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• Mugsy's CPS2 Help Guide • |
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Introduction
This is a guide that details how to use CPS2 emulators and CPS2 ROMs. As there are many CPS2 emulators in development, I will only talk about the basic means on how to get CPS2 ROMs to run on the emulator and things like time switches and region switches. Features such as cheat editors, music Jukeboxes etc. will not be detailed here. I, myself, have never touched these features which is why I choose not to include them in the FAQ.
Now on with the guide!
What is CPS2?
CPS2 (Capcom Play System 2) is the hardware that Capcom used to create many of their arcade games from the days of classics like Super Street Fighter 2 to current hits like Marvel vs Capcom. While the hardware has been around for a long time, it has only been recently that the CPS2shock team has worked out how to get around the decryption of the ROMs. XOR tables are used to do this (NOTE: ROM sets will NOT work without XOR tables - that seems obvious but you'd be surprised how many people miss this.). At the current time, there is no emulator that can decrypt CPS2 ROMs without the need of XOR tables.
- To download any CPS2 emulator please visit our
Downloads page
- For a complete list of all currently dumped ROMs please visit our
Game List
- To download the latest XOR tables, please visit our
Downloads page
The following sections describe the Emulators, ROMs and XOR Tables in more detail.
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• Emulators • |
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What is an emulator?
An emulator is software designed to fool your PC into thinking it is another piece of hardware, therefore "emulating" that hardware. This page is about emulators that emulate the CPS2 hardware. There are many CPS2 emulators that are currently in development. They include: MAME (and the many variations of it), Calice, WinKawaks, Nebula and Final Burn.
Final Burn until only recently was no longer in development, but the source code was just released by Dayvee (the original author of Final Burn) on Sunday, July 22, 2001. There have been a few new FinalBurn releases since the source was released, these are Final Burn Kaillera and FinalBurn Alpha. There are also many, unofficial edits (some refer to them as hacks) of FinalBurn that will let you play games that have had XOR tables released after the original Final Burn ceased development. These edits include FBCPS2en, Final Burn X, FBHack etc.
I recommend using Final Burn if you are new to CPS2 emulation as it is the most simple CPS2 emulator and also because it is still the best CPS2 emulator for low end systems. All of the above emulators can be found on our
Downloads page.
How do I use one?
Most emulators are distributed in zip files. You will need a program such as WinZip to unzip the program. Inside the folder which contains the emulator is often a folder called "ROMs". This is where you place your ROM sets. There maybe emulators that uses a folder name other that "ROMs" to place the ROMs or there may not be one at all. This will depend on the emulator you are using and I strongly suggest you read the readme.txt that is included with an emulator. Many emulators will generate a "ROMs" directory only after the emulator has been run.
What is a region switch?
CPS2 games are released in many regions; the most popular being Japan and the USA. There are also other regions such as Asia, Hispanic and Euro. The most notable difference between each region is the language that the game text is in (NOTE: Asia boards are still in English). It is a problem when an XOR table to new game is released and not everyone can read the text. This is where the region switch comes in to play.
Many ROMs contains several languages in the ROMs and some emulators allow the switching between each region. For example, if a game is in Japanese, changing the region to USA will let people who don't know Japanese to read the text. This, of course, will only work if the ROMs contain the text for that particular region. Games such as Street Fighter Zero 3 do not contain the English text so the USA XORs is needed for English text. Most emulators use 01 for USA region.
The switching between regions is usually done either via an option in the menu settings of an emulator or via a file in the emulator's directory - probably an .ini file. This depends on the emulator you're using.
What is a time switch?
This feature is mostly used with the game Street Fighter Zero 3. This is because the hidden characters and secret game modes is only unlocked if the arcade machine has been left running for a certain period of time. Since it is highly impractical to leave your PC on for so long, the time switch was introduced to activate the secret modes etc. For SFZ3 on most emulators, setting the time switch to 4 will allow you access all the secrets.
Time switch alteration is, like the region switch, usually done either via an option in the menu settings of an emulator or via a file in the emulator's directory - probably an .ini file.
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• ROMs • |
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DISCLAIMER:
ROMs are ILLEGAL. If you do download them however, you are only allowed to have them if you own the game or for a 24 hour trial period. Once this period is over you are required to delete the file from your PC. If you agree to these rules then you can find links to the ROMs on our
Home page under ROM Links.
What is a ROM?
ROMs are the good stuff! While it is easy to find an emulator, it is harder to find the necessary ROMs for a game (unless you have a good inside tip ;) But what do you do with the ROMs once you've got them? Play the game of course, but for some, that is easier said than done. This section gives instructions on how to make sure you have all the files you need to play a game, how to tell which file you need and how to have the right name for your ROM set.
What is a ROM set?
A ROM set is a set of ROM files contained in a zip file. A specific name is given to each ROM file and the zip file as well. Example: For Street Fighter Alpha 3 the name of the zip file is sfa.zip and the individual name of the ROM files are as follows:
sz3.01
sz3.02
sz3.05c
sz3.06c
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sz3.07c
sz3.08c
sz3.09c
sz3.10b
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sz3.11
sz3.12
sz3.13
sz3.15
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sz3.17
sz3.19
sz3.14
sz3.16
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sz3.18
sz3.20
sz3u.03c
sz3u.04c
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Don't run away yet! This isn't all that's needed to run the game :)
Which set is which?
If you need the names of ROM sets, names of individual ROMs or names of XOR files, they can be found at
CPS2Shock. That said, certain emulators choose to have different names for their ROM sets. Even different edits of Final Burn uses different ROM set names. You can check the naming convention of an emulator by trying to run the game in the game list when the ROMs are not in the ROMs directory. In most cases, an error message will appear with the name of the ROM set. You may have noticed that there is two or more ROM sets that are needed. Read on and you will be told why.
Is there more than one Region of a ROM available?
Yes, most games are released in multiple regions. Sometimes, the name of the game changes from region to region. Street Fighter Alpha 3 is known as Street Fighter Zero 3 in Japan, for instance. Besides the obvious name change and the language the game is in, some regions may also contain new/different features not in other regions.
As for the naming convention of the ROM sets, there is a parent ROM set which contains the ROM files that is needed to play the game, no matter which region you want to play. If an USA version of the game exists then the USA ROM files are usually contained in the parent set. The parent set for Street Fighter Zero 3 is sfa.zip.
Currently, the released XORs for Street Fighter Zero 3 is the Japanese version. As the Japanese ROMs are not contained in the parent ROM set, the Japanese ROM set sfz3jr1.zip is needed too (NOTE: There is the set sfz3j.zip and sfz3jr1.zip for Japan. This will be explained below).
You can tell which region a ROM set is from by looking at the letter at the end of the ROM set's name. If there is a j, like in sfz3j.zip, then the ROM set is probably Japanese. Here are the currently available regions:
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j = Japan |
e = Euro/Etc/World |
h = Hispanic |
a = Asia |
u = USA |
What is a Revision?
A Revision is an updated version of the same game. These changes are usually very small, such as adjusted or more balanced gameplay, minor bug fixes, difficulty changes, etc. and are generally not well known (well other than by Capcom of course :) Using the case seen in Street Fighter Zero 3 from above as an example, the original Japanese ROM set was sfz3j.zip but a new revision with bug fixes was released. This new Japanese ROM set is called sfz3jr1.zip. You can tell if you have the ROM set for a new revision by looking at the end of the ROM set's zip file:
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#####r1.zip |
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#####1.zip |
This indicates that this new set is of revision 1. The revision number comes after the letter indicating the region like so:
sfz3jr1.zip
What is a merged set?
Sometimes, an emulator will require a merged set to run. A merged set is simply all the individual ROM files in the required sets put into one zip file. To create a merged set, unzip all the files from all the needed ROM set zip files into one directory and place all those individual files into a new zip file (you can use the method described in "Which set is which?" above to get the name of the new zip file). If you're playing a game which is not of the USA region and the emulator requires only one ROM set then it's most likely that you need to merge your ROM sets.
What is a split set?
A split set is the opposite of a merged set. It has the parent ROM set as your main zip file, with the individual ROM files in the required sets being put into multiple zip files. This is usually done for each Revision and Region. This is useful if you want to keep the different Regions and Revisions of the same game separate from each other.
What is ROMCenter?
ROMCenter is a great utility you can use to maintain your ROMs. A file called a "DAT" is released that has all the latest info about the particular ROMs (CPS2 ROMs in this case), such as file names, CRCs (more on this below), and what zip file the ROMs should be located in.
Simply install ROMCenter, copy the CPS2 DAT into the "data's" folder in the ROMCenter directory, then run ROMCenter. It will check all your ROMs and tell you which ROMs you are missing to complete a set, which ROMs are incorrectly named, which ROMs are in the wrong zip, along with a lot of other helpful maintenance checks.
You can download both ROMCenter and the CPS2 DAT on our
Downloads page. I cannot stress how much I recommend the use of this program. If you have any further questions please read the documentation that comes with ROMCenter.
What is a CRC?
CRC, or "Cycle Redundancy Check" is a scan that certain programs (such as ROMCenter or WinZip) run to check the properties of a file. It returns a 8 digit output that contains both letters and numbers. Here is an example of the correct CRC for the Street Fighter Zero 3 sz3.01 ROM:
de810084
Now don't worry, you don't need to calculate this yourself, it is all done by ROMCenter for you :) Now ROMCenter will use this value and compare it to the value of the same ROM that is in the DAT, and if the values match then your ROM is correct! If not, then it could be either the ROM is incorrectly named, in the wrong zip or a bad dump.
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• XOR Tables • |
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As mentioned on the main page, you will need XOR tables to run a game. A point that I would like to make now is:
YOU CANNOT PLAY A GAME THAT HAS NOT HAD XOR TABLES FOR IT RELEASED SO DO NOT ASK HOW TO PLAY SUCH & SUCH ON ANY CPS2 DISCUSSION BOARDS!
If you want a complete list of games which have had XOR tables released then please visit our
Game List, or grab the files from our
Downloads page. With that said, let's move on.
What's an XOR?
OK, by now you're probably still wondering: "What the hell is an XOR table?". All it is a file or files that, when placed in a ROM set, allow the emulator to decrypt the ROMs. Simple! XOR table(s) take the file name structure:
#####x.##
The x at the end of the file name and before the extension represents that the file is an XOR table. Some games have more than one file for it's XOR table. Example: for Street Fighter Zero 3, the XORs are sz3j x.03 and sz3j x.04. There are different XORs for different regions too. Some sites that contain CPS2 ROMs place the XORs in the same zip file as the ROMs for convenience.
I have two sets of ROMs, where do I put the XORs?
They usually go in the ROM set that corresponds to the XORs region. However, it won't hurt to put the XORs in both ROM sets to be sure.
Different revisions of ROMs have different XORs, i.e. there is a specific XOR table for each revision of a game. See "Revisions" under the ROM section for more info.
When will such and such XORs be released?
The CPS2shock team will not release any XORs for games released after 1998. This is because these games are still making money for Capcom and the CPS2shock team does not want to hurt Capcom's financial situation. Welcome to the waiting game!
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• This guide was originally written by Mugsy on July 7th, 2001 •
• ROMCenter, CRC, Split ROM and other misc. updates / info added by cyrussd 2001 - 2003 • |
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