CKemu's Fantabulous Guide to the PS2 BIOS

[CKemu]

So you've dumped your BIOS, well first off - Congratulations!! Trust me, if you didn't you'll be missing out on quiet abit

 

You should have:

ROM0 - Main PS2 BIOS file [4.00 MB (4,194,304 bytes)]

ROM1 - Language / DVD Player Related [512 KB (524,288 bytes)]

ROM2 - Language Specific (Chinese Characters?) [512 KB (524,288 bytes)]

EROM - DVD Video Player [3.00 MB (3,145,728 bytes)]

 

The examples and information below is based off the Europe v01.90 [23-06-2003] Console BIOS. Thus some screens may vary.

 

Put these four files into the PCSX2 BIOS directory. Configure PCSX2 to use CDVDnull. Once this is done hit Run>Execute.

 

The BIOS will now boot, you will be presented with four screens.

 

 

At the fourth screen press . This will take you to a screen presenting you the option to choose your language:

 

 

Use or to scroll between languages. Use to confirm the language of your choice.

 

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[CKemu]

The next two screens will present you with similiar styled options, firstly to choose your time zone, scroll left to go to areas with a lower GMT+ (Paris / Lisbon etc) or right to go to areas with a higher GMT+ (Beijing / Sydney). Again confirm with . The second screen will let you choose between Daylight Savings Time or Winter Time, choose the appropriate one for you.

 

 

The next screen simply informs you that any of the settings you have just entered can be changed later:

 

 

Welcome to your freshly setup PS2 BIOS. You are now in the 'hub' of the BIOS, where you can reach all and any options:

 

 

Before we go too far, let us press . This takes you to the options menu. You can use triangle on the Playstation Driver and Console if you scroll up or down the list of information.

 

Under Playstation Driver you can change Disc Spead and Texture Mapping. This won't have any effect on PCSX2, but on a real console this would allow you to speed up disc read times thus shortening load times and allow you to make the pixelated PS1 textures get smoothed.

 

Under Console you can turn diagnosis on and off. I have never seen the physical effect of this, so no idea what it does yet

 

 

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[CKemu]

Okay, Leave all menus by pressing , until you reach the 'hub' (Browser / System Configuration are options available). Select browser with , you will be presented with two black icons, these are your emulated memory cards (8MB of storage).

 

Press , it will tell you that the memory card is unformated, and would you like to format it now? Press to select yes, and then press to confirm, the emulator will slow down dramatically, don't worry, this is now making your memory card read to be used. Once that is done, you will be told the format is complete, and then that the memory card has no data, if you press , to get back to the screen with two memory cards, you can do the same for the second memory card by selecting it and repeating the above, other wise press to get back to the 'hub'.

 

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[CKemu]

 

When at the 'hub' (Screen with Browser / System Configuration), press to select System Configuration. From here you can change the date, screen ratio, video input types, language etc. You can view the 'clock' by pressing .

 

Yes thats right, it's a clock:

Hours represented by Crystal Selected. (It's brighter than the others)

Minutes represented by how full the crystal is. (Higher the # of minutes, the emptier the crystal)

Seconds represented by angle that the clock faces you.

 

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[CKemu]

 

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Edited August 28, 2005 by CKemu

[CKemu]

Right then, thats the basics covered, lets move on to some more interesting stuff.

 

Over time as you play games, various things will happen, but ONLY if you use run>execute NOT File>runCD. Firstly a file called Your System Configuration will be written to your first memorycard (slot 1). This file stores various settings, from DVD Video player preferences, language, screen settings etc.

 

Interestingly enough, ever spotted those white cubes when you boot the console up with a memory card in, infact the BIOS intro is flooded with them? The number of cubes you get in the BIOS intro is based on what is stored in this memorycard file, though I do not know the specifics yet I do know everytime you boot a game, video or audio CD, the console writes the number of times you have played different games, and loaded different games into this file. The more you play and save, the more cubes you get, if you want to see this for yourself, you must only ever use run>execute otherwise PCSX2 will not write this data to the memorycard.

 

 

Ever put a non PS2, PS1, video or audio disc into a PS2, well if you do, you will be told to:

 

 

At the moment (refering to 0.8.1 and 0.9 beta) PCSX2 does not support DVD video in the BIOS, but if you DO NOT have the EROM / ROM1 / ROM2 files, you will be presented with the below screen, and until you have the files you won't be able to playback DVD Video through PCSX2. Now ain't you glad you dumped your own BIOS

 

 

Assuming that you play games with PCSX2 alot (if only it was fast enough eh? ), you will one day fill your memory card(s) up. W00t lots of pretty icons. If you press on any memory card icon (save), you can copy the save to the memory card in the other slot, or delete the save if you don't want it any more. Don't worry about filling your memory card up, there is no need to delete a save for space, just simply enter a new memcard name in the PCSX2 memcard options, boot the BIOS, and format it, voila, new memory card, and totally free, repeat until you either run out of HDD space, or go insane from playing that many games!

 

You can also press on any memcard save (from the main memcard browser screen) to get various details about the save, I have never seen file protection used, so anyone know more about that, and what games use it?

 

 

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[CKemu]

If you pop an audio disc into your PC's drive and boot PCSX2 (only 0.9 onwards) up (pointing a disc reading plugin like CDVD peops to the drive with the disc in), you will be initially presented with:

 

 

Lets press initially, this will take us to a screen with two memcard icons, and a disc icon, with the disc icon selected you can press , this will allow you to change the disc's playback, such as program / shuffle / normal. if you select program with you will be presented with a track listing (little coloured balls). If you press on any of them, you will turn the ball into a cube, only the ones turned into cube will be played, thus you have 'programmed' a playback list.

 

 

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[CKemu]

If you head back to the screen with two memcard icons and the disc icon with , and then select the disc icon, you will be presented with a list of tracks, show as cubes with a number above, press on any track you wish to play, this will present you with the following screen, the symbols are pretty obvious!

 

 

Well thats the basics covered, once DVD Video playback is working, and the PSOne side of the BIOS, I shall add to this guide, I also intend to add a tiny bit of help for those wishing to dump their BIOS. I hope this little bit of 'boredom / coffee' inspired info has proved usefull / interesting to you!

[Gryph]

Excellent. Certainly worthy of pinnage.

[Agozer]

Very nice CKEmu. Noobs will find this useful I'm sure. btw, are those screenshots taken with the GSdx9 or the GSsoft9 plugin? I'm asking because I get slight brightness/texture errors in the crystals (GSdx9 SSE2).

[CKemu]

Was taken with GSdx 0.9 SSE2 (not released yet) - D3D HW mode with Pixel Shaders 2.0.

 

Card used was my GeForce 5950u.