Kubaru Posted July 2, 2015 Posted July 2, 2015 I recently came across my old PS1, and i decided to look for my old (and small) collection of games that i had. Sadly, most of them are scratched beyond repair due to storing in terrible conditions. Since i owned (and tecnically, stil own) those games, and since my PS1 is chipped, i decided to burn the copies on a CD-R. Im currently using a Verbatim CD-R, so i guess it's not bad quality. After a few tries with ImgBurg (i always did something wrong, and resulted in games not being read by the PS1, or being read only in audio format), i managed to burn a copy of Castelvania:SoTN on a CD-R. It had a track 1 and track 2, which i "merged" together in one .bin file with a software called "CDMAGE", it gave me another .cue and one .bin, which contained both tracks of the game. ( I actually had to do some really weird stuff with my ps1 to make it load, like turning it upside down and such, but in the end, it loaded correctly). Now, i got a copy of disk 1 and disk 2 of MGS for the PS1, but both files are in .mdf and .mds. I tried to burn the .mds (metadata, just like .cue) as i thought that it would burn the .mdf too but, for some reasons, it won't burn the whole thing. It just burns a few things, resulting the PS1 not being able to load it (insert PS1 CD format, red screen). What can i do? Could someone give me a clear explaination (pictures and step-by-step would be more appreciate, since i have troubles learning from text without visual examples) on what to do? And why a lot of .bin and .cue files that i tried to burn didn't work either? (i burned the .cue of course, just as i did with Castelvania, but for some reasons, it didn't work) Thanks you.
LIGHTNING UK! Posted July 2, 2015 Posted July 2, 2015 Post the log of the mds burn+verify please. You may find there's nothing wrong with the non-working bin/cue files and it's just that your PS1 can't read the discs. They weren't designed to read CD-R discs and can be fussy about which ones you use, not to mention some drives doing a better job of burning certain discs than others.
dbminter Posted July 2, 2015 Posted July 2, 2015 Plus, you can't just infer that because they're Verbatim CD-R's that they're any good. Verbatim farms out their CD production partly to CMC Magnetics, the worst optical disc manufacturer out there. Unless they're DataLife Plus they're most likely CMC. If you bought them in a brick and mortar store, they're most likely CMC. You'd need to check the MID/DID field in ImgBurn on one of the CD-R's to see. Also, I don't know why you're merging the tracks together. That should surely cause some kind of problem, I'd think. I believe PS games sometimes store their music as a separate track on their game discs. So, even if the game works, you'd most likely not have any music.
Kubaru Posted July 2, 2015 Author Posted July 2, 2015 (edited) Plus, you can't just infer that because they're Verbatim CD-R's that they're any good. Verbatim farms out their CD production partly to CMC Magnetics, the worst optical disc manufacturer out there. Unless they're DataLife Plus they're most likely CMC. If you bought them in a brick and mortar store, they're most likely CMC. You'd need to check the MID/DID field in ImgBurn on one of the CD-R's to see. Also, I don't know why you're merging the tracks together. That should surely cause some kind of problem, I'd think. I believe PS games sometimes store their music as a separate track on their game discs. So, even if the game works, you'd most likely not have any music. Yes, sadly i just realized that those disks are CMC. But i also realized something else: ( I live in a PAL region, so my PS1 it's PAL) The Castelvania copy i burned was (E) (European), and it worked. I recently also burned a copy of MGS, which was European too (specific for my country actually, but still PAL), and it worked. But when i tried to burn a copy of a japanese game, it reads it as an audio CD, with only one track which doesn't reproduce anything because obiviously it's computer data. Im starting to think that my chip can't bypass region lock. Is this possible? Do modchips that doesn't bypass region lock exist? Because if they do, im starting to think that's the actual problem with my PS1. PS: merging the two tracks actually made my Castelvania copy works, so really, i have no idea on this one, but before merging them it didn't work, it readed it as an audio CD. About the audio, sometimes i feel like it's a bit "flanged", but i can ear it, i dont see any problem with it for now Edited July 2, 2015 by Kubaru
dbminter Posted July 2, 2015 Posted July 2, 2015 I believe that mod chips have to specifically support bypassing the region lock in order for outer region games to load. They need to be hard coded to bypass the region locking. I don't believe all chips did that, especially older ones. I don't know that for sure, though. I had an ancient PS with the serial port on the back. I got a device that connected to it to play Japanese import games.
Kubaru Posted July 3, 2015 Author Posted July 3, 2015 I believe that mod chips have to specifically support bypassing the region lock in order for outer region games to load. They need to be hard coded to bypass the region locking. I don't believe all chips did that, especially older ones. I don't know that for sure, though. I had an ancient PS with the serial port on the back. I got a device that connected to it to play Japanese import games. I could finally determine that my modchip (or my PS1, it's a SCPH-102) can't play games from other regions, by running the same game only on different formats/regions. I took my copy of FF7, one (E) and one from Japan, the (E) one goes well, the Japanese one doesn't even get recognised. Now, i would like to "convert" NTSC and NTSC-J games into PAL, so they can run on my chipped PS1. I've already tried an application for the PS1 called "Import Player Light", but it doesn't boot up on my PS1, so i can't even try with that one, i would probably be luckier to convert the copy from NTSC to PAL on my PC..but how? I've already also tried another tool that promised to that, but it didn't fix anything (it was on the isozone). There is any way to actually convert a NTSC and NTSC-J game into a PAL one? Thanks
dbminter Posted July 3, 2015 Posted July 3, 2015 1.) I don't think there's actually an application that would convert NTSC PS games to PAL. 2.) it wouldn't do anything to help you with a region lock issue. PAL and NTSC are just video formats. You could still play an NTCS on your European PS. However, the video might not be compatible. I know from experience playing PAL PS on my NTSC PS, PAL would play on my modded system but the video was impossible to watch. The audio was fine but the video was in black and white and flashing. I don't know if it happens in reverse, but I thought that NTSC played on PAL. Just not the other way around. So, converting to PAL from NTSC wouldn't do any good about the game not loading. It's still a region lock issue.
Kubaru Posted July 9, 2015 Author Posted July 9, 2015 1.) I don't think there's actually an application that would convert NTSC PS games to PAL. 2.) it wouldn't do anything to help you with a region lock issue. PAL and NTSC are just video formats. You could still play an NTCS on your European PS. However, the video might not be compatible. I know from experience playing PAL PS on my NTSC PS, PAL would play on my modded system but the video was impossible to watch. The audio was fine but the video was in black and white and flashing. I don't know if it happens in reverse, but I thought that NTSC played on PAL. Just not the other way around. So, converting to PAL from NTSC wouldn't do any good about the game not loading. It's still a region lock issue. I have good news: i finally managed to make Import Player Light work on my PSone. I tried burning a NTSC-J game, and guess what..it worked! On my PAL PSone! I would like add "flawlessy" for everything (colors, textures, ecc..), the only thing that bothers me it's the screen position. It's a bit off, and it doesn't fully show the screen (it's still playable tho). My version of this application (Import Player Light) doesn't have in game screen re-position, which allows you to position your screen where you wish, so my question now is: there is a way to reposition the screen BEFORE burning the disk? Like, making a little modify of the game, so it can run 100% flawlessy with the right postion on my TV? Thanks you for your support.
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