{"id":55893,"date":"2023-08-14T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T04:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=55893"},"modified":"2023-09-27T18:52:24","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T22:52:24","slug":"an-experiment-in-retrogaming-coming-to-terms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=55893","title":{"rendered":"An Experiment in Retrogaming: Coming To Terms"},"content":{"rendered":"

A big part of my “experiment” in retrogaming has been purely technical: just to see what I could do; even see what I could get away with. But that goal was meant to serve the idea of simplicity and aesthetics. Ideally, I would be able to play everything, up to a reasonable point, on one system. When that proved impossible, you add a system. And moving on, you only add complexity if absolutely necessary. I didn’t want to just set up an emulation PC, either. While that could, arguably, reduce the number of systems needed, it adds in a level of difficulty in control and integration that a console doesn’t have. That is, a PC isn’t really designed for simple, straightforward control on a TV; consoles are. And yes, there are MANY caveats, and many arguments to be made for how to mitigate this, and many opinions that are going to differ about how much of a problem, or even whether it *IS* a problem…but please accept that for me, this is not the solution I’m looking for.<\/p>\n

Another major component of the experiment is to get away from my computer. I have spent a significant portion of my life in front of a computer screen, and I’m trying to find ways to reduce that time. Certainly you could argue that moving away from the computer screen to sit in front of a television screen isn’t much of an improvement, but I have learned that the key element to breaking any behavior-related addiction, or even just a behavior that is negatively affecting your life, is to change your routine.

Now, having re-asserted that any problems we face running emulation, or even generally gaming, on consoles must be faced and overcome, and not resolved by reverting to PC gaming, let’s address some of the problems I’ve run into.<\/p>\n

The PlayStation 3 is a truly amazing console, frustratingly hampered only by the fact that it almost, but not quite, natively plays PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation 3 discs; and disc images of varying sorts for all three systems plus the PSP. That’s NATIVELY, although of course you can only play legitimately sourced games…not backups or rented installs, or…you get the idea.<\/p>\n

On top of that, it can do things like; well, like I’m doing right now. Sitting at my computer, writing this article, while copying PS3 game install folders (commonly referred to as “JB format” or “folder format” games) to a different external hard drive, while using my PSP 3000 to remotely control my PS3 and delete install data because I hit a brick wall on how I want to store and organize all my games, and now I have to uninstall the 39 installed PS3 games, both the installed data and the disc images\/folder structures, to make room on the internal hard drive because SOME games can be played off of external drives but some can only play on the internal drive.
\u00a0

<\/div>
<\/div>
\u00a0
<deep breaths>
That is to say, PS3 and PS1 games can be played from an external hard drive. PS2 games can only be played from the internal hard drive.<\/p>\n

\u00a0

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

Don’t be an idiot. Of course it’s not that easy. The PS3 internal drive uses a bit of custom encryption and formatting, while requiring external USB drives to be formatted in FAT32. FAT32 has a 4 gigabyte file size limit (not exact, more or less), which can cause problems with many PS3 installs. There are a few that would fit on a FAT32-formatted drive, I’m told. A few. Probably not any of the ones I want to play.<\/p>\n

The good news is that if you are running a hacked system, and you should be if you’re even trying any of this stuff, otherwise nothing I’ve said so far is going to be working for you, your external drives can be formatted NTFS. So, theoretically, my massive collection of PS2 discs can actually fit on my PS3’s 1TB internal hard drive. Probably all the PS1 discs, too…the whole collection is maybe 12 gigabytes. That just leaves the PS3 installs.<\/p>\n

Now, I don’t have a spare 2 terabyte external drive laying around, but that’s a problem that can be solved eventually. The second biggest problem with PS3 installs is that very few PS3 games just play from the blu-ray disc. The amount of content installed to the internal hard drive varies from title to title, but here’s the situation you can find yourself in: you have, let’s say, a 12GB game on a disc. Probably a Final Fantasy game. I’m not keeping the disc available; I want the disc image kept on the hard drive. So that’s 12GB on the drive permanently. Then the game installs almost all of that information to the same hard drive. Add in save data, DLC, and updates, that 12 gigabyte game is now taking up 25 gigabytes of space. Get four games that do that, you’ve filled up 100 gigabytes of the 800 gigabytes available on that 1 terabyte drive you put in. Which is how I wound up filling up 2\/3 of the drive with 39 game installs.<\/p>\n

I can split the data across two drives by moving PS3 disc images to an external hard drive. Additionally, the two launchers I primarily use on the PS3, MultiMAN and ManaGunZ, both let you install the game’s data to the external hard drive instead of the internal, which will keep that 1 terabyte internal drive clear for systems that need it. Maybe by the end of this article I will have had a chance to try this. I am currently in the process of cleaning off the internal hard drive, so I can move all my PS2 games back onto it, from the external drive I had them on. Then I can move my PS3 games onto the external drive, and see if what I have read is true. I hope so; otherwise title management is going to be a hassle. And that’s exactly what I don’t want in this process.<\/p>\n

By the way, if you intend to work with your PS3 and haven’t ever tried using Remote Play with your PSP, I highly recommend it. You can even boot into homebrew apps and file managers while in Remote Play; that’s how I was controlling my PS3 directly to clean off the hard drive. Beats the constant resets and slow speed of FTP. The range is excellent, topping out at about 3 feet short of where I sit in my office from where my PS3 is.<\/p>\n

\u00a0

<\/div>
<\/div>
\u00a0
Speaking of the PSP, you may recall my mentioning that PSP emulation is a bit spotty. To that end, considering one of my must-play games is a PSP title that doesn’t work in emulation, I have started working on getting my PSP setup to play on the TV. No big deal, really; it has a TV-out breakout connection. I was wrong in mentioning it has a mini-HDMI connection; it is in fact a proprietary breakout cable. But I have one of those ordered; it was only $12. More concerning is that the PSP 3000 doesn’t support hooking up an external controller. It doesn’t have Bluetooth, a feature supported by later models. And despite having a USB connection, it has no USB host controller. This means that it can take a charge while plugged in, and it can give you access to the memory card slot, like when you hook up a camera or a phone.<\/p>\n

There are three solutions to this: I can buy a PSP Go, which has Bluetooth but loses the mini-disc drive; which will relegate me to playing ONLY ISO images. BTW, the PSP 3000 plays ISO images natively, although it has to be hacked to play anything you didn’t buy through the PlayStation Store, like disc backups. Bizarrely, the PSP is the best platform to play PSP games of all kinds. Anyway. The second solution is a Sony-made PSP charging cradle which had a TV-out connection and a USB slot for a wired controller. Sony made two different models: one for the PSP 1000\/2000; and one for the 3000. Made. They are now rare and expensive. Additionally, neither supports component-out, only composite-out. So you won’t get the best picture you can out of your PSP, and if you haven’t seen PSP games in HD on a TV, you might be surprised. The third option is an import DualShock3-copy, I believe from China, that has a little adapter that plugs into the PSP’s USB slot. Inside that adapter is a USB host controller, and included in the box is a mini-disc with a driver for the host controller. Reviews of this controller are generally acceptable\/good\/not great. Not sure which direction I’m going to go with this one. Probably the PSP Go is the best bet, but I don’t have one and I’m not really in the position to buy one. Anybody got a spare? I’ll swap you, even. I’ve got two PSP 3000’s.
\u00a0

<\/div>
<\/div>
\u00a0
Things continue to work well with the WiiU. Some people have expressed interest in the process of installing custom firmware on their WiiU’s. There are a few people on YouTube who specialize in creating updated guides for homebrewing\/jailbreaking consoles; you definitely want to look for videos that are as recent as possible. The way WiiU’s were required to be updated the first time I tried it is very different from the current procedure…the videos you’re looking for will definitely be 2023 productions (this is August 2023, if you’re reading in the future, and probably all this is useless.) I can recommend using an external, powered hard drive to install games and other apps to, especially if you intend to install a large collection of GameCube, Wii, or WiiU games. Heck, DS games don’t take up a lot of room, but Nintendo made a few bajillion titles for that system; so even just DS games would fill up a USB stick pretty quick. I made a mistake here by doing my WiiU before I did my PS3. I grabbed my only spare 1 terabyte external drive for the WiiU, and honestly I doubt I’ll ever even fill up half of it. Which left me with a 500GB external drive for the PS3, and I’ve already detailed how I’m running out of space. Shoulda done it the other way around.<\/p>\n

There are two must-have software tools that will come into play after your WiiU is updated: UWUVCI AIO and USB Helper. UWU is a piece of software that can replicate the “injection” process I talked about last week. Specifically, you select a game image that works as a “wrapped title,” one that Nintendo supported (and that you own, silly) and then select a game that maybe Nintendo didn’t get around to supporting in digital downloads (but that you own), and then the software “injects” the unsupported game into the “wrapper” for the supported game. Neat, huh? This works moderately to really well for most unsupported games; my own experience has been that results are highly conditional. I’ve been able to inject and run games that the “official” list of supported titles says *don’t* work, but take that as purely anecdotal. That “official” list of compatibility, I have discovered, isn’t necessarily accurate even in things that should be well-documented. The list includes “base images” that are compatible for each game, and frequently I found references to games that either I couldn’t get or that didn’t work even if I could (the process is mostly documented in the software.) Again, take this anecdotally.<\/p>\n

USB Helper is something you only need if you intend to play WiiU images. It used to support 3DS games, too; but Nintendo shut down the online access needed to make it work. USB Helper is not the most intuitive program, and is a bit daunting when you first open it, but there *ARE* guides available…you’ll just have to do a bit of intuiting because the people making the guides, at least every one I found, stumble around a bit and tend to skip over things that frequently need a bit of explanation. Again, only needed if you intend to play a WiiU title. All Wii, DS, and prior titles can be handled by UWU.<\/p>\n

However, it should be noted that, at least for me, I chose not to “inject” 8- and 16-bit games. I just kept those roms on my SD card (the WiiU has an SD Card slot, it’s fundamental to all this) and play them through the emulators. Only the emulators are linked as programs in my WiiU menu.<\/p>\n

<\/div>
<\/div><\/p>\n

The bottom line is that honestly, I haven’t been able to eliminate all the systems I wanted to. Being able to play the games well is still more important to me than eliminating a system. I have two cables being shipped; one for the PSP and one for the Sega Saturn (finally cancelled the one I ordered, as I was coming up on the end of the return period and the tracking information still showed it was in transit, or that it hadn’t actually shipped.) Both of these systems are open to changes in the future…a better connection method for the Saturn and maybe swapping out the PSP 3000 for a PSP Go, if I can get one.<\/p>\n

I am also going to have to look into Xbox gaming beyond the 360, at some point. I’m excited about the possibilities, mainly because I love being able to figure out how to squeeze it into a budget, using older used systems. The Xbox One may be a good way to start, but at that point you’re talking about not much of a difference between start with a late-version Xbox One or just getting a Series S. It will warrant further discussion.<\/p>\n

Also, as the picture above denotes, I got my Avermedia Game Capture HD II out of the closet and set up, so I should be able to start posting videos soon.<\/p>\n

Sorry for the short one this week, guys. I’ve been working on getting re-enrolled in college for the next few semesters to pick up some Medical Coding and Information Management certificates, and my financial information for FAFSA is out-of-date and giving me some trouble. Also, the air conditioner has broken twice, the second time while I was finishing this post. Add to that all the file moving and downloading I’ve done figuring out the best way to run a jailbroken PS3, and I’m beat.<\/p>\n

See you next week!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A big part of my “experiment” in retrogaming has been purely technical: just to see what I could do; even see what I could get away with. But that goal was meant to serve the idea of simplicity and aesthetics. Ideally, I would be able to play everything, up to a reasonable point, on one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paige-writes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55893"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55922,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55893\/revisions\/55922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}