Metal Gear Solid Integral Problem

[panzer88]

I recently purchased a brand new unused version of the japanese game "Metal Gear Solid: Integral"

it is ntsc-j and it is the PSOne Books 3 disk set.

the game boots in pSX just fine, and so I'm not sure if this is an emulator error, or if it has something to do with copy protection.

anyways when I boot it up the game works correctly and I can navigate the menus completely fine until I try to start a new game.

when I try to start a new game it gives me an error message in japanese with a red circle and a line threw it shown here



I tried using Scph1001, and now Scph7000 for bios.

I also tried the game in another emulator and it went into the intro without a hitch.

I am not suggesting that pSX is less accurate, in fact quite the opposite, but I was wondering if there was anything I could do to bypass this snag.

again this is being run on pSX with the REAL OFFICIAL MGS Integral NTSC-J PSOne Books Edition CD-ROM Disk 1

(when I use disk 2 it says please insert disk 1, or something to that effect, and the third disk is just for the VR Missions)

any advise or information would be appreciated. Thank you for your time.

[cid67]

there is a nother bios called scph7502 that may work.

[panzer88]

yeah the PAL one right? nope, it didn't work.

I've found a way to play through the intro in ePSXe and then save it and convert the memory card file to play it in pSX but I've noticed someone else mentioning this elsewhere on the board with a japanese version of Ape Escape, and I met another person on the ZSNES board who had the same error message with a japanese version of Legend of Mana. Who also said it worked fine on his japanese playstation.

I think pSX has a problem with some japanese security checks that should be looked into. Also, is there any news on the PocketStation compatibility? I found out recently that Metal Gear Solid Integral has some functionality with the pocketstation and it would be cool to be able to experience that.

[panzer88]

SEVERAL WEEKS LATER:

well, I just finished disk one of MGS Integral and it's great stuff. I had completely forgotten about this disk problem which I had found a sort of workaround for.

Well sure enough when I tried to switch to disk 2 of course I ran into the same error screen that loading a new game on disk one with pSX gave me.

Well I went to do the same old work around with ePSXe but it is having problems right now so I'm literally stuck until I can get ePSXe to work with my MGS Integral disk 2, pSX gets an update that fixes this region detection error or whatever it is.

[Gamesoul Master]

To start, I know this may sound useless, but... could you open your PAL and NTSC-J BIOS files into your favorite text editor (Notepad, Wordpad, etc), scroll down to the bottom (or do a search), and find the lines that have "System ROM Version x.x xx/xx/xx X" format (that last X will be E, J, or U, depending on the actual region)? I'm curious of two things:
1) Are the BIOS you tried actually PAL and NTSC-J (probably are, but good to check)
2) I'm truly curious of the dates and versions you've tried if they *are* correct

It's been noticed that with PS1, newer BIOS files actually don't seem to work as well as older ones, so I'm rather curious if any of the ones you've tried are the older ones that we've found to work better.

In the meantime, I'm gonna try and get in touch with my import-fanatic friend and see if he has a copy of this game that I can borrow.

Oh, and I almost forgot... could you try a couple older versions of pSX to see if the same thing happens. I'm thinking v1.4 for sure, and also v1.6 and v1.7 (was reported as freezing on disc change for v1.6, and then was reported as working perfectly fine in v1.7).

[panzer88]

well, which 3 bios would you suggest for highest rate of success (US, JAP, and PAL) the absolute oldest ones?

I will try to find those, get back to you after checking them with the latest version of the emu (which I have already been using) and also check them in the text editor. Thanks for the suggestions, lets see if it makes any difference.