PSX Xplorer FX and X-Link...on a modern PC.

[Pattywick]

Someone told me that X-link and XcheatED can only work properly on Windows 98 when sending codes to the Xplorer FX cartridge.

However, I heard from the guy who made XcheatED that:

XcheatED should work fine on Windows XP but I haven't testet it myself.

What is the best way to send codes to the PSX Xplorer FX cartridge if one is using Windows XP?

[LiquidManZero]

This actually comes back to the same huge problems people had with using both psx and n64 gameshark pros on xp. It happens to affect all playstation xploder/xplorer cartridges, not just the FX type.

This program should be able to fix the problem. However it only works up to XP. Vista and 7 are both still screwed for this sort of thing for various reasons. This is actually in the downloads section on the site, but not obviously described as being useful.

UserPort

As the PDF included says:

2 Installation
The driver can be installed in the following two ways:
• Copy UserPort.SYSto %WINDIR%\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS
Start UserPort.EXEand add the addresses you want and remove
the others and click on start.
• Run UserPort.EXEwith the driver filename and path as an argument
i.e. run UserPort.EXE X:\YOURDIR\UserPort.SYS
Add the addresses you want and remove the others and click on start.
You should now have usermode access to the addresses you have chosen.

Off the top of my head I'm not sure which port(s) would need to be opened with this method, so you'll need to look at XCheatED to find out which ones it tries to use. You might also need to change the parallel port settings in your computer's BIOS to enable I think it was EPP mode. I'd recommend trying to use a program that interacts with the Xplorer before poking around in the BIOS since there's a reasonably good chance it'll work without changing settings.

[Pattywick]

I am using a 6 feet USB to DB25 parallel printer adapter cable to connect to my Xplorer FX to my Windows XP PC. I am also using UserPort to grant user access to ports 0378 through 03BC.

But I am still getting a "Comms Error" whenever I try to connect to it via X-Link95 (I am running this under Compatibility mode for Windows 95).

How do I connect to my Xplorer FX cartridge with a modern PC? I need to re-flash my ROM because I think it is broken.

Also, my PC only has USB ports. So there are no options for SPP, ECP, or EPP in the BIOS.

[Balrog]

I highly recommend using the DOS version of X-Link instead of the Windows version. It has more features and doesn't crash like the Windows one likes to. Both versions came on my X-Link floppy disks so you probably have both too. I imagine it should run under DosBox if it won't run normally in Windows XP, though I don't know if it'll be able to recognise your USB-to-parallel cable.

If you try it could you please let me know if it works because I've lost my original X-Link cable and will order a USB one like yours if it does. If it doesn't work I guess the only solution for both of us is to buy a PCI card with the old serial port on it (or parallel - can't remember).

[Helder]

Those type of cables are shit and I know from experience, what you need is something like this with a chipset that can setup a virtual comms port. I have something similar but for use with the xbox360 flashing and it does the same thing but doesnt have the actual DB9 port.

[LiquidManZero]

You need a real parallel port. USB printer adapter cables absolutely will not be of any use regardless of if they have the Centronics connector or a DB25 port. PCI/PCI-e cards might work but this isn't certain. The only thing most likely to work is an actual onboard port, which I'm not aware of any company still doing other than Gigabyte. As far as which X-link to use... Well, the DOS one may be overall best. The others have a bit of an issue that especially the debugger features tend to fail between different X-link and Xploder firmware revisions. Despite that with the DOS version just works if it can connect. Also if all else fails, I'd recommend running win98 in a virtual machine with parallel port redirection. I believe both VMWare and Virtualbox do. DOSBox might but there's no telling if it'll behave correctly.

Also worth noting... Some DB25 cables are not going to work. Some are also damaged internally and won't work for that reason. The others may fail due to not enough of the pins being connected. Even though there's a lot of redundant grounds some cables don't have more than one of them actually connected. Which entirely screws things up by at best letting signal interference into the cable.

There's quite a lot of missing information on this subject still. Including most of the firmware revisions that used to be online.

Also with the cable Helder mentioned that's an entirely different situation. Serial to USB stuff works great. Parallel that way is useless thanks to it being explicitly for only printers. Not that making a real parallel to USB adapter is impossible, they just aren't really around with the total lack of demand. Same goes for a Datel comms link USB adapter.