- Thread starter brizzo
- Start date
I think the key you mentioned is relative to the PC environment, but Sony’s PS2 memory card belongs to the PS2 system environment and is not encrypted. Strictly speaking, the ps2 memory card tool on the PC just opens it in another compatible way. An unknown compression format. The 2x6 arcade hardware has an encryption key in a strict sense, but this encryption key may still be just a function of unpacking an unknown compression format, or unlocking the resource manager.
No, the ide cable is "Normal" with the exception of not having a center connector, so you can't connect 2 ide devices, you can use a normal PC IDE and only connect between the non-twisted section as the normal ide has two pins that are reversed in the middle connector.
The early CD/DVD rom drives had specific firmware, but it became expensive to ask hardware partners to make them, and for namco to replace / ship them with new games, the whole idea of the disk based systems was to reduce costs, and increase profits.
Later on games would run on any DVD-Rom, so it's game dependent if it works or doesn't with a non-namco based drive, so most people just try and get a namco one as it runs both.
The only copy protection is the "Dongle/Key/PS2 Look alike Memory card" with it's magic gate encryption. The DVD and consequently the HDD is not encrypted, and does not contain any of the code to boot/run the game it's strictly content storage, from what people who have looked through the files have said, it's all music / video / textures, so the entire game code/executable/logic, sits on the memory card, and then all the things it needs to display things / make music sit on the HDD and or DVD/CD
You can therefore Pull an Image from either DVD/CD/HDD, and burn it to a compatible DVD-R/CD-R/HDD and get the drive to run. I'm not 100% certain it doesn't check the HDD drive's MaxSize, in sectors or something, but there was a universal 2x6 Key made about 1-1.5 years ago, and it worked with a SD-Card based system that emulated the speed of the HDD/DVD and it would not work if it did such checks.
I think MagicGate is just a system environment, because two MagicGate cards can be copied, and two Namco dedicated hard drives can also be copied. Maybe we need an emulator to simulate MagicGate, or make a compatible MagicGate format tool without the need for a separate key to unlock the dongle. This lock is just a system context.
If you read through this whole thread a lot of the things you want to know have been discussed, like this spreadsheet in the beginning lists what's required to run certain games.
None of the games as far as I'm aware are cracked/hacked to get around any of the IO/Hardware requirements.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...kmHLgxS-JqUXSbiT59w/htmlview?authkey=CMz7i8cO
None of the games as far as I'm aware are cracked/hacked to get around any of the IO/Hardware requirements.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...kmHLgxS-JqUXSbiT59w/htmlview?authkey=CMz7i8cO
Also IDE never worked the way you have it hooked up... typically you hooked one "END" not the middle to an IDE port, most PC's had 2 so you could hook up, up to 4 devices... and then you could designate one as slave and one as master on each cable.
If you chose "CS" Cable select, you would make that pin selection on both devices connected, and it would automatically make the end Device the Master, and the Middle Device the Slave (From Memory) it's been a while since I used those in a PC... But I have NO Idea if that works on a 2x6 based system, as back then the bios would interrogate the pins and test which pin was on which data line, and then assign the drive position, hence the twist in the cable.
But this really has nothing to do with the multi-dongle, I believe you should start a new thread if you want to discuss the technical details of the 2x6 based systems.
If you chose "CS" Cable select, you would make that pin selection on both devices connected, and it would automatically make the end Device the Master, and the Middle Device the Slave (From Memory) it's been a while since I used those in a PC... But I have NO Idea if that works on a 2x6 based system, as back then the bios would interrogate the pins and test which pin was on which data line, and then assign the drive position, hence the twist in the cable.
But this really has nothing to do with the multi-dongle, I believe you should start a new thread if you want to discuss the technical details of the 2x6 based systems.
You are right. They also control the operation of the game through the pcb board, but the focus is not on CD/DVD/HDD. Personally, I think the focus should be on pcb, io board, and MagicGate dongle. If the MagicGate dongle is understood as a dog head, then CD/DVD/HDD is the resource manager, which is equivalent to the dog body. I use the pcsx2 archive tool to convert and decompress the MagicGate dongle. There are some startup files in the dongle, such as Iron Fist. 5 The dark recovery ELF file is called T55LOAD, and there are some familiar files that can be seen in the iso image of ps2.
Tonybolony
Professional
i can write myself dongles for the 2x6 and i tried writing a 2x6 dongle to a memory card and it wont do it, i can only write to actual 2x6 dongles with other 2x6 dongle dumps
Franco23444
Grand Master
That’s because the structure of the dongles and normal PS2 memory cards operate differently. Technically, they look very similar internally but they work differently from one another.
The encryption (magic-gate) is different on PS2 vs 2x6
If you @Tonybolony want to make a thread on your process to go and write images from 246->246 dongle I would love a deeper dive into the mechanics and software required to do that.
I created a new thread here: https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads/sys2x6-technical-details-discussion.26996/
I invite you guys to move the discussion over to that thread.
Thanks @doccaz
l_oliveira
Professional
Magic Gate on the PS2 is just a set of protocols and standards for flash memory authentication and file encryption. Once the card is unlocked it has no enforcement of security for regular data transfers. You can still ask it to encrypt/decrypt data using an API and each card has a unique seed/key built in and that's about it. They can be copied only because SONY did stupid things with their keys (reused the same data on all the arcade products). PS2 DVD player drivers and other MG files on retail PS2 games are actually properly protected. GO FIGURE.
I mean that makes good sense... Sony wasn't concerned or aggressive about arcades (they make most of their money with licenses for software), and licensed the tech to 3'rd parties for Arcade Hardware but this is a one shot deal. This was likely more of a distraction than a serious profit center, as arcades were already declining in sales by the time PS1 Was waning and they were developing a successor, and with the massive pirating issues with mod chips on the PS1, they wanted to up the ante, and make PS2 more secure, so Piracy on the PS2 was much more of a priority, and yet as arcade sales were declining having "something" to offer their arcade partners was more of a "Feature" than a serious effort to thwart piracy, as by that time it was no longer a serious loss.
how to extract said seed/key is all i have left to figure out , and i do mean extract from a formatted or unformatted card and not from boot.bin
l_oliveira
Professional
I don't think that is possible. Unless you know how exactly the card uses it's seed data internally to encrypt/decrypt and can manipulate the auth to serve the card some fixed data (maybe all zeroes) for it to encrypt/decrypt.
so when my kid hit format in the gui made for coh dongles it is pretty much a paperweight.
i thought after seeing the bind/unbind thing on your twitter i could save the dongle.
by the way everyone talked about the 2021 version so much i thought it was different than the copy you gave me on assembler (which i lost)
then when i compiled it myself i thought i had the correct keys but a few helpfull people showed me i was using the wrong keys i corrected my issue
and found no way of restoring the dongle to its former glory i thought everyone had a different version.
that brings me to now, i know that it is a paperweight i'm back to tinkering around in my system like many other curious souls.
i thought after seeing the bind/unbind thing on your twitter i could save the dongle.
by the way everyone talked about the 2021 version so much i thought it was different than the copy you gave me on assembler (which i lost)
then when i compiled it myself i thought i had the correct keys but a few helpfull people showed me i was using the wrong keys i corrected my issue
and found no way of restoring the dongle to its former glory i thought everyone had a different version.
that brings me to now, i know that it is a paperweight i'm back to tinkering around in my system like many other curious souls.
Yeah I do also and will wait patiently
