to reset and reload to continue playing, not sure how you'd get around that.

February 20th, 2009	#19 (permalink)
shalma Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: N/A Posts: 152	Normally the game DMAs about 11-12 $800 blocks to the tail-end of RAM (full directory info, ~1F3700). Merging all the files expands to 15 blocks, passing the RAM barrier and creates a hard crash. merger wip: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8H2STXJF (create folders cd1/cd2/cd3/cd4/out; place FF9.IMG in each disc folder, out is ~675MB) Recreating FAT: - replacing directory table sector #s with real offset values - (directory 0) + (directory 1) + (directory 2) all in the same $800 block. Problem areas noted: $8001debc - this controls how many blocks to DMA. Used a ADDIU v1,r0,$7800 to hard-code it. $8001df08 - used to load directory 0 (?) $8001df70 - log says it's loading sector c (#10) more ex. SLL 00000009 (v0), 00000009 (v0), 0b (11) Got a migraine from trying to understand everything. Currently my build just infinitely repeatedly CD-ROM reads the last directory sector after grabbing the directory data. Haven't played Grandia in a long time. That sounds really nasty. o_o

February 20th, 2009	#20 (permalink)
momochi Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Banana Posts: 26	So you've clumped all the directory tables together in one big block? I'm looking at the loading routine now, wouldn't it just be easier to hardcode the DMA address to 1F0000 or thereabouts? I suck at coding, so I'm writing an extractor/rebuilder/mess right now... the extractor part's working, haven't looked at the rebuilder yet. Last edited by momochi; February 20th, 2009 at 04:08.. Reason: My grammar fail.