PSone Silver Bottom Games

[Zing]

Maybe it's both. I just know that Tomba did not work on my model 5000x PS2 (the last revision of the fat PS2). It would lock up when attempting to load a game, as expected.

[jesseashby27]

Does anyone have a clue about this CD? Not Bootleg, i don't have a clue about why this disc was printed this way?

[PapaStu]

Does anyone have a clue about this CD? Not Bootleg, i don't have a clue about why this disc was printed this way?

Is a bootleg. Look at the 'PlayStation' logo. It's a 'Players' logo, that has been ripped from the Indiana Pacers team logo. I've seen many of those boots before. Philippines or Hong Kong Silvers that be.

[jesseashby27]

why does it have 2Xtreme written in the center ring. looks to be done by a laser. also it plays in a ps1 without disc swap

[PapaStu]

Because it's a Hong Kong silver. It's a ripped game, that is basically a 1 for 1 copy of a real game.

It has 2Xtreme written in the center ring because thats what they do with this kind of bootleg. The discs are pressed, decent grade covers are slapped on the discs and they're sold in open air markets & shops.

Back in the PS heyday, I had a friend who went back to the Philippines to visit family. He came back with a TON of games, all had that Players logo on them, and they all cost him 1 buck apiece. They all looked semi real, and all played fine. This is just one of those games.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Whoa, wait - you mean those HK Silver games work on unmodded systems?

[jesseashby27]

thanks for the info. I was clueless and couldn't find this info anywhere else!

[PapaStu]

Whoa, wait - you mean those HK Silver games work on unmodded systems?

Normally they don't, but lord knows what they did to the code to make it potentially work on an unmodded system. The 'Players' games that I personally experienced, were all played on a modded system at the time, so I don't know if they'd have actually worked on a real system too.

[Gameguy]

I have a factory pressed bootleg of Suikoden II, I think it was a "Players" version as that logo looks familiar. I'll hook up a system and see if it plays on an un-modded system. It was just the disc in a loose system at a thrift store, I got it because I thought it meant that the system was modded(it was as it plays CD-Rs).

[Xtincthed]

Normally they don't, but lord knows what they did to the code to make it potentially work on an unmodded system. The 'Players' games that I personally experienced, were all played on a modded system at the time, so I don't know if they'd have actually worked on a real system too.

well I know that PS2 games get "recognised" by the system because they have bad sectors at the start (don't know the exact technical term)
these bad sectors can only be made with professional equipment, thats why you can't copy a PS2 game with your normal dvd burner

however if these bootlegs were professionally pressed, maybe they also had the gear to make those bad sectors on the disc, which makes them play on a normal system

[kedawa]

There's no way to burn those sectors to a disc, but any press can do it. The trick is creating the master.

[Gameguy]

I got around to testing my copy of Suikoden II on a non-modded system, it is a "Players" version and it doesn't boot up. With a CD-R game the system seems to start into the CD-Player, and with this pressed bootleg it displays a message saying "Please insert Playstation CD-ROM". I tested it on a model SCPH-1001, the earliest model available in North America.

So there you have it, the system needs to be modded for those "Players" games to work. And my disk does have Suikoden II printed on the centre ring like the copy of 2Xtreme that PapaStu described.

[Xtincthed]

I got around to testing my copy of Suikoden II on a non-modded system, it is a "Players" version and it doesn't boot up. With a CD-R game the system seems to start into the CD-Player, and with this pressed bootleg it displays a message saying "Please insert Playstation CD-ROM". I tested it on a model SCPH-1001, the earliest model available in North America.

So there you have it, the system needs to be modded for those "Players" games to work. And my disk does have Suikoden II printed on the centre ring like the copy of 2Xtreme that PapaStu described.

that proves your disc doesn't have those bad sectors
but i wonder if there ever were bootlegs pressed that did have this

[Gameguy]

that proves your disc doesn't have those bad sectors
but i wonder if there ever were bootlegs pressed that did have this

It's possible but I've never heard of any pirates that did this. Datel did it successfully with their Gameshark, those worked on unmodded systems.


From what I've found it is actually possible to make a CD-R with those sectors intact, though it takes a bit of work. This guy says he got it to work but it could be made up. Other sources say that the code is a part of the tracking pattern which is added during manufacturing and can't be written using a CD-R burner. I really can't confirm either way, I'm just going by the info I can find online.

http://baetzler.de/vidgames/psx_cd_faq.html

Anti-Copy Protection
The PSX compact disc copy protection is based upon the premise that most (if not all) CDRs and pressing stations pre-mastering processes will automatically regenrate a 'corrupt' sectors EDC/ECC code.
Sectors 12 through 15 contain a zeroised EDC/ECC checksum (impossible) so if the PSX reads and doesn't see an invalid EDC/ECC then it knows that the CD in the drive is a copy. (The EDC is simply a CRC type hash that is used as a checksum to determine if the sector was read correctly. The ECC is used to recreate the sectors data).

The entire range of sectors are written in a RAW format (2352 bytes) and are completely zeroed, even the XA sub-header and EDC/ECC are zeroed. When it is copied on a CDR, these sectors are exact, except for the EDC/ECC code which is (correctly) written as 0x3F13B0BC.

Note: The PSX compact discs have a black-polymer coating. This is not really an anti-copy protection mechanism. The black (actually, very dark blue) colour that is added to the polymer that covers the underside of the disc does very little to change the refraction of the light from the reading mechanism. It is really more of a visual aid in easily determining if a compact disc is pirated.

How to copy the disc with protection intact
The only way to succesfully duplicate this protection system is to obtain a modified set of firmware for your CDR unit that will either:

1. Allow you to write in either disc-at-once or track-at-once mode and not automatically 'correct' what it thinks to be corrupt sectors with invalid EDC/ECC codes.

2. Allow you to write the first track in RAW mode (2352 byte sectors, CD-DA) and then force the TOC to report the track as a CD-XA track.

I have a modified unit that does this (the first mothod), so it is possible if you have the technical knowledge and a suitable CDR unit.

[Xtincthed]

thats some interesting info
however as a collector I don't see the point in doing it, but it's cool to know it's possible

[KonnecT]

I just recieved a brand new copy of FF Anthology from Amazon. The CD's are Silver Bottom and are not compatible with the ps3.

[TubeBar]

It's possible but I've never heard of any pirates that did this. Datel did it successfully with their Gameshark, those worked on unmodded systems.


From what I've found it is actually possible to make a CD-R with those sectors intact, though it takes a bit of work. This guy says he got it to work but it could be made up. Other sources say that the code is a part of the tracking pattern which is added during manufacturing and can't be written using a CD-R burner. I really can't confirm either way, I'm just going by the info I can find online.

http://baetzler.de/vidgames/psx_cd_faq.html

That's old and has been proven false as ALL new CD Writers can do 2352 + TOC and Sub (RAW for Mode 2) thus a Zero EDC/ECC would be simple by basic text editing.

Due to research br CDfreaks and acording to the Sony patent the PSone protection is stamped in the Wobble which *cannot* be changed on CDRs but can be adjusted on CD-ROM during glass mastering stage. No way in hell to make a CDR that will boot as a real PSX CD-ROM disc.

PS3 Soft Modding has come a long way, look into that. Yeah I had looked into the PSone ports of FF4-6 and they are indeed emulated but the code is somewhat modified (no rom dumping here) so the emulation may not work properly on PS2/PS3 hardware.