Discussion: PSP on PS2

[RevOne2]

Please forgive me as my understanding of such things is minimal, however, out of pure curiosity (isn't that where some of the best ideas generate their origin ;) ) - I was looking at the Silent Hill Origins port for the PS2's file structure and compared it to that of the original PSP title's, to find that they look almost exactly alike, at least in terms of the file extensions/types being used. The only real difference I could find were in the MOVIE folders of each, which seemed to use different formats; otherwise, they were identical.

Now I'm no programmer/developer - but if this substantiated anything - in theory, at the very least - the Playstation 2 is capable of processing code written for the PSP; it's just the way it's executed. (PSP seems to use the BOOT.BIN where PS2 uses it's native format to point to directories - not entirely sure about how this works).

Anyhow, I wanted to conduct a similar comparison between
maybe the ported PS2 versions of both Grand Theft Auto's to see if maybe the same would hold true(only I don't own either for the PS2 and already have them for the PSP), and hopefully somewhere in there find where to start with how home-made conversions could be accomplished.

May be a long shot, but it doesn't appear (at a glance) the Silent Hill Origins port took very much to get it running on the PS2 (though I know there are differences - graphics and such).

The ability to play Crisis Core full screen from my PS2 was all too tempting for me not to post this, and my hopes that someone with a better understanding of how this stuff works might not mind sharing their thoughts and knowledge with a hopeful gamer.

Thanks in advance:)

[leiko]

... ... .. no

[Xenogears V]

Sorry, no way. Only in dream.

[RevOne2]

Eh...

Thanks for the feedback on this one. Like I said, I knew it was a long shot...
but it sure was a nice dream.

I know the simple solution is the component cable or waiting for the big wigs to put out the their own ports (I could see Crisis Core being a big enough title to happen - but I'm definitely not holding my breath)... but it would be nice if the homebrew scene could devise a way. It'd be a nice, small (but I'm sure, welcome) triumph.

I guess what I was looking for was finding something similar to the Zelda "hack" found for the Gamecube where certain Nintendo 64 titles could be "injected" in place of the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask roms and into the disc image, but it looks as though it's no where near as simple.

EDIT: Maybe something involving recoding the EBOOT [.PBP] and PARAM.SFO files to PS2 format (.ELF [???]); .PRX to .IRX... I dunno :confused:

Thanks for entertaining (and not flaming) the dream, though...
Very, Very Much Appreciated :) And nice to see that ideas can be shared without having to worry too much about being called a total dumb*ss -=laughing=-

[Mods, I guess we can close this thread]

[Xenogears V]

As I said first nothing of the kind doesn't exist. But it is onlt a rumor. On Gamefaqs I read that there could be a conversion of Crisi Core for Ps2.

[DanTheManMS]

I guess what I was looking for was finding something similar to the Zelda "hack" found for the Gamecube where certain Nintendo 64 titles could be "injected" in place of the Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask roms and into the disc image, but it looks as though it's no where near as simple.

That only worked because Nintendo made the N64 emulator for the GCN themselves and used it to let gamers play the games. Very similar to the way in which you can play any PSX game on the PSP by using the emulator Sony themselves developed. This won't work in your case unless Sony has already made a PSP emulator for the PS2, which I kinda doubt.

[RevOne2]

Yeah... perhaps I vastly jumped the gun on this thought.

I've been reading over more and more about development on both systems [the PS2 and PSP].
It would be unlikely (and daunting) and you'd have to do each and every title specifically in order to get them to work the way they do in the Silent Hill port.
At least that's what I gather :rolleyes:.

Without a proper emulator, per se, one would need to engineer the game code from source and build it to work on the Playstation 2; rather than find a way to apply each game to a universal method, for instance the way it was used in the Zelda N64 to GC example. Meaning - if you want a Crisis Core Playstation 2 port, you'd need the source for the game, then find a way to re-engineer it's code to execute in the Playstation 2 architecture... Then, theoretically if that was accomplished, then voila - you have a port... of one game. Take another title, say Daxter, for instance, and you're back at square one... yeah, good luck with that.

Lots... and LOTS... of work.

[psplover007]

it cant be but psp homebrewers can create emoulaters of the ps2 but it only can be done in the future. if you dont know what emulators are i will you. these are hombrew software that lets you play some games from old platforms like nes snes sega a ps1 and many others. as far as i know id ont know if there are any emulators on the ps2

[RevOne2]

I've not heard of any either :(... I just thought taking a look at how the Silent Hill Origins port and the two Grand Theft Auto ports (Liberty City Stories & Vice City Stories), I would be lucky enough to find some answers that could point to one, but as it so happens, they are simply that - straight ports.
Would've been nice though... but I think an emulator is way out of the question.
As it stands, the PS2 doesn't even have it's own version of a fully functioning SNES emulator (not taking anything away from the beloved SNES Station). We haven't even seen GameBoy Advance or Nintendo 64 emu's on this platform.
The original XBOX has so much more in terms of retro-console emulation, but I believe it's mainly due to the portability of emulator's to the system due to it's Windows-like OS (I believe it's a modified Windows 2000 [FAT-X] version or something like that).
In keeping in mind that the majority of these emu's (NES, Master System, SNES, MAME and such) have been in the works for years prior to the last generation of consoles in just getting them optimized for use on PC's, by the time the original XBOX rode around they'd already figured most of them out. PS2 I'm pretty sure doesn't have the power to emulate the PSP's hardware at all. (Spec wise, I don't know too much about this stuff, but I think the PS2 has a 294mhz range processor and the PSP is capable of clocking out 333mhz... while even most of the titles thus far don't use the full limit [what is it? 266mhz standard, factory set? gotta look it up]... that doesn't leave much left to simulate an entire system's hardware).
It'd be nice if there was [I]some way of simulating the environment, but the power to do it simply isn't there. Just to run the app of the emulator itself would probably take most of the system's resources to duplicate, not to mention the processing power needed to run the game itself under that environment. I'm by no means a "devver"... heck, I don't even consider myself as being well-informed (as you can see above)... just more the casual gamer who wants to and wishes he knew more about the technical side of this stuff... but by contrast, I used to have both a PII 400mhz Dell and a PIII 500mhz Compaq for which neither could even run VisualBoy Advance [GameBoy Advance emulator] at any more than 60%... with frame-skipping on.

I think it'll be a good while before we see a PSP emulator even on the PC platform - much less the PS2.
PCSX-2 isn't even completed.

I wish home-brew "ports" were possible. But I think it'd be more about adapting the software to the hardware and not vice-versa.
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See, what I was wondering in looking at the two disc images (for Silent Hill Origins PS2 and PSP) was that the file extensions appeared to be the same (With the exception as I said, of the MOVIE files). So what I was wondering is if the PS2 was able to read files designed for the PSP (if that makes sense).
In that case a restructured disc image could be constructed, if you follow what I'm getting at. Except this disc image could be formatted to the PS2 and read (generate the information in) the files the same way. Extract all the files from Silent Hill that make it Silent Hill, and with a little tinkering around inside the executables, point them to the directories of whatever other title was in it's place. I dunno, probably doesn't make much sense here. Then I'm guessing there is the issue of addresses or LBA's on the disc image not matching up... :confused: