Ps2dev.org

Project Artemis

Sun Nov 09 09:09:15 GMT 2008

For some time now (several years, off and on), GSHI.org administrative staff and several select members of the scene have been working, in secret, on something tentatively called Project Artemis: a hacking system for the Playstation 2. The primary goal of this project is to allow users to create, or hack, their own cheat and game enhancement codes, using RAM-dumping, dump comparison, constant memory writes for testing, breakpoints, and as many other tools as feasible.

The project is far from complete. There have been quite a few stumbling blocks, and some impressive progress has been made. Through several primary coders (Sang123, Hit n' Run Games, misfire, Shyam Narain, Xerxes Technologies, cYs Driver), it has been determined that...

A: Hiring a company to design such a system will result in either paying tens of thousands of dollars, or ending up with a company that cannot complete the project, and...

B: Hiring a solitary coder, such as a skilled member of the scene, will eventually result in the coder being overwhelmed.

Hence, lacking the necessary funds to hire a coding group or company adept enough to complete the task at hand within a reasonable amount of time, we have made the best decision possible, with Artemis, GSHI, and the scene in mind: to bring the project out of the darkness, and into the realm of open source.

If anyone is interested in contributing (even an indication of interest in the project helps!), feel free to make a post, if only to say so. We will continue to chronicle our progress, research, and thoughts here: http://gshi.org/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=56

...though I will be quite happy to respond to any questions or comments you have here at PS2Dev.org as well. There is also a SubVersion repository for Artemis at http://gshi.org/svn/artemis/, with some of misfire's recent work, and quite a bit more source from various authors will likely be committed in the near future.

AV Social event - London

Tue Sep 23 03:08:18 GMT 2008

For the lucky folks in and around London, there's a "AV Social" event on friday 26th September 2008. I've received the following details from Kouky via the forums:

8bit artists Steve and Pikilipita will perform a unique Audio+Video set exclusively from games consoles. Music will be generated from Game Boy while the visuals wil be mixed using PS24VJ: a homebrew ps2 software. This set will be the first of the night so be there a 9pm or you might miss it!

AV Social
9pm-2am
British Film Institute
Belvedere Road
South Bank
London, UK

More details available at:
http://www.pikilipita.com
http://www.myspace.com/stevenosurname
http://www.ne1co.info/avsocial

LBGSHI's - PS2 Dev. Intro

Tue Aug 19 09:04:48 GMT 2008

A great guide for beginners, going into quite a bit of detail as to how to get started developing PS2 homebrew, including links to good MIPS ASM and C programming reference, answers to many common questions, and explanations of the different methods of executing and testing your compiled binaries on a real PS2 or emulator. Definitely take a look at this if you're justing starting out.

Lukasz Bruun's - An Introduction to PS2DEV

Tue Aug 19 09:04:31 GMT 2008

A great tutorial describing the PS2's architecture, different avenues one might take in beginning PS2 development, ways to execute code on the PS2 once you're written and/or compiled it, and including a history of PS2Dev. A must-read for anyone entering the scene.

PS2 Content Updated

Mon Aug 18 04:29:24 GMT 2008

The PS2 portion of the site has been updated to reflect the current toolchain, amended to include references to source that compiles (while leaving all old source for posterity, with a note that it no longer compiles), fixed so that all links point to existent files, and increased to allow new users a greater variety of tutorials, guides, and compilable source. I hope these updates help make PS2Dev.org a better place :)

I'll continue making updates to the PS2 portion of the site as I recall things that should be added/updated. I'll also probably make some basic grammatical/typographical/etc corrections to the other sections, and ensure there aren't any broken links, but as I don't have any experience or knowledge concerning PSP or PS3 development, I'll probably leave them alone for the most part.

A big thanks to Oobles for allowing me to help out. Until next time...

Edit: A bigger thanks goes back to LBGSHI! If anyone is interested in helping to remove the bit-rot in the PSP and PS3 sections, please PM me (Oobles) in the forums.

TUTORIAL 0: Crash Course/Immersion

Mon Aug 18 03:07:31 GMT 2008

Some people may find that most tutorials are a bit steep in terms of the assumptions made about the knowledge of the reader. If this is the case, the reader probably needs to master some of the basics, before moving on to more intensive parts of PS2 development.

ps2sdk

Mon Aug 18 02:41:28 GMT 2008

NOTE: These versions of PS2SDK are outdated, and are here for posterity. For a more updated version of the PS2SDK, please refer to the Setting up Compilers and Development Environment section of the Tutorials page.

PS2SDK is a collection of Open Source libraries used for developing applications on Sony's PlayStation 2(PS2). ps2sdk contains the work from a number of PS2 projects which are now buildable in a single source tree.

At the time of writing PS2SDK includes the following libraries and features, allowing:

Access to PS2 internal OS functions.
Access to PS2 control pad and multitap.
Access to PS2 memory card.
Access to USB mouse and keyboard.
TCPIP stack & DNS resolution compatible with PS2 Ethernet Adapter.
Full PS2 compatible Hard Disk Drive file system.
Access to CD and DVD.
Mini optimized C library for most string operations.
Access to sound library on all PS2 using (freesd).
HTTP client file system.
Network File System to load files from HOST pc.

PS2SDK replaces ps2lib, ps2drv, ps2ip, ps2hid and libhdd projects. Use ps2sdk instead of any of these projects.

PS2Lib

Mon Aug 18 01:42:48 GMT 2008

PS2Lib is an open-sourced library for developing directly with Sony's Playstation 2. It was originally developed by Gustavo Scotti and released in October 2001. As he described in the original README, "All the findings are based in disassembling the binaries with the whole symbol table, interpreting the results, and trying out with the bits." As other developers have joined the project we have kept to that original method. PS2Lib today provides a large number of the basic software libraries required to access the underlying PS2 system. As the PS2 has two separate CPU's (the Emotion Engine(EE) and IO Processor(IOP)), the library is split into two different major areas representing functions available on each processor.

NOTE: PS2Lib is outdated, and has, for the most part, been rendered obsolete and replaced by PS2SDK. However, for the sake of compiling some old pieces of source, and for possible educational reasons, below you will find a copy of PS2Lib (place this in your PS2SDK directory if you're interested in compiling source that relied on it).

PS2Lib

Mon Aug 18 00:25:42 GMT 2008

PS2Lib is outdated, and has, for the most part, been rendered obsolete and replaced by PS2SDK. However, for the sake of compiling some old pieces of source, and for possible educational reasons, below you will find a copy of PS2Lib (place this in your PS2SDK directory if you're interested in compiling source that relied on it).

Code

Mon Aug 18 00:22:27 GMT 2008

This area contains modules that include source code and can be used in your own projects. Keep in mind that the majority of this can no longer be compiled using a current toolchain, and thus stands only as a basic guide to PS2 development. For a collection of currently compilable source, take a look at the Example Source section of the Tutorials page.