is it really hard to convert PS2/PS3 games to PC

[rax_7]

i have seen many hackers/crackers, they can crack any game. they can also crack any expensive software like Adobe software, 3ds max and so on. but how come no game crack has ever tried to convert games to PC? like God of War. is it really hard to do it or just too much work?

[Ungodly]

Its like putting your World of Warcraft game in the xbox 360 and wondering why you cant "hack" it to work. They are designed to wok in entirely different ways on entirely different systems.

[Urisma]

i have seen many hackers/crackers, they can crack any game. they can also crack any expensive software like Adobe software, 3ds max and so on. but how come no game crack has ever tried to convert games to PC? like God of War. is it really hard to do it or just too much work?

short answer: No.

long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Serious answer: Let me give you an analogy. Imagine you have a very large book written in Latin. It's 50,000 pages. Now change the title (or "hack" it). Give it to a person who only knows english. Will he / she be able to understand it? No. BECAUSE IT'S IN LATIN. If your PC spoke english then the ps2 speaks latin and the ps3 greek. That's where the actual emulator comes in. It translates one game from one language to another. And yes, that is THE ONLY way to do it. There is no easy way, fast way, etc.

[jesalvein]

the other way is to port it, of course.
but only the gamedevs have access to the source code and can do it.

[haxor]

CRACKING games is to remove any copy protection schemes to make it run.
HACKING games is more or lesss the case if you wanna develop cheats.

the other way is to port it, of course.
but only the gamedevs have access to the source code and can do it.

Half right. There're some games that come with full debug info and a label definition in the elf. So... porting can be done that way. Replacing the code with PCs counterparts but it's really time consuming to know what the code does and what the data represents.

Anyway... YES... it is really HARD to convert games.

[Urisma]

...
Half right. There're some games that come with full debug info and a label definition in the elf. So... porting can be done that way. Replacing the code with PCs counterparts but it's really time consuming to know what the code does and what the data represents.

Anyway... YES... it is really HARD to convert games.

Really more like 99% right. You're suggesting static recompilation, which is, while definitely possible, very improbable. It'd take lots more work than say, a dynarec emulator, like pcsx2 is.

[rama]

haxor: You want to reverse a game using the MIPS machine code and some labels? Dude.. xD

[haxor]

haxor: You want to reverse a game using the MIPS machine code and some labels? Dude.. xD

What's wrong with it? Cause you believe it doesn't work I should stop trying? Even if I don't make it perfect. I don't care.

And you can recode a game just by looking what happens on screen and what the code has todo to achieve that. Reading the debug info and the label definition can help with that, and ps2dis does that job really good. Then all you gotta do is playing and recoding what's on screen with help of the info. The data structures are complicated but this goes with common sense of what a game is designed code wise on any other platform else.

The rest is figuring out how the data is stored in files and convert it. So what?!

It's just a lil more work than usual porting.

[rama]

Yeah, I think it's time you actually started on such a job. Should get you back into the real world.
You're looking at a million lines of c++ code for the average game. But good thing you have debug labels, eh?

"It's just a lil more work than usual porting."
Yeah, it just takes a MIPS guru with 10 years of training and then some 100 years, so what?

[haxor]

Du bist echt dämlich RAMA!!!! Was interresiert mich den diese MIPS Scheisse. Mir geht's nur um die Spielmechanik, nich' um den Code und wie der designed ist. Und wenn in der elf drin steht wo die 'ne Animation verarbeitet wird und ich mir in assembly ankucken kann von wo was geladen und wie verarbeitet und gespeichert wird, dann kann ich jawohl 'n Programm für PC schreiben was genau dasselbe macht. Also erzähl mir mal nich', dass das nich geht.

Und Zeit hab' ich genug für 'n paar Code-Zeilen. Also leck' mich. ;P