about those 3d files again...

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I got a crazy idea last night, i thought about picking up my psx deving.
So I went trough my cd's and installed a couple of tools.. psyq and rsdtool and so on..
Suddenly i remembered that the char.lgp included .rsd files so i tried to check 'em out..
the Hrc file could be the .GRP file.. but the .p file seems crypted and could include more files (though it's almost to small for that).. The point is, why would square keep the .rsd files in the pc version? as far as I understand they aren't used at all.. usally they make .tmd files of the .rsd files when they make a psx game.. but when I checked out the psx version of ff7 it seemed that it used crypted .rsd files too... i just think this discovery is rather strange... that's all.. i doubt you'll get any smarter reading this,.. but i just wanted to share this...
 
The .rsd data is stuffed into the lzs package along with the .a stuff. The lzs is sectioned up into blocks, much like the field files. The data was "PC-ified" during the port.
 
I don't know if i got it right, but to your question, why are there RSD files in pc version - there are placed infos about one object (one part of body)- file of 3d model and texture.
 
(This is my neck of the woods)To understand PSX file formats you kind of have to know how the PSX was designed. Waaay back when Nintendo wanted to make a cheap CD-ROM add on to the SNES, the asked Sony, one of the biggest manufactures of CD-ROMs at the time to come up with a *low cost* soultion to thier problem. What came out of Sony's R&D was a cd-rom based off of thier sony diskman technology. It was low-cost, worked well, and had perks for being very compact. Sony did something a little different, they added a microcontoller to the actulal "drive" part thereby making an interface card unneccasary, and making the thing even cheaper to produce. When the big N screwed Sony by creating a secret bidding war against the american company Phillips (makers of CD-i) and the fact sony wanted say on what games would be published for the SNES CD system. N dropped the idea of a CD-ROM system and payed dearly with the N64.
Meanwhile. Sony had this really cool CD-ROM system with no seller. So they decided to make thier own game system. Now the PSX didn't come out of thin air. Sony was actully already making the pre-PSX system board for Namco's "Tekken" arcade systems. It was called a "System 11 board" and already had the MIPS R3000, a primitive MDEC, GPU  and the GTE (an older one with some opcodes missing) It used hard ROM chips for programs. Because the new Sony CD-ROM didn't require a controller card, they basicly opened a memory address in the hardware resisters, plugged in the CD-ROM, added memcards, did a little magic with DMA and did an all-around chipset upgrade and *POW* instant PSX. That's why it looked like it came out of nowhere.

Now This is where file formats come in. You see, tekken (The ROM arcade version) used the  TMD file format models and TIM for textures (TMD stands for Tekken MoDel and TIM is Tekken Image Map or Texture Image Map) Because it was already in use with the arcade it bacame the de-facto standard for PSX devopment. When Psynogsis made PSY-Q they incorperated those formats into the dev kit. Sometimes the format needs to be changed to 1) make it harder for hackers such as ourselves to easly extact the models and 2) improve upon the functionality that the TMD/TIM formats offer. In the case of metal gear solid, Konami had to toss a good 90% of the dev libs because they simply were too differnt than what they needed. MGS, by the way, moves vertexs around a bone structure, not whole polygons, like the TMDs.

I might as well add this. I guess you guys are wondering how on earth I know so much about things like this. Might was well tell you guys now. I used to work for Namco. Nothing glorous, just arcade repair. So I know of the PSX's humble beginnings. (And so much about it now) If you think I'm pulling a Joey, feel free to think that. This is the last time I'm going to mention my employment with them. (Due to the fact that the Namco part that makes games and the Namco part that does arcades only share the name and the bank account, Namco doen't want arcade dudes such as myself to use the term "I work for namco" to get them in places where they shouldn't be)
 
FF7 uses the standard format ish to provide bone/skeleton animations ... but that's beside the point.Halkun's quite right in that standard PSX formats are only formats that are supported by the *software* PSX development kits. Other than the MDEC compression, none of the formats have hardware support in the PSX, so there's no reason to use an original format over another, unless it's saving you work. If you can reuse code somebody's already written - great. If not - make your own format, it's no slower in-game simply because Sony didn't think of it.

It's the same with the PC. How do games store textures? However they damn well want. The video card doesn't care; the data gets unpacked to uncompressed data when the texture is read off disk. Makes no different.
 
hmm... i think you missunderstood me..
I've dev'd for the psx for a loooong time.. I know the structure both for the hardware and the software part of the psx..
I just wondered why the .rsd files were in the pc version.. since they seem to not be in use (i can be wrong on this subject).. though the .rsd files are the EXCACT same ones as in the psx version.. but the .rsd ext files aren't the same..The strange thing is that square didn't compress the .rsd files into .tmd files for the psx release...
 
Remeber that the PC verson if FF7 is a port. And that they totaly re-did the 3D display engine for the PC. (DirectX/OpenGL as opposed to GPU data packets) The programmers need to get speed from somewhere. It's probably easier for the PC to manhandle text rsd files. I know opening and parsing text files are almost second-nature to a pc.As far an not compressing the PSX rsd files into TMDs Maybe it's a speed issue again. Or because there is a particular TMD ripper I can think of that turns them into LWO files. so some hack with lightwave can put the characters into compromising positions and post them on the internet...Not that I've done that with Toshindin TMDs or anything ^_^
 
"It's probably easier for the PC to manhandle text rsd files." that sounds logical   :)hehe.. about tmd ripping.. hehe, they maybe tought about that... that seems more logical than the speed issue (in my ears).. hmm.. mebe not... ;D anyways


[This message has been edited by tulkk (edited June 13, 2001).]
 
Halkun, do you by chance know the encryption method used by many of the System 11, System 12, and other Namco PSX based arcades?Hehe, or maybe detailed info on the System 246 boards? For those than don't know that, it's PS2 based arcade hardware.


The reason I asked is because arcade emulation of those games are rather limited due to the encryption on the ROM's. Some of the games(Street Fighter EX, EX2, Toshinden2, Rival Schools, and more) are emulated through Impact though, since the encryption wasn't there, or was very simple. Perhaps info on this could lead to the Tekken series being available on PC's.
 
Sorry dude, I didn't get into the insides of the system 11 I just replaced bad romchips or system boards and installed boards/moniters into cabnits. It was when I tore my PSX apart was when I noticed that "this big sony chip here looks like that big sony chip on the system 11, wonder if they are the same?" I took the PSX motherboard into work and found alot of striking similarities. One of the oddest was along the left hand side of the PSX motherboard there are a bunch of terminating traces that looks like some sort of plug or adapter was supposed to go there. Those corrasponded to the system 11's connecor that you would plug into either a diagnostic computer or a doughterboard. As for as the system 11's bios and encrytion, I don't know. The psx was easier to find info on.
 
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