Flashcart and Multicart List - All systems

[+remowilliams]

PSIO is here, now just need to get time to install it..

[keepdreamin]

This is pretty old news at this point, but I didn't see it mentioned here. There is now a menu loader for the Rhea/Phoebe ODE device. It was done by the same fellow who put together the GDEMU menu.

[Greg2600]

http://ps-io.com/store/

 

Pre-orders open again right NOW. Site is slow though.

[Tempest]

http://ps-io.com/store/

 

Pre-orders open again right NOW. Site is slow though.

Neat but pricey. I think I'll stick with my modded PSX for now. If that ever dies I'll look into one of these though. The 32MB card limit is a bit of an issue though since most of the PSX games I like are RPGs that spanned 2-4 discs.

[Greg2600]

32GB you mean? Yes that's not great but may be upgradeable.

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[Great Hierophant]

When the PSIO has proper multi-CD support, I will be first in line to buy.

[Mark Wolfe]

Not sure what you mean by "proper" multi disc support but PSIO does support multi discs

 

I'm sure firmware upgrades and a new OS update will address the 32GB limit - because when they first stated this anything over 32GB was very expensive.

 

I also think they will get the cue file and multi disc thing down a lot smoother than it currently is at the moment but it does support multi disc games . Read the manual

 

It's a great product and better than dealing with stacks of CD-Rs or if you want to preserve your original game collection.

 

Next up for me is the Saturn SD alternative. Hope someone makes one for the Genesis as well.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Mark Wolfe

[walterg74]

Not sure what you mean by "proper" multi disc support but PSIO does support multi discs

Uhmm that's not what it says on the site itself...

 

Multindiscinsupportnwod mean games that are more than one cd, and says that's not yet supported.

[Tempest]

32GB you mean? Yes that's not great but may be upgradeable.

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

 

Yeah 32GB. I think that may be some sort of hard limit though, it seems to pop up on multiple devices.

[Mark Wolfe]

Read the manual. they are supported. I have to say the dudes behind this are bit disorganized. But it's a well made product and they do great soldering work. I had them solder my board and I just got it back last week.

 

The manual has all the details about how it works. There are a lot of niggling details that seem like they would be easy fixes given what we are used to with other similar devices... Like limited SDHC support over 32GB and like having to create special files for cue and for multi disc, like the way the system won't read a game unless it is in a sub directory, no cheat code capabilities, etc... I'm sure this will all be worked out over time

 

In the meantime, if you're thinking about buying this, read the manual first

 

MW

Edited February 29, 2016 by Mark Wolfe

[Mark Wolfe]

[6-6: Multi-Disc]

PSIO has the option to support Multi-Disc titles. To enable and use Multi-Disc images, you must create a file in your game directory called “MULTIDISC.LST” (not case sensitive).

IE: “exodus 1.BIN”, “exodus 2.BIN” and “MULTIDISC.LST”. EG:

 SD:\Oddworld - Abes Exodus\exodus 1.BIN;
 SD:\Oddworld - Abes Exodus\exodus 2.BIN;
 SD:\Oddworld - Abes Exodus\MULTIDISC.LST;

The “MULTIDISC.LST” file must then contain your game images. Each image is defined on a new line. The first defined image, is the image that PSIO will boot first. As a note, ensure that there is no ‘return’ on the last line (IE: take notice that there is no line 3).

[Mark Wolfe]

 

Yeah 32GB. I think that may be some sort of hard limit though, it seems to pop up on multiple devices.

 

 

I think the PSIO team did not worry about support for anything over 32GB. I was just on their forums the other day and posts going back 3+ years were saying they were not concerned at the time because of the cost of 128GB and up SDHC cards. as we now know they are cheaper these days. I just bought a few 128GB & 256GB SDHC cards on amazon for chump change. none of them work on the PSIO but work on every other flash cart I have. I tried to make it work but the only way is to partition in FAT32 at 32GB max... so its pointless to use larger for now but 32GB SDHC cards are super cheap now so I plan on getting a few and just loading my favorite games on them and calling it a day. a LOT fits on 32GB actually I may not need more than two of them.

 

since many devices like this can support larger FAT32 SDHC I see no reason why this can not be implemented on the PSIO

 

I also think the issue with having to make text files for multi disc games and having to reinvent the cue file for CDXA games can be handled a bit better in the future with better software. I mean really... having to remake a .cue file into their silly CU2 format is kinda ridiculous. why not just make it parse the text in a .cue file to begin with? it's just kinda lazy programming in my opinion and I get the reason why. They had bigger fish to fry. this thing has been a LONG time coming. it is a complicated device and requires expert soldering to achieve the goal.

 

it's not plug and play. the solder points are small. this took a lot of work to pull off. now that they've done it, and are open for business, they can start to develop the firmware & software better. I hope they will. if they open it up to the community I bet we see a lot of advances with it.

 

I love the product and enjoy being able to play the games on original hardware without disc scratch or cd laser issues. it's worth it if you're a collector and/or psx fan. Mod chips are way cheaper and even i can install one with my limited soldering skills... but this is the next level. i believe the software end of things can only get better

Edited February 29, 2016 by Mark Wolfe

[Greg2600]

Yes they were asked about a USB interface instead but obviously that's a major change. There's a large update coming that will greatly improve features.

 

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[7800fan]

The 32GB limit has to do with the difference between older SDHC and newer SDXC. SDXC handles memory addressing differently to get around the 32GB limitation that SDHC added. A few devices could handle 64GB SD card if it were formatted as FAT32 but PSIO is a hit or miss, I could not get any 64GB card to work properly when it is more than half full.

 

The original limitation goes back to original SD spec that allowed for 128MB when MMC reached the end and they spec'd it all the way to 2GB. When 2GB card became available, the SD big cheese needed to create the next standard, SDHC and decided on 4GB to 32GB because they didn't foresee how quickly the memory card size would balloon and in a few years, 32GB SDHC were available and already at limit. So they created SDXC standard that goes all the way to 2TB.

 

Back to multi-CD games, true multi-CD support isn't fully implemented. Some games however can get around this like in FF7, you save at the end of one disc, restart PSX with the next disc, and it'll load the save from there. If you are at the right place, you can continue at the next disc.

 

Yes PSIO is pricey but they don't rely on moving part and in oh about 25 years, working PSX could go for over $100 and replacement CD drive mechansim could cost a lot so it makes sense that within the next few years, people who loves to play PSX a lot should invest in PSIO to avoid broken down motor or pricey repair or replacement in the future. Casual and infrequent players may be fine with mod chips for now.

 

Beside I have around 30 working PSX and PSOne that I kept picking up cheap (usually under $10 bare, up to $25 with DS controller and memory cards) so theoretically I should be OK with discs for oh about 100 years Or I can sell em on eBay in 25 years when I need money more and demand goes high like today's $100 Atari system or $100 NES system.

[CatPix]

You can add that the PSIO is rather easy to install, and if I'm right, bypass any region lock, so you can play anything on it that isn't special.

 

Plus, we're kinda at the beginning of the research on PS1 "SD card" tech.

 

Until recently, on most retrogaming forums, the PS1 was treated with disdain, being considered like the symbol of the downfall of "real games" to "casual games", wasn't considered retro, etc...

 

So now with things like the PSIO that kinda feel like a step back to the Cuttle Cart era and .wav converted VCS files for the Supercharger, we only start to catch up to a lack of interest that was purely based on snobbery; if you consider that a SD card based solution had been available for the Dreamcast for years, despite the DC being much more recent.

I mean, even the 3DO had a CD-ROM to IDE drive adapter BEFORE the PS1 got such an accessory. It's madness.

[Mark Wolfe]

@7800 fan

 

Thanks for the tip on the difference between SDHC & SDXC I didn't even notice that. But I still think it's all in the firmware and software to recognize it no??

 

additionally

See my cut & paste post as to the multi disc support for PSIO. You create a text "LST" file for however many discs are in the game in a given directory and apparently the software will know that it is a multidisc game and load accordingly or am reading the PSIO manual wrong?

 

I believe I am reading it correctly and that the software is using this text file to handle "disc change events" just as it uses a text file called cu2 to load audio tracks within CDXA games.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

I tried to make it work but the only way is to partition in FAT32 at 32GB max...

 

FAT32 limit is 2TB. Windows created an artificial limit of 32GB for formatting FAT32 drives because microsoft are morons and want you to use their proprietary NTFS system. You'll need a third party tool to format larger than 32Gbyte media on Windows. For Mac and partial support in Linux there is now ExFat but Microsoft owns software patents on it so it's use in free or open source implementations is limited. There is still no good open source drive format that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux with support for files larger than 4GB. Unix formatted drives for instance are readable on Mac and Linux but not Windows.

 

But regarding 32Gbyte SDHC, I have downloaded and decompressed No-Intro sets for all of my cart based systems, and each system fits on a 32GB SD card with plenty of room to spare. The largest is N64 and GBA, with GBA being approximately 24 Megabytes for every known dumped ROM. So for the time being there is no need for larger flash cards in any existing Flash drive implementation until you get into ISO files for disc systems. Maybe you need bigger cards for DS/3DS but I don't pirate those.

 

Yeah the PSX solution hard limit of 32GB sucks but the disc images are big. Many sources compress the CD-Audio tracks to MP3 format which is fine for emulation but will not work on real hardware or burned to CD-R.

[Mark Wolfe]

additional info from the PSIO manual

For some advanced redirecting, you may use ‘..’ to return to the root path, where you may then pre- define other directory listings from the root of the SD Card to act as Multi-Disc games. In the example below, you can see we have loaded a “Game Shark” image. When a disc change event happens, PSIO will swap and use “exodus 1.BIN”. Whilst this feature isn’t very practical for consumers, it’s great for developers that may need to jump between different versions or builds of their game to load in different data elements.

To actually swap a disc, simply eject the SD Card, wait a second or two, and then re-insert the SD Card. So long as your “MULTIDISC.LST” file is correct, your disc will swap will happen seamlessly.

As a sanity check, if the Menu System detects a “MULTIDISC.LST” file, you will have a third option [M-Disc] to cycle through to display the contents of the “MULTIDISC.LST” file.

[CatPix]

With very rough approximations, 32Go allow to fit 40 images (I took a max size of 800Mo per disc, which is very unlikely, even on multi-discs games).

 

So yeah, it's not the full 1000 VCS games on a 1Go SD card, but given that 32Go cards are getting inexpensive, I think that the support of 32Go cards is only a minor inconvenience in regard to the advantage...

And there is still the possibility that future PSIO releases will incluse a SDHX support. We went early on to get the PSIO, we're "paying" for being prime owners.

[Mark Wolfe]

FAT32 limit is 2TB. Windows created an artificial limit of 32GB for formatting FAT32 drives because microsoft are morons and want you to use their proprietary NTFS system. You'll need a third party tool to format larger than 32Gbyte media on Windows. For Mac and partial support in Linux there is now ExFat but Microsoft owns software patents on it so it's use in free or open source implementations is limited. There is still no good open source drive format that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux with support for files larger than 4GB. Unix formatted drives for instance are readable on Mac and Linux but not Windows.

 

But regarding 32Gbyte SDHC, I have downloaded and decompressed No-Intro sets for all of my cart based systems, and each system fits on a 32GB SD card with plenty of room to spare. The largest is N64 and GBA, with GBA being approximately 24 Megabytes for every known dumped ROM. So for the time being there is no need for larger flash cards in any existing Flash drive implementation until you get into ISO files for disc systems. Maybe you need bigger cards for DS/3DS but I don't pirate those.

 

Yeah the PSX solution hard limit of 32GB sucks but the disc images are big. Many sources compress the CD-Audio tracks to MP3 format which is fine for emulation but will not work on real hardware or burned to CD-R.

 

 

I'm aware of all that... you took my comment out of context.... with the advent of these new CD-ROM emulators, [GDEMU, PSIO, et al] that use SD cards of some sort, we're gonna need a bigger boat!!

[Mark Wolfe]

With very rough approximations, 32Go allow to fit 40 images (I took a max size of 800Mo per disc, which is very unlikely, even on multi-discs games).

 

So yeah, it's not the full 1000 VCS games on a 1Go SD card, but given that 32Go cards are getting inexpensive, I think that the support of 32Go cards is only a minor inconvenience in regard to the advantage...

And there is still the possibility that future PSIO releases will incluse a SDHX support. We went early on to get the PSIO, we're "paying" for being prime owners.

 

agreed. I doubt I'd need more than two of them. that being said, it is just a software issue holding that 32GB limit in place.

[walterg74]

You can add that the PSIO is rather easy to install, and if I'm right, bypass any region lock, so you can play anything on it that isn't special.

 

Plus, we're kinda at the beginning of the research on PS1 "SD card" tech.

 

Until recently, on most retrogaming forums, the PS1 was treated with disdain, being considered like the symbol of the downfall of "real games" to "casual games", wasn't considered retro, etc...

 

So now with things like the PSIO that kinda feel like a step back to the Cuttle Cart era and .wav converted VCS files for the Supercharger, we only start to catch up to a lack of interest that was purely based on snobbery; if you consider that a SD card based solution had been available for the Dreamcast for years, despite the DC being much more recent.

I mean, even the 3DO had a CD-ROM to IDE drive adapter BEFORE the PS1 got such an accessory. It's madness.

Why would it be madness when the 3DO is older than the PS..?

[CatPix]

Well the 3DO is only one year older than the PS1 (1993 for the 3DO, 1994 for the PS1); plus, the 3DO is an underdog console, with 2 millions unit sold worldwide, and most of his (tiny) library is utter crap, and the good titles have usually been ported to the PS1 or were PC titles. (and do'nt get me wrong here, I own a 3DO, and I like this console, and would LOVE to see homebrews for it)

On the other hand, the PS1 was sold between 1994 and 2005, sold 100 millions of units, and have hundred of memorable games.

That would be like the NES receving no support, emulation, homebrews, etc...

To me, it's just amazing that nothing like the PSIO was ever made, when it could have been made 10 years ago.

Edited February 29, 2016 by CatPix

[walterg74]

Well the 3DO is only one year older than the PS1 (1993 for the 3DO, 1994 for the PS1); plus, the 3DO is an underdog console, with 2 millions unit sold worldwide, and most of his (tiny) library is utter crap, and the good titles have usually been ported to the PS1 or were PC titles. (and do'nt get me wrong here, I own a 3DO, and I like this console, and would LOVE to see homebrews for it)

On the other hand, the PS1 was sold between 1994 and 2005, sold 100 millions of units, and have hundred of memorable games.

That would be like the NES receving no support, emulation, homebrews, etc...

To me, it's just amazing that nothing like the PSIO was ever made, when it could have been made 10 years ago.

See, all I read there was "blah, blah, blah blah blah"...

 

Who's cooler looking? FZ-1, no contest..

 

Edit: aldo, 10 years aho the info wasn't that widespread as it is today, was it?

Edited February 29, 2016 by walterg74

[keepdreamin]

for reference, although nothing above 32gb is "officially" supported for the GDEMU and Rhea. I've read a report from a user that is using a 128 gig card without issue on both devices.

I don't have nearly enough saturn games to try this.

 

http://www.theisozone.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=50273&start=20#p416807

 

I'm assuming he used a third party utility to format to FAT32, cause windows won't let ya.