#Modding the MGS1 emulator

1 messages · Page 11 of 1

pure radish
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but the system and kernel stuff is always shared between them

pure radish
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ok well

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it works with my replacement structures

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now to add something extra i guess

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ah, there's a smart thing to do here

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there's one for each game version and the PSX addresses differ as u would expect

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but the native handlers are shared

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so that can be used in various ways:

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identify functions in different game versions using the shared handlers

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and matching stuff from the decomp based on integral

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which can then apply to all game versions

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so i think it's best to let the emu load them all, then attack the integral one, and finally propagate it to all versions

pure radish
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alright

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time for some bullshit

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wrote some crap to map integral hooks to all game versions

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so if it's already hooked by M2/whoever, and you found it in integral, any mods to it will apply to all game versions

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if its a custom hook (which I'll prob look at later) it'll need locating manually for all game versions ofc

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this is our candidate ig

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i see it in the logs each time the game starts

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ok bad example lmfao that one only exists for integral

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found one that exists for all

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wow it worked

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integral-derived hook on top of their hooks worked on the german version

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2024-01-06 23:00:02.656 ( 6.638s) [ 7E25CA70] dllmain.cpp:412 INFO| M2: printf: > LoadReq
2024-01-06 23:00:02.656 ( 6.638s) [ 7E25CA70] dllmain.cpp:412 INFO| M2: printf: > load init
2024-01-06 23:00:02.656 ( 6.638s) [ 7E25CA70] dllmain.cpp:412 INFO| M2: printf: > start
2024-01-06 23:00:02.688 ( 6.671s) [ 7E25CA70] dllmain.cpp:775 INFO| woop woop

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science time

red cradle
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I like the woop woop message

pure radish
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that gives like, 1000 points to hook the emulator at certain points in the game's execution for absolutely free

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can read CPU registers and shit with this

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for the emulated PSX

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and all sorts of chaos can ensue

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it encapsulates their hooks, so can optionally run their stuff or not

pure radish
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cool i can read memory via the emulator directly now

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should have reg access working in a sec

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0x0, 0x800b0084, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x800b3234, 0x800b31b4, 0x800b2d34, 0x800b2f1c, 0x4, 0xfff0, 0xc000000, 0x800b28b0, 0x0, 0x1, 0x0, 0x800ae168, 0x800ae148, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x8ade0, 0x0, 0x800ac824, 0x800ad870, 0x800ad920, 0x8001692c

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looks good to me

pure radish
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lol

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reimplemented one of the hooks entirely

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very weird

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its in the game's main()

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and it doesn't boot without that hook functioning

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game ends up in an infinite loop

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oh, i guess the infinite loop makes sense

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if PC doesn't get changed, it'll just run the hook again

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as it's still in the list

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the PSX function they've hooked is just this though

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i guess they just had it for testing

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coz this just looks like if (!initialised) initialised = true

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not sure why u would need to hook this

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the simple stuff is very good at revealing what certain things are tho

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i'm sure there's gotta be some johnny hackery in here

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they're pulling all sorts of shit

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what happens if i turn them all off ;o

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the psx crashes ;o
r3000: illegal instruction 0xffffffff (pc=0x8009a7c8)
r0-7: 00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000
r8-15: 00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000
r16-23: 00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000
r24-31: 00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000
pc: 8009a7c8, 00000000, hi: 00000000, lo: 00000000, sr: 0x00400000

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needs the "__SN_ENTRY_POINT" hook

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which is unique per game version

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and not very coincidentally, hooks pc 0x8009a7c8

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and does a buncha shit

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sets up a bunch of registers

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aha.

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lets see if i can find a way of only keeping that specific hook

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ah yeah of course this isnt going to get anywhere coz they deleted a bunch of the original code

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what if I put it back in tho ;o

cerulean coral
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unsafe code? emulators use it

cerulean coral
# pure radish

Is m2epi the opcode interpreter of the cpu or some communication API towards emuTask?

pure radish
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i think it means "emulator programming interface"

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LOL

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so i restored all the missing code

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and removed all the hooks

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and it actually gets quite far

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InitHeap:
init_memory: 0xe000 0x1000
alloc_memory: 0x20
install_syscall_handler: 0
SysEnqIntRP: 0 0x6da8
install_int_handler: 3
SysEnqIntRP: 3 0x6d98
alloc_memory: 0x1c0
alloc_memory: 0x8
alloc_memory: 0x900
install_rcnt_handler: 1
ResetEntryInt:
mainbus_read_w: bad addr 0x1fffffff
mainbus_write_l: bad addr 0x1ffefff8
r0-7: 00000000,800a0000,fffefff8,00000000,00000010,0000000c,801fff00,00000800
r8-15: 00000001,00000018,000000b0,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000
r16-23: 00000908,0000e1ec,0000000c,0000000c,00000010,00000008,801fff00,00000000
r24-31: 00000000,00000000,00000000,00000000,800ab2e4,801fff68,801ffff8,800999a8
pc: 80099ad4, 80099ad0, hi: 00000000, lo: 00000000, sr: 0x00400000

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switched to integral now so i can just find the code it chokes on in the decomp

cerulean coral
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Que guapo

pure radish
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its trying to start up the task scheduler

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dies somewhere in psy-q SetConf

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oh

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it loads some address from the BIOS area

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but there's no proper BIOS

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LOL

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ok

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but can I get it to boot a pcsx-redux savestate

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i tried this ages ago but i didn't have the accelerator hooks disabled

cerulean coral
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I recommend using Bizhawk, it shows you the current and lost frames, also to move between frames by pressing F

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What I'm not sure about is if savestates are compatible, it will have a different struct

pure radish
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hahahahahahahahahh

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so

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now with a pcsx-redux ram dump

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and the BIOS RAM region updated so it has the PS-X EXE header at the correct M2 offset

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mainbus_read_w: bad addr 0x1fc0761c
mainbus_read_w: bad addr 0x1fc07620

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now those are extremely interesting

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because 0x1fc00000 is the actual BIOS ROM

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which is indeed missing

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so to really have a chance of running other games, would need to get M2 to map and load the BIOS

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but that's not really my objective right now (i don't really have an objective, im exploring)

cerulean coral
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oh SRAM dump, well maybe, SRAMs are compatible and it's just about finding the right frame to dump, minus the savestate which is an invention of each emulator.

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Damn bios, where is he lol. There is no way to pause and run the mgs emu frame by frame to see what happens in the first minutes in the SRAM, perhaps the executable is not copied the first time

pure radish
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nah RAM dumps are not compatible currently

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RAM and ROM conspire a lot on PSX

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so the BIOS you have influences the RAM you get

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heavily

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and since there isn't a BIOS here and it's just been held together with string, a RAM dump from anything accurately simulating the BIOS will not work

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the first 0x10000 of RAM is leftovers from BIOS

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and lots of that is used by the game

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here they've just stuck anything and everything wherever they like in that space

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e.g. they stuck the PS-X EXE header at 0xB070 but the real BIOS doesn't do that

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and the emulator reads it from 0xB070 when booting the CPU

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its why they have most of these hooks, to compensate for not having a BIOS to set things up properly

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there are some that definitely do MGS specific stuff though, like the ones that are examining stage names

cerulean coral
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Well, I only saw something like CDpatch first appears pointing to the executable in conventional emulators and then loads it in the same region. There is a considerable space starting at 0x800 that inserts data that I don't understand

pure radish
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if johnny was indeed changed via this kind of hook, i would expect to see that hook in the european and US releases but not integral

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that's a clue i guess

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there are i repeat, about 1000 hooks tho LOL

cerulean coral
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It is a very deep documentation and I have only spent a year in programming, I will save it on my server for future reference.

kindred chasm
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Mr krabs fixin to go down with a god damn heart attack

pure radish
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ur pretty knowledgeable for only 1 year, gj

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i have like 12 years :S

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where did the time go lol

cerulean coral
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Well summarized... Imagine writing to make video games and waiting years for someone to want to program your game. Since it never happened, I made the decision 1 year ago and the decomposition caught my attention, and since I come from modifying Switch games, when I tried to program something to extract textures from N64 NSO and RDP, I realized that I had to understand. emulation hardware and in my opinion it is overwhelming, like having to surf the Internet. In short, the Internet is like a Library and you are all like little people who have published bestsellers

For now I am a bank of doubts, I still have to face trials and errors. I hope I can also learn to not be so talkative xd

woeful flare
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totally unrelated to MGS but i've been trying for a while to figure out how to get the game ROMs ripped from it in a playable format on PC emulators, i'm gonna take my chances and ask if you might know of a way to do that g_sweat

cerulean coral
cerulean coral
woeful flare
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yea, i knew that bit

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i don't really know of a way to uncompress em unfortunately ;-;

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er

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decompress

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same thing

cerulean coral
woeful flare
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HOLY SHIT IT WORKS

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thank you so much????

red cradle
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damn, unexpected but a welcome help

pure radish
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we need more people with some technical knowledge in here lol

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so that "SetPC" function is not really SetPC

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it's more like "Step"

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but now im wondering what their stack utilisation is like

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since it looks very recursive

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an invocation of "Step" can call my hook, and from there I can run "Step" myself to advance execution

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that's already 2 stack frames

cerulean coral
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Cool, I remember that you can pause by pressing R3, and accelerate by pressing L2+ RIGHT STICK (-X or +X). Also Screen Capture and Replay functions, like a TAS.

pure radish
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oh god

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they basically implemented C++ in C

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in a project that already uses C++

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the emu core is C but pretending to be C++

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but all the squirrel bindings are C++

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i was trying to interact with it using actual C++ constructs in m2fix but

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that is not quite going to work

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i also have to write it like C

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it does some kind of JIT

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creates a massive buffer that I assume covers RAM and sticks a function pointer there for an initial decode

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i assume accelerator functions get added to it

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i have this so far

image.png
red cradle
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very nice, got the permission from the leader of the fan CN translation team, I can pack and publish the ppf mod later, with their team credit and of course yours with detail instructions

pure radish
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did you get the zip with the other CD ppfs?

red cradle
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yeah you sent them here before

pure radish
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nice

red cradle
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tho I figure that Chinese people probably can't access github link (maybe?), so have to put another upload space

pure radish
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can they purchase the steam ports?

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i know they have a weird version of steam

red cradle
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on steam page no, but with retails key? maybe

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HK/Taiwan has no such a problem, we can buy them on Steam

red cradle
pure radish
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ah

red cradle
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it's really lucky the normal one didn't get banned by CN government lol

pure radish
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no fun allowed

red cradle
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ah, GlobalCDROM = false also cause the key config in game go directly to the original menu rather than the emulator menu

pure radish
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yep

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it will disable most MC things

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its a heavy handed solution

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thats why we gotta figure the patches out lol

red cradle
pure radish
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damn

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nice

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they have this custom memory manager called "memento"

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im still trying to figure out what the point of it is

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maybe it does different things on different platforms

pure radish
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lol well i know how the GTE commands work now i guess

pure radish
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all of the accelerator tables are like this

image.png
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first few are 0x80000000 but then switch to RAM relative

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for the remaining ~1000 entries

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wonder if they were done by different ppl

pure radish
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they overallocate RAM as 0x210000

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so 0x10000 bytes for their "EXMEM" thing

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of which they use about 0x1000 of

chrome path
pure radish
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yeah they even rewrite function pointers in the fake "class" so its like virtual methods

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all within translation units that have debug strings indicating they're .c files

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the only reason to do that check is if that funcptr might not be pointing to the very same function

cerulean coral
pure radish
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here > memento_alloc("w", "gpu:vram", 0x100000);

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GTE is separate from the GPU tho

pure radish
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well that was quite nice

image.png
pure radish
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i have all the cpu instructions in the emu named now

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(and gte)

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looks like im sticking with v1.2.2 for this stuff lol

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its not gonna change much in updates anyway

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thank heavens its not actually C++

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its quite relaxing where actual C++ gives u an aneurysm

cerulean coral
cerulean coral
pure radish
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because each instruction must specify the number of cycles it's supposed to have taken

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a nop is single cycle so it adds 1 to the cycle count

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at the moment I'm purely researching and reversing/labelling stuff to make... hopefully lots of shit easier

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it's a lot less intimidating when the structures are understood

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and i'm finding out that their stuff is generally quite straightforward

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once you put the time in to work it out

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i should have a decent footing now into the rest of the system

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this is a bit of an oddity

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so the internal modules are all the old favourites, they're what actually power the game in its current state

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cpu_r3000 etc

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external modules load instead from separate DLL files

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and we don't have any of them

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wonder what happens if u drop a DLL with those names in the game folder

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ah, needs to be under a subdirectory

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name must be of the format: modules/$name/$name.dll

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the game complains that it can't load them in the m2fix logs at startup

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i assume these are the "full fat" versions

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probably with more compatibility

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has to also define the symbol "ng_mod_anchor" for it to load "successfully"

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seems like a nice way to get code execution, thanks M2

cerulean coral
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hehe when you go through the gpu, check if there is any unused external texture loading function,

pure radish
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that might be ur way of patching into the switch exe morphone morphone morphone morphone morphone

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i'd probably have tried that without also wanting a way into the squirrel stuff

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doing that kind of DLL now would be totally academic for me

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yeah, i'll go through the gpu fairly soon

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just letting myself find it naturally from the cpu side

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i know next to nothing about GPUs so

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hoping their code is simple enough for me to finally understand a GPU

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my day job is CPUs so it'd be a bit embarrassing if i couldn't get this far

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this is also a great way to learn about the PSX lol

pure radish
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ah

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they bulldozed some BIOS libraries out of the RAM images too

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figuring out what they originally were will be slightly harder as don't have the originals for the BIOS they used

cerulean coral
pure radish
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neat

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they hooked the exception handler

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of course they did

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they probably removed a bunch of stuff out of the RAM image to prove their hooks were actually running and doing the job

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easier to say it works and how it works is understood if the original code isnt even there

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its a very weird setup

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half port half emulation

cerulean coral
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you know, it was made by Japanese, only they could port an emulator on so many platforms

pure radish
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had a radical idea

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as i cannot sleep

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if you were to try and get other games to run

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prob the best way to do it is instantiate your own copy of emu_psxbase

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via m2fix or summit

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and bypass all of their squirrel frontend crap to start with

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as it will only make life difficult

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that way you could control the BIOS and everything precisely

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not gonna do it for a long time tho lol

cerulean coral
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the time will come to do them

pure radish
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yeah gonna stick at what i'm doing for now

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what i'm doing will always be useful for lots of things

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can't mod the emu if we don't know how it works lol

chrome path
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I wouldn't do it for a while, honestly. Once you can inject your own ISO into it, and KONAMI or M2 find out, they might try stirring some shit.

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Even if they don't have the legal ground to.

pure radish
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i don't even think it's that practical

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who wants a bunch of extra games under metal gear solid on steam

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???

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it would only be academic

chrome path
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The game's not only on STEAM.

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It's just a concern.

red cradle
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well at this point if you want to boot and play a ps1 game, why bother using the MC one, use other instead

chrome path
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If the lawyers of corporations thought that straightforwardly, then the world would be a better place.

pure radish
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i mean what i'm saying is

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we could just do it to learn but not make super simple tools for it lol

pure radish
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im more interested in getting the original german version working in MC i think

pure radish
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is there any better tool than mkpsxiso for actually reproducing the original iso

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mkpsxiso rebuilds with slight differences

pure radish
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anyone got any old versions of the .exe?

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im out here diffing MGS3 exes and while im at it i should check out the M2 changes

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oh maybe i figured out grabbing it from steam

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yh. steam dumps it in some complete random ass place tho

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definitely much less changed in MGS1 v1.4 than MGS3 v1.4 exes lol

cerulean coral
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I have an exe, I don't know what version but it is from the first weeks it was released.

pure radish
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github is a bit fooked

red cradle
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does Integral also have a dev menu? I might just want to use it to load some levels and testing. If not, save file also be fine, like the place before disc swap

pure radish
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yeah

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they all have the dev menu

red cradle
pure radish
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you can enable it in the m2fix .ini

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i think those mods require save file editing

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but the m2fix option doesnt

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just modded my bluray drive firmware HotPeepoHappy

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it can read 4Ks now Pepenga

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on top of already being able to read PS3 discs sloggers

red cradle
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oh shoot nice, thanks a lot, how did I miss that lol

pure radish
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lol np

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i always have it on coz it's really convenient

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easy to get out of it if you don't want it

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otherwise it's right there immediately

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helps a lot with testing

cerulean coral
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🤔

pure radish
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we're going to war boys

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ballistic missiles in the red sea shipping lane Pepenga

red cradle
pure radish
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dope! nice one

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u typo'd my name wrong once near the start but nbd lol

red cradle
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oops gotta fix it lol

pure radish
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bit busy atm... it has become patently obvious that i'm not good when there's more than a handful of things i have to do simultaneously, none of them get done

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hopefully can get back to this shortly

red cradle
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all good, take your time!

finite peak
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Hey Nuggs, sorry for my disappearing act but I’ve been working on something

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I figured out how to get retroarch shaders working on the master collection but there is one major problem

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The game won’t accept inputs because it only accepts inputs if it’s the active window!

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Is there anyway you could add a setting to where it’s always active even if it’s not in focus?

finite peak
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Uh….guys?

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I figured out a way to fanagle this thing to work….but I just had the strangest thing

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I did black frame insertion…..and it fixed the input lag

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Literally everything I have read about black frame insertion states it should make the input lag worse

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I have no logical explanation

finite peak
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This is going to look and play WAY better once I’m done with this

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I might go ahead and put out a “preview”

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It’s still rough cuz I need to do a bunch of color adjustment and things

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But the level of detail and blending is far better than anything I could get out of reshade

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Full disclosure though, its not perfect because you can’t just use any shader on this, but I’m getting there

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I’m still stunned that the input lag is gone

pure radish
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ah finally i've got a bit of time

hearty dirge
pure radish
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i wish i understood what was going on here lmfao

image.png
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there's a penny drop moment for sure... whenever it happens

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the kernel_call table makes no sense and doesn't match up with PSXSPX in any obvious way

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and then I have no idea what they're trying to accomplish with the 0xF000+ addresses

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what, now im even more confused

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this area is both the heap and some sort of dispatch table at the same time

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prob should look outside the kernel module and not get bogged down here, might make sense l8r

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oh shit i always wondered what this func did

image.png
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just need to get some of this stuff to marry up with external psx docs

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oh gawd it's starting to make some sense and i don't like it

pure radish
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this has been native accelerated

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i'm getting somewhere in how the hell to identify these

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there's like 3 layers of indirection so

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hang on I can just log these

pure radish
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holy crap

image.png
red cradle
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what the-

pure radish
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do these match up

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A(0xa7) B(0x58) B(0x4f)

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A(A7h) bu_callback_okay()

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B(58h) get_bu_callback_port()

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B(4Fh) read_card_sector(port,sector,dst)

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yes!

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this is what i mean by 3 levels of indirection lol

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so they hook some part of the game code

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which is version-dependent

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those hooks sometimes go to library/kernel code

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and to do that they ping-pong the PSX CPU through various RAM vectors

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with some sort of function ID passed around

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but the trick with the M2 stuff is rather than this happening with MIPS code it's actually x86

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to name them i kind of have to follow the flow all the way from integral through all this indirection

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but having it dumped to the log should help a lot

finite peak
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I would ask why they did that, but at this point I’ve realized nothing about this emulator makes sense

pure radish
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rather than JIT (which usually is forbidden on consoles anyway) it makes heavy use of AOT (ahead-of-time vs just-in-time)

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if something is simple enough or there's a real performance incentive, they've reimplemented it in C as part of this AOT framework (so it's native x86 code)

red cradle
finite peak
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About half a frames worth for that matter

pure radish
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lol

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definitely instruction access and data access are not coherent with each other

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they write data on top of where the "code" should be

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but it's fine because the code isn't fetched from memory, it goes thru this AOT thing

cerulean coral
pure radish
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i'm getting there yeah

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definitely progress towards it but not quite complete

red cradle
chrome path
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What is the Chinese' obsession with a game series about governments that abuse their soldiers and employ mass surveillance over their civillians?

finite peak
chrome path
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Japanese

finite peak
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Now it looks right, only problem is its so precise I can’t use screenshots to take the pictures

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But man I love retroarch filters

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And now they finally work on the MC

chrome path
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Oh cool

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Through SweetFX?

finite peak
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Nope

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Windowcast core on retroarch itself

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It kills 3 birds with one stone

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1: it makes the game look fantastic in a way reshaders couldn’t

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2: it smooths out the motion with black frame insertion

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3: it eliminates the input lag

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Those pictures don’t even do it justice

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When you see it in motion, it’s amazing

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I’ll probably go ahead and update the mod page and do a release later tonight

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But I really wish there was a way to simplify the process

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Right now it’s a little tricky because you have to use windows power toys to force retroarch to stay on top window

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Then you have to alt tab over to the master collection

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Either way I want to get it out there though because even with it being a little complicated it does make the game far more enjoyable

finite peak
pure radish
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Metal Gear Solid

pure radish
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the "_p" modules

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p stands for profiler

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e.g. cpu_r3000_p

pure radish
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what the hell

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i'm looking at the object that implements the PSX memory bus

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and it seems like there was meant to be 6 methods, read byte, read word read long and the equivalents for write

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but it's screwed up

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some of the types are mixed up

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i don't think writes and reads are mixed up

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i assume the PSX is similarly screwed up then

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can basically talk to any device in the PSX system now

hoary pier
red cradle
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#modding-general message huh I thought someone mentioned before that mg1 and 2 are dll, roms

hoary pier
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I wonder if they're actually MSX ROMs or something else though. MG1 has weird frame pacing that was apparently also present in the mobile port that the Shinkawa portraits debuted in

pure radish
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they aren't

red cradle
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tho MG2 got the updated sprites, so might be different with the original release

hoary pier
red cradle
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aw but yeah, after looking the folders, they aren't. well, I guess at least the nes mg1 & Snake's revenge are indeed nes roms?

pure radish
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they are yeah

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that's a simpler M2 product

#

doesn't have all the tech that the MGS1 build has

red cradle
#

does nes have similar patch system like ips or ppf?

pure radish
#

doubt it has a dedicated one but you could just use ips or xdelta i guess

red cradle
pure radish
#

when they instantiate the CPU module they pass in references to other modules the CPU needs/should have access to

#

but one of those includes the memory bus

#

and the memory bus has access to everything

#

so if you want to access stuff the CPU doesn't normally talk to you can just go via the bus

#

epic

cerulean coral
pure radish
#

m2fix could probably be ported to their other PSX stuff on PC lol

#

there's that mega man collection too

red cradle
#

yeah, it's might really useful for other psx games port on steam

pure radish
#

if I end up figuring out most of the core (chances are looking good currently) there may be a big incentive to do that

#

this project has turned out far more fun and to have way more longevity than i expected lol

red cradle
#

from improving your favorite game series to the bigger picture

pure radish
#

there's sooooo much of this stuff

image.png
#

but it's quite easy to figure out

#

can kinda see what i meant by the bus there though

#

R3000 only has INTC but you can get everything else via bus

#

which might be useful from these accelerator hooks

pure radish
#

does "ustar" mean anything to anyone

#

oh

#

it's literally the .tar format magic

pure radish
#

looking at the gpu now

cerulean coral
pure radish
#

ahhhhhh now the bus code is making much more sense

#

I tend to use IDA mostly

#

but yeah I'm trying to define all the structures in M2Fix source

#

so 1. it's public knowledge and 2. can use it for some cool shit

#

weird

#

the emu kinda supports a bus that can do 64bit access but

#

i assume coz the psx is 32bit, it ends up passing some uninitialised stack variables to the function

#

red means bad

image.png
soft falcon
pure radish
#

i dunno i don't own it

#

if anyone owns it you can figure that out by just looking at the install files

#

wait, won't steamdb tell us this

#

hmm, this looks different at first glance

glad frost
chrome path
#

I've been curious about the X series for a while.

pure radish
#

theyre using really obscure DRM too

#

i'd never heard of it before

chrome path
#

Some suspect spyware.

pure radish
#

just looks like some personal project

#

of some geezer

chrome path
#

That's probable. I've seen screens of their conversations with people taking issue with the program.

#

Not very professional. Just makes iit more confusing.

pure radish
#

there's no point adding DRM retroactively lmfao

#

steam can download old versions if you ask it politely

#

downloaded v1.3 MGS1 the other day

chrome path
#

Hey, link me to something that'll tell me how, I'll download this shit.

pure radish
#

steam://open/console

#

download_depot <appid> <depotid> <manifestid>

#

the latter two you grab off steamdb

chrome path
#

Roger.

pure radish
#

depotid is usually similar to the appid (incremented by some single digit)

#

manifestid is a very big number

chrome path
#

Can't find the manifest on the steamdb page.

#

https://steamdb.info/app/743890/depots/

SteamDB
Mega Man X Legacy Collection Depots

Mega Man X Legacy Collection includes the legendary 16-bit titles and the series’ exciting foray into the 32-bit era: Mega Man X, Mega Man X2, Mega Man X3, and Mega Man X4. Test your skills in the new X Challenge mode, which pits players against two deadly bosses at once.
Mega Man X Legacy Collection Steam charts, data, update history.

pure radish
#

so click the depot you want (probably 743891)

#

then manifests on the left hand side

#

and it should show various versions

chrome path
#

Got it

pure radish
#

app has multiple depots (which are containers of files/folders) and each depot has multiple manifests (versions)

#

steam won't really give you much feedback about the download progress

#

you'll get a message when it starts and one when it ends

#

the download tab might show network/disk activity but not the name of the game it's downloading

#

it'll download to steamapps/content/app_* on the main disk

chrome path
#

Right, I was starting to get worried about that.

pure radish
#

i'm glad steam has this option even if it's hidden

#

probably a good thing that it's hidden

chrome path
#

Why? No misuse by normies?

#

I've used this process before to download a debug version of NieR Automata before I think.

pure radish
#

it'd cause absolute chaos if the masses were just rolling their steam copies back to arbitrary versions

#

we have enough trouble supporting our customers and our software is explicitly versioned in your face all the time

chrome path
#

True enough.

#

Files are in. What are you looking for?

#

Doesn't look very much like it's emulating any ROMs.

pure radish
#

.psb or .m files

#

that's a pretty good M2 tell

chrome path
#

Nah. Mostly .arc which I think is probably some wrapper for other kinds of files.

#

And there's a folder that says "romPC" which implies it's a port.

#

All the movie files are wmv

image.png
cerulean coral
#

🤔

pure radish
#

wow

#

glad i didn't spend money on it lul

cerulean coral
#

romPC?

pure radish
#

where did they use m2engage psx before then

chrome path
#

It's on heavy sale right now and I intended to buy this before I emulated it all anyway.

pure radish
#

lol

chrome path
#

But also, fuck you ya bastard

pure radish
#

fair nuf

#

i would've just been buying it for M2

chrome path
#

There's a tree for you.

#

Interesting erm... output

cerulean coral
#

this does not use M2 frontend. I only noticed emuPc and Xemu

chrome path
#

Oh man this... this is rough

#

This is not a good collection.

#

Honestly, people give KONAMI too much shit for the MGS1 collection, this is just woof.

#

Not even got proper controller support.

soft falcon
#

I mean mega man x 1 through 3 have input lag but 4 through 8 were well ported from what I remember

chrome path
#

My controller doesn't properly work, to begin with, and pcgamingwiki recommennds changing an ini file to fix it.

#

And maybe it's just me but I'm finding bugs that weren't in the original. I can charge my gun during cutscenes for example.

#

Very strange.

#

And then there's the lack of language options, when X4's dub is kinda notorious.

#

MGS it's a bit more forgivable because the different language versions have audio timings changed, so the subs don't work, and it'd require a bit of work with old code if they still had it.

pure radish
soft falcon
#

But ye

kindred chasm
#

Hey nuggs if you wanna dig into it I can always gift you a copy of megaman. When i get paid i mean

pure radish
#

lol if you want

#

unless it turns out magically to also be m2engage-based i probably won't spend much time on it though

#

can't really split my time too much

#

anything m2engage-based i can probably spend some time getting things working

#

that would generally be worth it because ideally things will share stuff in common making improvements apply to everything

#

from the steamdb listing it doesn't look like its m2engage

#

im gonna be most immediately productive on m2engage stuff because of everything i already know by this point

#

would be good to know a complete list of m2engage titles

#

it's sounding like there might be very few on PC

#

really wonder what's in vol2 lol and whether it includes PSP stuff

#

has M2 rereleased anything that was on PSP?

pure radish
#

ah

#

haha

#

finally made it to the gpu code i was patching ages ago

#

in a naive attempt to boost resolution

#

this time i should at least have the prerequisite knowledge to understand it

hoary pier
# pure radish has M2 rereleased anything that was on PSP?

I don't think so. I thought they might've worked on the PS4 release of Rondo of Blood + Symphony of the Night (which is the PSP "Dracula X Chronicles" version), but it doesn't look like they're credited. It probably just uses Sony's emulator

#

They probably don't have a PSP emulator which is why that remaster was only on PS4

#

But that was years ago, could be different now

cerulean coral
#

There is very little chance that Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will be emulated, since it came out on different consoles apart from PSP

#

I would look at the Japanese catalog of M2 co., there are games that did not come out in the West and use emulation

pure radish
#

are those other consoles running it natively though?

#

so much video memory

#

jeez

cerulean coral
#

There are emulators for Arcade, Gameboy, MegaDrive, Genesis, Nes, SNES, there is also one for GameBoyAdvance for a Japanese game. There are some 32-bit or 3D emulators in Ray'z Arcade Chronology, I thought it would have a PS1 emulator because graphically it is very similar, but they are PSX-based arcade hardware... it seems that most of them use frontend .nut and EmuTask like MGSMC.

#

M2 practically emulating all consoles and their variants lol

hoary pier
#

Yeah, I think there's no way Peace Walker would be emulated. But if they include Acid as bonus games those could be

kindred chasm
pure radish
#

does this mean nothing will be emulated in vol2 lol

#

i worked out how the pal/ntsc selector works in M2

#

end-to-end I have it fully mapped out

kindred chasm
#

I still think some games might be emulated but that depends on what game they're decking. Far as mainline goes PO might just be it

meager ice
#

I’m sure we’ll know when we see some trailers and game pages

#

Hopefully Konami doesn’t make the same mistakes as they did with Vol 1 and avoid having to deal with months of fixes though

kindred chasm
#

That's mostly with mgs1 with how they handled that game. 2 and 3 were bluepoints' mess save for the launcher nonsense

cerulean bough
#

Only things I could imagine would get emulating is if they include PO, Ghost Babel, or Acid

#

Any other stuff Id figure would be native

meager ice
#

I agree, and that’s only if

#

I want to say Vol2 would close out the series with the rest but who knows, hopefully they go all out

pure radish
#

wtf

#

just froze there lol

#

how do u open the bloody stance menu on keyboard

#

well, that's something

#

got the PAL version to output NTSC lines

20240115190850_1.jpg
#

hence being cut off

kindred chasm
#

E and M

#

Ask Konami why they did it like that

#

And what's that?

pure radish
#

it's a value i saw months ago

#

controls the PAL/NTSC resolution

#

now I actually understand how it gets set and where it belongs, though

#

before I was just replacing both with bigger numbers lel

#

I can do it from the main() hook like:
cpu->Bus->Machine->DevGPU->VideoMode = 0;

#

i guess I should also try integral in PAL resolution

#

there should be much greater chance of anything in this area succeeding if we actually understand the structures and the code that makes the thing work

#

before i was basically blind patching crap

#

i've worked my way in from the M2 accelerators -> cpu -> bus -> psx -> gpu as you would studying the system's actual design hierarchy, now just need to chip away at the gpu bit by bit

#

the only "trick" so far was realising the accelerators provide the perfect interface for m2fix to toy with the emu internals

pure radish
#

integral look kinda tiny tho in PAL

pure radish
#

what does it do chaps

image.png
glad frost
#

😮

#

I'm a little confused - are these two separate/different mods??

pure radish
#

alls explained in the github readmes

cerulean coral
glad frost
#

oh right, cheers

#

they're titled quite confusingly haha

kindred chasm
glad frost
#

Perfect, thanks very much

pure radish
#

2/3/MSX technically have a lot in common whereas MGS1/NES technically have a lot in common

#

thats the reason for two main projects

#

they were in the same buckets @ konami

glad frost
#

Interesting

#

I suppose you mean purely from the emulator's perspective, since it sounds wild to think the MSX versions would have anything in common with MGS2 and MGS3

kindred chasm
#

People seems to think the MSX version is native, not emulated

pure radish
#

and runs on the MGS3 engine lol

red cradle
#

that's why so many folders, tho there's no many mods going on with MSX stuff

#

the only ones I saw on Nexus are just about menu background

pure radish
#

if i had infinite time i would try and boot the MSX ports without the MGS3 baggage

#

just something more lightweight

#

the game logic is in those DLLs so it's almost ready-made self-contained for that purpose

#

but i very rarely abandon projects and MGS1 will keep me busy for some time lol

red cradle
#

soon the M2 emulator for MGS1 will be conquered...

chrome path
#

I know for certain the latter bit, but not the former.

pure radish
#

it's probably the same as MGS1 conceptually

#

but differs drastically in their implementation approach

#

MGS1 is also "partially emulated"

chrome path
#

In what way? I mean there's scripts overwriting bits at the program level rather than the emulator level, I guess.

#

But not as drastic as MGS3/MSX

pure radish
#

in the sense that there's huge amounts of code recompiled as x86 lol

chrome path
#

Is there?

pure radish
#

yup

chrome path
#

How bespoke is this emulation?

pure radish
#

it wouldn't be trivial to get other games to run

#

"maybe possible" at best

chrome path
#

Kinda nuts.

#

That sounds like M2 actually had their hands on it.

pure radish
#

it is all one system with the .exe itself

#

with code recompiled for each game version

#

a huge portion of the .exe is just recompiled psx stuff

chrome path
#

That must've been automated.

#

Like how RPCS3 recompiles shit before boot.

pure radish
#

i didn't quite realise until a couple weeks ago the extent of it

chrome path
#

That's nuts.

red cradle
#

https://www.romhacking.net/games/998/
https://www.romhacking.net/games/2397/

Since MGSM2Fix also support Metal Gear / Snake's Revenge, Might be possible let the ketchup mod loader support these titles too? There are already some ips patch/hack on romhacking website

ROMhacking.net

Classic video game modifications, fan translations, homebrew, utilities, and learning resources.

ROMhacking.net

Classic video game modifications, fan translations, homebrew, utilities, and learning resources.

pure radish
#

yeah it should be possible

#

ill download em and look into it at some point

#

figuring out exactly how it loads the ROMs would be interesting to know, obviously will be different

#

much simpler lol

#

but it has the same things that ketchup needs

#

must have a NES ROM loader in there somewhere

#

MGS1 doesn't really load a ROM

#

kinda just cheats a bit

#

no tricks here

red cradle
#

straight out nes files mgnLUL

pure radish
#

yeah it's INES format: https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/INES

NESdev Wiki
INES

The .NES file format (file name suffix .nes) is the de facto standard for distribution of NES binary programs, with use even in licensed emulators such as commercialized PocketNES and Wii Virtual Console. It is often called the iNES format, as it was created by Marat Fayzullin for an emulator called iNES. The format was later extended with NES 2...

#

btw

#

do i have the most playtime on steam for this game

red cradle
#

MGSV playtime length

pure radish
#

leopard tortoise

zinc ferry
zinc ferry
glad frost
#

With Nuggs' mgsm2fix settings file, if i want borderless fullscreen, would i set both of these to true?

#

or just borderless?

#

I mean, borderless windowed is a window, after all...

cerulean bough
#

Likely just borderless

glad frost
#

i've tried both and can't see any difference in behavior

#

neither seem like a window either, though i think they are

finite peak
#

alright here we go

#

Pretty major update, fixes the input lag issue and actually makes the game look right finally

#

Learned how to use windowcast but currently it's a complicated process

#

I tried my best with the read me but I might make a tutorial video or something

#

Now if THAT doesn't fix everyones input issues I don't know what to tell you

#

And finally no more messing with reshades half assed shaders

#

Let me know if you have any questions or where I might be able to improve this though, I know it's a little silly of a work around and hopefully I'll find an easier way eventually but at least it works great, but I need to know if it works for all displays or just 120 hz, or just OLEDS, different resolutions

#

test it guys!

finite peak
red cradle
#

post it in #mod-news too

finite peak
#

apparently I don't have permissions to send in that channel?

#

Guess nuggs will have to do it lol

red cradle
#

Nah, you just need to claim the modder role in #roles

finite peak
#

OK cool

soft falcon
pure radish
#

not in the way i was suggesting, the MSX games in MC are ports contained in DLLs

#

not sure how the GOG release works

#

but it doesn't have those DLLs

#

GOG could be doing anything tbh

#

the thing about it being a DLL is it can be loaded into any process as long as it can resolve its imports

pure radish
#

IDA... hasn't done a good job of discovering all of the functions in the .exe

#

I've not felt like doing much thinking the last day or so so I'm mindlessly going thru and fixing it all up

pure radish
#

ok i give up with this for now as there's so fucking much of it

#

LMAO

#

i'd script it if I knew any idapython

#

tbh i did get a lot done maybe i'll carry on another time

#

i feel like im playing runescape here

#

ok i just forced the whole undefined range and it seems to have not made a mess of things

#

first time i have ever had successful results with that function

#

in 10 years

glad frost
#

Hell yeah

#

that's progress

red cradle
#

cue "10 years in the joint" line in Yakuza 1 English dub

pure radish
#

so much code in the exe its unreal tbh

pure radish
#

"gw" = graphics wrapper?

#

i think that's right

#

i think i just created every function in the native tables

#

wow

#

that was super tedious

#

yuge yellow bar

image.png
chrome path
#

Low hanging fruit.

chrome path
finite peak
soft falcon
finite peak
#

wait, maybe I got you mixed up wtih someone else?

soft falcon
#

Probably. I haven't been fiddling with it recently lol

finite peak
#

maybe it was Alan?

#

let me check my PMs

#

Yeah it was Allen, my bad sorry lol

finite peak
woeful flare
#

huh wait wha

woeful flare
finite peak
#

yeah it's a little complicated but it will look great and should play right now

woeful flare
#

did you change the asi file at all

finite peak
#

nope, it's just some magic that use windowcast thorugh retroarch lets you do

woeful flare
#

wait, huh

finite peak
#

just read it, you'll understand

woeful flare
#

oh i see

#

i only downloaded the M2Fix portion

#

thing is... i have an AMD card...?

finite peak
#

shouldn't make a difference now

#

Just use the same fixes I posted for AMD

#

and you should still be able to use black frame insertion with windowcast core

woeful flare
#

am i supposed to download the inspector profile thing or

finite peak
#

no that's nvidia, below that are the AMD instructions

#

AMD is dumb and won't let you use profiles for individual games

#

only the whole card

woeful flare
#

gonna be honest it feels the exact same

#

listen, i'm not in a rush to go back to MGS1, so i'm fine for now

finite peak
#

I measured almost half a frames worth of input difference on mine

#

In fact I didn't realize how bad master collections input delay was until I measured it against duck station

pure radish
#

it was basically either emulator or game (known as "accelerator") code

#

so I painfully went thru it all to correctly set the function bounds

#

boring job, but having that done correctly feeds into the analysis engine and it'll help studying it in future

#

in some cases it hadn't even identified the instructions correctly and was just treating it as bytes

pure radish
#

lemme see if I can find the hook that disables the ass blur

#

so I can deliver something on this new tech

#

i found one that looks kinda sus

pure radish
#

guess what guys

red cradle
#

You did it!

kindred chasm
#

The ass is real

cerulean bough
#

THE ASS BLUR IS BACK!

meager ice
#

Now I can play the game!

pure radish
#

alright, got the option in

red cradle
#

so the blur is like hide very deep in the codes?

pure radish
#

yeah it's not really a patch

#

they've used the accelerator system to hook the code that loads the mosaic actor

#

so needs the .exe fiddled with to bring it back

#

so in the m2fix world it looks like this

#

so basically calling the hook they have to disable it if the option is disabled, otherwise just tell the CPU to execute the original PSX code to load the mosaic

red cradle
#

interesting, wonder what else also hide in those codes

pure radish
#

it's one of the hooks that I can't use my integral trick for

#

because it's duplicated for each game version with very minor differences

#

hence having to spell out every single version at the bottom

#

if there's no differences at all, usually I can just find the .exe function in each table with the info from integral

#

choosing integral because it has a decomp basically

pure radish
#

oh, I also couldn't use the integral trick coz there's no blur in integral lol

red cradle
#

yeah, the integral version is released only in Japan, makes sense Johnny wear underpants like the original JP version lol

pure radish
#

so

#

one sec

#

there's these two hooks that I assume are both for the mosaic, but in different stages

#

and there's an additional two hooks that seem to do stage-specific stuff

#

that look different to the mosaic one

#

s17a

#

Supply Route (vs. REX)

#

& s18a (same hook)

#

and the final one is the "rank" stage after you finish the game

#

wonder what they changed on the supply route

pure radish
#

made uhh a backup of my IDA database

#

lol

glad frost
#

so what if it's disabled - we get to see the full, horrifying browneye?

red cradle
#

actually before nuggs figured out how to add the blur back, the current version of MGSM2Fix mod always let us see naked ass without blur

#

#1168512986491670548 message

glad frost
#

oh haha

#

i see, i misunderstood

timid hemlock
#

Amazing you got it fixed!

glad frost
#

When 1.50 drops from Konami, is MGSM2Fix likely to require an update? I seem to recall it did when 1.40 dropped?

#

Or maybe not

pure radish
#

depends

#

it didn't really need an update until they actually made use of the screen options

#

that was more of a functional breakage

#

since m2fix was assuming those options were not used and it was free to do whatever

#

i'd say it's unlikely since the core infrastructure of m2fix is robust but they might break a specific feature like they did with the screen options

#

we're 2 out of 3 so far

#

2 updates didn't need changes, only 1 did

#

it's always unlikely I'd say, but I felt it was unlikely that they'd add the screen options lol

#

an advantage M2 gives us over the HD collection is we can hook the squirrel VM and achieve a lot with basically just one hook

#

and that stuff is not likely to change and cause a break because it's 3rd party code

#

HD collection on the other hand is almost exclusively native first party code that could be changed for any reason

#

it was the first one, lol

#

and that's just in some code they downloaded off the internet, nothing they wrote themselves

#

so generally it should handle updates well

glad frost
#

That's awesome info, thanks for the breakdown

#

Let me re-iterate we are all very grateful of your work ❤️

pure radish
#

hopefully it won't be so bad when they add analog

#

coz setting that to false in the ini basically means the game acts unmodified with input

#

but that wasn't the case for the screen options, m2fix would try to both turn it on or off depending on how you had it set up

#

which conflicted with their new settings

#

with analog i'd guess we just have to reset our controller profiles and disable the m2fix feature in the ini

#

so no update needed

glad frost
#

I'm guessing you just mean this removes interference from the mod

pure radish
#

yeah

pure radish
#

i'm tending towards keeping the older features that we don't really use anymore

#

just in case someone runs an older game version for w/e reason

#

but over time just remove them from the ini so they're not as visible

pure radish
#

hmm

#

i nearly have the whole CPU structure reversed so I might finish that off

#

just made some progress and there's not much left

cerulean coral
#

🤔

pure radish
#

it is kinda funny that konami tried to patch his ass and that ended up exposing it even more

#

streisand effect

#

had they not disabled the mosaic, nobody would've tried

kindred chasm
#

At least justice was done. Johnny's cheeks are free

red cradle
#

now all we have to do is waiting for the update patiently

hoary pier
#

Really wonder why they did that anyway

#

Maybe for consistency with the MGS4 flashback?

chrome path
cerulean coral
#

remove start

pure radish
#

delete system32

cerulean coral
#

remove hardware limitations

pure radish
#

remove kebab

#

some of the remaining R3000 fields make no fucking sense

#

one of them seems to store a pointer to an object that counts division operations performed

#

what the fuk

#

that object is the GPU VRAM??????????????

#

w8 no not quite

#

its near a pointer to the vram

pure radish
#

ok nvm it is the vram

#

well, that will be interesting when I reverse the memory object

#

why the CPU needs to inform the VRAM about division operations is anyone's guess

chrome path
#

I was going to say maybe it was a unified RAM setup, but only the PS2 had that I guess.

pure radish
#

it's this really kooky way that the CPU "discovers" the VRAM object

#

since it's actually instantiated by the GPU (ofc)

#

it gets leaked to some static variable and passed into the cpu with a cpu interface command when machine_psx is created

#

it also happens to be the last thing in the .data section

#

so it's not exactly part of some bigger structure

#

so many layers of abstraction with these "commands"

#

commands can call commands which can call commands

#

makes my head spin

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e.g. you can have things like "emu_psx" -> "machine_psx" -> "cpu_r3000"

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all with their own set of command IDs

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I mean it makes sense from a hierarchy perspective but god damn does it take some mental load to follow

pure radish
#

the number 3802281.2 mean anything to anyone? morphOn

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I'm assuming some kind of RTC timekeeping

image.png
pure radish
#

phew, CPU done

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gets harder towards the end to figure out the last few things

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will get a release out with the blur now

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before I disappear into GPU land I guess

pure radish
#

alrightr

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v1.2 lets go

cerulean coral
#

good work

hearty dirge
#

As in no blur and no underwear

red cradle
#

that's like previous version lol

pure radish
#

you can just change the ini to get any combination of it

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can even have blurred underpants in theory

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but i havent tried it

red cradle
#

hmmm what's the next step?

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maybe check the bonus content nes emulator?

pure radish
#

next thing as far as MGS1 is concerned is to continue with the other emulated devices

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I can have an initial look at the NES emu though yeah

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I'm aiming towards doing the GPU in MGS1

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but I think I might have to do the RTC first

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because the RTC has its fingers in everything else

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RTC is hopefully not too big though

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i never have to look at the CPU again though

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or the bus, or the "machine PSX"

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so the NES one is an interesting case

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because it also has the accelerator support, but it's not used for MG

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btw i didn't do this for the blur hahaha

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the blur just fell out of it as a consequence

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always had to dive inside the emu at some point

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it seems to be the case that you make more progress without a specific goal

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coz then it's about learning & research and you're more thorough

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if you try specifically to do one and only one thing, you cut corners and it's not as obvious

kindred chasm
#

Hey nuggs idk if this is the same m2 that we know and love. But: I found a folder named m2ftg inside Like a Dragon Gaiden. It contains d3d12.dll of Motor Raid, Fighting Viper 2, and Sonic the Fighter, as well as Roms of those games and a sound folder, plus whatever FV is.

Gaiden also has Sega Racing Classic 2 and roms of retro sega titles but I don't see either in here. If it matters, one of the retro roms is Alex Kidd and the Miracle World

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Idk if it leads to anything but wanna poke around in it? The games I listed are all indeed emulated ingame

woeful flare
#

M2 has worked with sega before?

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they work on emulations and ports of different sega games

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they are indeed the same M2, who else is in japan going by M2 that is good with emulation that isn't the one we know

kindred chasm
#

There's the mtwo that people have confused before when MGS1 was concerned at launch

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But i know nothing of their work. I just thought it was interesting to share and thought it might be worth checking since Yakuza has a bunch of emulated games. Outrun, the motorcycle knockoff?, Fantasy Zone, Puyo Puyo, the Master System Hokuto no Ken, Virtua Fighter 2, the xbox arcade Virtua Fighter 5, and a buuuunch of pachinko machines I'm convinced are emulated

woeful flare
#

they're in the credits for the master collection

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their LOGO is in the credits and files

pure radish
#

pretty easy tell if you have the DLLs/EXEs is something like

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cat "METAL GEAR SOLID.exe" | grep 'Squirrel'

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it does look more like M2 than other stuff has

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a better tell is probably

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cat "METAL GEAR SOLID.exe" | grep 'm2epi_machine_register'

finite peak
#

Also I missed the celebration of Johnny's ass and I feel sad about that

finite peak
#

so....one thing about the .ini, if I disable johnnys boxers, and enable the blur, what does that do to versions like integral and the original japanese release?

red cradle
finite peak
#

alright but I'm gonna test it before public release

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don't want to risk some people being overexposed to pure johnny nakedness lol

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even though most of us have already had to deal with that from MGS4....

red cradle
#

btw the descriptions in the ini file is somehow vague, it might confused users for a second, like does "true" means swap back to underpants or naked ass etc

hmm.png
pure radish
#

yeah I can see that, it's meant to follow a scheme of "true means MC default"

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that only became confusing because they turned the mosaic off

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i might invert that one next update

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objective with the m2fix patch defaults is to restore the original experience except where they added something complimentary like achievements

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im not too happy with where "DevMenu" sits in the ini either (or its name)

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so might move some stuff

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but yeah i'd expect the japanese releases can only switch between the underpants colours

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there is no mosaic implemented so the option will do nothing

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like there's actually no equivalent I can add for JP so

red cradle
#

not big deal, after all, to japanese players, underpants is the original version

pure radish
#

adding the mosaic is a job for the decomp

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not a job for me

hoary pier
#

Basically "restore" for all of them. Makes it more clear for new players which option is how the game originally released too

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Or "revert"

hearty dirge
#

I think it’s good descriptions

kindred chasm
pure radish
#

i can't steal the game with em

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might as well just be absolutely sure

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(the ones under that m2 dir)

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surely its about as legit as uploading something to virustotal except I have signatures for m2engage

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and not viruses

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m2engage-detector.exe

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this bloody emu has to be used somewhere else

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they put way too much time into this framework

kindred chasm
#

Can do but it'll wait till i get home. I'll put them in dms

zinc ferry
# woeful flare M2 has worked with sega before?

Sega, Square, Nintendo, Capcom, they do tons of stuff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_(game_developer)

M2 (game developer)

M2 Co., Ltd. (Japanese: 有限会社Ｍ２(エムツー)) is a Japanese video game developer and publisher, best known for handling emulation of re-released games, such as some Sega Ages titles, Virtual Console titles for Nintendo systems, the 3D Classics series for the Nintendo 3DS and their ShotTriggers range of classic STG games.
M2 has also created entirely ne...

woeful flare
#

oh that wasn't me wondering

kindred chasm
#

@pure radish sent it all through dms. I wanna assume those games aren't playable but i wanna play it safe

glad frost
#

We should get a betting pool going every Tuesday, to see if they release the 1.50 patch the following day 😆

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I'll chuck a cautious five bucks in for tomorrow

kindred chasm
#

That's optimistic

glad frost
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haha

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yeah

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sure is

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I reckon mid feb but hopefully earlier would be nice

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fuck i haven't played MGS in about 22 years

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can't wait

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shoutouts to nuggs for the MGSM2Fix somehow magically fixing the audio clicking

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my theory is that removing the frontend and booting right into the game, and/or borderless window, had something to do with it

pure radish
#

LMAO

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those ROM containers in the files you sent me

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use a file format called "PARC"

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I was looking at the code that loads them and well, because little endian you get it reversed i.e. "CRAP"

pure radish
#

"TaskM2E"... sus.

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it looks quite different, perhaps a more recent project targeting newer consoles

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I'm trying to definitively prove their authorship

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the facts though are that modding this would be a new endeavour as there are basically no similarities

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they're using the same sort of recompilation techniques but on steroids

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wonder what "FTG" means

zinc ferry
#

Context?

pure radish
#

#1168512986491670548 message

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looking at those DLLs

pure radish
#

hmm

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i had a thought while sat on the throne... maybe these are just the accelerators for each game

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m2engage in MGS has the ability to load modules from separate DLLs but it's unused

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and I can see that it exports symbols "module_start" "module_stop"

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it'd be worth seeing what loads it, i.e. other DLLs or the EXE

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looks like there are even more emus than those 3 in this game

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is there an actual game here? or is it just a bunch of emulated games

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I can see "runtime/media/emu/sms/smsce_w64.dll" exists, as well as "runtime/media/pre3/pre3-pxd-w64-d3d12_retail.dll"

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but those are probably unrelated and provided by someone else

kindred chasm
#

Sega Racing Classic 2 is also an emulation but idk where that one is

pure radish
#

if I was to ask for more stuff I'd say the EXE and those 2 DLLs, the bigger picture is missing coz I don't have what loads the first set of DLLs

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"M2E" is a bit sus tho