PS2 Howto make PS1 game listed in any menu on PS2 Phat with FHDB

Chytrex

Chytrex

Forum Noob
Hi guys,

I decided to softmod my Phat PS2 (SPH3xxxx), so I bought FMCB card and SATA adapter. (So I don't have working network connection as adapter was without the RJ connector)

Softmodding was pretty straightforward but I am completely lost on way how to make PS1 game work in some user friendly way.

I have set up latest OPL beta, I have downloaded pops, popstater and needed files and also converted few isos to VCD format.

I created 20GB partition called __.POPS and put there VCD file. Then I renamed popstater to name of VCD file but kept extension as elf. When I run this from wlaunchelf, game runs and I can play it. So this works..

But there my confusion begins. I googled a lot and some how to's says that there is no need to even rename popstarter.elf and so on.

Please is here anyone patient enough to guide me through this? Can anyone tell me some easiest way how to have PS1 games listed in any kind of menu (OPL preferably but can be any other menu I'm not aware of)

(Quick note, I am linux/unix sysadmin, so I have deep technical background, but I am just noob in PS2 modding community. Any advice, help and so on is really appreciated).
 
There are few ways of launching PSX games via POPS emulator. Steps depending on it.
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/a...thing-you-should-know-about-hdd-in-ps2.30912/

You can:
  • put POPStarter executables in "hdd0:/+OPL/APPS/" and configure apps.cfg (probably)
  • use OPL DB (strongly not recommending as this fork have bugs not existed in OPL)
  • use hacked OSDSYS menu (edit ITEMs in "mc0:/SYS-CONF/FREEMCB.CNF" or "hdd0:/__system/FHDB/FREEHDB.CNF" (something like that, I'm writing from memory) leading to each of POPStarter executables)
  • use HDD OSD and put each PSX game into bootable partition
 
Thank you for very useful link. As I live in Czechia on a border with Poland, I can read that Partitionology pdf natively without much struggle.

I will try to figure out how to point OPL to correct games, but in any case if you have sample file, I will appreciate it greatly.
 
Greetings from the neighbour then! :) I was once on Your side in Teplické skály. I love this place, similar to our Góry stołowe but this emerald lake there is fantastic (I remember trip on a boat and some guy pointing to piece of old tree trump overhand from water looks like human head, saying it is last Czech communist :)). It is nice feeling when You hear similar language and You don't need to learn much to understand it. Just going to shop and everyone understand each other.

Depend of Your config, but in case of OPL, You don't have much choice. I.e place "hdd0:/+OPL/APPS/*.vcd" + "<the same named as disc image>.elf" and in "hdd0:/+OPL/conf_apps.cfg" put:
Code: 
PSX game title, You can use blank space=pfs0:/APPS/<psx game but cannot use space>.elf
Unfortunately, this "apps system" is quite limited because You cannot point outside $APPS and executables cannot have blank space in the filename.

IMO the best way is put games as partitions and launching them from HDD OSD. However, this solution wasting a lot of space due to this APA rounding to 128MiB. Second best option is to edit FREEMCB.CNF/FREEHDB.CNF and writing to the OSD menu games on "hdd0:/__common/POPS/". But the choice is Yours.
 
Okay, so OPL support for listing those games was removed most likely. As there are some forum posts around the web about successful listing games in opl in the pops section. And I think I found one mentioning this. (hard to tell after few weeks spent with google trying to find my answers)

Some skins for the OPL even have icon for this part of OPL but I didn't found any setting there. Situatiuon is really chaotic on some places and sometime it's quite difficult to distinguish old info from the new, relevant ones.

Idea with modifying FREEHDB.CNF sounds nice. Can be this done automatically? I also thought about separate instance of launchelf with its own config, skin and by default launching into filebrowser mode in __.POPS directory (Not sure if it is doable)
 
As I said in post no. 2, You cannot do this on games "tab" or POPS "tab" because support for it never existed. OPL can't run PSX games because PS2 can't in PS2 mode. What left for You is APPS "tab" in OPL or... OPL DB which is bad fork but have this POPS "tab" pointing to POPStarter executables.

Can be this done automatically?
Click to expand...
No. ;) Each menu item You editing/adding by manually editing this file.

I also thought about separate instance of launchelf with its own config, skin and by default launching into filebrowser mode in __.POPS directory (Not sure if it is doable)
Click to expand...
You can keep whatever app wherever You want. I don't see any sense in uLE in "__.POPS" (and this is not directory but partition).

Personally, I keeping tools, emulators etc. in "hdd0:/PP.HOMEBREW/" under "/apps"; homebrew games under "/games"; SoftDEV2 apps under "/boot", and PSBBN resources for this partition under "/res" (actually this one is not a choice). So i.e I placed uLE and it's forks and external resources like skins, fonts etc:
  • "hdd0:/PP.HOMEBREW/apps/unofficial LaunchELF/smbLaunchELF v4b.elf"
  • "hdd0:/PP.HOMEBREW/apps/unofficial LaunchELF/unofficial LaunchELF v4.42d.elf"
  • "hdd0:/PP.HOMEBREW/apps/unofficial LaunchELF/unofficial LaunchELF v4.43a (2019-01-14).elf"
  • "hdd0:/PP.HOMEBREW/apps/unofficial LaunchELF/unofficial LaunchELF kHn (2020-08-10).elf"
  • "hdd0:/PP.HOMEBREW/apps/unofficial LaunchELF/unofficial LaunchELF ISR v4.43x rev3
  • "hdd0:/PP.HOMEBREW/apps/unofficial LaunchELF/unofficial LaunchELF ISR HDD v4.43x (2021-06-01).elf"
So each of them have access to the same config ("LAUNCHELF.CNF") etc.
Each application have it's own folder.

On top of that, "hdd0:/PP.HOMEBREW/BOOT.XLF" just in case to have working file manager from HDD OSD (because it doesn't support recurrence for partition boot signed elf).

But most of peoples prefer to just executable files placed in one mess: "hdd0:/+OPL/APPS".

PS2 doesn't have operating system, so each application handle hardware and software by it's own. In consequences, there is no standard for keeping configs, executables etc. (like i.e in Linux where for it is "/etc", per user "$home/.config", for elfs "/bin" and "/sbin").
 
[QUOTE="krHACKen, post: 297521, member:


Did it work, ive been trying everything, spend hours trying to make psx run, tinkering here and there watching every video reading every thread and NOTHING
 
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