PSO I&II Plus and Swiss Black Screen

[Revolt]

Hi everyone,

For days I'm trying to load up the Plus version of Swiss on my GameCube. I tried different options, but nothing helps.

My setup:

- GameCube DOL001
- Xeno GC 2.0
- newest Swiss 0.4 on disc
- SD adapter with a 128GB SanDisk SD Card
- Phantasy Star Online Episode I&II Plus ISO

The ISO works on my Cube as long as I use it as a backup disk. However I did all my work to load games from my SD Card, killing the idea of swapping discs around.
There is no real info anywhere and the compatibility list on the swiss wiki is only confusing when it comes to PSO Plus. I'm using Plus since it has offline quests and I got a few characters on it that are unable to downgrade to the previews version (and I won't give that up since it's the number one purpose I did all that to my cube)

I'm really new to all of this, but I read my fair share of stuff. Other games load fine, just not the Plus version. Every time it loads into a black screen - even when I use Swiss as a swap disc and load the game from the disc itself. It patches 7 files and I think that is the problem. Swiss thinks it's PSO I&II and forgets the "Plus" on it. But I can't stop it from patching either. Can someone help?
I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with this problem.

[Aleron Ives]

A player on Sylverant reported the same problem. He could play nonPlus via SD card, but Plus only worked with a disc. He never found a solution, AFAIK.

Keep in mind that you can download The East Tower, The West Tower, Seat of the Heart, and Central Dome Fire Swirl to your memory card, so Plus isn't important anymore in that regard. There is no such thing as a Plus character: you can load the same characters on Plus and nonPlus as you please.

[Revolt]

Are you sure? Because you can upgrade your character from the normal version to the Plus version, but loose all of your items. At least as long as you use the NTSC/U version of the game. I don't understand why the game won't load at all - the swiss wiki should be updated or a fix should be made. :/

I really put all of my cards onto this. I restored my cube, got an SDGecko, bought mini DVD-Rs, bought the GCHD for HDMI, a new controller, and traveled half of my country to get the BBA. I'm really serious about that game :/

[Andross89]

...It patches 7 files and I think that is the problem...

I suspect that this game has multiple DOLs or uses ELF in its structure. Unfortunately, Swiss does not work with these specific games. You can try to "simplify" ISO as I do with THQ games. But the possibility is small. There is a possibility that Swiss is confusing normal files with executables. I only encountered this problem with a Capcom game.

Or the game just does not support this type of loading ... Try Swiss version 0.3. I hope I have been helpful.

[Revolt]

Just tested the non-Plus version. It's the same, Swiss patches some stuff, then boots the game into a black screen :/

@Andross89 - yes it seems to have a few DOLs. I can even start one that's shooting me into the network setup, but that is all. I can't do anything besides that :/

[Andross89]

Just tested the non-Plus version. It's the same, Swiss patches some stuff, then boots the game into a black screen :/

@Andross89 - yes it seems to have a few DOLs. I can even start one that's shooting me into the network setup, but that is all. I can't do anything besides that :/

Thank God most games do not work that way. But try the Swiss version 0.3. I also have some games that I hope will work. But Swiss compatibility is very good. Very good indeed.

[Revolt]

Just tested the non-Plus version. It's the same, Swiss patches some stuff, then boots the game into a black screen :/

@Andross89 - yes it seems to have a few DOLs. I can even start one that's shooting me into the network setup, but that is all. I can't do anything besides that :/

Thank God most games do not work that way. But try the Swiss version 0.3. I also have some games that I hope will work. But Swiss compatibility is very good. Very good indeed.

I will try the 0.3 version later today.

But if it has something to do with the way Swiss works... shouldn't it be possible to use exceptions in the compatibility list of Swiss?
For example: Game X has more DOLs. Since a list excists, the developer (who is on this board if I remember correctly...?) could use exceptions for loading games. Maybe it takes a second longer to load up but at least the game would boot. The way (should 0.3 work) is a bit of a hassle since it needs to switch discs too.

I still don't get a couple of things... not related to PSO itself but in general. Why so many DOLs? DOLs are like .app or .exe for the cube? Why is there an audio streaming problem and why on earth isn't there any solution to use the Serial Port 2 for HDD support? lol

I've waited months to write this, since no one really cares anymore about the Cube. Everyone tells people who like to know that stuff to use either Dolphin, the Wii or Wii U with vWii support and homebrew channel.
The problem is, the Cube has the best display output. And even that is not really shown around. It's not like the Cube has better colors or a slightly better image, the Cube has the only image without any chromatic aberration in it, or color shift. The Wii outputs a blurry picture, the WIi U a blurry and color shifted picture. Dolphin on my android device runs but had a ton of problems too. This is why I wanted to use the Cube, and also get back online after all those years (it took me enough time to even find out about Swiss - some guy on GitHub told me that "an old app called swiss used to support modem emulation on the Wii" (after I asked if Nintendon't would support modem emulation in the future)

I even learned again how to solder a ModChip and use the POT solution. Well, now I got everything. Just not the thing I want most. I would actually pay for that update if there is no other way around. :/

[Andross89]

I will try the 0.3 version later today.

But if it has something to do with the way Swiss works... shouldn't it be possible to use exceptions in the compatibility list of Swiss?
For example: Game X has more DOLs. Since a list excists, the developer (who is on this board if I remember correctly...?) could use exceptions for loading games. Maybe it takes a second longer to load up but at least the game would boot. The way (should 0.3 work) is a bit of a hassle since it needs to switch discs too.

I still don't get a couple of things... not related to PSO itself but in general. Why so many DOLs? DOLs are like .app or .exe for the cube? Why is there an audio streaming problem and why on earth isn't there any solution to use the Serial Port 2 for HDD support? lol

I've waited months to write this, since no one really cares anymore about the Cube. Everyone tells people who like to know that stuff to use either Dolphin, the Wii or Wii U with vWii support and homebrew channel.
The problem is, the Cube has the best display output. And even that is not really shown around. It's not like the Cube has better colors or a slightly better image, the Cube has the only image without any chromatic aberration in it, or color shift. The Wii outputs a blurry picture, the WIi U a blurry and color shifted picture. Dolphin on my android device runs but had a ton of problems too. This is why I wanted to use the Cube, and also get back online after all those years (it took me enough time to even find out about Swiss - some guy on GitHub told me that "an old app called swiss used to support modem emulation on the Wii" (after I asked if Nintendon't would support modem emulation in the future)

I even learned again how to solder a ModChip and use the POT solution. Well, now I got everything. Just not the thing I want most. I would actually pay for that update if there is no other way around. :/

I may be completely wrong:

DOL is the executable. ELF would be more complex than DOL. You can simplify the ELF in DOL. I did it with Frontline. I think using this kind of structure is done because the size of START.DOL would be too large. It should be easier to do this than to modify the entire game. I do not remember a game made for the GameCube that uses this system of executables. Excluding games like Collector's Edition.

I think the REL that Capcom uses would be a good solution. Magaman X Collection should have multiple DOLs. But it does not and it works perfectly. And there must be other ways. But I just play.

Audio Stream is a separate work and there is a limitation on the memory card access speed.

HDD on serial port 2 should be the biggest of the problems here.

[Revolt]

The biggest problem?

Since I've seen what the mod community does to the dreamcast, I was wondering why they skipped the part with the serial port 2 on the GameCube entirely. As far as I understand it's the fastest port on the console since it was used for developers with the SN Systems Ltd. adapter. Booting the "Main DOL" of PSO did nothing by the way, just so you know if there could be a solution to this

[Andross89]

The biggest problem?

Since I've seen what the mod community does to the dreamcast, I was wondering why they skipped the part with the serial port 2 on the GameCube entirely. As far as I understand it's the fastest port on the console since it was used for developers with the SN Systems Ltd. adapter. Booting the "Main DOL" of PSO did nothing by the way, just so you know if there could be a solution to this

I said the biggest problem as being the last to be put into practice. The problem of multiple DOLs and Audio Stream are progressing. The Star Fox Adventures audio stream now works. I do not see any interest in the serial port. But I do not research about it.

I'll see how this ISO works.

[Extrems]

I was wondering why they skipped the part with the serial port 2 on the GameCube entirely. As far as I understand it's the fastest port on the console

Wrong, it's the same as Serial Port 1 and the Memory Card Slots: 27 MHz SPI. The fastest is the Hi Speed Port: 81 MHz SDR SDRAM.

[Andross89]

I extracted the plus version, found the "true" DOL and simplified the ISO. I was able to start the game correctly and went through the selection of characters in Dolphin. Unfortunately, it is not possible to start with Swiss. You will need to wait for future updates or someone with more experience than I.

[Aleron Ives]

you can upgrade your character from the normal version to the Plus version, but loose all of your items. At least as long as you use the NTSC/U version of the game.

US+ does not delete your items. JP 1.03 and JP+ delete your items, but only if you try to load a character created with JP 1.02. Once you convert your character to JP 1.03 format (or create the character on 1.03 to begin with), you can play 1.03 or Plus with the same character as much as you like. In the US, 1.00, 1.01, and Plus saves are all the same, and you are never asked to delete your items.

You aren't going to get very far if Swiss doesn't support games with multiple DOLs, as you have to boot into the network program to configure your network settings at least once.

[GreyRogue]

I haven't dug specifically into what Swiss is doing with these games, but I did add support to Nintendont for these games. If I remember correctly, the issue is that these games use the 0x80001800-0x80002FFF range to decompress the prs file which is the compressed executable used. This is the same range most homebrew loaders (Nintendont, Swiss, etc.) use for patching and running the games. To get around this, I had to move the decompression memory somewhere else, and then had to make sure it was patched correctly (you only want to apply patches to executables (dol,tgc,rel), not resources) after it was decompressed. I think FIX94 later changed the way this works, and just decompressed the prs file rather than using the game decompression code, but as long as it gets decompressed and patched, it should work.

[Aleron Ives]

The game's main executable is not compressed, but the address range you mentioned jogged my memory to check my notes. Ralf mentioned in the past that PSO Plus (and Episode III and the Pokemon games) memset 0x80001800 - 0x80002FFF as part of the extra cheating protections they have, since that's the area the AR and Gekko codehandlers use. If Swiss uses this memory region, then that explains why it won't boot Plus.

[novenary]

Swiss has a patch for the Pokemon games, it might be useful to try that out.
I don't think doing what Nintendont is doing would work well for Swiss, if it does what I think it does, then it uses MEM2 to store the decompressed binaries. Unless there is enough ARAM to spare for that purpose.

[emu_kidid]

Try 0.4 r451 & report issues here: https://github.com/emukidid/swiss-gc/issues/200

You'll need to select "PSOv3" when prompted after all the files are patched. I tested it via SD Gecko.

[Aleron Ives]

Sorry to bump an old thread, but did you test going online with the updated version? Somebody is trying to go online with PSO Plus using the SD card, but he says it freezes on the loading screen, whereas playing from a disc works fine.

[emu_kidid]

I didn't, it's possibly related to the way I patch the game when running from SD

[Aleron Ives]

I think he was going to open a trouble ticket on GitHub, but I can point him here if you want to look at it and have him test it for you.

[AdolfNixon]

I opened up a ticket on Github, but Aleron suggested I cover my bases and post here as well. I can try and help with teating if needed.

[clarkdv]

I patched my ISO with the widescreen jack to psov3.dol and the game still won’t boot. How do you “select psov3” as the .dol to boot? Or what do I have to patch to make this game boot on Swiss? Is there any progress for getting this game to boot?

[Aleron Ives]

It already boots; you just can't go online.

[clarkdv]

It already boots; you just can't go online.

I can’t get it to boot. I tried rebuilding it with a patched PSOv3.dol in the ISO or just running the dol or the original iso. I can’t get it. what do I need to do?