Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

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alexfree
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Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#1 » Sun Jul 24, 2022 1:31 am

Tonyhax International is the first universal softmod that works on all regions of Playstation 1 consoles, and all regions of PS2 consoles up to the SCPH-39000. Building off of the original Tonyhax, Tonyhax International includes even more features and capabilities then it's predecessor.

The biggest new feature is the Tonyhax International ROM (https://alex-free.github.io/tonyhax-international#rom). A BIN+CUE format CD image is provided that can flash a GameShark or similar cheat device to boot into the Tonyhax International loader when the PS1 console is powered on. Once you flash the GameShark/Cheat cart with the flasher CD-R, the cheat cart can be plugged into any SCPH-1000 to SCPH-750X console of any region (all the models that have the parallel IO port on the back for plugging in the cheat cart) and you can instantly gain the ability to play backup and import discs.

If you don't have a cheat cart/GameShark to flash or all of the stuff required to do so, there are so many more options to access the Tonyhax International backup loader on completely stock unmodified PS1/PS2 hardware!

All consoles will play PS1 games containing CD audio perfectly when using Tonyhax International. If you have an American or European console, the CD/DVD drive will also be unlocked allowing you to swap discs in games that span multiple discs with ease.

Tonyhax International is the first solution available for SCPH-10000 to SCPH-39000 Japanese PS2 consoles to play backup/import PS1 games to the best of my knowledge. It is also the first to provide correct CD audio playback in games that contain CD audio on the SCPH-1000 and SCPH-3000 PS1 consoles.

I could of never of done this without MottZilla, Socram8888, and many others! This is a team effort, the scene will never die! https://alex-free.github.io/tonyhax-int ... al#credits

Homepage: https://alex-free.github.io/tonyhax-international
Github: https://github.com/alex-free/tonyhax

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Ian Micheal
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Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#2 » Sun Jul 24, 2022 3:48 am

Really great project for people with out a modchipped ps1 or ps2 I hope this bring more homebrew development to both consoles..

bingobongo
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Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#3 » Sun Jul 24, 2022 6:17 pm

I own at least 4 ps2's and they were modded with some top of the line chip way back in the day. Even my humble SCPH-10000 Japanese PS2 - which I hope still works!

It's incredible when I think of those god-knows-how-many-wires soldered to the tiniest points around the main cpu - and now it's 2022 and you don't even need a modchip anymore.

Is there a reason why nobody spotted these hacks when the PS2 was released? The amount of mods it went through were quite something. Anyone remember the USB dongle? Or the "press the power button really fast 5 times to load a CDR" modchip? It actually has a fascinating history - I'm just thinking of the Messiah modchip debacle where, at first, everyone rallied round the guy taking on Sony - and then when everyone realised the impeding court case would set a legal precedent (which hadn't existed until then) - the crowd turned on the poor guy saying he wasn't doing a good thing taking them on... Or the Origa brothers? Two Italians who were duking it out to be the first with a decent modchip...

alexfree
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Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#4 » Mon Jul 25, 2022 9:32 pm

bingobongo wrote:I own at least 4 ps2's and they were modded with some top of the line chip way back in the day. Even my humble SCPH-10000 Japanese PS2 - which I hope still works!

It's incredible when I think of those god-knows-how-many-wires soldered to the tiniest points around the main cpu - and now it's 2022 and you don't even need a modchip anymore.

Is there a reason why nobody spotted these hacks when the PS2 was released? The amount of mods it went through were quite something. Anyone remember the USB dongle? Or the "press the power button really fast 5 times to load a CDR" modchip? It actually has a fascinating history - I'm just thinking of the Messiah modchip debacle where, at first, everyone rallied round the guy taking on Sony - and then when everyone realised the impeding court case would set a legal precedent (which hadn't existed until then) - the crowd turned on the poor guy saying he wasn't doing a good thing taking them on... Or the Origa brothers? Two Italians who were duking it out to be the first with a decent modchip...


I may be able to answer some of the why questions.

Tonyhax came out in 2021, and it finally provided a way to execute a loader program that can do some special setup for booting backup and import CD-Rs. However it used the unlock commands which don't exist at all on any Japanese PS1 or PS2 consoles (it isn't in the CDROM controller BIOS firmware).

Now I don't know exactly when, but at some point a few people figured out you can run the SetSession command after you swap in a CD-R without opening/closing the drive, and it will update the TOC and not loose drive authentication. So now there is a way to update the TOC (for correct CD audio) for Japanese consoles.

On the earliest Playstation consoles I discovered that this SetSession command is bugged. At first I didn't think it worked at all but you can brute force it too, and me and MottZilla came up with this whole method of getting an updated TOC on even the earliest launch Japanese Playstation.

Now on to the Japanese PS2 consoles. We now had the technology, but not the entrypoint. There was no way to boot our customized Tonyhax loader on the unmodifed console because the only way you can boot into Tonyhax on a PS2 was through a save game exploit (there are MANY different ways that you can do so though on Japanese PS1s now however). Different save game exploits are needed for each game and each region the game was released. A Crash Bandicoot 2 USA save game exploit is not gonna work on a Japanese Crash Bandicoot 2 game (which would be the only one you could boot on a Japanese PS2, you can't boot Crash Bandicoot 2 USA on a Japanese PS2 that is not modded). So eventually MottZilla came up with the save game exploit for Crash Bandicoot 2 Japan. Now the last thing was...

How do you do a disc swap without opening the drive on a PS2?? Enter swap magic tool. All these theories, all this work finally came down to testing and it actually worked. I have a SCPH-10000 as well and that's what this was tested on.

We have more game save exploits on the way. We are now at 4 games (only 1 game, Crash 2 Japan was available as a save game exploit for Japanese PS2 consoles on this first release!) thanks to this Japanese user on PSX dev: http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 295#p21295 . I am working to update Tonyhax International to include these game saves properly in the source tree but it's pretty easy to also just download his game saves and use them right now if anyone has these Japanese games and can't wait.

Hopefully that answers your question. I saw all these bits and pieces that made it possible, and saw that no one had completed the puzzle yet so I went out and bought a bunch of old Japanese PS1/PS2 consoles so I could put it all together.

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Ragfish
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Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#5 » Tue Jul 26, 2022 10:22 am

So now you can just flash a cart and have the console boot to tonyhax immediately? That's pretty cool. I messed with tonyhax a little when it first came out, but having to sit there for a full minute waiting for crash 2 to boot every time was very annoying.

alexfree
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Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#6 » Tue Jul 26, 2022 10:55 am

Ragfish wrote:So now you can just flash a cart and have the console boot to tonyhax immediately? That's pretty cool. I messed with tonyhax a little when it first came out, but having to sit there for a full minute waiting for crash 2 to boot every time was very annoying.


Yes that is exactly how it works! You flash the cart, and now the cart can be put into any Playstation that has the parallel IO port for cheat carts (all but the last fat models and PSone models, Japanese, American or PAL all work with one flashed cart) and when you turn on that console with the flashed cart the Tonyhax International loader instantly starts in ~2 seconds. If you have a USA or PAL console you can literally just put in a backup CD-R or import disc, close the console lid, and turn on the console. The backup starts playing in just a few seconds from power on automatically without any user input.

If you have a Japanese console, you have to do just a tiny bit more. You can open the console lid, put in any real Japanese PSX game, and block the lid sensor with a pen spring or something similar as show in https://alex-free.github.io/tonyhax-international#usage . Then you can power on the console, Tonyhax International instantly boots and spins up the real Japanese PSX game disc and then stop the CD drive motor in a few seconds. Tonyhax International then prompts you to swap the real Japanese PSX game disc with a backup CD-R or import disc without removing the pen spring or whatever else you are using to block the lid sensor. With your PS1 controller you then just press X after your desired import or CD-R disc is in the console. Tonyhax International then re-reads the TOC data and boots the import or backup CD-R.

alexfree
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Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#7 » Wed Jul 27, 2022 10:52 pm

Tonyhax International v1.0.5 update is now available:
https://github.com/alex-free/tonyhax/re ... tional.zip

You can now use the Japanese PS1 games:
- Crash Bandicoot 2
- Crash Bandicoot 3
- Doki Oki
- The Legend Of Heroes I&II
To start the Tonyhax International loader using the save game exploit (https://alex-free.github.io/tonyhax-int ... l#savegame). All these save game exploits were found by Patchouli (karehaani).

The save game exploit is the only method available for Japanese PS2s, so the more games that are supported the better. If anyone else wants to submit more entrypoints/save game exploit files for any region or for any new game please let me know.

DreamCasting
dark night
Posts: 53

Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#8 » Fri Jul 29, 2022 12:24 pm

This is super interesting, especially regarding the PS2 and the problems revolving around booting backup ps1 games while setting the correct video mode.

I have only tried this a couple of times but I have a few questions:

- I am using 'Breaker Pro v1.1' original boot disc on the PS2 to boot the tonyhax boot cd. It seems to work ok but is there any difference if instead I was using the ps1 specific game + memory card exploit to boot the tonyhax boot cd? Is the latter the correct way?

- On a EU PS2 there is no need to cog swap, right? One just ejects the drive, replaces the tonyhax boot cd with the ps1 backup and closes the lid. ( I can hear the disc spinning inside, so I wonder what the message "unlocking drive" means?)

- Still on a EU PS2 and regarding ps1 PAL backup games I have tried it seems to work flawlessy but if I use a ps1 NTSC backup of a game, I can read that it is setting the video mode to NTSC (and indeed some change happens) but the screen shrinks and is no longer full-screen. Is this a limitation or am I doing something wrong? I remember setting NTSC with the help of GSM and the screen going to full screen.

Thanks in advance.

alexfree
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Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#9 » Wed Aug 03, 2022 1:18 pm

DreamCasting wrote:This is super interesting, especially regarding the PS2 and the problems revolving around booting backup ps1 games while setting the correct video mode.

I have only tried this a couple of times but I have a few questions:

- I am using 'Breaker Pro v1.1' original boot disc on the PS2 to boot the tonyhax boot cd. It seems to work ok but is there any difference if instead I was using the ps1 specific game + memory card exploit to boot the tonyhax boot cd? Is the latter the correct way?

- On a EU PS2 there is no need to cog swap, right? One just ejects the drive, replaces the tonyhax boot cd with the ps1 backup and closes the lid. ( I can hear the disc spinning inside, so I wonder what the message "unlocking drive" means?)

- Still on a EU PS2 and regarding ps1 PAL backup games I have tried it seems to work flawlessy but if I use a ps1 NTSC backup of a game, I can read that it is setting the video mode to NTSC (and indeed some change happens) but the screen shrinks and is no longer full-screen. Is this a limitation or am I doing something wrong? I remember setting NTSC with the help of GSM and the screen going to full screen.

Thanks in advance.


Using code breaker pro v1.1 like that is completely fine, that is how I would utilize the Boot CD on a USA or PAL PS2. There is no difference in that case. The save game exploit is also a method, but it is more useful for either people that don't have a code breaker pro v1.1 disc, or have a Japanese PS2 that can't use one.

Unlocking the drive just means that the PS2 will accept unlicensed backup CD-R and or real import PS1 discs. It is unlocking the use of them, the drive is "locked" when it only accepts and reads licensed, original PS1 discs. I know this terminology can get confusing. The Japanese PS2 is the only one that needs to cogswap because we can not unlock the drive to read unlicendsed backup CD-Rs and or real import PS1 discs. The cogswap enables the use of a fancy self-made swap trick on Japanese PS2s to work around that limitation of not being able to unlock the Japanese consoles. When using the cogswap I use the term lock, but it is referring to something else (physically gaining access to the DVD drive and putting it back properly with the Swap Magic Tool). I see how this is confusing and I will try to rewrite the documentation to make it make more sense.

The resolution stuff **apears** to be working correctly. NTSC has less resolution then PAL, so it makes sense that the physical image you see would be smaller so it is not stretched out. I don't know if GSM would help since the resolution is changed while in PS1 mode after starting the PS2.

alexfree
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Re: Tonyhax International: Backup Loader For All Japanese, USA, and PAL PS1 Consoles/Early PS2 Consoles

Post#10 » Wed Aug 03, 2022 4:24 pm

Tonyhax International v1.0.6 https://github.com/alex-free/tonyhax/re ... tional.zip
Added support for:
Castlevania Chronicle Japan (first release only (rev 0), rev 1 is not supported... yet)
Castrol Honda SuperBike Racing Japan
Castrol Honda VTR Japan
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 Japan (now it's actually tonyhax :mrgreen: )

Castrol Honda VTR Japan and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 Japan use checksum byte(s) to validate the memory card saves (unlike the other releases in other regions which don't have any checksums). Me and MottZilla created a checksum updater program for these games which is included in the source here: https://github.com/alex-free/tonyhax/bl ... uccesscu.c

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