Psx4pandora


RajTakhar

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Dec 4, 2008
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Derby, United Kingdom
Website
gp2xwizandpandora.blogspot.com
Apologies in advance if this one is posted in incorrect section.

I just wanted to know:

What is the status of this PSX emu or any others on Pandora? - The last time I saw the Psx4Pandora videos they had basic gameplay and functionality, and in some sound was working - but the last post's were ages ago. Anyone got any ideas?

What formats of the PSX ISO RIPS are used? - specifically if you have to use a specific method for shrinking the ISO images to get it to work with the emulator - only asking as I am currently going through a box of old PSX titles and want to get them in correct format for Pandora, it saves time doing it now

Thanks
 
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Same question here.

P.S: On the Pandora's wiki the developer said it's running more than fullspeed. However I would like to know something like if it's fluid (if it runs always at the same speed, the first Quake 3 demo works very well but sometimes it freezes), if it has a FPS control (a moment it goes fullspeed, another one it gets faster), etc.
 
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I think we were told that eboot and ISO would definitely work. Can't remember much beyond that, and my google-fu is failing me at the moment. I blame vodka.
Once ISO is supported, including CSO is trivial. And once CSO is supported, that other compressed format (I think it starts with an X?) is almost trivial.
So basically, all the standard formats should be supported.
 
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Here's what I was able to dig up from Zodttd's posts. These quotes are chronological.

QUOTE
Currently psx4pandora supports all raw ripped games, such as CloneCD, .BIN/.CUE types. It also supports PocketISO compressed images (.Z and .ZNX currently). Tinnus and I have thought about adding PSP EBOOT or CSO support.
CODE
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=41917&st=80&p=607589&#entry607589

QUOTE
Tinnus is also pro-Eboot. I think it would make things easier for people to use psx4pandora. They wont have to worry about getting the right ISO type or raw BIN. And PocketISO works really well, but the options can confuse some and they land up getting a bad compressed image.

If you dont rip out anything using PocketISO, and just compress, it should work well.

Time to look into eboot file structures.
CODE
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=41917&st=80&p=607724&#entry607724

QUOTE
Unless 7zip can be decompressed on the fly depending on the sector requested, it's not really a viable option. Compression currently used decompresses little bits of the image to RAM on the fly. It does not decompress the entire image before hand, since it would usually take too much RAM and/or time to put on ROM.

As for libpng, I don't think that will be an issue.

I have the ability to add CDDA support, and I am planning on getting it to work so games like DoDonPachi work. It was actually implemented at one point, but removed in a later branch of code.
CODE
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=41917&st=80&p=607914&#entry607914
 
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ISO and BIN will work and were always supported. CSO and DAX probably won't because there's no reason to have PS1 stuff encoded in them since AFAIK both were invented for PSP ISO storage (at least DAX was, not sure about CSO). So, for compressed images, the idea is adding support for PSP EBOOT style PS1 games--they compress just as much and there are numerous utilities available around. It was not implemented yet though (however we'll try to it for first release) and most likely won't support reading any of the fancy sounds, BG images and stuff, at least not right off the start.

We might look into CSO later if you can convince me there's reason to. I mean, was CSO a well-stabilished format for compressed images so that people have their games archived in that format?
 
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I just wonder if we can shove zipped ISO's of games on our Pandora's and play them. Regardless, thanks for all your hard work Tinnus & Zodttd.
 
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'Tinnus' said:
ISO and BIN will work and were always supported. CSO and DAX probably won't because there's no reason to have PS1 stuff encoded in them since AFAIK both were invented for PSP ISO storage (at least DAX was, not sure about CSO). So, for compressed images, the idea is adding support for PSP EBOOT style PS1 games--they compress just as much and there are numerous utilities available around. It was not implemented yet though (however we'll try to it for first release) and most likely won't support reading any of the fancy sounds, BG images and stuff, at least not right off the start.

We might look into CSO later if you can convince me there's reason to. I mean, was CSO a well-stabilished format for compressed images so that people have their games archived in that format?
CSO is nothing else a compressed ISO. Usually a compressed version of an ISO ripped from an UMD disk. I tend to rip my UMD games into CSO on ms because you can play your PSP games with faster loading and less stress on UMD driver (too noizy and scary to hear).

So PSP EBOOT style PS1 should be the only thing you need from PSP world.
 
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I would worry about using the EBOOT format. Sony are such whores sometimes.

Damn, I remember DAX, takes be back to the PSP homebrew scene.
 
'Tinnus' said:
ISO and BIN will work and were always supported. CSO and DAX probably won't because there's no reason to have PS1 stuff encoded in them since AFAIK both were invented for PSP ISO storage (at least DAX was, not sure about CSO). So, for compressed images, the idea is adding support for PSP EBOOT style PS1 games--they compress just as much and there are numerous utilities available around. It was not implemented yet though (however we'll try to it for first release) and most likely won't support reading any of the fancy sounds, BG images and stuff, at least not right off the start.

We might look into CSO later if you can convince me there's reason to. I mean, was CSO a well-stabilished format for compressed images so that people have their games archived in that format?
by the way, looking at the GITed psx4all source, I can find a lot of files I made (those *.cpp.h in \evaluator, \recompiler3\arm and \generator) but no header about the author. If you and Zodttd plan to use those files, don't forget to add the credit to the right author at the beginning of those files.

Once again, I'm not against for you using some of my code in a version I'm not in because Zodttd and I worked on the same source (the SVN forgotten one).

By the way, I may consider to improve the arm dynarec to use Cortex A8 more appropriately when I got my Pandora. Unless my BeagleBoard can do it as well.
 
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'Korlithiel' said:
I just wonder if we can shove zipped ISO's of games on our Pandora's and play them.

No, you can't and probably never will. A regular file archiving format like ZIP and RAR takes a file and zips it entirely in one chunk (or all files in one chunk like 7-zip). That means to read one part of a file you might need to seek someplace else that might be far away, and that's too slow, so what (console) emulators usually do is to unzip the entire thing into memory, or into a temporary file if it's to big (say for GBA and N6 games). Problem is, if you do that for a 700MB ISO, you will need 700MB free space somewhere, AND it will take a very long time to load the game. So, people developed compressed ISO formats which take X sectors of the image and compress each separately, so that we can decompress each block of sectors at once to memory as needed.
 
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Tinnus & Zottd

Thanks for all your efforts so far

What I must say is weird is that i managed to download PocketISO - ran it against my Dune2000 PSX CD at normal compression and got about a 50% shrink

When I searched for the correponding eboot.psp files to see (for comparison) some where roughly 50mb to 250mb - are these eboot files going to work out the box on PSX4Pandora - or are we saying it really will depend on how much the source CD ISO image is compressed?

Some of the standards and processes for shrinking a CD are bewildering

At the moment I'm sticking with normal compression as I don't want to compress too much - but at the same time the files are big ... hmmm
 
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Regarding the zipped iso stuff. There are compressed linux filesystems, but I believe they are all read-only. They compress files in chunks, so it doesn't need to decompress all 700MB to seek... Of course since they're read only it would be a bit of effort to set up. Perhaps run a little converter app after installing then mount the images loopback when running the emulator.
 
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an interesting and semi-related post by someone on the UG forums:

QUOTE
why .iso is crap and is only used by newbies who don't know its limitations and proper CD-ripping 101:

- it doesn't cover audio tracks.
ALL Sega Saturn, ALL PC-Engine CD, ALL PC-FX, heaps of PSX and old PC games use audio tracks. Ripping them as .iso will end up with tiny single data tracked images that have no music. In fact, for NEC systems (PCE, PC-FX) you'd end up with a useless coaster since the first track for those systems is always an audio track THEN followed by the data and several other audio/data tracks. Ripping that to .iso will only result in a single audio track (the generic voiced message telling you not to insert the disc in a CD player).

- it doesn't support multi-session
This is important for Dreamcast games. No multi-session = no selfbootable games. Basically re-ripping a selfboot DC game as an .iso will get you being chased by angry pitchfork&torch-wielding villagers. Heck, not even non-boot DC games were dumped as .iso
.iso isn't to be used at all on DC games (or at all).

- CD protection.
For those who want 1:1 copies of protected games, ripping them as .iso will break the protection (in a bad way) making the game unplayable and needing to look for a crack patch which is what some people wanted to avoid doing in the first place. CloneCD (ccd/sub/img) and Alcohol120% (mdf/mds) are to be used here.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From personal experience, I find .iso an unstable format that breaks or gets corrupt easily. There is no checksum or any type of file consistency security or extra information accompanying it.


There is a program out there that can rip CDs as iso/cue. But that's basically a bin/cue, just the .bin happens to have a different file extension, an .iso. I don't like this iso/cue combination cause it's not dummy-proof. I can see many beginners ignoring the cue and going right for their preffered .iso and burning that instead (resulting in a bad burn that has no music or will not run at all).

I know from experience all the ups & downs of the formats to know for myself what CD image to rip to. I use CDRwin (bin/cue) for basically everything cause it's a well-established old format that's been around for years and supports audio tracks, which all old games for several systems have. Many ripping/burning programs support bin/cue. For CD-protected games allowed here on UG, I use CloneCD (sub/ccd/img). The protections on these games are all old and can be burned on CloneCD.

Alcohol120% (.mds/mdf) is better suited for modern PC games with tough CD protections which CloneCD can't handle. (Modern new games you obviously won't find here at UG). It's an ok program but it has one fatal flaw few are aware of:

Do not rip mixed mode games into bin/cue with alcohol120%.

It removes the 2-second gap between the audio tracks, resulting in music not looping correctly and other offsynch troubles. It's not a correct raw 1:1 copy then.

Discjuggler (.cdi) is mostly used only for CD-ripped Dreamcast games. It's preffered to not re-rip scene releases cause they tend to break or get altered. Personally I just unrar the multi-rars and re-rar the CD image back in a single rar, keeping the image exactly the same. (I find multi-rars kinda cluttering). Then I back up the rars on DVD or other hard drives. If a DC game was released as alcohol120% or CloneCD format, you might as well keep them in those formats as well. Bin/cue DC discs are non-bootable. Again, might as well keep them like that, unless you want to experiment to make them selfboot yourself (results are not always succesful and if they are, they might not fit on a 80min CDR).

Poweriso (.daa) is too little, too late. Before it came along, we already had alot disc formats to choose from. Adding another one is just redundant. And it's exclusive to only Poweriso, since other ripping/burning programs do not support it.

Nero (.nrg). This image format didn't really gain popularity like the others. I certainly haven't seen much of this image being used for 10 years. It's always outnumbered by .bin and .img and even .iso.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

.iso is to be used only if you know all the facts I stated above to avoid making bad rips. Yes, it's alot to read but if you plan on sharing games correctly you have to know these things, either now or by error when people come back at you complaining that you uploaded a bad rip and wasted their ratio/bandwith. (worse, when they find out months/years later when they're about to play the game to realize they got a bad rip, I wouldn't want to be around them to see the mad look in their eyes!).
So you must know beforehand that you are ripping a game that has no CD protection and no audio tracks or multi-session. Then .iso is ok. (though I still don't recommend it, cause like I said it gets corrupt/breaks the easiest).
 
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Yup, ^^ it's the truth. When I backup my PS2 games to run them on the PC, if they're ripped with .ISO I always get stuttering every few seconds.
 
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Thanks for all of the information, looks like I should try not to use .iso from here on out (probably won't remember).
 
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[quote name='gibberish' date='Mar 7 2009, 04:01 PM' post='707164']
an interesting and semi-related post by someone on the UG forums:

why .iso is crap and is only used by newbies who don't know its limitations and proper CD-ripping 101:

- it doesn't cover audio tracks.
ALL Sega Saturn, ALL PC-Engine CD, ALL PC-FX, heaps of PSX and old PC games use audio tracks. Ripping them as .iso will end up with tiny single data tracked images that have no music. In fact, for NEC systems (PCE, PC-FX) you'd end up with a useless coaster since the first track for those systems is always an audio track THEN followed by the data and several other audio/data tracks. Ripping that to .iso will only result in a single audio track (the generic voiced message telling you not to insert the disc in a CD player).
i have plenty of .isos with working audio
 
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Well, if the audio is in files in the data track, it will work. If it's in audio CD tracks like on a music CD, it won't.
 
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'MagSe7en' said:
will .img be supported as well?

Pretty sure it is. But I don't think it reads any of the .sub or .ccd files (ie: no CDDA or subchannel data).
 
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