Hacking Emulation Feedback How to change banner image for CIAs created by PS1 Forwarder Creator?

[zhuwz]

Up to now I have found two tools that can create Playstation game CIAs. One is NSUI, which has very comprehensive functions for customizing banner. But the game running is not as smooth as PS1 Forwarder Creator. So my idea is first use PS1 Forwarder Creator to create CIA, then manually change the banner. Followings are the steps I have tried:

1. I used NSUI to create a PS1 game CIA. The banner can be made exactly what i want, which supports transparency.

2. I used NSUI to exact the CIA created in the last step. In the ExtractedExeFS folder, I can find the banner.bnr file, and I copied it elsewhere.

3. I used PS1 Forwarder Creator to create a CIA for the same PS1 game. And use NSUI to exact this CIA. Then i replaced banner.bnr in the ExtractedExeFS folder with the same name file i copied in step 2.

4. i rebuilt the CIA and install it into my NEW3DS using FBI. However the banner didn't change at all. And when I tried to run this game, it gave me error screen. I have noticed that the rebuilt CIA was dozens of MBs smaller. In fact, even if I didn't do any change and rebuilt the CIA directly after exacting it, i still got the same error screen when trying to run it on my 3DS, and the rebuilt CIA was also dozens of MBs smaller. I also tried using HackingToolkit9DS to exact and rebuild the CIA, and the result was the same.

So can someone give me some instructions on how to do it correctly? I have seen someone in BILIBILI posting PS1, NEOGEO and CPS games with customized banner and bottom screen, so I am sure this can be done. Thanks.

 

[PEDRO-with_lowercase]

Hello! I have this exact same problem with the crash everything (Crazy we had the problem so close to each other). Tough i managed to change the Banner successfully. This is how you need to do it:
Instead of going to ExtractedExeFS folder and using the banner.bnr, you have to instead go to the ExtractedBanner and copy everything in it, and then use that to replace on the actual cia you wanna use. The reason for this is that NSUI actually uses the contents of that folder to make the banner and not the banner.bnr.
But yhea, i do still get the crash... It seams to be because of how its upacked and repacked. I tested a bit and there is a file size change, meaning something important gets deleted when it's repacked. No idea how to fix it and if someone has a solution i would appreciate it too!

Now a side note, that might fix your problem (but not mine, as i want to edit cias i didn't make), but if you are doing the PS1 forwarders yourself, then why not just use PS1 Forwarder Creator itself to make the custom banners? Not sure what version your using but there should be a next to PS1 Forwarder Creator a folder called tools, and inside it a folder called assets_ps1, and inside that folder you should find multiple files including: "banner_border.png"(Banner image make sure it's exactly (256*128) "icon_border.png"(Make sure its exactly 48*48) "ps1.wav" (make sure the audio isn't longer than 3 seconds), just replace these with what you want and reopen PS1 Forwarder Creator and you should see your costume assets, and when you create and install the cia, the audio, the banner and the icon should be your costume ones.
Hope this helps! Any question feel free to ask!

 

[zhuwz]

Thank you very much. U r really my savior. With ur second method, now I can create CIA with customized banner which supports transparency.

I also want to customize the bottom screen pic. NSUI has this function built in, but PS1 Forwarder Creator doesn't. I think it may be related to bottom.bin in the assets_ps1 folder, but I couldn't find any information for the correct conversion. Hope i can still get some instructions from u. Thanks.

Hello! I have this exact same problem with the crash everything (Crazy we had the problem so close to each other). Tough i managed to change the Banner successfully. This is how you need to do it:
Instead of going to ExtractedExeFS folder and using the banner.bnr, you have to instead go to the ExtractedBanner and copy everything in it, and then use that to replace on the actual cia you wanna use. The reason for this is that NSUI actually uses the contents of that folder to make the banner and not the banner.bnr.
But yhea, i do still get the crash... It seams to be because of how its upacked and repacked. I tested a bit and there is a file size change, meaning something important gets deleted when it's repacked. No idea how to fix it and if someone has a solution i would appreciate it too!

Now a side note, that might fix your problem (but not mine, as i want to edit cias i didn't make), but if you are doing the PS1 forwarders yourself, then why not just use PS1 Forwarder Creator itself to make the custom banners? Not sure what version your using but there should be a next to PS1 Forwarder Creator a folder called tools, and inside it a folder called assets_ps1, and inside that folder you should find multiple files including: "banner_border.png"(Banner image make sure it's exactly (256*128) "icon_border.png"(Make sure its exactly 48*48) "ps1.wav" (make sure the audio isn't longer than 3 seconds), just replace these with what you want and reopen PS1 Forwarder Creator and you should see your costume assets, and when you create and install the cia, the audio, the banner and the icon should be your costume ones.
Hope this helps! Any question feel free to ask!