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new public beta firmware for SD2PSX with arcade MagicGate support!

El_isra

El_isra

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Before getting started: for those who don't know, SD2PSX is a device designed to emulate PS1 and PS2 memory cards.

It stores everything on an SDCard. The device and it's software are both fully open source! You can browse the firmware source code, or access the information to build the board and casing by yourself if you want! (Pst: some people sell pre built on ebay)
sd2psx.jpg


There are also some commercial alternatives, like bitfunx own version
Screenshot_20241223-103851.png


Note: I'm not getting any benefit on promoting/showing the bitfunx card here, I only show it because due to its design, it SHOULD fit perfectly on the namco system 256, while other models may not due to having thicker casing on the display area



To avoid legal issues, the firmware by itself doesn't work, user has to provide the MagicGate Challenge IV vector in the form of an 8byte file containing the vector (in binary form). There are tutorials and information on internet on how to do this already, since SD2PSX has been around for a few years by now.



For simplicity, when the device gets configured to use arcade MagicGate, the label on the display changes from "PS2 memory card" to "Security Dongle" and the path in Wich the VMCs are loaded changes to a dedicated location "MemoryCards/COH"



I will provide later on, some prebuilt Images for you to get access to wLaunchELF 4.43x_isr_coh. a custom PS2 file browser that has been modified to work on arcade PS2s


https://github.com/sd2psXtd/firmware/releases/tag/1.0.0-b10

NEW: Dongle Rebinder script! A windows batch file that will automatically extract the boot.bin of your VMCs files, bind them to SD2PSX/MemCardPro2 with a pre-bound donor file, then put them back into the VMC.
https://github.com/israpps/israpps/raw/refs/heads/main/dongle_rebind.7z
 
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Fantastic. So, practically this does what the SYS2X6 USB Dongle does without having to connect to a PC to update the image?
 
djsheep said:
Fantastic. So, practically this does what the SYS2X6 USB Dongle does without having to connect to a PC to update the image?
Click to expand...
Sort of, yeah!

Basically, one device, and you can handle all your card needs on all PS2 models on existence.

It has other advantages, for example. You can share images with others and the boot.bin will still work because the card ID is fixed on the firmware, so the boot.bin encryption on kbit and KC fields won't change
 
Are there any downsides to the Bitfunx version of the product as opposed to other makes?
 
djsheep said:
Are there any downsides to the Bitfunx version of the product as opposed to other makes?
Click to expand...
We don't know yet, since the product is not being shipped yet it seems.

However, bbsan2k (one of the devs that worked with me on this firmware) got a prototype before bitfunx published it on AliExpress and it seems to be good, so far there are no reasons to believe it will have any downside, beyond some aesthetic details, like having the product name printed on the casing.
 
For the multidongle setup, I will make the following

The SD2PSX has a mechanism known as BootCard, Wich mounts a special VMC when starting up (pressing any button mounts the last used card)

So what I'll do is setup the BootCard to boot into a program with some nice UI where user will be able to choose the arcade game from a list, sorted alphabetically and separated into two categories (246 or 256)

(Program will ideally throw a warning if running 256 games on 246 unit)

When user selects a game, program will order the SD2PSX to switch into the VMC linked to that game, and as soon as card is available, execute the boot.bin

This sounds good to you guys? The program will be built on top of Enceladus, allowing customization via Lua Scripting
Feedback will be appreciated
 
Guys, for the game ID feature...

What would you prefer to see used as game ID? The actual game ID or the dongle label?

example: I own Mobile Suit Z Gundam: AEUG vs. Titans
game ID:
Code: 
NM00013
dongle label:
Code: 
ZGA1, Ver.A

The SD2PSX will display the title and game ID, game ID will also be used as the VMC filename
 
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I don't know the number of characters
It would be nice if both could be displayed.

N13 ZGA1, Ver.A
 
It's convenient to have an NM number, but it's no problem if you don't have one.
 
El_isra said:
For the multidongle setup, I will make the following

The SD2PSX has a mechanism known as BootCard, Wich mounts a special VMC when starting up (pressing any button mounts the last used card)

So what I'll do is setup the BootCard to boot into a program with some nice UI where user will be able to choose the arcade game from a list, sorted alphabetically and separated into two categories (246 or 256)

(Program will ideally throw a warning if running 256 games on 246 unit)

When user selects a game, program will order the SD2PSX to switch into the VMC linked to that game, and as soon as card is available, execute the boot.bin

This sounds good to you guys? The program will be built on top of Enceladus, allowing customization via Lua Scripting
Feedback will be appreciated
Click to expand...

That sounds amazing! I was already using a SD2PSX with the COH keys, but it is really annoying not seeing the game ID, so I kept going back to using a SYS2X6 and/or backup COH cards written with my utility. Using the boot VMC for a menu is genius, great idea!

I haven't had much time over the last year to mess with the System 246/256 again, but I'm curious: does your SD2PSX card fit all the way into the card slot? On both my systems it doesn't, so it's barely making contact (it hits the "bump" in the case for the display...). I got a dozen of them made at PCBWay a few months ago, started experimenting with them and.... work/life came crashing by.
 
doccaz said:
That sounds amazing! I was already using a SD2PSX with the COH keys, but it is really annoying not seeing the game ID, so I kept going back to using a SYS2X6 and/or backup COH cards written with my utility. Using the boot VMC for a menu is genius, great idea!

I haven't had much time over the last year to mess with the System 246/256 again, but I'm curious: does your SD2PSX card fit all the way into the card slot? On both my systems it doesn't, so it's barely making contact (it hits the "bump" in the case for the display...). I got a dozen of them made at PCBWay a few months ago, started experimenting with them and.... work/life came crashing by.
Click to expand...
Let me guess, you have system 256...

That's a known problem because those systems recycle the PSX memory card slot, but the slots are a little bit deeper on the casing than on the PSX. The bitfunx version of SD2PSX should fit perfectly on the 256. On the 246 this is not an issue bc it uses the PS2 FAT card ports
 
raidenmaniac1 said:
Can you install FreeMcBoot or FreePSXboot on this memory card too?
Click to expand...
Yes, although none of them will work on COH-H models

FreeMcBoot patches the OSDSYS menú, but arcade OSDSYS has no menú, so it's incompatible...

I have already made in the past an arcade version of PS2BBL, that will probably serve as a better bootloader, or, who knows... Maybe it's better just to use arcade wLaunchELF
 
KELF encryption seems to be working!!!

Everything seems to be ready for release. Will test out some stuff and prepare the release, the following software will be included in this release
  • wLaunchELF 4.43x_isr_coh (file browser for arcade)
  • wLaunchELF 4.43x_isr_mechaemu (browse dongles on retail PS2)
  • DongleBinder (bind an arcade KELF to the dongle, to be used as boot.bin (currently: only from retail PS2))
As well as
  • Instructions on how to use kelftool appropriately to convert an ELF into arcade KELF
  • Something more...
 
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