Modding the MGS1 emulator

[frozen heron]

amazing to hear we've got a forum! should be so much easier to tag stuff now.

that said, i'm gonna give where we currently stand on modding/repacking MGS1 and everything about the emulator;

• The game's alldata.bin can easily be decompiled using an updated version of MArchiveBatchTool, a tool made for Castlevania Advance Collection.

• Currently, MArchiveBatchTool does NOT allow to repack the game back to .bin succesfully. Doing so results in the launcher giving a blank screen.

• The emulator itself lies within the .exe file. It does not have a game launcher made in Unity like the rest of the games.

• The emulator seems to have been made by M2, as seen in the game's files. They are known for making the Castlevania Advance Collection and the SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis Mini, which use the same file structure.

• Decompiling alldata.bin gives us these file extensions

• .psb - Different types of emulator data files, such as images and sounds. Can be decompiled using FreeMote.

• .nut - Emulator script files. Language is unknown.

• .bin - ROM files and patches for these. The ROMs used in Master Collection act like any regular PS1 ROM and can be decompiled using any disk tool, such as PowerISO. We have yet to know how the patch files work.

[frozen heron]

Conducting a series of experiments to find out why is recompiling not working. I've confirmed the codec key is at default (25G/xpvTbsb+6), just like CASADV, by putting the .exe through a hex editor, so this is not the issue.

EXPERIMENT 1:
Attempting to MArchive without deserializing and recompiling and see if there is any issues with it still.

MArchiveBatchTool archive build --codec zlib --seed  25G/xpvTbsb+6 --keyLength 64 "[inputFolder]" "[outputFolder]\alldata"```
**RESULTS:**
POST, confirms repacking the .bin file is not the issue.

EXPERIMENT 2:
Unpacking one .m file into .psb, then re-packing, then recompiling.

MArchiveBatchTool m pack [inputFile] zlib 25G/xpvTbsb+6 64```
**RESULTS:**
POST, confirms  .m repacking is not the issue.

EXPERIMENT 3:
Deserializing one .psb file into .json, then re-serializing, then recompiling.

MArchiveBatchTool psb serialize [inputFile]```
**RESULTS:**
POST, confirms .psb reserializing is not the issue.

EXPERIMENT 4:
Unpacking whole folder's .m files, then repacking, then recompiling.

RESULTS:
Inconsistencies found. Smaller filesize on alldata.bin (2.524.421.632 bytes opposed to 3.141.619.712 bytes). Game does not boot and crashes.

EXPERIMENT 5:
Unpacking /system folder's .m files, then repacking and recompiling.

RESULTS:
Inconsistencies found. Even smaller file size (2.520.182.272 bytes). Same results as Experiment 4.

Modding the MGS1 emulator

EXPERIMENT 6:
Unpacking /087 folder's .m files, then repacking and recompiling.

RESULTS:
POST. Bigger filesize (3.146.153.472 bytes), but the game now boots.

PROBABLE CONCLUSION:
Repacking somewhere in the /system folder is causing issues.

[frozen heron]

EXPERIMENT 7:
Unpacking each folder within /system's .m files, then repacking and recompiling.

RESULTS:
The /roms folder seems to be causing trouble.

[frozen heron]

FINAL EXPERIMENT:
Unpacking everything, repacking and recompiling EXCEPT for the roms folder.

RESULTS:
POST.

FINAL CONCLUSION:
MBatchArchiveTool has some very weird side effects on recompression, making some of the filesizes change. This causes roms to be corrupted, therefore making the game unable to load.

CURRENT FIX:
For any modding, just copy your roms folder before unpacking .m files, and copy it back before repacking to .bin. Roms are currently not possible to mod.

[woeful flare]

OH

well this works too

this is all very interesting

does this mean messing with the emulator settings is still possible? you just gotta do this workaround?

...that's a yes, i missed some messages in the modding general chat LOL

[frozen heron]

yup

yet resolution and scanlines do not work

This tool can decompile .psb to .json as well, but it doesn't go any further than that

[frozen heron]

Audio from .psb has been decompiled

[plush coyote]

You edited the systemdata_setting screen.nut file to disable the filter right?

[frozen heron]

yup

https://github.com/ajd4096/inject_gba
this should work to make a patch for it but i can't get it running

[plush coyote]

Hmm, well I'll see what I can do tonight with it once I'm off work. I was gonna ask, what did you try to change for the resolution? Cause I see a couple references to both resolution and aspect ratio

[frozen heron]

switching every aspect ratio value to 16:9 and any mentions to resolutions to 1920x1080

[plush coyote]

Well I don't have a way to test this currently, but it looks like there's a High Resolution bool that we might be able to change as well as a Dotmatrix filter, currently searching for the controller setting to switch between analog and digital

[frozen heron]

i'm not entirely sure they work, i've tried with the scanline one and it didn't

there's a secret wallpaper

[plush coyote]

Yeah I saw that too, I was curious about it too. I figured it was the function for displaying the wallpapers that you could choose within the in-game menu. Seems odd that the scan line function is there but not implemented

Was also gonna mention that there's a 3d_secret_opened bool with another exact same line commented out

Was the game able to read your unpacked files or did you have to repack them?

Huh, actually. What file were you looking in for those? Cause I found mine in systemdata_setting_screen

[frozen heron]

huh

[frozen heron]

that's the one

[frozen heron]

repacked

[plush coyote]

Okay thanks, and hmm, looks like they were planning on possibly having a menu to decide display settings and weird, I couldn't find that Hidden 3d more line and what command were you using to repack?

[frozen heron]

don't even ask because i don't even know how

[dusty radish]

[red cradle]

well mission complished

[frozen heron]

not yet

i need to figure out how i did that LMAO

[dusty radish]

you poked it enough

[frozen heron]

honestly

yeah

i changed like 10 variables at once now i need to rollback

[dusty radish]

we've all been there

[red cradle]

coding moment "how tf did I do that"

[latent pivot]

tldr how complicated is it to do any of this

i just want to yeet the filtering

[frozen heron]

it's just a lot of uncommented code which if you don't have programming experience can get very spaghetti

[latent pivot]

how much work is it to get to the code
can i just open it in notepad++ or something, or do i need to extract shit or something

[frozen heron]

nah u gotta extract the .bin file and then extract .m files and then you'll get .nut files

[latent pivot]

.nut

heh

uhhhh ill maybe wait for now, maybe someone will make a quick patch instead

[plush coyote]

Maybe we can do a xdelta patch?

[frozen heron]

FOUND IT

add data._06_scanline = true; right after line 149

this must work with other filters

i'm not sure if i had to change other stuff because i did read some code that said "do not apply scanline if scale is less than 2x"

dotmatrix effect

does not look very good

it's literally just a yellowish green filter on top of some squares

[formal sleet]

Awesome seeing progress on this

[frozen heron]

3d_secret_opened does absolutely nothing visually, at least not on first sight

[frozen heron]

debug log box, displays no text

definitely confirms peace walker

// (For PSP, only when TitleID is specified as a startup argument. Mostly for debugging)
// (For PS3, start the package or start PARAM.SFO or specify TitleID in the startup argument)
if (spec == "ps3" || spec == "psp") {

[warm rune]

Or it's a reference to the PSP version of MGS1 maybe?

[woeful flare]

WHAT THE

okay this is awesome wtf

this is also beyond my abilities so i'll be on the lookout for a tutorial LOL

[woeful flare]

@frozen heron you think it's possible something could be written up later today dsklfjlsd

[woeful flare]

well, if i follow this then i should be good... then i can edit the .nut to get the filter off

and then you said to repack everything except for the roms? how would they go in then, would you open alldata.bin in 7zip and then copy the folder with the games in or something

i assume this would also have to be done for the europe and JP DLC bin files too

[ruby hill]

Can the policenauts theme be added back in during the logos?

[woeful flare]

not sure

i thought it was those notes playing

okay so 7zip doesn't work on bins, i dunno how to put the games back in to get em running 😭

ok so i can't read

[woeful flare]

this is where i'm lost now...

i'm gonna assume these are the right ones to set to "false"

[timid hemlock]

How about dithering? Any mention of that?

[woeful flare]

none

[timid hemlock]

aw shucks

[frozen heron]

figured it out?

[woeful flare]

no,,

[frozen heron]

where did u get stuck?

[woeful flare]

i think i forgot the repack command? but also, i don't know how to put the games back

have you looked at these btw

[frozen heron]

discord keeps crashing when i scroll on mobile

[woeful flare]

i wonder what "high_resolution" does

[frozen heron]

it doesnt do anything

at least not just by enabling it

[woeful flare]

damn, i see

[woeful flare]

are these at least the right settings to disable that filtering

[frozen heron]

nope

no wait

actually, yes

[woeful flare]

gonna assume almost everything with "smoothing" and "true" is the right one and i'lll set it to false

[frozen heron]

not really you just gotta add that single line

no need to do anything else

[woeful flare]

there's a line i gotta add? :0

[frozen heron]

if you want to enable scanlines and dotmatrix yes

not for smoothing iirc

[woeful flare]

oh nah i just want to disable the smoothing

[frozen heron]

yeah just turn line 156 into false

[woeful flare]

gotcha

omg

compressing and repacking are two different commands

how did i not see this, i'm blind LOL

[frozen heron]

haha

u just gotta do all the steps then do it backwards

lm cook up a single script

[woeful flare]

so then, compressing will still give me access to some of the folders

and from there i put the roms folder back in, and then repack?

[frozen heron]

MArchiveBatchTool archive extract --codec zlib --seed 25G/xpvTbsb+6 --keyLength 64 [alldata.bin] [outputFolder]
^only do this the first time, make a backup

if you only want to change the scripts, you'll save time by only unpacking the scripts
MArchiveBatchTool m unpack [inputFolder]\system\script zlib 25G/xpvTbsb+6 64

then just run this every time you want to build and test. this will repack the scripts, build the .bin and unpack the scripts again so you don't have to do it

MArchiveBatchTool archive build --codec zlib --seed  25G/xpvTbsb+6 --keyLength 64 "[inputFolder]" "[outputFolder]\alldata"
MArchiveBatchTool m unpack [inputFolder]\system\script zlib 25G/xpvTbsb+6 64```

[woeful flare]

so the ones in brackets, the names don't matter?

like for the folders

[frozen heron]

yeah

just put them inside "" for safety

[woeful flare]

gotcha

[frozen heron]

i'll make a quick patcher anyway

[woeful flare]

i'm currently recompressing everything without the roms folder rn

[frozen heron]

just not a very conventional one

[woeful flare]

welp, that's done

packing time

when i tell people i’m packing, this is what i’m talking about

[woeful flare]

this’ll definitely be handy when there’s more discoveries in the scripts

hoping for something for reducing input lag

[frozen heron]

https://github.com/Santikun/MGS1-Master-Collection-Bilinear-Patch

[woeful flare]

:0

[keen sky]

😮

Is there anything else to add? or should this be perfect?

thats sick

[pure gazelle]

Would like to see a screenshot if it possible?

[frozen heron]

sorry i don't have a screenshot

but i do have THREE

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1116870051992178688/1168538723118497833/image.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1116870051992178688/1168538885840699392/image.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1116870051992178688/1168538972339843172/image.png

[pure gazelle]

Hm 🤔

[woeful flare]

it’s not perfect, there’s slightly uneven pixel sizing but it’s the best there is rn

maybe once we can try to figure out the resolution stuff maybe it can be fixed

[pure gazelle]

I'm waiting to see what Koanmi adding that CRT scanline in the patch

Konami*

[frozen heron]

we already enabled that too

i'm gonna try to implement it into the patch

[pure gazelle]

Oh?

🤔 now we wait for input lag for it

lol

[woeful flare]

maybe you could make a menu and choose which to enable

one, the other, or both

[frozen heron]

doing that

[woeful flare]

hell yea

[keen sky]

at worst just options in the batch file

[pure gazelle]

Alright sound good I'll be looking forward to it 🙂 nice work @frozen heron

[woeful flare]

insane, we’re putting out this scanline mod before Konami’s patch is out

[keen sky]

I can't wait for people to go "hey wait a minute this looks worse"

but it seems to work great good job 🙂

although for me the bat file asked this

and I had to specify directory.

Although I didn't try file since I assumed directory would be the answer it needed

[woeful flare]

ok so, this ended up with a 4gb file

for some reason dslkfjlds

but the program works :>

[frozen heron]

yeah that happens when you use fullunpack

[woeful flare]

drooling

crisp pixels

[frozen heron]

i'll check for a fix but it didn't happen for me

[keen sky]

In this instance I'm running the batch file from a different drive.

Maybe just add a like to the readme with which option to pick in the case it does happen

I realise this is fresh out the oven aha

[frozen heron]

i don't think that's an issue

dw i'll get it working

[keen sky]

Its great work regardless :).

[shrewd elk]

Is there a linux version of this MArchiveBatchTool available anywhere? So steam deck users could also benefit from this

[wheat rover]

The patch does nothing on my end and doesn't create the temp folder 😔

[frozen heron]

try opening it as admin

[frozen heron]

not that i'm aware

[keen sky]

at worst it could be run on windows then the file can be moved back to steam deck once patched

[wheat rover]

I'm always running admin

[shrewd elk]

Yeah, was just asking so I could try and make a bash script for simple Deck support

[frozen heron]

try opening it on cmd and giving me the output?

[keen sky]

issue with admin mode for me is that it stops me copy pasting the path in. because cmd does that sometimes

[frozen heron]

damn it's really buggy to just be a batch file

[keen sky]

adding a back slash to the copy to the xcopy temp line stopped the prompt coming up

[keen sky]

can you post a screenshot of the output?

the window should stay open after its done

[wheat rover]

The temp directory does not exist during the process

[keen sky]

nah thats the same issue I got. xcopy just gets upset because there isn't a back slash at the end of a line.

Specifying directory makes it work, that looks fine, have you checked the game?

[wheat rover]

Ye, nothing

No file gets edited afterwards anyway

[plush coyote]

https://github.com/farmerbb/RED-Project/releases/download/tools/MArchiveBatchTool-linux-x64.zip here's a Linux version of the MArchiveBatch tool

[frozen heron]

change xcopy to copy

lmk if that works

[keen sky]

ooh i've worked out why it won't work for either of us

very simple reason

dotnet 2.2.0 needs to be installed

https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/main/release-notes/2.2/2.2.0/2.2.0-download.md

@frozen heron maybe add that to the documentation
Nothing wrong with asking for prerequisistes

[frozen heron]

i think marchive needs that, will add it when i get home nonetheless

[keen sky]

yeah thats the issue.

and thats why xcopy was complaining too i think. cause the location wasn't there

yeah @frozen heron all other reported issues are not issues with the script.

Installing dotnet 2.2.0 fixed the entire thing for me

[keen sky]

install the dotnet version I posted above and that should fix your issue

[untold briar]

Will you try to implement better textures and 60fps?

[keen sky]

Nevernind now game won't load aha. I'll have a look

[wheat rover]

perfect

[red cradle]

https://www.reddit.com/r/metalgearsolid/comments/17jyji5/mgs1_emulator_visual_filters_on_the_games_code/ huh seems like other is also looking at the code

[keen sky]

once repacked it just sits on a blackscreen now

[red cradle]

Oh oops I thought this is someone else because the different id name but he's already here lol

[frozen heron]

that's me LMAO

[red cradle]

yeah I just found out

Your reddit name is the same as the github one

[frozen heron]

something was wrong in the recompiling

[keen sky]

can i try anything different?

[frozen heron]

doing it manually using mbatch

[keen sky]

i'll give it a shot

[frozen heron]

#modding-general message

that's the file

just unpack the .bin file, replace the file under system/script and repack it back

MArchiveBatchTool archive build --codec zlib --seed  25G/xpvTbsb+6 --keyLength 64 "[inputFolder]" "[outputFolder]\alldata"```

[keen sky]

theres no change me having the UK version would affect it?

Can't see why but just a thought

[buoyant linden]

i also have the PAL version and it doesn't work even when using the US DLC

[wheat rover]

^

[keen sky]

@wheat rover did it work for you?

[wheat rover]

Yosh

[keen sky]

and what region are you in?

US?

[wheat rover]

I'm running the US NTSC version

[keen sky]

but I mean is the US version your default?

Or did you have to download the ntsc dlc?

[wheat rover]

I did download it I believe back when it was still bugged and had to be added through Steam DB

[buoyant linden]

still doesn't workk for me

[keen sky]

as in you can start the game and the filter is gone?

[wheat rover]

Yeah

[keen sky]

interesting

[buoyant linden]

seems like a region issue then

[frozen heron]

it only modifies the emulator scripts, not the roms

so i don't think so

[keen sky]

how do i read the .nut files?

[frozen heron]

just open on a text editor, preferably notepad++

filters are around line 150 of system settings screen

[keen sky]

doesn't open for me.

May need a different plugin

[frozen heron]

are you running marchive on linux?

[keen sky]

nope doing so on windows

[frozen heron]

that's very weird, 100% that file i sent should work

[keen sky]

ok fixed it

maybe

i'd recomend you change the instructions to say backup alldata.bin AND alldata.psb.m

my screwing around earlier had caused the alldata.psb.m to get corrupted. making steam do a verify got it back.

Ran the script again and now working

[keen sky]

are you able to restore the old file and start the game?

[buoyant linden]

gonna try in a sec

[frozen heron]

honestly i thought of this but dismissed it

will keep it in mind, thanks for your experimenting

[pure gazelle]

Wtb input lag mod 👀 for mgs1!

[buoyant linden]

can't get it to work

[edgy orbit]

doesn't work for me either

[buoyant linden]

the temp file never appears :/

[frozen heron]

try this

[buoyant linden]

i did

[frozen heron]

can you open it in cmd and send me your output?

[edgy orbit]

yeah I installed .net too and it doesn't work

[frozen heron]

that's weird

the game still boots as normal

[edgy orbit]

what exactly do I install here?

[buoyant linden]

i installed the sdk x64 installer

[frozen heron]

runtime installer

[edgy orbit]

i'm not a dev, I don't understand much of that

[frozen heron]

i believe

sdk is programming

[buoyant linden]

ill try the runtime

[edgy orbit]

I already had runtime installed

[frozen heron]

i made a very slight patch, can you tell me if it works?

[edgy orbit]

it's in portuguese but you get the gist

cant locate

[frozen heron]

did you by any chance move patch.bat to the same folder as the .exe?

[edgy orbit]

no it's in another folder

in another drive actually

[frozen heron]

than marchivebatchtool.exe?

because that might be the issue

[edgy orbit]

I placed the new patch.exe in another folder

let me try replacing the old patch then

[buoyant linden]

i get 'the system cannot find the file specified'

[edgy orbit]

yeah me too

[frozen heron]

ignore this, just saving it for debugging

MArchiveBatchTool archive build --codec zlib --seed  25G/xpvTbsb+6 --keyLength 64 "C:\Users\User\Downloads\MGS_PROGRESS\alldata_extracted\extract_dsrlz2" "D:\Juegos\Steam\steamapps\common\MGS1\windata\alldata" &
MArchiveBatchTool m unpack "C:\Users\User\Downloads\MGS_PROGRESS\alldata_extracted\extract_dsrlz2\system\script" zlib 25G/xpvTbsb+6 64

[frozen heron]

i believe this is because marchive isn't exporting to the temp folder, meaning it's probably not exporting at all

did you try opening as administrator?

[edgy orbit]

yeah I checked that folder in appdata temp and there's nothing there

[edgy orbit]

no

[buoyant linden]

won't let me copy alldata.bin when i run as admin

[edgy orbit]

yeah me too

drag and drop does not work

[frozen heron]

try using the file location instead drag and drop

folder/alldata.bin etc

[edgy orbit]

ok

it's extracting

[keen sky]

Drag and drop doesn't seem to work if ran as admin

[edgy orbit]

its taking much longer now

so I think it's working?

[pure gazelle]

That why it need to be a video guide if it take 2 mins to do it

imo

[frozen heron]

it takes 10 seconds to

it's just giving inconsistencies

[buoyant linden]

still not working for me

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MGS1\windata\alldata.bin" is this the right path?

[frozen heron]

should be yeah

u sure you have .net core installed?

[buoyant linden]

yep

[edgy orbit]

it worked!

thank you so much dude

this is finally playable

[buoyant linden]

ill try the x86 core

nope still not working

[frozen heron]

did you try x64?

[buoyant linden]

yep

[frozen heron]

that's weird

i'm not sure what else you would need

[buoyant linden]

ill try restarting my pc

after resintalling the runtime

[edgy orbit]

make sure you replace the old patch file with the new one

that's what made it work for me

[buoyant linden]

can you just DM me the whole folder?

maybe i fucked up the download from github

[frozen heron]

not really lol it's 3gb

[buoyant linden]

shiiit

[frozen heron]

or you mean the .exe folder

it's the same as github really

did you try rollbacking to your original files and trying again?

[buoyant linden]

how are you supposed to download from the github?

[buoyant linden]

ok tried reinstalling everything but still get 'system cannot find the file specified' even when running in admin mode

the patch.bat is supposed to be outside the MArchiveBatchTool folder right?

[lucid palm]

I have run the runtime installer for core but the directory/file never appear

[frozen heron]

yeah

[buoyant linden]

yup mines installed like that with the new .bat and the runtime :/

fresh copy of alldata.bin too

[lucid palm]

The Temp file never populates the bilinearpatch for some reason on mine.

[frozen heron]

i'm trying to debug it but somehow i broke my game enough so it always boots in dotmatrix mode

spoiler; not very good

[buoyant linden]

damn, no matter what i try it always can't find files on steps 2 n 3

i think it has smth to do with the marchivebatchtool.exe

[frozen heron]

um

i reinstalled the game and it's still in dotmatrix mode

so

i assume it saved somewhere over the save file

this is bad

ok it seems like the real way to change the filters is through a save file because it's all stored there

[frozen heron]

wait a second

this wasn't here

WAIT A SECOND

[ruby hill]

What do I choose

[keen sky]

I'm making a guide

That won't come up if it works correctly

[ruby hill]

oopsie

I downloaded the dependency and everything. I wonder what it could be

I figured it out

don't do drag and drop

and if you do, remove the quotation marks

[buoyant linden]

bro tysm

this legit worked for me after an hour of trouble shooting

actual legend

https://tenor.com/view/big-boss-the-boss-metal-gear-solid3-snake-eater-snake-gif-19627120

[ruby hill]

Thanks dood

I wish I could pin

[keen sky]

Made a shitty guide if anyone needs help with it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dUdYdy2fKw

[plush coyote]

Here's a easy to use xdelta patch if anyone wants a easier way to apply the bilinear filter patch

[calm grove]

Nice, this worked perfectly

[plush coyote]

Just extract to a folder, and run the main application. Select your original alldata.bin in the first selection and then select the associated xdelta file for it in the 2nd selection. Repeat for the alldata.psb.m file and it should boot up successfully

[calm grove]

Yall are god tier, thanks for the quick work

[plush coyote]

Welcome man! Happy that worked so easily for you, tested it a couple times on my end just to make sure

[red cradle]

yeah this is easier, maybe someone will make a new tutorial video about it

[calm grove]

Lol did they have to make the launcher buttons match

How annoying

[pure gazelle]

Was going to wait for Konami to patch and I'll buy the game and try it around it

[keen sky]

to be fair it would be way more confusing if they didn't

Would've been better if they could somehow hack it so the menus used the x/a button instead, but ah well

[frozen heron]

how does this work?

runtime injection?

[pure gazelle]

Gonna save it

[red cradle]

seeing this kind of injection software, makes me wonder that since modding mgs1 is complicated, is it possible to make a program that automatically do the unpack, convert, reconvert and repack the rom steps? To make it more user friendly. Or maybe it's too hassle

[plush coyote]

Nah, no runtime injection. just xdelta patching. It's what people use to make rom patches for various retro games, i found someone online talking about xdelta patching for the Castlevania Advanced Collection using it to do the same thing to replace the roms within the alldata.bin so I figured I'd try it with your modified files

I found this good explaination online for how exactly it is works: Xdelta is a utility which is used to generate a file of differences between two binary files. This effectively means only modifications made between the two binary files are saved; the resulting file is easily shared to another user, who can use it to generate a modified file from the original file.

[shrewd elk]

That's nice

Xdelta seems to be cross platform as well, will try to apply it that way

[frozen heron]

so this will work for future patching if we ever find how to get around the checksum, awesome

[keen sky]

@frozen heron did you change the batch file for the mgs 1 fix?

[frozen heron]

slightly

it's just the one i sent here yesterday

[keen sky]

it fails at the copying part now, since it can't find the name of the file for step 2

the original was fine as far as I'm concerned, I think any issues are just either people not installing dotnet, or people trying to rerun it when its already failed once instead of restoring the backed up file

[keen sky]

so this doesn't work for me at all. Fails checksum

tempted to consider once again. "could it be a regional difference"

[past sonnet]

Can confirm this works perfectly on Linux operating systems for those on Steam Deck or a Linux OS

The other patch doesn't since it's a .bat file

[chrome path]

Unlikely. The PSP version ran on a proprietary SONY emulator for the PSP that made use of the PSP's MIPS CPU and emulated the rest on the Media Engine.

[ruby hill]

Why did they remove the policenauts theme on the intro? It makes me sad

[woeful flare]

are you talking about the "do do do do do do" or something else

like with the konami logo showing up and all

[ruby hill]

Precisely

[woeful flare]

...

i hear it

[ruby hill]

https://youtu.be/NImW-Rs8eK8?si=pcTpvIP2HzjHXiYC

[woeful flare]

yeah this is still in the game for me

[ruby hill]

I don’t. :’(

[woeful flare]

maybe your install could be bugged or something

[ruby hill]

Oh you know what… maybe it’s because I’m playing Integral

[woeful flare]

OH is that not in integral

[ruby hill]

How embarrassing

Why wouldn’t it be in there? lol

[woeful flare]

that's very odd

[sick osprey]

Getting this. Everything is on my C: drive but it isn't located in program files, just in an extra library
I am going to try moving my library to Program Files (x86) and renaming the library itself to Steam

[sick osprey]

This is such a huge headache.

[keen sky]

get rid of the quote marks after draging the file in

so the " marks on either side of the path

[sick osprey]

that worked, thanks!

And it didn't actually do anything.

It patches a bunch of files but I still get this on step 2

[keen sky]

try using this patch.bat

there were changes made to it on the github

so replace the one in your extracted folder with this one, then try running it again

[sick osprey]

Thank you, this really worked for real this time, I think.

hell yea

Ah shit, I forgot how laggy the controls are, makes me just want to wait until that gets patched to play lol

[plush coyote]

I was doing some thinking on what you said earlier about the checksum failing, do you have a EU steam release?

[keen sky]

I do indeedy

[plush coyote]

Ah okay, so you only have the PAL roms available in your menu rights?

Or do you have the steam dlc for the USA roms for your region version?

[keen sky]

it was only the pal roms by default, but I have all of them since I enabled all the dlc

so like my second option is special missions for example

[pure gazelle]

I'm told not to play PAL verison of MGS1 eh?

[plush coyote]

Gotcha, would you be able to try running that xdelta patcher program I sent before with checksum validation turned off?

[keen sky]

honestly I think people exagerate a bit with pal versions, i realise i grew up with them but I just played through the pal version on the collection and its fineeeeeeeeeee.

It runs a bit slowre but you stop noticing pretty quickly

[keen sky]

yeah sure, from memory I think it created a separate file

[plush coyote]

Thanks, keep me updated

[pure gazelle]

Yea lol

I believe patch taking a while due to MGS2 cut scene there is some certian issue acocrding to Konami I guess and few others whatever goes down the road that we don't even know about beside the one that was mention on the internet

[keen sky]

nah didn't work, i get a black screen

I'm assuming that things may be in different locations due to it being the europe version

but the batch file does work, so in terms of file structure when extracted it seems to be the same?

But I don't know how your patcher works aha

[wheat rover]

MGS1 finished

The audio near the end suffered the most

[keen sky]

the credits audio of mgs 1 seems....well to have some issues

[untold briar]

I can not believe how incompetent is Konami, I am afraid of mgs delta

I bought the mgs collection 2 months ago but did not play it yet because all this tech issues

[pure gazelle]

it a whole diifferent team doing delta vs master collections

[timid hemlock]

Whats the easiest way to extract the ISOs from MGS1? If they are able to run in other emulators, I wanna test some stuff.

[chrome path]

What's wrong?

Is it skipping or something?

MGS1 had very specific audio synchronisation qualities.

[keen sky]

it sounds like its skipping yeah

[keen sky]

I'm stupid so all i can say is that a way to do it. would be to download this https://github.com/Santikun/MGS1-Master-Collection-Bilinear-Patch

edit the patch.bat with notepad or something.

Put either a pause where I did in the screenshot.

Or just delete everything after step 1.

the batch file unpacks the file, copies a file into the unpacked files, then repacks it.

So if you just run the unpacking bit then close the file the files will stay there and you can look at them

They'll be in %temp%\bilinearpatcher

[timid hemlock]

Great! Thanks, I'll try it now

[keen sky]

no worries :). I'm sure there is a simpler way but thats the only dumb way i've got for you right now.

as it says on the page you will need to download the dotnet 2.2.0 before it will work

make sure to back up your files just in case

the two files mentioned in the script specifically

[timid hemlock]

Damn, couldn't get it to work, nothing appears in %temp%\bilinearpatcher

[keen sky]

when you drag the file in do you get " marks on either side of the path? if so get rid of those

otherwise post some screenshots.

Remember you want it to not do anything after step 1.

So if you want just delete everything from the first line mentioning step 2 onwards

I made a detailed guide here along with a video on the whole process https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3068047947

See if that helps

[timid hemlock]

Thanks! Hmm, when I drag and drop the bin file, it doesn't show up in the cmd window at all

[keen sky]

don't run it as admin if you are.

Thats what causes that issue for me

[timid hemlock]

Ah, it's because I was running it as admin, now it works

[keen sky]

sweet 🙂

So it unpacked it?

[timid hemlock]

Yes! I got the roms! 😄

MGS_US_DISC1-washed.BIN and MGS_US_DISC2-washed.BIN

[keen sky]

sick 🙂

[timid hemlock]

thanks for the help!

[keen sky]

no worries!

[timid hemlock]

I also tried this tool, which the fix is based on, but couldn't get it to work though: https://github.com/farmerbb/RED-Project/wiki/Castlevania-Advance-Collection

Might be useful for somebody else

[keen sky]

I believe the people who made the fix I suggested tried this as well, they went through alot of different ideas.

I'm sure more tools will exist soon enough. we are early days still

[timid hemlock]

Hmmm, so far the roms refuse to run on both PCSX redux and Duckstation. Pretty strange

[keen sky]

they may have tried it earlier in this chat if you want to look. otherwise one of them will probably comment 🙂

[timid hemlock]

It's not working because Konami nulled out the PS-X EXE data. But I found out what I wanted to know, that the games are exactly the same, and all changes are being injected through emulation.

[keen sky]

yeah that doesn't shock me. explains the "washed" part.

Yeah i assumed that would be the case, otherwise every game would need an ISO for each controller type aha

[keen sky]

since i'm arguing with people on steam about it, am I right that the game only seems to save when using the stance menu?

[chrome path]

If they're changing textures on the fly, that means the textures must be part of the EXE for lack of anything else in the .BIN files.

Anyone found a way to see that stuff yet?

[timid hemlock]

I believe everything is in the alldata.bin. I managed to extract it, and there are a bunch of folders with different changes.

[red cradle]

so like even different controller ui icons has its own rom? No wonder the size is huge

[timid hemlock]

Not exactly, in the alldata.bin is a bunch of folders, one folder with the roms, and a bunch of other folders containing controller icons, text edits, textures and other changes, which can then be injected into the game during emulation. The original roms are basically untouched, except for some edits to make them unplayable by themselves. all changes are being injected through emulation.

Hopefully we can use the injection system to mod the games, or perhaps revert changes. But I agree that the size is pretty dumb, the fact that they even included more than one game rom is kinda crazy.

[red cradle]

yeah, I have the same thought that using the injection system to mod MGS1, otherwise users have to replace the whole rom

It reminds me of Luma LayeredFS game patching on 3DS lol

[woeful flare]

hmmm

so

https://vxtwitter.com/heitais/status/1719698947030327549

i don't know if this is konami doing that "on-the-fly patch" stuff but

this is definitely different

[pure gazelle]

They are releasing new patch apparently today

[dusty radish]

will that just be the fps cap?

i wish they wouldn't just publish that confusing table

[woeful flare]

it's just the FPS stuff

they made the beta update a public one

[timid hemlock]

It is exactly that

They are injecting it

[woeful flare]

so it's still an identical rom... hmm

i wonder if there's a way to undo this specific injection

[pure gazelle]

I found this on x

[woeful flare]

not me hoping this was gonna be a fix for the input lag

blegh

[pure gazelle]

Don’t know how old this image yet

Ah 1 hour ago

Let me look at steam

[dusty radish]

found it on what? xoxo

[pure gazelle]

Possibly option of lag input on controller

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[unreal bluff]

I mostly just hope there's a breakthrough on analog controls

[pure gazelle]

this and

a small patch note appearenly

bigger one hasn't hit yet me think 🤔

[woeful flare]

aka

what i was just saying before

[pure gazelle]

waiting to hear what the fuck is their statemen

[pure gazelle]

@frozen heron since tagging you don't know if you seen this, this was posted 1 hour ago figurd might something to do with controller input lag if you want to check it out

[woeful flare]

i doubt that'll do anything

for 1

[past sonnet]

It has nothing to do with input lag

[woeful flare]

this is "to solve control problems in MG1 and MG2, MGS2, MGS3"

[past sonnet]

It has to do with the fact controller isnt working on the master collection launcher

Which just happened now

Only MGS1 works

[woeful flare]

...just happened now?

as in, with this patch?

[past sonnet]

That would be my guess, it didn't happen last night

All of my games just updated

[pure gazelle]

"small patch" seem not even everything was add yet base on some info was said by them and some wasn't said that we don't even know the hell they are fixing.

[woeful flare]

things to fix with this stupid PC version

most important

• restoring full analog control
• fixing the DUMB INPUT LAG
• restoring the textures that were replaced (like shinkawa and kutome's pictures)
• restoring any other textures that may have been changed besides the controllers
• audio fixes maybe???

less important things

• up-rezzing the game so the polygons are sharp
• possibly making our own injections for HD textures if we really wanted to, if we can figure out how they do that
• profit???

[woeful flare]

dante you can pin this whenever, we can use it as a checklist or something

[past sonnet]

Where did you find this?

[pure gazelle]

x

[timid hemlock]

Johnny's underpants are brown in every version, would be nice if he was naked again, with blur, as it was in all PAL versions and US NTSC. Also, they made the medicine box green, but I don't know if that needs fixing.

[pure gazelle]

it is not not my picture

[woeful flare]

ooh right right

i’m still calling it twitter

you can’t make me call it that dumb name

[past sonnet]

Yea but I need the original post

[pure gazelle]

The person didn't comment anything about phot or anything he just wrote what on that screenshot

that it, that all

[past sonnet]

I have no idea where to input these arguments

[pure gazelle]

https://twitter.com/j0hnnypearl/status/1719733910651679088

but here

[frozen heron]

they keep posting this shit

"minor fix for high fps" the fuck does that mean when they patch the same thing so many times

are they actually playtesting this?

[frozen heron]

highly doubt it since this would imply it's a steam issue and not a mgs1 issue

does it still have input lag using a keyboard?

[wheat rover]

It clips in reverb-heavy scenarios, nothing new

[chrome path]

Gotcha

[woeful flare]

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Metal_Gear_Solid_-_Master_Collection_Version

i've wanted to add in mention of the bilinear filtering patch, but i'm not sure where it'd go

i could put it in a "mods" section

anyone here that's tested the patch, how did it work with other regions? did you have to rename anything?

[chrome path]

The 50hz games exist in a 60hz container, meaning you get 25fps with frameskipping even when it does keep time.

[woeful flare]

...i mean for the picture

does it work, does it get rid of the blurry filter

[keen sky]

so the old batch file worked fine for the european release.

the delter patcher only seems to work for the US region though

like the US version of the master collection, not the ntsc version of mgs

[woeful flare]

i see

[keen sky]

suggests to me there are very slight changes to the different regions versions. just enough to make things not work

@frozen heron would you be able to have the old batch file for the patch as an option?

Just because some people have more success with the .bat file as it was.

[keen sky]

I'd say mods. Also I made a steam guide if that'll help you document it https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3068047947.

I would do it but something I added to mgs 2 and 3 got removed for being unneeded with new fixes so I don't have the energy 😛

[woeful flare]

i wanted to ask dante if i could rewrite the readme with detailed instructions...

but i got lazy

ldksjflds

[keen sky]

we only got so much energy to do things aha

[frozen heron]

i think u can rollback in github

[frozen heron]

my brother in christthe instructions are inside the software

[woeful flare]

buh...

[keen sky]

yes but people don't know that aha.

Its not a big issue since I've just been giving a google drive link with the old version in it

[woeful flare]

ok maybe i am Dumb

[keen sky]

it needs to be written for people who push a button on a computer then recoil like they just set off a bomb

[frozen heron]

bahahaha

leave that to GUI people im just the coder

[keen sky]

nah same here I just make dodgy scripts that do things in an overly complicated way.

Got no clue otherwise

I'll see if i can make a delta patcher version that works for my version of the game. never tried it before

[warm rune]

Why not publish the bilinear filtering fix on NexusMods?

[keen sky]

I mean it could be.

[latent pivot]

patch dont worj for me after update
bleh

[plain hemlock]

does anyone know why the pc port has any input lag? is the emulator just trash?
keep in mind i have no clue about anything mod related

knowing konami i wouldnt doubt it if konami just accidentally added a line of code that caused it or something

[chrome path]

It's hard to emulate a machine. That's about all there is to it. You press up, it's gotta go through X layers of interacting hardware to be interpreted, run and output.

Furthermore, the dpad on MGS1 was always laggier than the analogue.

They could've done better.

[keen sky]

I think some people are also used to games running at higher then 25 or 30 fps.

Mgs1 feels like it has input lag even on original hardware

this has more input lag don't get me wrong

[chrome path]

It didn't have this much input lag. But if you use anything but movement I think people would think better of the input lag.

But because the dpad is assigned to the analogue stick, it's really not a best case scenario.

[plain hemlock]

also obligatory widescreen question

is it possible or nah

[chrome path]

For MGS1, it's possible,

But hard.

Just run Duckstation instead, bruh.

[plain hemlock]

or would it be possible in a good amount of time

[keen sky]

I assume it depends on what was built into the emulator

[chrome path]

M2 care a lot about accuracy.

And KONAMI don't care much at all.

[plain hemlock]

if i wanted to play mgs1 without the achievements or steam i'd just use the pc port, which i have been doing for a bit

its obviously a bit of an odd port but with some patches it works fine

[chrome path]

...Are achievements actually that big a deal for people?

[plain hemlock]

not really i just like steam

and the playtime tracking

something about it just feels nice

[chrome path]

What's preventing you using steam overlay? Or am I just not understanding at all?

[plain hemlock]

i know i can just add a non-steam game but its not the same

i sound like an idiot rn but still

[chrome path]

No, I'm probably being an insensitive boomer.

[plain hemlock]

not really, thinking logically you're right

[wheat rover]

"PATH TO EMULATOR" %command%

[plain hemlock]

true true

[keen sky]

that is an option

but something about achievements legitimize a game for people? me included. theres no logic to it

[chrome path]

Duckstations also clocks your time spent playing.

[wheat rover]

As for achievements, just cheat the API after a play session to add them manually

[keen sky]

i mean there is pychological reasons i'm sure

[chrome path]

I guess there would be. WHen I first saw trophies/achievements, all I thought was that they were a way to "transparantly" track player progress through games and provide a feedback service for game creators.

Which is why most games have "You completed chapter 1/2/3/4" and then menial shit.

I immediately turn them off if I can.

[keen sky]

nah i don't think thats the reason. think its more to just give a dopamine hit cause you hear the noise.

It was a way to make people play the multiplayer as well aha

[chrome path]

ID tagged gameplay, with ID tagged progress.

[keen sky]

but yeah granted it is good for that,

honestly of all the privacy concerns I have in the modern world, how far I got through a game is not high on the list

[wheat rover]

There are available studies for those so inclined

But let us not judge the validity of in-game checklists

[chrome path]

I don't want anyone to know how far I got through Orc Massage.

Nevermind STEAM.

[keen sky]

oh well for some games yes fair enough aha, i'd just use an alt account at that point

especially since you can just family share your actual account to it

[chrome path]

That's still going to a STEAM server.

[wheat rover]

Yes.

[chrome path]

But it is good for my more joking concerns, thank you.

[keen sky]

honestly I bet most people pirate more "questionable" games for that reason aha

[keen sky]

I'll screw around and have a look

[pure gazelle]

Giving it a day before Konami come out say something

over a controller isnt' working

[keen sky]

Would anyone here be interested in trying out an edited script for removing the filter?

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-YB8ab37ccVrCKwneJuGB4csPABxJCak?usp=sharing

[keen sky]

thanks. it should be pretty fullproof since i've tested it a bunch of times.

You should just be able to extract it and run option 1 and it'll just do everything

[sick osprey]

sounds good, ill give it a go when i restore my backup files

[keen sky]

yeah sure, just a heads up the script makes buckup files automatically in the game folder

the readme should explain it 🙂

[sick osprey]

The tool is in a folder called "Master Collection Mods", resulting in this which I think might be because of the space in the folder name?

[keen sky]

darn it hold on

spaces in file names are my arch nemesis

[sick osprey]

I moved the folder to the desktop and it started unpacking and packing as normal.
It seems to have gone through the whole process, including backup, and then not putting the patched files back into the game

[sick osprey]

wait a second, i think its opening the wrong directory for the game itself one second, miiiight be my bad

that doesnt have to do with the spaces thing i dont know why i replied that specific post

Yeah it keeps trying to insist that MGS1 is installed on my D: drive (default location for steam installs) when it is actually installed on my C: drive (added on library for games)

[keen sky]

ah phew

ok thats less of an issue

so the dotnet part failing is due to spaces

but yeah its detecting the wrong path, thats fine, thats why theres a second script as backup

[sick osprey]

It seems like using the second script, the files are correctly patched even when the script is under a folder that contains a space

it spits out an error about not being able to find the path but then does the job flawlessly anyways, which honestly is kinda chad

[keen sky]

aha I've updated it now.

So the only thing not working was the line that installs dotnet 2.2.0 because I forgot to put quotes around that.

I'm guessing you downladed the game and then moved it to a different drive?

The first script grabs the location from the registry so if its been moved it probably wont work

but importantly it didn't break anything when it failed so thats good to know 🙂

[sick osprey]

Yeah I did move it after installing using the steam feature

[keen sky]

the 2nd script is a fall back. if the detected location is wrong it can be done manually

thanks for the feedback :).

My mistake was that on my computer both the paths I tested have no spaces

but yeah not sure of a better way to "autodetect" the location sadly. but hopefully won't be a common issue

[sick osprey]

Steam knows how to do it with "Browse local files", can you hook into that somehow?

[keen sky]

Sadly nah :(.

I mean you probably could be its like, you gotta use the registery to find a file, then get information from that file to find the location.
Its just a pain

idk maybe another day i will get the energy to try that aha. but this should do for now

[keen sky]

@frozen heron So I can't message you direct can you message me when able?

[frozen heron]

alright i'm online

@keen sky

can we get some analysis in this file? i have leads to believe it's what hardlocked dotmatrix mode on for me

UPDATE: can confirm this can be opened using PsbDecompile, but it won't give anything of use
UPDATE2: these are the same files as the CADVC and the mega drive mini, but no way of reading it was found

[keen sky]

can you private message me? it doesn't let me private message you

[frozen heron]

enabled dms

try again

[frozen heron]

i can confirm this holds emulator settings.

[frozen heron]

also, @keen sky dropped a patch for my bilinear fixer, please check it out
https://github.com/Santikun/MGS1-Master-Collection-Bilinear-Patch/tree/sammykay's-Patch

[frozen heron]

i'm gonna call it a morning for now but if this file can be investigated it means i can do some VERY important work on the emulator. please let me know if this advances

[latent pivot]

aw hell yee id do be workin again

[untold briar]

Is there any way to play at 1440p without the square screen?

And 60fps would be a dream

[timid hemlock]

60fps is impossible I think, not even advanced emulators can do that. Higher res might be possible, we'll have to see

[past sonnet]

https://www.nexusmods.com/metalgearsolidmastercollection/mods/73

did anyone see this?

bruh nevermind

its not even the steam version

it seems to be a complete replacement of the emulator that konami uses

[red cradle]

damn, think outside the box, swap the whole emulator lol

[past sonnet]

yea but no achievements

[warm rune]

Just install the dev menu mod and use the scene load feature to give yourself the achievements

Then install this mod and actually play the game

[past sonnet]

thats so lame

[quiet lodge]

Play through the game in it's current state, unlock all the achievements you want or think you'll get, and then play through it again with this mod. I know achievements are neat and would be cool if they worked with the mod, but it's a 25 year old game, we never had achievements for it before and it never hindered the experience.

[latent pivot]

stretch me daddy

[timid hemlock]

You might find this interesting: ```
{
"INTEGRAL": {
"patchs": [
{
"file": "patch.bin",
"memory": 0,
"offset": 2097152
},
{
"data": [
32,
32,
83,
84,
79,
82,
65,
71,
69,
32,
50,
32,
32
],
"memory": 0,
"offset": 74204
}
]
}
}

Apparently, you can just use this config json to apply and remove patches/injections. Got the info from a guy on the decompilation project.

[frozen heron]

what is this?

[timid hemlock]

It's the config json Konami uses to activate or deactivate the patches/mods in MGS1 Master collection. If you wanna know more, head over to https://discord.com/channels/421360471610884096/505075468043550750, and ask for Jayveer, he's the one who discovered it. He's a part of the decompilation project.

[plush coyote]

Huh, did he mention anything else?

[frozen heron]

uhhhhhh

[timid hemlock]

Ah, sorry, don't know why that didn't work.. Heres the link to the main decomp discord. He posted it in "#metal_gear_chat". https://discord.gg/tTvhQ8w

[plush coyote]

Ah well hey, at least he's seemed to figure out the same things I have. They had at one point multiple menus programmed in for configuring the emulators options and cheats, at least the code for it is there

Also, it's apparently coded in Squirrel? Which is like C++

Never heard of it before

[haughty iron]

oh, it's that scripting lang

[plush coyote]

And apparently the emulator isn't tied within the exe but actually through emulator.nut

[haughty iron]

at least one person from the local server actually used squirrel in their projects

[plush coyote]

Huh, I might have to load VS then and see if I can create a easily shareable workflow for us. At least something to automatically unpack and repack when editing

Thanks for that info though

[frozen heron]

the emulator is the one giving you the achievements

it's somehow wrapped

[woeful flare]

is it configurable at all??

i kinda don't want the widescreen or crt filter

eh, maybe i'll wait til this gets updates

[frozen heron]

yup, nothing readable

[plush coyote]

Nothing readable in a hex editor?

[woeful flare]

does anyone remember what version of MGS1 was in this collection

1.0 or 1.1

(or any others)

i see rev 0... is that 1.0

@iron creek you think you could help me out with understanding this?

[iron creek]

Sure

Rev 0 is 1.0

I'm deadly sure that that's 1.0

[woeful flare]

now that's funny, actually

[iron creek]

Even then, I'm sure 1.1 didn't change anything and that it's a serial number or box change.

[woeful flare]

cuz this "rebuild" """mod""" doesn't seem to be using that

[iron creek]

I've not been able to check anything here out recently

Actually there's a power outage right now.

I'll hopefully have some power in the next 12 hours

[woeful flare]

i can catch you up to speed

[iron creek]

I'll be back then.

[iron creek]

Go on

[woeful flare]

https://www.nexusmods.com/metalgearsolidmastercollection/mods/73?tab=description&BH=3

this is a "mod" for MGS1 that's supposed to take the bin files you have and patch them and pack them in some emulator, but it has forced widescreen and scanlines and an interlacing emulation thing

now, if the version of MGS1 in the collection is 1.0

why is it telling me that the version here is 1.1

[iron creek]

Maybe that is 1.1

Actually, it would make sense.

See, if that's the latest revision naturally the staff would use it.

Cause, I compared the two that night

Didn't see any difference whatsoever

Either A.

There's no difference outside of serial disc related stuff for 1.0 and 1.1

Or B I was mistaken that night

[woeful flare]

what this installer is doing is packing together all these bin files to "extract" the game and put it in this emulator

[iron creek]

Hm.

[woeful flare]

what's very suspicious is this file size

[iron creek]

OH

[woeful flare]

isn't that just about how big a copy of MGS1 would be with an emulator

[iron creek]

I see why that's an issue.

I'd get into it but I've gotta save data.

I'll be back tomorrow.

[woeful flare]

gotcha, good luck man

hope the power comes back soon

ok well, 3.4 doesn't equal one copy of MGS1

sdlkfjldks

let's see

[keen sky]

hmm wow thats a fair point..........

It wouldn't be the first time a "mod" just came with the files for the game

[keen sky]

the comment from the creator here is very telling to me

it "patches" mgs 1.0 to mgs 1.1 apparantly

[woeful flare]

hm

wait is the bios in the bin-

was i a little wrong there LOL

[keen sky]

I think like everything is in the bin

emulation wise. but also not sure if there even is bios

the games don't run through normal emulators as is

point is though. I don't think you can just patch a ps1 game to a new version. ps1 games with new releases were on new disks aren't weren't made to be "updated"

[woeful flare]

i really wonder how they did this

it's weird

[red cradle]

still feels fishy

[keen sky]

i'm very suspicious personally.

[pure gazelle]

1.2.2

[woeful flare]

n... no,

we're talking about the revision of the isos/bins/etc

[pure gazelle]

Are you asking now or previous

Ah

nevermind

Went to check if anything new, seem all 3 recent are nov 1st

that about it

[pure gazelle]

What else new are yall discovering so far in MGS1?

[keen sky]

so theres 5 versions of mgs you can play apparantly in this thing

The downoad was 3.5 gigs.

and we consider that cd iso for a game would be 700mb

what would 700mb be if you multiplied it by 5 😛

although it would have to have the 2nd disk in here too sooooooooooo hmm

[keen sky]

we're talking about a mod at the moment aha

[pure gazelle]

Well, of course lol 👀 was checking if anything new discovery 😄

Oh yea did some of you get controller fix after the patch where there people say they couldn't play a game but MGS1?

[keen sky]

well i see now why it isn't working for everyone even if the game is installed in the right place, the exe is looking for the europe dlc, which doesnt exist if you have the europian version

[keen sky]

probably nothing like super recent that I know of, but the people who are really digging into that stuff tend to be on later anyway

putting this here for later

Holy shit

[woeful flare]

wait so

what does this mean.....

[keen sky]

so the mod "checks" you own the game plus the dlc that is "required" for it to "unpack" the iso files by checking if you have files with certain names

I grabbed one of its own bin files and renamed it to what the installer wanted to see and it validated

so its validation is checking for these 3 file

its just extracting stuff atm

AHAHAHAH

@frozen heron @woeful flare @iron creek

[woeful flare]

so... this "mod" does indeed distribute game files?

[keen sky]

yep, I gave it a fake .bin file for the european version yet here it is

[woeful flare]

Oh

my god

you HAVE to show this in the replies and report it

[keen sky]

yep the iso it "extracted" from my fake bin file works perfectly

[keen sky]

but likeeee. I can't be bothered 😛

[woeful flare]

then i will

teehee!

[keen sky]

if you want 😛

I'm gonna poke around a bit more though

like all the files were made a year ago and everything

oh shit that means the bios have to be distributed too hey

you get two Folders
one is

[woeful flare]

reported

[keen sky]

cool cool

never reported a mod so not sure how to go about it meself

[woeful flare]

this would be the second time for me

you just go to the description tab on the page and click "report abuse"

then in the dropdown menu, "illegal content"

[keen sky]

the other is

I've attatched a txt file with all the files if anyone is curious

[woeful flare]

this is just a retroarch install with swanstation

[keen sky]

ah ok cool, issue is the mods may not be able to find the illegal content, since if the installer doesn't find files with the right name in the right location it doesn't continue

[keen sky]

well yes

[woeful flare]

i made sure to write out a detailed paragraph on how this works

and i included these three links

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1168512986491670548/1169914243093643304/2023-11-03_18-49-12.mp4
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1168512986491670548/1169916824280895498/image.png
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1168512986491670548/1169917736558792736/image.png

that video and the pictures you shared

should be enough evidence i think

[keen sky]

dang it now everyone will know of my rvb dvd backups 😛

but yeah should be plenty

I'm gonna grab some funny screenshots before he deletes it

[woeful flare]

he is a full on liar LMAOOOOOOO

[keen sky]

So as stated earlier, the reason people keep complaining about this is because the "mod" creator doesn't realise that if you don't live in the US your file structure is different

[keen sky]

this cracks me up honestly

[woeful flare]

it is fully Not doing that

[keen sky]

it would be wrong to include duckstation apparantly

[woeful flare]

but it's ok to include pirated games

and a whole bios

[keen sky]

oh hey its you 😛 I think

[keen sky]

exactly aha

[woeful flare]

"if the bios is an issue you need to talk to konami"

erm

the emulator and bios is fully in the .exe in the master collection

[keen sky]

this has been a fun way to spend a couple hours 😛

to their credit it at least checks your ownership. kinda. which makes it slightly more legal ish but not really

[woeful flare]

it's the most basic DRM in existence

and even then it just gives you a random internet downloaded copy to use instead

[keen sky]

well yeah, my game isn't installed in the right location, I just copied the files to the right spot

[frozen heron]

ever since i saw the mod was 3gb i knew it wasn't doing anything to the MC

it's equal as downloading roms and running them on epsxe

[keen sky]

oh yeah me too, but I wanted to prove it to myself

I don't trust the uninstaller soooo i'm just gonna delete the files

I bet it just deletes the two folders anywway

[woeful flare]

weirdly enough i can't really replicate it

i made fake .bin files in notepad with the right names, i wonder if i have things set up wrong

is it looking for the psb.m too...

nah that didn't work either

[keen sky]

nah nah you need to put the bin files in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\Common\MGS1\windata\dlc

[woeful flare]

OH RIGHT

[keen sky]

even if you don't have steam there just make all the folder needed and put them there

[woeful flare]

the steam folder

huh

i just don't remember putting them all in the dlc folder

last time...

[keen sky]

oh right sorry

dlc folder is just for the europe and jpn ones

the rest need to be out of that

so all databin needs to be one folder back

but the rest need to be in dlc folder

ignore my dlc_usa.bin

[woeful flare]

all the installer folder files tho, they stay in there?

like this?

[keen sky]

the installer folder can be anywhere, since it puts everything in one spot anyway

[woeful flare]

ok yeah i can't replicate this

maybe because they were text files that i just renamed to .bin

[keen sky]

if you copy the legit files there they should work, maybe it only works for proper bin files or something, who knows

even if it was a legit mod thingy, the fact you can't choose where the game files are or where the "mod" extracts is pretty unwieldy

[woeful flare]

oh well, you did the thing and i reported it

no need for me to recreate it

[keen sky]

You can for curiosity sake but yeah not needed to prove anything

[woeful flare]

since we already did so

sooo yeah! teehee

[keen sky]

that was a fun mystery :). well not mystery but yeah

[craggy ingot]

what view is this, out of curiosity? how can you check what files it's checking for?

[keen sky]

its a program called procmon from the sysinternals tools.

Very handy but a pain to work out sometimes aha

[craggy ingot]

thanks! also damn lol, i'm on mac unfortunately, tho i can probably find an equivalent

[limpid pewter]

So that "mod" is just a repack after all, right?

[craggy ingot]

yeah that mod was sketch the moment i saw the 3.4gb install size lol, kind of insane that they didn't even bother trying to patch the existing .bin files because that can't be a huge leap from what they're doing

xdelta patch to add in the sony header to the existing .bin files then everything else is all set

[frozen heron]

speak about .bin files, anyone got a lead on the main menu save file?

[dusty radish]

going from their comments i doubt they'd know how to do that

[red cradle]

It's like if someone said that they make a translation patch of the game, but in reality it's just rom 💀

[craggy ingot]

wdym by main menu save file specifically?

[frozen heron]

this thing

[craggy ingot]

ahh, was that in the WinBackup folder?

[frozen heron]

it holds emulator settings

yup

it has stuff like window type and screen filters

quite possibly also has aspect ratio

[craggy ingot]

well, it's a PSB file by the header, i'll try converting it to .json

[frozen heron]

i did that but it doesn't give anything of use, please do try though

[craggy ingot]

dunno what PSB version it is but probably v2 or v3

[frozen heron]

i believe it's our lucky ticket for modifying virtually everything

[craggy ingot]

The data_008_0000.bin in my save file directory was actually holding onto scanlines even when i tried starting fresh with everything else, so it seems as though it uses both the WinBackup as well as the user save for saving settings

[frozen heron]

hm, that's interesting

i also wonder why data.bin is 17 fucking megabytes

is ginormous for something that only stored save data

[craggy ingot]

if you look at the hex it's like 99% empty space too lol

[frozen heron]

well, i always mention i got the lead when i accidentally hardcoded dotmatrix into the game

not even reinstalling would fix it

so i assume it's all there

[craggy ingot]

the 17MB data_008_etc.bin actually has a PSB footer instead of header which is really strange

lots of weird stuff

the WinData .bin being only 404 bytes and hardcoding dotmatrix is crazy though, is the one you uploaded the one with dotmatrix?

[frozen heron]

nope, i had already fixed it

[craggy ingot]

dang, i see

if you could rebreak it again that'd be very useful lol

[frozen heron]

i believe it must have something like
dotmatrix_filter = on

or something

[craggy ingot]

hmm, alright

[frozen heron]

if you change the window type or the 4:3 wallpaper it updates

so i'm 100% sure there's something there

[craggy ingot]

here's the contents of the .bin (assuming you haven't seen this already):

{
"CryptMagic": 0,
"Digest": "_stream:0",
"FileSize": 17694976,
"FileVersion": 66048,
"OriginalSize": 17694976,
"TimeStamp": 1698730291
}

here is stream:0

binary stream of some kind, my own code can only decompress images and wav files unfortunately

it's also only 16 bytes lol so it's probably nothing

[craggy ingot]

in systemdata_setting_screen.nut? or somewhere else?

that's the only place i've turned dotmatrix on before iirc

[frozen heron]

i'm sure i hardcoded it modifying another script

i changed all iterations of dotmatrix to return true

[craggy ingot]

hmm, i see

i'll try hardcoding it in two different places here and see if i can get a modified winbackup file

[craggy ingot]

hmm, i can't seem to get it to store the data inside that winbackup .bin file, i've tried a few different modifications

if you could somehow reproduce your steps and get a copy of that dotmatrix .bin file again, i could definitely parse it and figure out how it works

in systemdata_setting_screen.nut, i tried changing:
line 59: data._12_dotmatrix = ForcedBool(true); //instead of false

line 156: data._12_dotmatrix = true; //instead of smoothing

[craggy ingot]

data_008.bin's footer PSB is actually the same bytes as meta_008.bin

[iron creek]

That's mad

See if it were just the SLUS files I wouldn't bother

Cause honestly, those are very small exes that are easy to dismiss

[keen sky]

yeah theres a way they could've done it to make it more acceptable, but just including the iso files is less acceptable

[iron creek]

It's tactless

No consideration for those with limited bandwidth either

[pure gazelle]

nice swift lol

[woeful flare]

😭

[latent pivot]

droppin in to ask if anyone found out if we can change the window resolution maybe (not the render res, just the window, cuz higher is better for crt filters)

[frozen heron]

mgshd can do that

although i'm already running mgs1 at 1080 with no mods

have you tried tweaking this?

[latent pivot]

it runs at 1080p normally

[latent pivot]

where is it

[woeful flare]

i thought these values being changed didn't work...

or is this just the window

[latent pivot]

aight found it

lets try

nope, its still 1080p

i thought you could maybe change it in exe like for 2 and 3

oh wait

huh

it worked when i play in windowed

aight then

yea with borderless that works good

[frozen heron]

alt+enter? no?

[latent pivot]

when i go back into fullscreen it goes back to 1080

but as it is now is good

[wheat rover]

Remember to make the .txt above read only

[untold briar]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aetsSOfMRq0

[frozen heron]

wait MC had dithering?

nvm

[woeful flare]

THE MOD IS GONE

well

"mod"

[pure gazelle]

hmm what mod is it

[craggy ingot]

mod that included the entirety of MGS's rom while claiming not to

if it's hidden by the author it looks as though they might try to fix it before they get banned

[pure gazelle]

whowever that person is

should be ini here and drop the files

Lol