Disc Combining Kits - Page 3

momochi · July 9th, 2009, 17:02

Wow, impressive work you've been doing. I've been trying to do Chrono Cross this past hour, so far I've managed to write a file extractor (which was surprisingly easy due to there being no XA data on the disc). However, it seems that there are files unique to each disc that share the same ID. There's seems to be two ways to get around this, and they're both tough. The first is trying to assign new file ID's for the non-dupe files, which would involve indexing and manipulating a lot of files in numerous formats. The other is including two copies of the LBA table, both pointing to the same files (except for duplicates of course) , and adding an ASM hack which would load the appropriate LBA table depending on what disc is needed.

EDIT: Turns out only different movies share the same file ID's. There's a flag in the LBA table which determines if a file exists or not so I assumed that game data that was not necessary on a disc would be deleted, but for some reason the game uses a dummy file instead. Thus it shouldn't be too hard just to alter the file ID's of Disc 2's movies, patch out the disc check (which I've already done) then combine the game files and rebuild the disc image.

Last edited by momochi; July 9th, 2009 at 19:47..

**shalma** · July 9th, 2009, 23:48

Nice to see your return. Good to have another person around who knows more than me.

Looking at redump.org, there's -so- many multi-disc games I don't have. Which I don't plan to do either.

I've been taking it very easy on creating new kits - want to personally test all the current ones first. And then fully test any new ones before I release them (stupid bugs I make). It'll probably be 1+ years before I get to Star Ocean 2 / Dragon Warrior 7 / Legend of Dragoon (haven't decided which one yet, which are the remaining ones I own or Chrono Cross if no kit released).

ex.
1. Grandia - BATLE1, FIELD1, BATLE2, FIELD2 --> BATL1/2, FIEL1/2 in cd2dvd_patcher.bat. That was really dumb.

2. Metal Gear Solid - 2 minor problems, minimal impact (upgrade patch coming in the next month(s) probably).

Didn't know at the time that Original (black disc) is not the same as Greatest Hits / Essential Collection - code has an 8-byte gap for using CD #s.

Code:

0 = CD1, 1 = CD2
800af368 = Original (doesn't work with current v1 kit)
800af370 = GH (one I have)

Have a trial kit ready to support both builds now though.

3. FF9 - I didn't fully test it and found out those problems (fixed now). They probably have the same errors with FF7 / FF8 (black screen of swap death). At least memcard saves workaround currently.

I'd be happy to see Cross DVD though.

Last edited by shalma; July 10th, 2009 at 01:11..

momochi · July 10th, 2009, 10:49

I don't know about me knowing more than you, you seem to have done a much much better job of MGS than I could. I found that the Chrono Cross table format actually has a folder table after the LBA table that I overlooked, so I'm going to try and shift the position of the movie folder during the disc switch loop, that way I don't have to hunt down and change file IDs in the game script

EDIT: It works beautifully. I tested the opening, the ingame disc swap, starting a NG+ from a game cleared by the "normal" ending (which would normally require going from D1->D2->D1 again) and watched the ending movie. I wrote a tiny bit of ASM code (18 instructions) over the disc check routine which takes the value of the needed disc and patches it to the address which stores the current disc number (I didn't do that in my PSP fix, but here it's needed because the game can choose between two different movie ID's depending on the disc which can be problematic). Then, depending on what disc the game is on, it simply patches the position of the movie folder.

Due to how the fix works one movie file is deleted and another is duplicated. The Disc 2 title-screen movie is deleted because the menu will always be read as Disc 1 (initial disc check of SLUS files). The dimension shifting video is duplicated due to the fact the movie folders for both discs were kept separate (all other duplicate files are deleted).

Final BIN filesize - 977MB. I'll create a quick patch file soon.

Last edited by momochi; July 10th, 2009 at 18:08..

**shalma** · July 10th, 2009, 18:23

Damn, that's solid work - small ASM hack, 1-2 days time spent, even removing dupes. Better than my usual methods of space-wasting. :lol:

Looking forward to adding it to the master PS1 list. (:(:

EDIT:
Oops. Forget that.
You get a cookie!

Last edited by shalma; July 10th, 2009 at 20:53.. Reason: disable cookie parser

momochi · July 11th, 2009, 06:47

Well, it's done. I've also attached my horrendous, yet competent source code for the extractor/rebuilder (programmed with FreeBasic IDE, lol).

-----------------------------------
Chrono Cross NTSC-U Disc Combine kit
-----------------------------------
By Psychospacefish

WARNING: Do not change any part of this kit, or else the game will crash.

1.Make disc images of Chrono Cross using ISOBuster (MODE2/2352) or CloneCD
2.Name the BIN/IMG files "cc1.bin" and "cc2.bin" respectively and place them in the same folder as the kit.
3.Run ccmerge.dat

These are the filesizes you should end up with

cc1.bin = 736,651,104 bytes (702MB)
cc2.bin = 741,797,280 bytes (707MB)
ccjoined.bin = 1,024,714,656 bytes (977MB)

Attached Files

	chronomergekit.rar (155.0 KB, 107 views)
	toolssource.rar (1.3 KB, 44 views)

**shalma** · July 11th, 2009, 12:51

That's fantastic! Mirrors added to main post.
Thanks for sharing the kit.

Should work with Original and Greatest Hits builds - SLUS-010.41, SLUS-010.80.

PSP users should be happy too.

Last edited by shalma; July 11th, 2009 at 12:59..

trlestew · July 15th, 2009, 18:22

This isnt working for me.
I've downloaded the ff8 combine folder and followed the instructions.
I orginally ripped the files using clone CD, so I changed all the .img files to a .bin file using MagicISO.
When I run extract_DVD5, I get a Dos prompt that has all the .bin files listed and at the end has a line saying "the file could not be specified" with alot of gibberish and code at the bottom.
Then I get 4 errors saying that Mode2Cd has crashed and my pc beeps.

Do I need to put the cue files in along with .bin files to make this work?

**shalma** · July 15th, 2009, 20:01

Checklist:
They should be US discs
- Original, Greatest Hits (Square)
- Very untested: Greatest Hits (Square Enix - 2003 re-release build?)

Rename the .img to .bin (do not convert using MagicISO)
- (ff8-1.bin, ff8-2.bin, ff8-3.bin, ff8-4.bin)

Place all bin files with extract_DVD5 (cue not needed)

If the program still crashes, check your discs with CDMage
I'm assuming the toolkits should work with Vista :uncertain:

I'm starting to wonder now about the untested kits.
Or whether to keep this project going.

EDIT:
If all that fails, I don't have a clue. >.<

Last edited by shalma; July 16th, 2009 at 02:05..

trlestew · July 17th, 2009, 14:35

I have the square-enix 2003 re-release greatest hits version. Could that be the problem?
Also how to I rename it to a .bin file? I put .bin at the end of the files but that didnt change the file extension.

**shalma** · July 17th, 2009, 21:23

Try opening 'extract_DVD5.bat' with notepad:

Code:

SET FILE1="ff8-1.bin" --> "ff8-1.img" or "your image name.img"
SET FILE2="ff8-2.bin"
SET FILE3="ff8-3.bin"
SET FILE4="ff8-4.bin"

(XP) Else, go to Explorer:
- Tools -> Folder Options
- View -> (uncheck) Hide extensions for known file types
- Then rename your files

The 2003 release shouldn't affect the building process. It's the in-game disc swapping part that may break (load a saved game from discs 2-4 to test).

Note: The 2003 FF9 Enix release didn't affect the 2000 Square Hits release at all (they only changed the ending movie and the intro logo). And I think some code - don't know what really if anything.

News:
Grandia kit is broken but left up (see few posts back on why - directory naming).
Users can currently fix it or wait later for the final build.

Metal Gear Solid is completed. An upgrade patch is available for v1 (1.1) users. Both builds (1.0 and 1.1) are now covered.

Hawk07 · July 18th, 2009, 13:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by shalma

Try opening 'extract_DVD5.bat' with notepad:

Code:

SET FILE1="ff8-1.bin" --> "ff8-1.img" or "your image name.img"
SET FILE2="ff8-2.bin"
SET FILE3="ff8-3.bin"
SET FILE4="ff8-4.bin"

(XP) Else, go to Explorer:
- Tools -> Folder Options
- View -> (uncheck) Hide extensions for known file types
- Then rename your files

The 2003 release shouldn't affect the building process. It's the in-game disc swapping part that may break (load a saved game from discs 2-4 to test).

Note: The 2003 FF9 Enix release didn't affect the 2000 Square Hits release at all (they only changed the ending movie and the intro logo). And I think some code - don't know what really if anything.

News:
Grandia kit is broken but left up (see few posts back on why - directory naming).
Users can currently fix it or wait later for the final build.

Metal Gear Solid is completed. An upgrade patch is available for v1 (1.1) users. Both builds (1.0 and 1.1) are now covered.

Excellent Snake

It's a nice work, I'm waiting for the fusion of Legend of Dragoon, Parasite Eve 2, Alone in the Dark 4, Countdown Vampires, Driver 2, and more...
But I don't know if that games is in the list of future works...
Thanks!

**shalma** · July 18th, 2009, 18:27

It'll take awhile to get to Dragoon - wanting to clear the todo list first.
Did take a peek if I can make a preview (non-release) build. Turns out the EXE is compressed (oh no).

Don't have most of those. If I see them in a shop, maybe I'll pick some up and add them to the years list.

EDIT:
A LoD DVD will be ~1.54 GB, which fits inside a non-epsxe_DVD5 image (run ISO or PSP will work). Because the CD swap screens are quite long, I've left them in. I should have enough EXE space to do a 2-layer compression bypass. Once that gets done, you'll be seeing a 'Preview Build' for testing purposes only (non-final release). Which will allow me to make more of these at my whim and finalize the real toolkit much later.

Last edited by shalma; July 19th, 2009 at 20:56.. Reason: news

**shalma** · July 20th, 2009, 19:24

Code:

Legend of Dragoon [SLUS-00892 / 00908 / 00909 / 00910]

This will combine your 4 game CDs into 1 disc
Tested only with epsxe 1.7.0

WARNING:
You'll need ~8GB to finish the operation


Tested versions:
- 2000-04-18  Original
- 2000-04-18  Greatest Hits

Current: v1

Preview fixes:
- Better swap screen handling

Attached Files

	dragoon_multi_preview.7z (188.9 KB, 27 views)
	dragoon_multi_v1.7z (189.1 KB, 42 views)
	dragoon_multi_preview_upgrade.7z (41.9 KB, 9 views)

Last edited by shalma; April 22nd, 2010 at 15:48..

**shalma** · July 24th, 2009, 01:27

Code:

Dragon Warrior VII [SLUS-01206 / 01346]
- Dragon Quest VII [SLPM-86500 / 86501]

This will combine your 2 game CDs into 1 disc
Tested only with epsxe 1.7.0

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


Tested versions:
- 2001-09-21  Original (usa)
- 2000-08-11  Original (japan)

Current: v1

Attached Files

dragon_warrior7_multi.7z (164.0 KB, 18 views)

Last edited by shalma; February 22nd, 2011 at 03:15..

**shalma** · July 25th, 2009, 14:53

Code:

Tales of Eternia [SLUS-01355 / 01367 / 01368]

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


Tested versions:
- 2001-04-17  Original

Current: v1

Preview upgrade:
- Faster disc building
- Fixes movie loading (cd2,3)
- Fixes disc 2 ending

Attached Files

	destiny2_multi_preview.7z (198.0 KB, 24 views)
	destiny2_multi_preview_upgrade.7z (41.8 KB, 9 views)
	destiny2_multi_v1.7z (202.7 KB, 27 views)

Last edited by shalma; February 22nd, 2010 at 17:51..

Hawk07 · July 25th, 2009, 15:29

how i can do to make two disk in one?
Exist a tutorial?
I want to make the fusion of Countdown Vampires

**shalma** · July 25th, 2009, 17:35

You need to have a reasonably good understanding of psx assembly - some projects get dirty fast.

The extraction I use is pretty stable - plug in your own file names and let it run. The cd-2-dvd part varies widely. Rebuilding sometimes isn't that bad - depends on the tricks the coders used.

There's basic notes in the 'src/disasm' + 'src/spasm' folders to give you an idea what we do.

I think we both use the pcsx debuggers for code tracing. pSX has a debugger too. But you've got to be prepared for the unexpected bugs.

**shalma** · July 26th, 2009, 19:33

Code:

Countdown Vampires [SLUS-00898 / 01199]

This will combine your 2 game CDs into 1 disc
Tested only with epsxe 1.7.0

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


Tested versions:
- 2000-04-04  Original

Current: v1

Preview fixes:
- Better disc swapping
- Removed swap nag

Attached Files

	vampires_multi_preview.7z (201.8 KB, 7 views)
	vampires_multi_v1.7z (202.5 KB, 9 views)
	vampires_multi_v1_upgrade.7z (41.9 KB, 9 views)

Last edited by shalma; November 23rd, 2009 at 13:05..

**shalma** · July 29th, 2009, 00:16

Code:

Oddworld - Abe's Exoddus [SLUS-00710 / 00731]

This will combine your 2 game CDs into 1 disc
Tested only with epsxe 1.7.0

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


Tested versions:
- 1998-05-13  Original

Current: v1

v1 fixes:
- Faster disc building

Attached Files

	exoddus_multi_preview.7z (206.8 KB, 10 views)
	exoddus_multi_v1.7z (210.8 KB, 20 views)

Last edited by shalma; April 30th, 2010 at 13:07..

Hawk07 · July 29th, 2009, 04:44

Wow!!! I like the news but...
I'm waiting for "Fully tested with epsxe" games

July 9th, 2009, 23:48	#42
shalma Discontinued Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Inactive Posts: 1,192	Nice to see your return. Good to have another person around who knows more than me. Looking at redump.org, there's -so- many multi-disc games I don't have. Which I don't plan to do either. I've been taking it very easy on creating new kits - want to personally test all the current ones first. And then fully test any new ones before I release them (stupid bugs I make). It'll probably be 1+ years before I get to Star Ocean 2 / Dragon Warrior 7 / Legend of Dragoon (haven't decided which one yet, which are the remaining ones I own or Chrono Cross if no kit released). ex. 1. Grandia - BATLE1, FIELD1, BATLE2, FIELD2 --> BATL1/2, FIEL1/2 in cd2dvd_patcher.bat. That was really dumb. 2. Metal Gear Solid - 2 minor problems, minimal impact (upgrade patch coming in the next month(s) probably). Didn't know at the time that Original (black disc) is not the same as Greatest Hits / Essential Collection - code has an 8-byte gap for using CD #s. Code: 0 = CD1, 1 = CD2 800af368 = Original (doesn't work with current v1 kit) 800af370 = GH (one I have) Have a trial kit ready to support both builds now though. 3. FF9 - I didn't fully test it and found out those problems (fixed now). They probably have the same errors with FF7 / FF8 (black screen of swap death). At least memcard saves workaround currently. I'd be happy to see Cross DVD though. Last edited by shalma; July 10th, 2009 at 01:11..

July 17th, 2009, 21:23	#50
shalma Discontinued Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Inactive Posts: 1,192	Try opening 'extract_DVD5.bat' with notepad: Code: SET FILE1="ff8-1.bin" --> "ff8-1.img" or "your image name.img" SET FILE2="ff8-2.bin" SET FILE3="ff8-3.bin" SET FILE4="ff8-4.bin" (XP) Else, go to Explorer: - Tools -> Folder Options - View -> (uncheck) Hide extensions for known file types - Then rename your files The 2003 release shouldn't affect the building process. It's the in-game disc swapping part that may break (load a saved game from discs 2-4 to test). Note: The 2003 FF9 Enix release didn't affect the 2000 Square Hits release at all (they only changed the ending movie and the intro logo). And I think some code - don't know what really if anything. News: Grandia kit is broken but left up (see few posts back on why - directory naming). Users can currently fix it or wait later for the final build. Metal Gear Solid is completed. An upgrade patch is available for v1 (1.1) users. Both builds (1.0 and 1.1) are now covered.

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July 9th, 2009, 17:02	#41
momochi Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Banana Posts: 26	Wow, impressive work you've been doing. I've been trying to do Chrono Cross this past hour, so far I've managed to write a file extractor (which was surprisingly easy due to there being no XA data on the disc). However, it seems that there are files unique to each disc that share the same ID. There's seems to be two ways to get around this, and they're both tough. The first is trying to assign new file ID's for the non-dupe files, which would involve indexing and manipulating a lot of files in numerous formats. The other is including two copies of the LBA table, both pointing to the same files (except for duplicates of course) , and adding an ASM hack which would load the appropriate LBA table depending on what disc is needed. EDIT: Turns out only different movies share the same file ID's. There's a flag in the LBA table which determines if a file exists or not so I assumed that game data that was not necessary on a disc would be deleted, but for some reason the game uses a dummy file instead. Thus it shouldn't be too hard just to alter the file ID's of Disc 2's movies, patch out the disc check (which I've already done) then combine the game files and rebuild the disc image. Last edited by momochi; July 9th, 2009 at 19:47..

July 10th, 2009, 10:49	#43
momochi Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Banana Posts: 26	I don't know about me knowing more than you, you seem to have done a much much better job of MGS than I could. I found that the Chrono Cross table format actually has a folder table after the LBA table that I overlooked, so I'm going to try and shift the position of the movie folder during the disc switch loop, that way I don't have to hunt down and change file IDs in the game script EDIT: It works beautifully. I tested the opening, the ingame disc swap, starting a NG+ from a game cleared by the "normal" ending (which would normally require going from D1->D2->D1 again) and watched the ending movie. I wrote a tiny bit of ASM code (18 instructions) over the disc check routine which takes the value of the needed disc and patches it to the address which stores the current disc number (I didn't do that in my PSP fix, but here it's needed because the game can choose between two different movie ID's depending on the disc which can be problematic). Then, depending on what disc the game is on, it simply patches the position of the movie folder. Due to how the fix works one movie file is deleted and another is duplicated. The Disc 2 title-screen movie is deleted because the menu will always be read as Disc 1 (initial disc check of SLUS files). The dimension shifting video is duplicated due to the fact the movie folders for both discs were kept separate (all other duplicate files are deleted). Final BIN filesize - 977MB. I'll create a quick patch file soon. Last edited by momochi; July 10th, 2009 at 18:08..

July 10th, 2009, 18:23	#44
shalma Discontinued Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Inactive Posts: 1,192	Damn, that's solid work - small ASM hack, 1-2 days time spent, even removing dupes. Better than my usual methods of space-wasting. :lol: Looking forward to adding it to the master PS1 list. (:(: EDIT: Oops. Forget that. You get a cookie! Last edited by shalma; July 10th, 2009 at 20:53.. Reason: disable cookie parser

July 11th, 2009, 12:51	#46
shalma Discontinued Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Inactive Posts: 1,192	That's fantastic! Mirrors added to main post. Thanks for sharing the kit. Should work with Original and Greatest Hits builds - SLUS-010.41, SLUS-010.80. PSP users should be happy too. Last edited by shalma; July 11th, 2009 at 12:59..

July 15th, 2009, 18:22	#47
trlestew Registered User Join Date: May 2009 Location: D.C Posts: 30	This isnt working for me. I've downloaded the ff8 combine folder and followed the instructions. I orginally ripped the files using clone CD, so I changed all the .img files to a .bin file using MagicISO. When I run extract_DVD5, I get a Dos prompt that has all the .bin files listed and at the end has a line saying "the file could not be specified" with alot of gibberish and code at the bottom. Then I get 4 errors saying that Mode2Cd has crashed and my pc beeps. Do I need to put the cue files in along with .bin files to make this work?

July 15th, 2009, 20:01	#48
shalma Discontinued Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Inactive Posts: 1,192	Checklist: They should be US discs - Original, Greatest Hits (Square) - Very untested: Greatest Hits (Square Enix - 2003 re-release build?) Rename the .img to .bin (do not convert using MagicISO) - (ff8-1.bin, ff8-2.bin, ff8-3.bin, ff8-4.bin) Place all bin files with extract_DVD5 (cue not needed) If the program still crashes, check your discs with CDMage I'm assuming the toolkits should work with Vista :uncertain: I'm starting to wonder now about the untested kits. Or whether to keep this project going. EDIT: If all that fails, I don't have a clue. >.< Last edited by shalma; July 16th, 2009 at 02:05..

July 17th, 2009, 14:35	#49
trlestew Registered User Join Date: May 2009 Location: D.C Posts: 30	I have the square-enix 2003 re-release greatest hits version. Could that be the problem? Also how to I rename it to a .bin file? I put .bin at the end of the files but that didnt change the file extension.

July 18th, 2009, 18:27	#52
shalma Discontinued Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Inactive Posts: 1,192	It'll take awhile to get to Dragoon - wanting to clear the todo list first. Did take a peek if I can make a preview (non-release) build. Turns out the EXE is compressed (oh no). Don't have most of those. If I see them in a shop, maybe I'll pick some up and add them to the years list. EDIT: A LoD DVD will be ~1.54 GB, which fits inside a non-epsxe_DVD5 image (run ISO or PSP will work). Because the CD swap screens are quite long, I've left them in. I should have enough EXE space to do a 2-layer compression bypass. Once that gets done, you'll be seeing a 'Preview Build' for testing purposes only (non-final release). Which will allow me to make more of these at my whim and finalize the real toolkit much later. Last edited by shalma; July 19th, 2009 at 20:56.. Reason: news

July 25th, 2009, 15:29	#56
Hawk07 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Colombia Posts: 35	how i can do to make two disk in one? Exist a tutorial? I want to make the fusion of Countdown Vampires

July 25th, 2009, 17:35	#57
shalma Discontinued Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Inactive Posts: 1,192	You need to have a reasonably good understanding of psx assembly - some projects get dirty fast. The extraction I use is pretty stable - plug in your own file names and let it run. The cd-2-dvd part varies widely. Rebuilding sometimes isn't that bad - depends on the tricks the coders used. There's basic notes in the 'src/disasm' + 'src/spasm' folders to give you an idea what we do. I think we both use the pcsx debuggers for code tracing. pSX has a debugger too. But you've got to be prepared for the unexpected bugs.

July 29th, 2009, 04:44	#60
Hawk07 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Colombia Posts: 35	Wow!!! I like the news but... I'm waiting for "Fully tested with epsxe" games