How to use that DVD-ROM drive in homebrew?

[zaphod]

I've been poking around, and it seems the key is to present your disc as a format that the ps2 will read without performing the game check.

FOr CDR media, the fromat the ps2 can read is redbook audio. Therefore a csustom library that reads audio tracks and converts to data will allow homebrew stuff to access the CD. This is apparently what UMCDR and CDX are.

Incidentally, back in the day, before the gameshark and action replay were on black discs, there were upgrade discs that could load new codes onto your gameshark.these were audio CDs, with the new codes stored in the sdata! Apparently, Datel has been using this trick in the PSX days! I do not know this to be a fact, but anyone who has one of those update CDs should be able to confirm.

Now clearly, this technique won't work with DVD media. owever, there si an answer, I suspect. The PS2 wil read DVD-VIDEO discs. It will even rea dthem off of writable media, and will read them even if they have no region encoding or CSS.

So, here's my theory. Stoer your homebrew data inside an unreferenced .VOB file! write a library that will parse said VOB file(s) and read the embedded homebrew stuff from them. In fact why not make that .VOB file an ISO itself!

If anyone knows why this won't work, please do post. I think it's an excellent idea.

[blackdroid]

why would this be an excellent idea ? you still need some code on the ps2 to parse it, so the normal chicken and egg problem occurs, or is this a drive for ppl to buy more max ar ?

im sorry but it just feels like another shoddy attempt to run stuff, while naplink and ps2link has been around for quite some time now and frankly I dont see anything beating those solutions, apart from speed.

[hcs]

I think the point is to make a large amount of data available... though for what reason I won't guess.

[blackdroid]

hdd is the perfect rw media for that cause.

[zaphod]

Sure, for people with an unnoficiall and large hard drive, it's better to gt code onto it, but for those who don't have this huge drive and the space to spare, it makes sense for read only data and code to be stored on a read only medium, to free up space for writing.

We can blame Magicgate for the whole chicken/egg problem, as that prevents people from making their own Dex Drive for ps2 cards. Sure USB devices can be used to transfer data, but you need to get drivers onto the ps2 and running, and that always requires a mod chip, a swap trick, or a pressed disc. MAX Drive/Sharkport/Xport are the current best solutions for getting mcexploit data across.

My simple thought is that someone will someday make a homebrew game larger than 650 megs. This new DVD format would allow distribution of this homebrew game. And eventually there's gonna be some task that network loading is too slow for..

[Drakonite]

Ugh... Hasn't this topic been beaten to death enough yet?

Right now there is no reason for being able to read dvds, it just doesn't make any sense at all to worry about it.

My simple thought is that someone will someday make a homebrew game larger than 650 megs. This new DVD format would allow distribution of this homebrew game. And eventually there's gonna be some task that network loading is too slow for..

Lets see some homebrew games larger than 650KB first.

Seriously, I very much doubt we'll ever see homebrew games that break CD capacity, especially to the point we'd want it on a dvd. Worst that will happen, someone will make a game or such, and have an overactive artist who creates far too much uncompressed media, and in that case there is always the ability to do 2 cd sets.

[ooPo]

Why not build the game first, then worry about DVD support?

Yes, it is possible and yes it can be done. Your research is now out of the way. Congrats!