PCSX2 - Widescreen Game Patches

[Chik'Tikka]

I'll give the games a try in a couple days probably, but if hyakki couldn't get it I doubt I will +^_^+ BTW is it even possible to merge threads? +^_^+

Thiefses +^_^+©™® and i think the merge threads is to do with the forum already having another widescreen thread which i just finished reading+^_^+

[Bositman]

Merged but it's fail, you probably want it split again. Merging puts posts in chronological order, so the posts in the previous thread keep being first and the new ones keep being in the back. If you want it split again let me know.

[synce]

I say we just start a new thread exclusively for posting widescreen pnaches, kind of like the cheat pnach thread it would be sticky'd in general pcsx2 discussion. I could write up a quick little guide on how to get started trying to hack games that haven't been patched yet, and hopefully it will snowball from there.

[bmate]

Just keep the first post updated with the patches for easy access and let the discussion continue here imo. The downside to this is that only mods can edit the first post.

edit: or that^^ create new a thread with one post for the patches (and possibly the guide) and link to a separate thread for the discussion

Actually the guide would awesome, especially if it will be n00b friendly (talking about myself here). Maybe it will get some additional people to try their luck with these patches. Which frankly saying is awesome. Hell if it would be possible to adjust the GUIs in the games as well, these patches would effectively turn some PS3 HD remakes moot.

[hyakki]

Ys - The Ark of Napishtim - Widescreen Hack (16:9) (NTSC-U)
       
  EF9E43EF.pnach (Size: 148 bytes / Downloads: 722)

Getting down to last of my games that are worth patching, I just need to figure out shadow heats series.

[synce]

Same here hyakki... Actually I got like 10 games that have stumped me but I'm worn out +^_^+ The torch needs to be passed! I'll write up a simple beginner's guide tonight and post it here. You and miseru and anyone else can add whatever you feel needs to be added and I'll edit it all together +^_^+

Some recent successes, adding to current total of 26 NTSC-J fixes:
- The Bouncer
- Biohazard Outbreak File 1 and 2

(all patches will be uploaded by end of week, after I've created the actual pnaches and tested)

[synce]

k here it is!

http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Guide-Cre...n-10-steps

Took over an hour... I don't do tutorials often so if it's lacking just add your tips and I'll amend the main post with them

[Chik'Tikka]

beautiful TuT, it'll help me, and many others get off the ground+^_^+ what value would i have to set to get FF-XII to 16:10? since it has a 16:9 option in the menus (my screen is 16:9 but i have a friend who has a 16:10 screen)+^_^+
EDIT: gonna repost this on the other thread, so you don't have to answer here+^_^+

This^^^ +^_^+ it's no where near urgent, just a question+^_^+

[miseru99]

k here it is!

http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Guide-Cre...n-10-steps

Took over an hour... I don't do tutorials often so if it's lacking just add your tips and I'll amend the main post with them

I don't want to trash tutorial thread with not neccessary usefull info, but I would add a few notes which maybe you find usefull for it or maybe not - lol I wouldn't really know, guess I'm not into making tutorials either, keeping it simple is probably the key.

But anyway my rant begins - to create a widescreen patch, we are basically looking for constant value, sure some of those nasty games will keep it as variable for every different scene or even for every scene and character, but I guess nobody will bother to create a patch which needs manual input for every scene as it's not really usefull.

Soo when we're looking for a constant value, then we should use that knowledge to help ourselves a bit, simply make a 3-4 savestates in different part of the game, and while I say different part I mean main menu, intro animation, and any 3D scene not just 3 different 3D scenes or 3 different parts of menu;]. Now the only thing that's hard in seeking constant values is that they do not change and we have no way to change it, but as a positive side here, those constant values which are usefull for widescreen patch are set during first loading screens and stay unchanged through every other part of the game(like I said otherwise patch would be mostly useless and would be breaking other stuff). Soo basically we seek that range of floats and get alot, ie. like 150k results so next try to seek unchanged values and it gives still lots of results and we feel it's useless and wanna give up feeling it'll surely crash alot when mass changing. Well to change that, we load the other savestate and seek for unchnged values once again, the result should drop by alot now, and if we try with even different part of the game it can drop to 2k or even just few results depending on the game and range we seek. Doing soo we can get only adresses usefull for a patch which can mean nothing usefull at all in some troublesome games, but it allows us to check wider float range fairy fast.

Also for the second float range you proposed, I would make it wider, I use from 100 to 1000, just couse they're rarer and will not boost result list soo much and last game I was looking on had the usefull value as 224 ~ a bit out your range, but I guess it can as well get between 2-100 and then again a little bit of self thinking will always be needed, cannot make 100% working tutorial over something that's based on luck and willing game engine.

I wouldn't really seek such big range from 22xxxxxx to 30000000 there should be nothing usefull for us, soo basically I seek just 20000000-21FFFFFF, that should be enough, through I guess that I don't really know exactly how ps2 memory is divided and how it's reflected in pcsx2 and it'll most likely not find any results outside of the correct range anyway, soo that's ok as it is I guess.

But other than my usual lenghty rant, I think the tutorial should get an matematical way to change ratio soo it can be set without guessing or comparing screenshots, as I bet(remembering my school times) most people are usually bad even at simple math and will try to compare visuals.

Soo if we change width value, we wanna decrease it, if we change height, we want to increase it, to be exact in case of width multiply the value you have for width by 0.75, in case of height multiply it by 1.3333333 to get correct(original*) width for 4:3 stretched to 16:9. For 16:10, multiply base values by 1.2 for height, 0.833333333 for width. Hope I didn't fail at math too bad, couse I did that just now in memory. It'll be slightly different if we find and will want to change both, but generally just changing width is best unless it causes glitches, soo then height. At times both will cause glitches, not every game likes the idea of being patched to widescreen:].
*some pal games/bad ports are already stretched and in 4:3 looks like stretched ntsc version, it's nice to remember that and apply properly changed values - same as normally, but ^2 - so multiply height by 1.7777 or width by 0.5625

Oh I nearly forgot, one thing more, you could add a link to PCSX2CE as it can automatically create a pnach from plain adress&value format. Probably that's easier than explaining the format, through I don't really see anything about creating the patch itself in that tutorial yet.(if there is, I'm blind;P)


I guess not all of this info should go to tutorial and it's a mess as I am by trying to write fast^_^;, before I leave, soo good luck finding any part usefull for tutorial in it;3(aw I'm mean, sorry, just created yet another a wall of text in my forum history *presses enter a few times inside to hide that fact*).

Good job on the tutorial through, hope people are actually gonna try it with their games, couse I guess I'm not the only one who got lazy after quite a bunch of games got patched already.(and I didn't even had time to test a bit more all of my own yet *sight*)

[hyakki]

btw while I was looking at silent hill 3 pal I noticed it stored its value in 3f61 instead of 3f80 that the ntsc counter part used so that might be something to look into with pal games.

anyways i give up on shadow hearts 2 (pointer to a pointer to a pointer to a pointer), demento too (and most other capcom games), its possible but these games are doing some kind of trickery (iv searched every 3Fxxxxxx value to 40xxxxx no luck) I even manually went through the eeMemory from the save states to see what was stored