alexfree
Developer
Ah, can't wait for my resource update to be approved. And I'm glad the sites back up! Was down for a bit... man besides gbatemp this is it forum wise now for this topic. I consider psx.dev dead (it kinda has been for years, been so heavily botted by google crawlers or whatever they couldn't afford the traffic) and the drama that happened there between the higher ups... I'm just glad psx-place exists.I hate reddit so much, forums4ever.
On a side note, I (accidentally?) might have reverse engineered a piece of software I've been wanting to know how it works for years... See there is this thing called Modpar: https://consolecopyworld.com/psx/psx_utils_pn_cnv.shtml (beware if you don't use an ad blocker).
This is the tool that almost ALL of the codes found here: https://consolecopyworld.com/psx/psx_game_codes.shtml where generated from.
Now whats insane is I started working on anti-piracy patch/code generation tools in 2022: https://github.com/alex-free/aprip/releases/tag/v1.0
Me and MottZilla came up with various ways to 'generate' either GameShark codes to bypass protections, or make disc image patches. All unique to our own bypass 'methods' we came up with, that worked with varying success.
Now I noticed when initially making the Tonyhax International anti-piracy bypass system (which is powered by a custom gameshark engine as well as exe writes to loaded exes) that a TON of the codes I found on consolecopyworld looked very similar... I wondered what method they used....
Then one day a few years ago I found out about modpar and was like oh this is how they were doing it. The fun thing about modpar is it's dos watcom executable with no source, You have to run it in Dosbox or it doesn't run at all. And that is... a nightmare for bulk adding games. I never really used it because by time I figured out it existed I had either already added every game consolecopyworld had codes for or I had found a superior bypass developed by myself (less codes/skips portection entirely/works on soft-mods, that's the thing about modpar is it does not guarantee the code will work on soft-mods, just non-stealth dumb mod-chips because well soft-mods were not a thing then)....
So then I have to figure out 2 new obscure Japanese games to add support for Tonyhax International which have no existing bypass codes or anything really online at all, and I think I just figured out how it worked... I can make 'force test commands ok' codes with just a ram dump, and I already made my own 'soft-mod' backdoor trick that has never failed to work on every single game i've encountered, and it's just because I noticed a pattern in a hex editor.
Also same with this insane 'PAL BIOS protection' measure some Japanese games use to block PAL users from playing japanese games on even stealth chipped consoles, which AFAICT I am the only person to find/fix.
Big things to come, I think APv2 is dead
Fun fact, the reason 'Fake PAL BIOS protection bypass' ( a trick to disable anti-piracy on Japanese and USA consoles) was discovered and the ' PAL BIOS protection bypass' (a method to disable anti-piracy when a PAL console is detected for some Japanese games) was is the same one…
I noticed testing games for anti-piracy protection that socram8888 (original Tonyhax dev) was missing some games/couldnt detect the ones I could that had anti-piracy. So I figured out because he has a PAL console and is based in Italy IIRC he was using a PAL BIOS in the same emulators as I… and I tested it. Lo and behold some games with anti-piracy protection (USA/japanese ones that is) when detecting a PAL BIOS would disable the anti-piracy protection entirely. Like skip it completely. This is great for soft-mods because it doesn't even run the 'soft-mod' check (retroactively named by myself, more of like a swap trick check back in the day but more on that later) AND it doesn't check for non-stealth dumb chips either on only PAL consoles.
So me and @MottZilla came up with a way to fake detecting a PAL BIOS. That made the same behavior happen on real Japanese and USA consoles and games.
Now when I would try this on new games (we have way more bypasses then consolecopyworld ever had and more advanced too) sometimes it wouldn't work and sometimes it would. It's great when you can just run a ram dump in a c generator program and have it give you bypass GameShark codes for sure.
But then we ran into 2 different games where not only did it not bypass (ok… happened with some other games too) but it locked the game! So then I tried with just a stock boot, PAL BIOS in the 2 emulators I trust/use to make this all a reality, an old version of duckstation and the latest no $ PSX emulator. Low and behold if you give these a PAL BIOS with
i-mode mo Issho: Doko Demo Issho Tsuika Disc http://redump.org/disc/20321/
or Koneko mo Issho http://redump.org/disc/6329/ they lock up! Not so with a Japanese or USA bios! They do the literal opposite.
So me and @MottZilla 's bypass does the same… do the exact opposite. For these 2 games fake a non-pal bios… Of course these didn't skip the protection tho, so basically fake non-PAL BIOS, fake out test commands detecting dumb non-stealth mod-chip, fake out out soft-mod protection, and your done!
last game (so now 3 with 'PAL BIOS Protection') was a bit tricky with how soon it checked it, this was Addie no Okurimono - To Moze from Addie: http://redump.org/disc/8373/ . And because our GameShark engine kinda starts once vsync is set and this one was waiting until it passed PAL BIOS check from what I understand it didn't work until I tried myself just directly overwriting the exe with code that would change it after it was loaded but before executed… whatever it works that way and one less thing running every interrupt.
but just the amount of things I've found by accident with this console and scene blows my mind.
BTW Og tonyhax issue here: https://github.com/socram8888/tonyhax/issues/154
Seems every other weird thing I found to increase compatibility has been included in main tonyhax (in the scope of making them work on USA and pal consoles for the most part)… once reported. Not selling Tonyhax International short at all. I dog-food my software and there's a ton of reasons I think it is superior especially feature wise, but I'm glad I can let socram8888 know what I find and he includes it/comments on it so we can help move the whole scene together. It's really not as much as a completion as I sometimes make my docs out to be. We just have different goals.
back in 2022 I was trying to merge the original Japanese support into it, but now it makes even more sense why it should be how it is
Last edited:
