FF8 CDs

[mav]

Ok, so FF8 has 5 CDs and this sucks. My friend got an idea - if you do full install, Field.fs file which is on every CD is copied on Hard Drive and never used from CD. Movies (.pak files) vary from 200-400, so you can burn 2 of them on one CD. He ended with this:

Install disk: standard as it was

Disk 1:

Code: [Select]

Disc1.pak
Disc2.pak
Disk1
Disk2

Disk 2:

Code: [Select]

Disc3.pak
Disc4.pak
Disk3
Disk4

Disk1-4 are the same files, they contain 0D0Ah.

And now the weird part: He runs up the game, loads save state from CD1, it works. Now he loads save state from CD2 and it doesn't work. Now, he deletes Disk1 from CD and guess what - save state from CD2 works, CD1 obviously not.

We try further - open FF8.exe in hex-editor, go to offset 0x791F2Bh where you can see:

Code: [Select]

DISK1   DISK2   DISK3   DISK4

He changed DISK2 to DISK1, deleted DISK2 from CD and put DISK1. So now on the CD there was three files - two pak files and DISK1 id file. Situation was same as above - save state from CD1 worked, CD2 did not.

Do any of you have an idea how to get it work ?

[Cyberman]

What exactly are you wanting to do? Run it will just 2 CD's?
I know FF8 PSX has a lot of the same data on each IMAGE.  The primary difference between the disk images is the movies.

How the playstation accesses this is that each Disk contains the same kernal but has a different Volume name in the ISO9660 information.  With the playstation everything is aligned via sector.  The movies use larger sectors (2304bytes instead of 2048 like the rest of the disk), because the video and audio data are interleaved and need the extra data.  The audio is ADPCM and the video is motion JPEG.

With the PC port there may be very few variations.  Most of the data on DISK1 2 3 4 may be movie data.  Are the PC version movies higher resolution than 320x224? (playstations size).
My guess is one will face much the same situation with the PC version as the playstation version only you don't have the playstations DISKS to deal with.

Cyb

[Aaron]

The field files are installed on the hard drive during a full install, so it is not necessary to load them off the CD, so fitting the game into two discs may be possible.

Are the PC version movies higher resolution than 320x224?

Yeah, the PC version movies are double that, but the low resolution movies are included as well (when you're playing in quarter-screen mode or when you turn off the high res movies).

I think FF8PC uses the small "Disk1" etc. files to identify which disc is in the drive, and I'd think you'd be able to "fool" it by hex editing like you tried, but since that didn't work, I dunno what to tell you.  I'd mess around with it myself, but I'm about to move and I don't have any saves after disc 1 atm anyway .

Anyway, since you have to switch discs so infrequently, I don't really have much to complain about.

[mav]

Hm... yes, I'm talking about PC version, sorry.
In theory, game should recognize that prepared CD as CD1 AND CD2. CD Label doesn't have a meaning here (tested). But in practise, I think game has some protection. Unfortunetly I don't know much about cracking so I can't trace it. But I saw someone did this to FF7, maybe he would help.
Oh, I can send you some saves if you want.

[bspbsp]

M4v3R, I thought that maybe the application recognized CD by comparing the filename one by one with the strings it stores, so when DISK1 is on the disc, it will recognize it first and ignore DISK2.
I know a Chinese who had written a CD-crack patch which works nearly perfect, only mess up at the final battle in Disc 4.

[mav]

I thought so, but maybe there is a way to avoid this check ? It'll need some good cracking skills though...

[Vanit]

It might even just be that it requires the name of the disc to be the right name (ie the disc needs to be labelled 'disc 1' to load a save for disc 1). Also, what exactly do you mean by the save doesn't work?

[mav]

No, we tried to name (label) disk's diffrent, game seems not reading this.

Saves don't work = "Wrong Disk" pic.

[bspbsp]

to M4v3R: Yes, I will consider when I have time, now I am analysizing Chocobo.exe
to Vanit: maybe it just requires for the right disc

[Anarky]

Two words:

Image them.

[Nom_Anor]

sheesh. Just google a no-cd crack and stop being lazy.  **OR** get one from your favorite downloading client.

[mav]

I don't want no-cd crack, because I don't want to copy movies to hard drive. I wan't to make game run from any CD that contains nessesary data (movies).

[Cyberman]

I don't want no-cd crack, because I don't want to copy movies to hard drive. I wan't to make game run from any CD that contains nessesary data (movies).

I think you need to find out what the game is doing when it tries to play a movie then.
It can be doing any number of ISO functions. This includes checking any of the following:
Volume Label
System Identifyer
Volume Set
Publisher
Data Preparer
Application
Copywrite File
Abstract File
Bibliographic File
The last 3 are optional on CD's however all of the first 6 have text or are zeroed out. They are not allowed to have spaces in them in ISO9660 Joliet modifys this to allow lower case spaces and some punctuation.

It might be looking for a specific volume like the playstation version does I might point out as well.

Cyb

[mav]

But how do you explain that CD1 is working, if it's written in the exact same way like CD2 ?

[Cyberman]

But how do you explain that CD1 is working, if it's written in the exact same way like CD2 ?

CD1 is identical to CD2? and it works when you try to load the game for CD1 or is that CD2?
<hehehe>

I think we need to go over what we know with a fine tooth scrub brush.

Cyb