FF9 PSX files

[Anonymous]

How do I get into the ff9.img file on the PSX version (I know, the only version)? Qhimm's site has a RAW data extractor on there but not linked to anything.

OR

Is there anyway of extracting the music from FF9? I've tried PSMPlay and the other one. Much appreciated.

-Dan

[Reznor007]

There is no way to extract the music out, as the PSX uses a format similar to MIDI in a way.

From what I remember, the SPU in the PSX is an advanced version of the SPC700 DSP, which was the SuperNES sound chip. You can extract these out of SNES ROM's, so maybe in the future something like that can be done for the PSX.

[Joey]

As far as I know, you can encode data in PSX games, but the decoding process must be defined in the system.cnt file in the CD. If it is stored whithin an archive, it must not be compressed for PSX to detect. Since FF9 is HEAVILY encoded, until CVGS cannot hack into, and also that PSX data rippers cannot do anything with the img files. Maybe Qhimm is intelligent enough to hack.

[Reznor007]

But with FF9 the music is basically MIDI, there is nothing to rip really. If it were an XA audio track like Gran Turismo you could rip it, but it's not.

And ePSXe is a better emulator.

[Qhimm]

Joey, what the hell are you on? Crack again?

FF9's data is not encoded in any way, at least no more than any other PSX game. Much like Xenogears or Chrono Cross, the data files are not in the CDFS file index, so they won't show up in Windows Explorer. FF9's CDFS index does have a FF9.IMG file that spans across all the data files, so it's kind of like a cross-over between the Xenogears file system and a normal, visible system.

But the data itself is very much accessible. Emus have trouble running it because it uses advanced PSX coding (as in *programming*), not because the data is encoded or unreachable. As soon as I got FF9, I extracted all the TetraMaster graphics, so that pretty much proves my point. I probably was the first to do so too (I believe FFOnline uses the hacked-out graphics in their FF9 card reference page, btw)

[Joey]

How come PSX graphics extractors return errors whenever I tried to extract?

[Goku7]

I guess that would explain why I'm having such a hard time finding/extracting that saw wave sample from ff9.

I was always wondering what the sound chip on the PSX was.  Actually, if you think about the way the Snes spu works, Nintendo was already using the Downloadable Sound or SoundFont technology principles WAY before Creative Labs or Yamaha or the other big-time sound companies started using it.

Kudos to Nintendo for being ahead of its time.....

[Qhimm]

Joey: How should I know? All I know is that I had no problems extracting files and graphics from it, I don't know what strange approach the programs you're using employ. Have you tried copying the .IMG file to your hard drive? If it can be done, that pretty much answers it, no?

Besides, PSX graphics rippers can only search for .TIM headers and the likes, they can't magically recognize a bunch of bytes as images. "Ooh, this looks like an image, maybe if I put it this way...? Ah yes, that makes sense, this must be it" They search for specific bytes usually found only in .TIM files, meaning they can only recognize graphics stored using the default PSX way, which few PSX games do these days, anyway.

[Alhexx]

Looks like this topic could be useful for me, too...
PE uses *.img files, too - I've had a look  at those files, but they have no header. The img file itself starts with a tim file...

Has the FF9.img got a header?

 - Alhexx

[dgp9999]

So is there a way to open and browse ff9.img?

[Qhimm]

There is a header in the FF9.IMG file, though there are no filenames or anything. I wrote the FF9Viewer app to extract the files, but it does no more than just that. What the files contain is anyone's guess, FF9 only references them by ID...

[Goku7]

So, theoretically, if we were able to intercept the ID calls it generates on an emulator, and track what each call opened in the ff9.img file, we could build an index on which future ff9 viewer programs would use to browse the ff9.img?

[edited] 239 2001-11-13 02:45