Emulation Determining region of PSX roms

[UniKlixX]

Hi everyone.

I must say I like how Retroarch for my 2DS XL shows the boxart of my roms. Most of the times it is able to download the thumbnails without issues and in a few cases I have to rename the game in the playlist (not the file itself) because of the terminology used for version number. In some cases, when I am unable to fetch the thumbnail, it helps renaming from Rev A to Rev 1 or maybe from v1.1 to Rev A or Rev 1.

(Why on earth doesn't Retroarch use the hash instead of name for fetching those thumbnails??) I believe it does that for the names since it does rename them sometimes? And then doesn't find thumbs based on its own naming?? I am confused!)

The only rare cases where I am in trouble are the few roms I have where I am unsure of the region. So these roms are just called the name of the game and are missing the (REGION) paranthesis thing after the title. For this reason, Retroarch is unable to download a thumbnail. I know I can just rename it and then it will download the thumbnail for that region but my problem is that I don't know the region And I just don't want to guess because I have OCD/Aspergers and also if I will be using the region to evaluate or mention the rom on a compatibility list later on.

So my question is: Is there any way I can determine or make a qualified guess regarding the region of a rom? (mostly I am interested in determining PSX roms). Some fps related method maybe? I know how to enable FPS overlay but can I use that when the game is not really running on full FPS?

Maybe some of you know of a method

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance.

 

[FAST6191]

http://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm#cdromfileformats and the section below it appear to give some indications. Might have missed an even more obvious cartridge style header like we normally have in other things. Whether you could also twist a save made by the game (they will tend to have names and images, see also the famous Metal Gear Solid scene where a boss reads your memory card saves back to you) to such purposes I don't know.

Video playback speed and resolution (resolution can vary within a game) might be a thing here. I am not sure what goes for PAL-60 stuff -- it was popular enough, even to have requirements for it in some cases, a generation later on the gamecube and most PAL TVs since the late 80s will have supported NTSC/60Hz signals which makes guessing there tricky, whether PS1 coloured that far outside the lines I don't know offhand (by the PS2 you could do things like 3 screens gran turismo).

 

[raynor_ni]

Possibly an easy way would be to load the game and if it mentions SCEE it's pal and if it mentions SCEA it's ntsc.

 

[Sheimi]

If region codes from what I gathered so far. As what raynor_ni said, easiest way is to boot the game and look at the ps1 logo screen.

Spoiler: Region Codes

SLUS = US
SCUS = US
SLES = Pal
SCES = Pal
SLPS = JPN
SLPM = JPN
SCPS = JPN

 

[UniKlixX]

http://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm#cdromfileformats and the section below it appear to give some indications. Might have missed an even more obvious cartridge style header like we normally have in other things. Whether you could also twist a save made by the game (they will tend to have names and images, see also the famous Metal Gear Solid scene where a boss reads your memory card saves back to you) to such purposes I don't know.

Video playback speed and resolution (resolution can vary within a game) might be a thing here. I am not sure what goes for PAL-60 stuff -- it was popular enough, even to have requirements for it in some cases, a generation later on the gamecube and most PAL TVs since the late 80s will have supported NTSC/60Hz signals which makes guessing there tricky, whether PS1 coloured that far outside the lines I don't know offhand (by the PS2 you could do things like 3 screens gran turismo).

Possibly an easy way would be to load the game and if it mentions SCEE it's pal and if it mentions SCEA it's ntsc.

If region codes from what I gathered so far. As what raynor_ni said, easiest way is to boot the game and look at the ps1 logo screen.

Spoiler: Region Codes

SLUS = US
SCUS = US
SLES = Pal
SCES = Pal
SLPS = JPN
SLPM = JPN
SCPS = JPN

Thanks a whole lot guys for your comprehensive assistance on this matter.

First I tried FASTs method. I will definitely have a look at those saves but I checked out that document and I believe I need to read up on that some more in order to understand it all. Wow. So technical. But I love it I use NTSC versions mostly for ROMs because I have found them to perform better. They run more smoothly for some reason. Must be the 60Hz thing so there is more to "give" regarding frame drops.

Regarding Raynor and Sheimis approaches. I did try checking the logo screen. But it appears that the text "PCSX(TM)" is shown instead of the region code! That is weird. SO it is not possible determining it the easy way it seems.

Maybe I will just give up and accept that it is too complicated to investigate the regions. I visited Vimm's Lair and got the versions with regions there instead of my own weird dumps. I did not know they were available there.

Thanks again for your assistance!

 

[AmandaRose]

In the future if anyone wants to know what region their PSX roms are from just load them using the windows/android emulator epsxe. It shows region and other information you may need.

 

[UniKlixX]

In the future if anyone wants to know what region their PSX roms are from just load them using the windows/android emulator epsxe. It shows region and other information you may need.

View attachment 300060

Nice!! That is really convenient. Thanks for the info

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Hi everyone.

I must say I like how Retroarch for my 2DS XL shows the boxart of my roms. Most of the times it is able to download the thumbnails without issues and in a few cases I have to rename the game in the playlist (not the file itself) because of the terminology used for version number. In some cases, when I am unable to fetch the thumbnail, it helps renaming from Rev A to Rev 1 or maybe from v1.1 to Rev A or Rev 1.

(Why on earth doesn't Retroarch use the hash instead of name for fetching those thumbnails??) I believe it does that for the names since it does rename them sometimes? And then doesn't find thumbs based on its own naming?? I am confused!)

The only rare cases where I am in trouble are the few roms I have where I am unsure of the region. So these roms are just called the name of the game and are missing the (REGION) paranthesis thing after the title. For this reason, Retroarch is unable to download a thumbnail. I know I can just rename it and then it will download the thumbnail for that region but my problem is that I don't know the region And I just don't want to guess because I have OCD/Aspergers and also if I will be using the region to evaluate or mention the rom on a compatibility list later on.

So my question is: Is there any way I can determine or make a qualified guess regarding the region of a rom? (mostly I am interested in determining PSX roms). Some fps related method maybe? I know how to enable FPS overlay but can I use that when the game is not really running on full FPS?

Maybe some of you know of a method

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance.

If you open the ISO in WinRAR or another program that can open ISOs or you mount it on a PC there should be a file in the root that is named with the game ID which includes the region.

 

[ber71]

Get their MD5 CRC32 SHA1 whatever hash you prefer, and look for it at the redump database

http://redump.org/discs/system/psx/
https://dats.site

 

[UniKlixX]

If you open the ISO in WinRAR or another program that can open ISOs or you mount it on a PC there should be a file in the root that is named with the game ID which includes the region.

Get their MD5 CRC32 SHA1 whatever hash you prefer, and look for it at the redump database

http://redump.org/discs/system/psx/
https://dats.site

Thanks, totally forgot I could use those methods! Thanks for your advice.

 

[godreborn]

Might be able to tell with the bin in a hex editor.

 

[UniKlixX]

Might be able to tell with the bin in a hex editor.

Thanks! So many ways to do this I didn't know of