GameShark Upgrade and BigWave CDs

[pool7]

Hi,

I've been reading the forum for a while and finally decided to join.
I'm working on some PS1 projects and got myself in a roadblock :S

During my research on GameShark (and other Game Enhancers/Cheaters) I read about some discs of which I have yet to find anything other than images:
GameShark Upgrade CD (picture here: http://www.videogamehacking.com/vb/t...8265#post38265)
GameShark The BigWave CDs (1 through 4) (picture here: http://www.game-rave.com/psx/playsta...ure_gameshark/)

As part of my research I am trying to get a hold of all these discs (GameShark Upgrade CD: I'm mostly interested in the latest one which includes ROMs/Firmwares 2.42 and 3.2).

So, my questions would be as follow:
1-Does anyone have any of these? If so, can you please post a list of folders and files (along with file size)?
2-Is anyone willing to sell/share these discs?

Thanks in advance!

[LiquidManZero]

You're in luck, I've got here some useful data on this subject.

So far though I only have a disc image of Big Wave #4. This is actually quite useful due to the bizarre structure the disc uses, as this means it can be burned to CD-R and run on any playstation. No modchip required. As far as I know this is one of the discs capable of doing the 2.42/3.2 updates, but I had some odd issues with it and an old gameshark. The disc poses as a 99 track CD audio disc and contains nothing of the sort. This does also mean that there's no CD visible data, it's a bunch of oddly repeating stuff that looks to be garbage in a hex editor. No files. Just junk. As far as I can tell Gavin Thornton was responsible for this. His name is all over the inside of this disc, and he was likely the entire development team responsible for the GS/AR and related software for PSX.

BigWave #4 - 16MB
bigwave.jpg, a picture of the disc itself
There's also these, some pictures I took of a burned copy of the disc operating on an unmodified console. Oddly it did not agree with my GameShark v2.3 cart, but did behave fairly well with my GS Pro v3.2. Big Wave 4 bad fake screenshots

[pool7]

Thanks a ton LiquidManZero!!!
Now that's what I call a quick, detailed and useful reply!

I hope other users can provide the other BigWave discs images as well as the Upgrade CD(s).

Regarding the CD structure: the only thing I can think of is something similar to ESR on PS2. I recently read somewhere in the internet (I'll see if I can find the website and provide the link) that you could trick the PlayStation into thinking you were playing an Audio CD but in fact the disc had data in it. Although I haven't seen anything like that yet, I would assume it's possible.

I'll see what I can find in the image you provided and I'll post any further information I get in my research.

[LiquidManZero]

This is nothing like ESR or the vaguely similar SMS CD formats. There's as far as I can tell no actual audio data of any kind here. ESR works by having just enough of a UDF filesystem the console thinks the disc is DVD video. The data on the Big Wave disc is repeated seemingly junk for the most part. Nothing at all similar looking to an audio CD. From how long it takes to load I suspect the actual data is spread very widely through the disc in small pieces.

I have a feeling comparing multiple discs of this type may lead to some understanding of at least where the data is stored, if not something of how. As of yet this is the only one I've ever run into a disc image of. The owner was kind enough to rip it.

[pool7]

I finally got a couple of spare minutes and burned the image to a CD-R, though I didn't have the time to try it in my PS (I hope to do so later today or tomorrow).
I did try to play it as an audio CD (out of cursiosity) and all tracks seem to have weird noises which, if my ears do not fail me, are pretty much the same in every track.

I also opened the image in IsoBuster and used the built-in Hex viewer. The first several pages seem to repeat the same (or similar) text. But near the end (I think) I was able to find "readable" text, like game names, but nothing else (I took a quick look, but will try to analyze it further later).

I'm wondering if the Upgrade CD(s) have the same structure...

I hope someone can provide and image of further information on the Upgrade CD(s).

[LiquidManZero]

Those strange noises were something a great deal of warnings were made about for data CDs. Except very few CD players would attempt to run those as audio. Which means however the CD structure was faked is enough to convince audio disc players it's audio. Which is odd, the disc doesn't look much at all like a normal audio CD in a hex editor.

There is some readable text for sure. Then somehow there's things like the update files and some images. The text that appears to be game names may not actually be the sets of codes that are stored on the disc. It's either that or those are part of the updates, but I think the updates are likely encrypted in some way similar to the official GS Pro updates that could be done with the hacking utils.

[pool7]

I had some spare time the other day and tried the burnt BigWave CD in my PS1 (which has a modchip).
The disc did nothing on its own; however it loaded just fine from within the GameShark menu.

My GameShark was v2.3 and it upgraded successfully to 2.42
It even asked me whether I wanted to keep the codes I had or replace with the new ones!

I recently received my GameShark Pro 3.0, but still don't want to update it to 3.2, since I have some tests to perform first.

I haven't tried any of the other options in the BigWave CD, but hope to do so, just for the fun of it.