Phantasy Star Cave Message Board

I'm not really interested in anyone making images available in any specific format. For my own use I know enough to figure out that the images are not actually ISOs and there are tools to strip away the headers and error correction/detection to make it a ISO in less than a second.

I was mostly interested in why the files had the wrong extension and, if done purely out of lack of knowledge, help fix it. So that people who might not know how to fix it would have an easier time. People generally don't like their mp3's with a m4a extension and so forth.

I think if this particular kind of ISO is necessary to run properly, with no issues on a real PS2 using the most common way of playing backup games, we should figure it out so we don't have to make people run around and figure stuff out. I think speaking with Goldenboy on what to properly do for these games would be best, if you have time. We could add you to the games' in-game credits, if that helps?

It's not really a particular kind of ISO.
ISO and the .iso extension comes from and is used to store images of the ISO9660 filesystem used in CD-ROMs and later also used to store it's successor UDF. As a filesystem image it has a few limitations when it comes to storing CD-ROMs, mainly it only stores the ISO9660 filesystem and should not store CDDA (CD audio) and it only stores one filesystem per file. So if a CD-ROM had multiple tracks, they should be stored in separate ISO files.
For this reason, most default to storing CD-ROMs in a raw disc image instead. As those can contain both CDDA and multiple tracks in a single file. Even a raw disc image isn't a complete copy of a disc as it also contains a sub-channel, used to guide the laser. This sub-channel is actually required for some games to work properly, and not all of the raw disc image formats supports it.
If you would like to read more about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_image
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_9660
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-ROM

In this case the CD-ROM is single track Mode 2 Form 1, so should be fine to store in a ISO.
If you want to convert a raw disc image into a ISO image there are multiple ways to do so. You could mount the raw image and re-rip it with a tool that does proper ISO or could be told to do so (Mode 1 2048). OPL Manger, used to mange your PS2 OPL files, has a raw to ISO conversion tool built in. And there are CLI tools like raw2iso that will do it for you.
I also made a xdelta-file that will go straight from the original Japanese raw disc image to a translated ISO, if you would like.

I consider this a bug/problem report and not a contribution, so credits are not necessary.

OK, thank you. So if I'm understanding this right, the PSGEN1 (And 2?) "ISOs" we were using are actually renamed BIN files, without an accompanying CUE. So what we should do is re-convert the Japanese and translated ISOs before the final releases of the new versions? I apologize if it seems like I'm not taking you seriously or if I'm talking in circles, I'm just trying to straighten the intel out as best I can.

More or less correct.
The files are raw disc images. Most of the different formats raw disc images are stored in are identical, as they store the same data in the binary file. It's usually just the companion file that differs as long as it doesn't combine the two or stores sub-channel data as well.
In this case BIN/CUE is a fair assumption, as it is the most common format to store CD-ROM games in and the files are just raw disc images without any other data.

How you would like to distribute the files is entirely up to you. As I said, raw disc images are the most common way to distribute CD-ROM based games, but PS2 games are usually ISO due to mostly being DVD based. I guess PCSX2 doesn't care either way, but OPL seems to require ISO images.

That might be why we were having the graphical glitch with PSGEN1 then. I'll be sure to reconvert the finished ISOs to DVD before we get them up on PS Cave. Thank you for the info!

Well... in this case ISO has nothing to do with DVD.
And I did eventually start getting the glitch, however it's quite rare and usually disappears the following battle. I was hoping to get to a point where it occurs more commonly to test the different versions. But it sometimes takes over an hour to make it happen, which is quite tedious to just grind.

ack, i phrased that badly. i meant i would re-convert the ISOs to a proper format. sorry. thank you for all your help though.

SandyLandale wrote:That might be why we were having the graphical glitch with PSGEN1 then. I'll be sure to reconvert the finished ISOs to DVD before we get them up on PS Cave. Thank you for the info!

So, I've made some extensive testing on the game. As stated earlier in the thread, this is not a bug in your translation, but a bug in OPL. The results are the same with the original Japanese version and doesn't happen when using other ways to play the game on real hardware like ESR, as far as I can tell.
However, I havn't been able to reproduce it with OPL when loading the game from USB, so if someone else could confirm that, you could recommand to use that method for now.
I've reported all my findings to the OPL developers and am waiting for what they have to say, hopefully they can fix the problem for a future release.

I've also thought about the raw disc image/iso thing. While loaders and PCSX2 are fine with ISO images, I believe that mod-chips might require a Mode 2 Form 1 image, since that is what (all?) PlayStation CD games are recorded as. When you burn a ISO Mode 1 2048 image to disc it usually gets burned as Mode 1 2352, and might not work.

The easy solution would be to be sure the games get distributed as a BIN/CUE image then, right? And recommend installing the games to a USB using OPL.

Sorry it took so long to reply to this!

That is probably the route I would take, yes.
Still trying to get the OPL devs to get interested in the issue. As of yet I havn't had the bug with USB. SMB gets it after every battle and HDD is a bit random. Would be nice if people could confirm this on OPL 0.9.3+.

Zarper wrote:That is probably the route I would take, yes.
Still trying to get the OPL devs to get interested in the issue. As of yet I havn't had the bug with USB. SMB gets it after every battle and HDD is a bit random. Would be nice if people could confirm this on OPL 0.9.3+.

OPL 0.9.3+ with the latest commits still has this issue, I can confirm that it always occurs when playing the game through SMB, and that it is a bit random with HDD, have not tested USB though.
Though I remember having this issue a long time ago when the last availiable version was 0.8 or something.

Fothsid wrote:

Zarper wrote:That is probably the route I would take, yes.
Still trying to get the OPL devs to get interested in the issue. As of yet I havn't had the bug with USB. SMB gets it after every battle and HDD is a bit random. Would be nice if people could confirm this on OPL 0.9.3+.

OPL 0.9.3+ with the latest commits still has this issue, I can confirm that it always occurs when playing the game through SMB, and that it is a bit random with HDD, have not tested USB though.
Though I remember having this issue a long time ago when the last availiable version was 0.8 or something.

USB didn't start working until a few commits after 0.9.2, so 0.9.3 or later is needed to make it work.
HDD and SMB can be made to work if transfer speed is limited to around 900kB/s. However, OPL devs are still looking for a proper fix and I believe won't commit such a crude workaround unless nothing else is found.

Is there an updated PSG1 download available? Just want to make sure I have the latest one.

So, I was playing through Phantasy Star Generation 1 (Lutz Edition v2.10) on PCSX2. And since I was done with the game I started "hacking" it a little (with PCSX2 and Cheat Engine).

I managed to find memory addresses for "location" and "dungeon warp", and started testing it. Suddenly I was warped to a dungeon called "Secret Cave". I made this video to show it. When I use Surto or exit the dungeon, I end up in the upper-left corner of Camineet map (as can also be seen in the video at the end).

My question is simple! Is it possible to reach this dungeon in a "proper" way in-game?! Or is it simply some debug leftover or an unfinished "joke"? I hope someone can enlighten me somehow!