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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 26, 2006 20:46:46 GMT -5
I figured I'd post my results of a quick little experiment I underwent, and encourage anybody who is able to add more info to this thread.
While discussing a copy-protection issue in another thread, I decided to try different BIOS files with copy-protected games. For my test I used Legend of Dragoon (SCUS_945.84) *without* patching it. Now, this theory is still in the works, because this game is patchable and I'm not sure if all copy-protected games are technically patchable (if not, this theory might only apply to those that *can* be patched... but I digress).
Trying the game with various US and Japanese BIOS, the result was the same (it would freeze after the black PS logo screen, as expected). However, when I tested it with European BIOS, the game ran perfectly fine. No patch needed. So my hope is that anybody who has an unpatched copy-protected game will test this theory on them and post their results here. Whatever region the game is from, test with that region's BIOS first, and then the other two.
My hope is that this works on any copy-protected game, which would solve a lot of people's problems. Thank you for your time, and make sure that the game is *not* patched (by trying to run it with its region's BIOS first). I guess I'll start out the format like this:
Game: Legend of Dragoon (SCUS_945.84) Patch Available: yes Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U/J Successful BIOS regions: PAL
Game: Wild Arms 2 (SCUS_944.84) Patch Available: yes Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U/J Successful BIOS regions: PAL
Game: Vandal Hearts 2 (SLUS_009.40) Patch Available: no Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U/J, PAL Successful BIOS regions: none
Game: Tomba! 2 (SCUS_944.54) Patch Available: yes Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U/J Successful BIOS regions: PAL
Game: Parasite Eve 2 (SLUS_010.42) Patch Available: no Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U/J, PAL Successful BIOS regions: none
Game: Crash Team Racing (SCUS_944.26) Patch Available: yes (but only one, not tested) Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U/J, PAL Successful BIOS regions: none
Game: Yu-Gi-Oh: Forbidden Memories (SLUS_014.11) Patch Available: yes Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U/J Successful BIOS regions: PAL
Game: Strider 2 (SLUS_011.63) Patch Available: yes Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U Successful BIOS regions: PAL
Game: Thousand Arms (SLUS_008.45 (2)) Patch Available: Unknown Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U Successful BIOS regions: PAL
Game: Crash Bash (SCUS-94570) Patch Available: Unknown Failed BIOS regions: NTSC-U Successful BIOS regions: PAL
Note: Please do not ask where to acquire any BIOS or Game Images. Doing so may result in being banned from this forum.
Edited to update results.
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Post by patrickp on Aug 26, 2006 21:32:01 GMT -5
Well, I tried my FF VIII (SLES--02080), as an .img image, with several European, US and Japanese BIOSs with no luck, but a curious result with later Japanese BIOSs: from SCPH3000 onward (only Japanese), the emulator not only doesn't run the game, it goes to the BIOS screen instead.
The only other game I have handy that I know is copy protected is Wild Arms 2: I used to have to play this patched, but as of v1.7 it no longer needs patching to play.
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 26, 2006 22:08:46 GMT -5
patrickp: Could you possibly test Wild Arms 2, then, with v1.6? If nothing else, it may be that patchable games can be played with different region BIOS (or maybe Legend of Dragoon is just an exception). Hopefully we'll soon find out with other people's results.
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kiru
Full Member
Posts: 102
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Post by kiru on Aug 27, 2006 3:56:11 GMT -5
ff8 pal copy-protected can be played with the europe and the us bios. (wrote it in the other thread with more details) Don´t really know what problem patrickp has with this game , there shouldn´t be much difference between my (sles-02082) and his version. (only the screentext) edit: @gamesoul master: copyprotected games don´t work unpatched with older psx versions... at least that is what i have found out *g (e.g. i´m using scph1001 and ff8+9 (pal, copyprotected) don´t work with psx 1.0-1.6 / tested it 1-2 month ago i think...)
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 27, 2006 5:02:27 GMT -5
But did you tested it with the various BIOS files (most notably DTLH3000 and DTLH3002)? Different region BIOS? What I'm basically trying to figure out is if my Legend of Dragoon example (which is certainly odd, you must admit) is the only case where using the "wrong" region BIOS bypasses the copy-protection.
I'm gonna search through my PS1 collection to see if I can find any other games I may have forgotten about that have copy-protection... after I sleep. Too tired to start looking through boxes now...
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kiru
Full Member
Posts: 102
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Post by kiru on Aug 27, 2006 6:10:54 GMT -5
Yeah, i know what you want to find out and it seems that ff8 pal can be played with europe- and us-bios but i will test a few more if you insist to ^^ (later the day)
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Post by patrickp on Aug 27, 2006 7:37:26 GMT -5
I'm fairly certain playing Wild Arms 2 unpatched was enabled by subcode reading, GM; I have a vague memory of pSX Author saying it should be and, lo and behold... I'll check it out later; busy day today. kiru, well, we actually have slightly different versions; mine is SLES-02080. But I think the reason for our difference may lie elsewhere - at a guess, most of you are using XP. I'm wondering if there's a slight difference in the way W2K (which I'm using) reads CDs and images?
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 27, 2006 13:49:24 GMT -5
Wild Arms 2... I own that game too. Good, then I will test it. If I recall (without having the list to look at offhand), I think I recall Vandal Hearts 2 being copy-protected... so that leaves me with at least 2 games to test right now. Wild Arms 2 I know the location of... Vandal Hearts 2 is going to require a little searching through some boxes. I'll probably edit this post once I have an answer for these games. Any other US games with copy-protection that anybody knows of? I could probably run some searches to find some more, but I'd like them to be posted here anyway, so that if I don't own the game, maybe somebody else has it and can test it.
Edit: Ugh... Some copy-protection! Even when I completely disable subcode reading, the game still plays fine (loading from the original disc, although a few errors popped up in the DOS console). I'm gonna try ripping it and see if I can get it to not work without using an older version of pSX.
Edit 2: I edited my first post, as I realized that I was *not* using Japanese BIOS when I thought I was. When I used the real ones, SCPH1000 froze as expected (like the US ones), and the rest went to the BIOS menu. But guess what? All the European BIOS I tested worked for Wild Arms 2 also!
pSX Version: 1.4 (version tested on compatibility list) Game: Wild Arms 2 (SCUS_944.84) Patch Available: yes Failed BIOS regions: US, Japan Successful BIOS regions: Europe
Just a funny little thing I noticed. Compare the game ID's for the two games I've posted results on. Exactly the same except to replace a '5' with a '4'. Weird. But... this proves that Legend of Dragoon is not a special case. Now I'm off to find my Vandal Hearts 2 game, which to my knowledge has no patch (I searched a few months ago out of curiousity).
I hope that smegforbrain and speedfreak read this thread, because this may end up becoming quite significant if all copy-protected US (or even NTSC) games can be run with a European BIOS to bypass it. We, of course, need further testing (which I don't have enough copy-protected games to do by myself, I'm sure) before we'll know better how far this extends.
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Post by smegforbrain on Aug 28, 2006 21:25:38 GMT -5
I hope that smegforbrain and speedfreak read this thread, because this may end up becoming quite significant if all copy-protected US (or even NTSC) games can be run with a European BIOS to bypass it. We, of course, need further testing (which I don't have enough copy-protected games to do by myself, I'm sure) before we'll know better how far this extends. [/i][/quote] Yeah, I just finished reading this thread. I'm going to need some time to get the list up to the date, so I probably won't be doing any testing myself until I'm back up to speed with life.
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 28, 2006 21:45:36 GMT -5
Of course. Thank you very much for reading this. I guess it seems that so far this seems to only involve US games, because I thought I recalled a few PAL games that were tested with European and US BIOS, and neither type bypassed the protection.
I still haven't found my copy of Vandal Hearts 2 yet, but I know I still have the damn game... it's just a matter of time before I find it so I can test it.
One final note I'd like to add for everybody. I in no way advocate downloading game images. But even without saying that, it's not a good idea to try and test this with a downloaded copy of a game. My friend tried doing that (with Medievil 2), and reported to me that the game worked without patching, changing BIOS, or using subcode reading. It took me 15 minutes of discussing his results with him (trying to figure out if he did something differently or had the wrong game) to find out that not only did he download the image, but it was patched already! So in the spirit of minimizing inaccurate results here, please don't run tests like this on an image you can't say is patched or not.
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 29, 2006 23:17:35 GMT -5
pSX Version: 1.8 Game: Vandal Hearts 2 (SLUS_009.40) Patch Available: no Failed BIOS regions: US, Europe, Japan, Asia Successful BIOS regions: none
Well, that makes things a lot clearer. I guess that only patchable games can be loaded in this manner. So... that leaves me to ask, what is the difference between a patchable game and a non-patchable game?
If nothing else, these results and that question may help to figure out more ways around copy-protection in the future. I want testing to continue on this, because if only patchable games are loadable like this for sure, then at least we'll be able to tell really quickly whether there's the possibility of finding/making a patch for a game that seems to be copy-protected.
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kiru
Full Member
Posts: 102
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Post by kiru on Aug 30, 2006 5:22:20 GMT -5
I don´t really think there is a difference... with a proper patch all games (copy-protected) should at least start. However, there should be a couple of different copy-protections what should answer, why some games run with a special bios unpatched, some in all unpatched (with subcode reading), some don´t run at all etc. I don´t have any copy-protected ntsc game, only ff8 and ff9 pal so i can´t really help you
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Post by patrickp on Aug 30, 2006 9:15:44 GMT -5
I guess that 'patchable' must really be down to whether someone has written a patch for the game in question, GM. AFAIK while PAL game publishers usually use LibCrypt for copy protection, NTSC game publishers don't, and may use several different methods - PAL publishers may sometimes use other methods than LibCrypt as well. Hey, the Brazilian guys know plenty about copy protection - where are they?
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Post by Gamesoul Master on Aug 30, 2006 13:11:48 GMT -5
Yeah, but why would this technique only work on original games that *can* be patched? LibCrypt isn't a factor here, or else most games wouldn't work with this technique. The games that worked had a SCUS prefix, and the ones that don't have a SLUS prefix. Maybe that's relevant? It's either determined by whether a game is patchable or which initials it starts with. And maybe those two are related too.
We need more testing. Doesn't anybody else around here have copy-protected US games?!
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Post by patrickp on Aug 31, 2006 12:43:17 GMT -5
Well, I think I may have found out something of why my Final Fantasy VIII wouldn't run without patching. I tried playing it on my Playstation (which I never had before - I got the CD long after I put away the Playstation and went for emulation instead. Then, as I've commented elsewhere, I resurrected the Playstation again recently to see how it compared to pSX) and it would run the credits, it would look for my memory card (obviously I don't have any FF VIII saves on it), but when I selected New Game - nothing. Black screen; and I waited for some time. Had a look at the disk and I thought it looked a bit mucky, so I washed it and tried it again. This time it would play the introduction, but very, very jerkily. Tried washing it again; it was visibly clean, but with lots of tiny scratches... and still the same thing. So - looks like a naff copy. The surprise is that, when I rip it and patch it, it _does_ play. I can only imagine that, somehow, the patch is repairing those sectors that are unreadable. I've no doubt that if I continue the game (never really got very far with it) it'll crash again sooner or later. And the moral of this story? Obviously, you can _never_ assume that your disk (it's clearly a genuine, original Playstation game) and images you rip from it are perfect.
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