[Tutorial] Rain's PlayStation One on PSP SuperGuide

[RainMotorsports]

MAINTAINENCE NOTICE: This thread is current as of 5.00 M33-3 and will remain somewhat current for a decent amount of time. However it is no longer maintained by the original author. When this guide no longer suffices please seek guides from other authors such as BCman, DemonChild, Scorpus and so on.

Post 1:
- Intro
- The Basics: What Your About To Do
- Making Your PS1 Images
- Single Disc How To
- Playing The Game
- Using PopsLoader
Post 2:
- Multi Disc How To
- Making DOCUMENT.DAT's
- Additional Image Information
- Making SND0.AT3's
Post 3 - Legally Obtaining Files/Building PopsLoader
Post 4 - FAQS/Troubleshooting/Credits

Intro
This is a long guide broken into 5 parts, This first post should get you going from start to finish. I have as usual written this as best as I could for New and Experienced users. I have also written this guide to explore the use of more than one method or application to help those who dont prefer my exact method of doing something. I will be using Final Fantasy VII as my example as it is a Multi Disc game that can be done both as single eboots or multiple eboots and is commonly asked about when trying to run on various firmware versions. Mac users might want to check out this How to convert ISOs and PSX games using PrometeusPro 4 Dummies

The Basics: What Your About To Do
To make this less confusing read the following to get the gist of what you have to do! First thing we have to do is get the game on the PC. We do this by using an Application like Alcohol 120% or CloneCD to make an image of the game (ISO). We then need to make an EBOOT.PBP out of the ISO so we can play it on the PSP. Some games will play on some firmware versions without a problem, however as the emulator (POPS) is updated some games start working while some games stop. There is a solution called POPSLOADER, it will allow you to use different versions of Sony's emulator to play your game. Optionally you can add icons, backgrounds, and build a manual for the game. Read further posts for advanced topics and more information.

Making Your PS1 Images
I will use Alcohol 120% as my primary example and CloneCD as the backup. Alcohol 52%/68% will also work. Start by downloading Alcohol 120% trial from filehippo and install it. Run Alcohol 120%. Click on Image Making wizard, Make sure the proper drive is selected if you more than 1 and set data type to PlayStation. On this next screen set the Image format to CloneCD Image File and click start. When finished just remember where the image is and move onto the next step.

Using CloneCD is somewhat easy, Click the third button for Clone CD, select the drive, select protected game, click create cue sheet, set where you want the image and click next.

Making a Single Disc EBoot
Our example is a multi disc game but a very convient one at that, since it allows you to save before the disc change. This is also very good for people with small memory cards. If you wish you can skip to the multi disc how to and come back for playing and popsloader. I will be using PSX2PSPv1.4.2 as my primary example for single disc in both classic and themed mode with ZiNgABuRgA's Simple Popstation GUI as the backup.

You dont need them to play the game but its awfully boring with out them.... Thats Right! Icons, Wallpapers and Bootscreens oh my! You can also add a pmf animation to the icon and an at3 sound for the official touch. The sound is easier then the animation but i will go into that MUCH later. For my FFVII Eboots I used these files plus I bought the FFVII soundtrack so I made an AT3 for it also. I jacked the background from IGN and modified it and the icon was made with PSX2PSPv1.4.2 by cropping the game cover in a 60x68 aspect ratio and resizing to that size.


The first time you run PSX2PSPv1.4.2 it is going to ask you if you wish to use classic or theme'd mode. It doesn't really matter but theme'd mode will give you an active view of what your customizations. You can change modes later and it even gives you different shortcuts for the different modes. The first note of the day is that PSX2PSPv1.4.2 by default uses its own icon wrapper. I recommend 80x80 icons but if you wish to use your own full 80x80 icon goto options and change ICON0 to the blank spot, this will conform your icon to whatever size the image is just use an 80x80 icon.

Lets Do It!
First thing your going to want to do is tell it where the (ISO/BIN/IMG) file is. This should fill in the GAMEID's and name's. Tell it where to output the PBP at. At this point your done bit if you wish to customize the icons now is the time otherwise they will be blank and confusing. The ICON0 image should be 80x80 or 144x80, the PIC1.PNG and BOOT.PNG should be 480x272 all in PNG format. PS1 games tend to do well with compression but not all so you may also go into options and change this. Press Convert and your on your way.


ZiNgABuRgA's Simple Popstation GUI is very similar but a bit older. The instructions are approx the same and I spoke with ZiNgABuRgA and the document maker might not work so skip down later and read my tutorial on making DOCUMENT.DAT's if so desired.

Playing The Game
Final Fantasy VII plays on 3.71/3.72 and 4.01. If you are lucky your game will work straight up on your firmware, check the compatibility list. If not so lucky then you will have to use popsloader (see next part). Place the EBOOT.PBP and if you have a manual the DOCUMENT.DAT inside its own folder under MS0:/PSP/GAME/. PSX2PSP automatically puts it in its game id folder so FF7 would look like MS0:/PSP/GAME/SCUS94163/EBOOT.PBP. Just go down to Game > Memory Stick like you would any other game and enjoy.

Using Popsloader
---> You are here! As with all emulators in development, when changes are made to increase compatibility in one game sometimes another game is affect negatively. Whenever sony updates its emulator pops for an officially supported game they only test other officially supported games to make sure they still work. For the rest of us we have a solution and its called popsloader. You will need both the plugin from dark alexs website and the files from older firmwares. Our forum has a file HERE for 3.80-4.01 Our forum has a file HERE for 5.00 that has both in it, its not the most legal way of obtaining it but it is the simplest. If you would like to do it legally skip down to Post 3 where i show you how to do it the legal way. Place the plugin/files into the MS0:/SEPLUGINS/ folder and enable it in recovery. You may need to merge the pops.txt file with an existing one if your using other plugins. Recovery is loaded by shutting the PSP all the way off and booting while holding R1.

The first time you run a game using popsloader it will ask what version you want to run the game with, if you do not have the files it will just freeze. If you need to change the version to run that game in the future hold R1 while booting the game. Some games like FF8 on 4.01 run best if popsloader is completely disabled in recovery. To run from your firmwares version just select "Original from flash".

Don't forget to check the compatibility list.

ALL CREDITS ARE IN THE FAQS/TROUBLESHOOTING.

[RainMotorsports]

Multi Disc How To
Many Multi Disc games require you to switch discs giving you no oppurtunity to save before the switch. Many of these games can be built into a Multi Disc EBOOT but not always. This is also a big problem for people with small memory cards. The recommendation there is to Build a single disc, play it till the last save, Build a Disc 1 and 2 Eboot, play to the first save in disc 2, then switch to a disc 2 only eboot. Its not fun but if done properly it will work and help save some space. My example file is Final Fantasy VII which plays nice as Single Disc, however if you have a big memory card and plan to be away from your computer for a long time you might wish to build all the discs into a single eboot.

For this section i will be using PSX2PSPv1.4.2 again, Impaler's Multi PSX EBOOT Creator and RS-GUI PopStationMD 3.0. The main thing we are doing here is changing the game id to match the first disc.



RS-GUI is a little different, for more then 2 discs you must goto Settings > Number of CDs. At the bottom click on Extras to put in your images.



Making DOCUMENT.DAT's
So you wanna have the manual or a guide with you? Not a problem but there are some limitations. I use PSPDocMaker by TheNameless. You can try to use another one if you wish but for this section I only plan to cover one program because it works and it works well.

You can use PSPDocMaker to convert images or text. If your using images its good to start with PNG's as this is the compression used however PSPDocMaker will allow you to import many image formats as well as a text document. The images should be cut/resized down to 480x480 anything more will usually get cut off.

I personally scanned my Versus Books The Compleley Unauthorized Final Fantasy Ultimate Guide and cut the pages in half to fit in the document. This came out to about 100 MB due to having 300 images when done. I will later add how to automatically cut up images in batch.

Doing It
Start up PSPDocMaker and click option in the upper right, set compression level to 9. Its lossless compression so no worries about quality. The other options are for text files adjust as necsarry. For image files click on "Select Files' for Text guides press "Add Text Files". Set your gameid although it has be reported that 99999 works just fine. Click create and when its done building it will ask you to save it, save it as DOCUMENT.DAT and place it in the same place as your EBOOT.PBP.

[RainMotorsports]

Building PopsLoader The Legal Way
If you fired up the popsloader plugin and it froze on you there is a reason. You also need the pops files from the previous firmware versions. You probably already know this and your here because you chose to get them the legal way. You will need a psardumper and M33 PSARDumper or RSPSARDumper will do just fine. If your dumping the files for PSPGEN's 4.01 Popsloader you will need to use RSPSARDumper due to the M33 PSARDumper being only for 3.7x and older.

For DAX's 3.80+ Popsloader we will need to dump the files for 3.00, 3.01, 3.02, 3.03, 3.10, 3.11, 3.30, 3.40, 3.51, 3.52, 3.71, 3.72. For PSPGEN's 4.01 popsloader you will need 3.00-3.40, 3.52, 3.73, 3.93, 3.95.

Originally Posted by Taken from MaxConsole Written by DuckBuster

List of files needed for each version:
3.00-3.03: kd/popsman.prx, kd/meaudio.prx, kd/pops.prx, vsh/module/pafmini.prx
3.10-3.30: kd/popsman.prx, kd/pops.prx, vsh/module/pafmini.prx
3.40-3.72: kd/popsman.prx, kd/pops.prx, vsh/module/pafmini.prx, vsh/module/libpspvmc.prx

For DAX's 5.00 Popsloader we will need to dump the files for 3.00, 3.01, 3.02, 3.03, 3.10, 3.11, 3.30, 3.40, 3.51, 3.52, 3.71, 3.72, 3.80, 3.90 and 4.01.

Originally Posted by Dark_Alex

Dump 4.01 (choose decrypt all option in psardumper) and copy the file impose.prx in /seplugins/popsloader/ with that name (impose.prx, without numbers)

3.02-3.03: /kd/pops.prx, /kd/popsman.prx, /kd/meaudio.prx, /vsh/module/pafmini.prx
3.10-3.30: /kd/pops.prx, /kd/popsman.prx, /vsh/module/pafmini.prx
3.40-4.01: /kd/pops.prx, /kd/popsman.prx, /vsh/module/pafmini.prx, /vsh/module/libpspvmc.prx

Copy the PSARDumper to the memory stick. If using Red Squirrels PSARDumper makes sure the RS folder ends up on the root of the memory stick.

You will need to place the EBOOT.PBP for the firmware you wish to dump on the root of the memory stick and leaved it named the same. Fire up the PSARDumper and it will look like this if your using Red Squirrels. If its Red Squirrels and it closes or has an error you obviously didnt put the RS folder on the root of the memory stick. In either one press SQUARE to dump decrypted/decompressed, you will occasionally see a blue error or two just ignore it.

When the dump is complete there will be a folder either DUMP or F0 depending on the dumper. D0 this how you wish I renamed the folder to the firmware version and moved on just to get them dumped quickly. When you are ready to rename and move files consult the list above taken from maxconsole. You will need to rename the require files with the firmware version at the end of the name. For example 3.71 pops.prx will need to be renamed pops371.prx. Below is how the folder should look (including the idcanager_old.prx included with the plugin) if you were dumping for DAX's 3.80+ popsloader.


Place all these files into the popsloader folder inside of seplugins if you havent already. You are now ready to run popsloader.


Obtaining/Ripping a BASE.PBP
These days a clean BASE.PBP can be obtained easily, infact one is included in ZiNgABuRgA's GUI and I included one in the PSX2PSP download in this thread. You are here because like me you felt like learning on how to make one to call your own. The old school method is to take a purchased PSX game and keys.bin and just build your eboot from that. GUI's were later update to allow you to change the images and information in the eboot. This still works but it makes for a big base.pbp.

The following information is based on XTOFU's 2006 post on MaxConsole. Hotshots 2 Golf is traditionally the game used however any bought psx game should work. I believe people have confused a way to do it with with "the only way" to do it. Rename the eboot.pbp to base.pbp and place it and the keys.bin in the appropriate location for your particular gui. Create a blank text file and rename it whatever.iso. Run the GUI as you normally would choosing your blank iso and no images. You can now use the eboot.pbp that came out of this as your base.pbp.

[RainMotorsports]

Reserved for FAQS/Troubleshooting and Credits

Thanks to the authors of all programs used and all programs available. Thanks to Dark_Alex for popsloader and duckbuster for his instructions on max console.

This guide is complete for use, this section is very lacking however. I give permission to the staff of this site to update any information and links they feel needed.

MAINTAINENCE NOTICE: This thread is current as of 5.00 M33-3 and will remain somewhat current for a decent amount of time. However it is no longer maintained by the original author. When this guide no longer suffices please seek guides from other authors such as BCman, DemonChild, Scorpus and so on.

[osnap1584]

another good guide dude keep the scene alive

[droe6]

It's looking good so far rain! I doubt many noobs will actually look at it until we give them a link but it will help many people out.

[Aaron*1]

Well I have one question what do you mean by "Base.pbp"?

I can't use the programs to find out no working pc.

[RainMotorsports]

Originally Posted by Aaron*1

Well I have one question what do you mean by "Base.pbp"?

I can't use the programs to find out no working pc.

Normally its obtained from the hotshots 2 game. But one can also be made "clean" i will be getting into that later. Youll need a PC or a MAC todo this cant do any of it on the psp. But if you download zingaburga's gui it has the file in it already. psx2psp will ask for it. Could also find it elsewhere.

[Aaron*1]

Thanks for the heads up about you getting into it in more depth.:D

The only problems with your psx2psp link is that you have to be a member to download and there's a few other things you can download what are they.

Again another great guide.:D

[RainMotorsports]

Originally Posted by Aaron*1

Thanks for the heads up about you getting into it in more depth.:D

The only problems with your psx2psp link is that you have to be a member to download and there's a few other things you can download what are they.

Again another great guide.:D

From that link you only need the one file thats the latest version ignore the rest. I will attempt to find a better link but there isn't one here. Alot of us are members at maxconsole so i went ahead and posted the link.