[gigas] Ps2 Port


Pirotic

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Hiya peeps, always said that Gigas would be ported to a number of formats when finished, got myself a PS2 hard-disk & network adaptor a few weeks ago which has given me some interest in coding for the format, anyway.. heres a photo of the result

ps2.jpg


its a bit cheap, it just renders to a 320x240 buffer then stretchs to the screen - so it's a direct port of the GP32 code, just figured i'd put a piccy up just out of interest. DMS3 only atm, as the elf file has to be booted from dev mode, then you just put a CD in with the game folders on.

Here's hoping the Nintendo DS is easy to homebrew for - imagine playing the game on the top screen, and being able to edit it in real-time on the bottom screen :D

GP32 is the main platform still, so it'll get finished on the GP32 before i start doing any proper ports - then it'll be open sourced, but i'll probably do a couple of ports myself (PC/DS ideally).

Gigas itself is still very unfinished, when all the features are done and editable, im going to totally recode the editing interface to make it easier.
 
heh, cool :)


the bottom touch screen should be used for items/magic though, while playing it properly... ;)
 
extremegamer posted on Oct 8 2004 at 02:39 PM said:
is there any plans for a windows editor?

Uhuh, need to get the GP32 version finished first before i do any ports - otherwise every change i make to the GP32 version i'll have to go back and do to all the existing ports, so its better to get it 'done' before hand to save time.

im hoping to get almost every feature in the next major release, leaving me plenty of time (and version numbers) to debug and improve it.
 
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Off topic..

Any tips on where top find out about PS2 hacking?

ie: I've gotten some interest in it, but no idea where to begin.

ie:

Right now I have no hardrive/adapter, but they're relatively cheap, so is that needed? I know theres some evil methods to get access via dongles, or pulling a game out at the right time, etc, but thats all crappy sounding.. I'd like to be able to just boot up my shit, without having to mod the machine at all (since thats not gong to happen!)..

So any info on how to use an unmodded PS2 to do stuff? How are you running your game? You're not burning a CD every time right? Are you somehow writin gthe game to PS2 memory card and running it from there, so that you can just write and test? (I'd hate to burn a CD every time..)

If it has usb ports (which I think it does) then perhaps a usb keychain flashcart woudl do it?

I'm dieing to port Zot to PS2 ;)

jeff
 
That is sweet, The ps2 is a brilliant machine, but sadly it has not got a very good homebrew scene.
 
skeezix posted on Oct 8 2004 at 02:52 PM said:
Off topic..

Any tips on where top find out about PS2 hacking?

ie: I've gotten some interest in it, but no idea where to begin.

ie:

Right now I have no hardrive/adapter, but they're relatively cheap, so is that needed? I know theres some evil methods to get access via dongles, or pulling a game out at the right time, etc, but thats all crappy sounding.. I'd like to be able to just boot up my shit, without having to mod the machine at all (since thats not gong to happen!)..

So any info on how to use an unmodded PS2 to do stuff? How are you running your game? You're not burning a CD every time right? Are you somehow writin gthe game to PS2 memory card and running it from there, so that you can just write and test? (I'd hate to burn a CD every time..)

If it has usb ports (which I think it does) then perhaps a usb keychain flashcart woudl do it?

I'm dieing to port Zot to PS2 ;)

jeff

Hiya mate,

im using a PS2 which is chipped with the DMS3 chip, it has a 'Devolution' mode built into it which allows it to boot up a elf file from a memory card (and to copy said file from CD to the memory card). which makes testing homebrew apps simple as pie.

But It's also pretty easy to make a game bootable from CD on a chipped machine using existing tools, but in order for a game to be bootable on a non-chipped PS2 you need to use the crazy taxi hack and proper CD/DVD pressing (im afraid i dont know much about either).

Basically if you want to develop homebrew for PS2 you really need to get it chipped.

I was orignally thinking i could use the HD as a way of editing the games, but scrapped the idea as it's then impossible for the average joe to get the game off the HD so he can distribute it, so if i did continue on it it'd just be a 'Player' and not an editor.

is ZoT open sourced?
 
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So every build, you have to burn a disc to load image from, or load image to card and run it? Sounds expensive burning all those disks..

Any way to get it to memcard without burning a disk first? :) (usb key would be nice.. someone needs to make a bootable disk that then boots an image from the USB..)

I picked up the MAX cheat code thingy, thinking it woudl be usewful (but turnd out not); ie: You can (ion the UK only it seams :/) use MAX Media Center to burn a disk that has a Genesis emu and roms on it (they include Pgen or somesuch). Then you can boot this disk using the MAX cheat code memcard. This suggests to me that thjey've worked around some of the proteciton, and boot stuff from CD using the memcard; however, I can't find the media center in canada to buy (or any north american version of it), so I can't burn a disk and see. But conceivably, if their memcard thing boots a speciric filename from CD, it would be doable to burn our own CDs and invoke code from an unmodded PS2... but since I know nothing of PS2 hacking, this could be incorrect.

Is there a decent PS2 emu? No way would I want to build somethign if I have to burn a CD every 5 minutes to test it :) Running image in emu woudl at least be doable..

Any websites to look at? ie: How do you find out about which methods of homebrewing on the PS2 there are? (aside from the linux kit). I did some googles and found a pile of unhelpful pages, so hard ot cut down on the crap :)

Zot is not open source, due to licensing concerns for some of my code (ie: I run a business, so need to keep rights to numerous things in order to conduct business.) Such is life.

jeff
 
skeezix posted on Oct 8 2004 at 03:15 PM said:
So every build, you have to burn a disc to load image from, or load image to card and run it? Sounds expensive burning all those disks..

Any way to get it to memcard without burning a disk first? :) (usb key would be nice.. someone needs to make a bootable disk that then boots an image from the USB..)

I picked up the MAX cheat code thingy, thinking it woudl be usewful (but turnd out not); ie: You can (ion the UK only it seams :/) use MAX Media Center to burn a disk that has a Genesis emu and roms on it (they include Pgen or somesuch). Then you can boot this disk using the MAX cheat code memcard. This suggests to me that thjey've worked around some of the proteciton, and boot stuff from CD using the memcard; however, I can't find the media center in canada to buy (or any north american version of it), so I can't burn a disk and see. But conceivably, if their memcard thing boots a speciric filename from CD, it would be doable to burn our own CDs and invoke code from an unmodded PS2... but since I know nothing of PS2 hacking, this could be incorrect.

Is there a decent PS2 emu? No way would I want to build somethign if I have to burn a CD every 5 minutes to test it :) Running image in emu woudl at least be doable..

Any websites to look at? ie: How do you find out about which methods of homebrewing on the PS2 there are? (aside from the linux kit). I did some googles and found a pile of unhelpful pages, so hard ot cut down on the crap :)

Zot is not open source, due to licensing concerns for some of my code (ie: I run a business, so need to keep rights to numerous things in order to conduct business.) Such is life.

jeff

Well, so long as the project was finished before you started porting it - it shouldn't use up to many CDs testing it. a PS2 emu exists, but its extremely slow and i didnt even bother trying to use it for testing, but maybe in the future it'll become a more viable method of testing homebrew apps.

It looks like that Datel thing allows you to boot off a memory card too, much like the Devolution mode the DMS3 chip has, but i dont know any other method of getting stuff onto the memory card.

with Devolution you just burn the files to a CD-R, and then browse them and select which ones you want copied to a memory card, it may be the same with that Datel disc of yours.

http://ps2dev.org/ has some source code examples for a few of the exploits.
 
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sam fisher posted on Oct 8 2004 at 03:20 PM said:
does the new gp32 gigas 7.1 or whatever support chat board for entering text yet?

wrong thread mate, but nope - not yet. i got it picking up the chatboard but need to code it in, it'll be a line of code for each bloody button and i was just to lazy to get it done in time for the current release :D.
 
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sam fisher posted on Oct 8 2004 at 03:31 PM said:
I have to have loads of text in the sam games to cover up its meaning less story line about kidnapping all the games console characters!

it's not actually much faster typing with the chatboard, the buttons are really tiny and they are spaced too far apart - maybe thats just me,

i'll get it implemented in next release :D
 
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i want to start a gigas game, but i want to wait for a windows editor. Everytime i try to make a game, when I copy sprites from other web sites, it throws all the colors way off and screws up all the graphics.
 
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