PSP: MacX_romcnv Backends v2.0.6

[b8a]

It's been a few weeks since NJ released his latest update, but since I've been busy trying to nail down a process for creating accurate rips of PC Engine S/CD games on OS X (all with open source software), I haven't had a chance to compile NJ's converters until now.

Having ripped and tested my S/CD library (all work beautifully in Mednafen), I did a quick compile of NJ's rom converters. The great news is that the source is now extremely multi-platform friendly and compiles very easily, so if you use an OS that doesn't have any working publicly released binaries (such as, perhaps, Mac OS X Intel), you can now easily compile the converters on your own. It only takes a few minutes. The only catch is that there are a few modifications that you'll probably have to make to the source. These are the steps that I had to follow to get the converters to build successfully:

Change all instances of "zopen(" to something else (I use "z_open("). This doesn't even take 10 seconds using a text editor that can recursively search-and-replace. TextWrangler (freeware) does this beautifully.
Remove all <malloc.h> headers. I only found one in common.h and unzip.c each.
cd into the romcnv source directory and compile! (make -f makefile.mvs UNIX=1)
I always ran into a problem at this point that required me to run: ranlib ./obj_mvs/zlib.a
Run make one more time

Since there are a few differences between NJ's official release and the backends I've been maintaining for MacX_romcnv (my version requires you to specify a save path, allows you to automatically remove the converted files from the zip, and, of course, is compatible with the GUI), I've updated those backends, and as usual, have posted them over at the MacX_romcnv release thread (http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=49659).

I think these should run on Intels, but don't have one to test on, so if any Intel users want to give these a shot I'd love to hear the results.

[paladinja]

Thank you b8a! Working on my Powerbook G4, I popped the new parts into the old gui and everything worked perfectly. I used the batch method and the single method and both worked!
NOTE: I first stuffed all of my CPS2 cache files, then I found that the MARVELvsCAPCOM played too choppy, so I tried unzipping the cache file, but then it would not load that cache, so I reprocessed that one without zipping the cache.
Basically, you can't just unzip a zipped CPS2 cache. If you decide you want an unzipped one, you'll have to make a new one. SO SAVE A COPY OF THE UNPROCESSED ROM FILE JUST IN CASE!
PM me if this isn't clear.
Can anyone post a list of CPS2 games that play better WITHOUT zipping the cache? I think that would be really helpful instead of having everyone go thru trial & error. Here, I'll start it off.

List of CPS2 games that play better with not-zipped cache fils:
- Marvel vs. Capcom
- ???
:D

[xg917]

um.. what exactly is this? sounds interesting to me. i have a powerpc mac verison 10.4.8

[b8a]

Paladinja: Using zip compressed cache is highly not recommended. It takes much longer to generate the cache file, results in much slower play, and doesn't really save you much space in the end. NJ made a statement somewhere about zipped cache files (can't remember where that was...), where he essentially said there were only a few games that would work alright when zipped. Puzzle Fighter was one of the ones he mentioned. However, that was sometime before he intigrated native decryption. Now that CPS2PSP decrypts the games internally, I've noticed that zipped cache files are MUCH slower (and things just get comically slow if you try to play them via USBHostFS, whereas the raw cache files always play fine). The only reason I ever create zipped cache files is just to test that they actually work. I always delete them right away.

xg917: You're right! Didn't realize it, but this is kind of a vaguely themed thread if you don't already know whats going on. This thread is about the programs needed to create cache files so that you can play your MVS/AES and CPS2 games in MVSPSP and CPS2PSP. If you don't know what those are, then there's a good chance that this is irrelevant to you.

[paladinja]

Thanks for taking the time to answer that so thoroughly, very cool of you. I'm going to take your advice, but since I've already got the zipped caches, first I'll check which games (if any) play fine with them and report back here with that.
I was going to ask you what USBHostFS is... but instead I looked it up myself! (i've grown from boy to man:p ). I don't think I'd ever bother with that. I've got my files set up so tightly that once I've linked up the usb, it only takes me a another second to swap over whatever games I feel like. & I'm on a 2Gig card, so I've got some semi-decent capacity... but the dropping price of those 4Gigs is really tempting me tho.
Question: If I can play single player on NJ's Adhoc versions, why would anyone load the non-Adhoc versions? Just pondering.

[b8a]

There was a point that I thought about thoroughly testing the zipped cache files as well, but I honestly haven't had time to sit down and play these games since I started porting the converters. Given all the reasons above, I just decided to go with what I know works. It would be interesting though to see a list of games that work alright with zipped cache.

Yeah, USBHostFS is kind of a hassle for anything but development or testing (in my opinion). Like if you want to test if a emulator runs your library, but don't want to (or can't) transfer your entire library to the memory stick. Like I was talking about with the PC Engine library, each game is several hundred meg and with 20+ games, it would be a pain to transfer each game over to the memory stick just to see if it works. Or if you're trying to nail down a video compression scheme that works best. Things like that. It's also great for development because you can just keep on building your app on the hard disk without transfering it over to the memory stick each and every time. That gets old quick. I've got a 2GB as well, but 90% of the time I can get away with keeping a bunch of my music and a few games on there, so it's great to know that I can keep using new files on my PSP without having to temporarily delete files and then move them right back over to the memory card. 4GB is deffinitely getting affordable, but I can't wait to get an 8GB card!!! Coupled with the rumoured 8GB built-in memory on the next PSP and there won't ever be any concerns about free space(^o^)

I use the non-AdHoc versions. I'm really not likely to run into anyone else who, a) has a PSP, b) has a homebrew compatible PSP, c) has any of NJ's emulators, and d) just happens to have the same games I do. I love the fact that NJ put in the effort to make these AdHoc compatible, but it's really, really just a novelty for me. As for the official reason why there are seperate versions:

It's possible to play normally even with the AdHoc version. The reason I separated it from the regular version is because the speed of the AdHoc version is somewhat slower. If you do not plan on using AdHoc, I recommend that you use the regular version.