All posts by El Bucanero

Free Spirit

ANSi View PS3 released

If you’re old enough, you’ve probably experienced the amazing art that could be achieved within a 80×25 console screen, using just sixteen colors.

As a little token of appreciation to the block art-scene, I’ve created ANSi View, probably the first and only ANS/PCB/BIN/ADF/IDF/TND/XB/ASC/NFO/DIZ viewer to run on a PlayStation console. :D

You can open (and render on screen) files on USB/HDD, or just browse the huge online art catalog from the 16colors archive.

As usual, a binary .pkg installer (and source code) is available on GitHub.

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Development notes (Apollo tool)

Some development notes about detecting the PSID, User ID and Account ID for the current console/user:

To properly resign saves, you need to know those IDs (among other things), but I couldn’t find a simple way to gather them all in a consistent way across firmware versions (CFW, HEN, DEX, CEX, et al.) :(
For example, the PSID can be recovered with lv2 peeks, but the address depends on the firmware version/type, so you must keep an address table and update the tool every time a new firmware shows up. :confused:

But… there’s a place where the PS3 always stores all those IDs already, and it’s a save-game’s PARAM.SFO :)Wink
so I used that in my advantage, to create a firmware-independent way to acquire the ids. ;)Grin

Since I already needed to save the Apollo app settings, I decided to:

  • on first run: create my own save-game file, using the internal PS3 save functions
  • read my own save-game’s PARAM.SFO, and get the PSID, User ID, and Account ID
  • save the detected IDs back into the App settings (so I can speed up the process next time)
  • on next launch: just read the app settings, and load the IDs

The code for this trick can be found here (based on the psl1ght example by Kakaroto).
Continue reading Development notes (Apollo tool)

Apollo Save Tool released

It’s summer, you’re spending the days between the sun and the swimming pool… so what do you do with that amount of free time? You make Apollo, a new homebrew app for the PS3! Grin

you might wonder… why is it called Apollo?
Apollo was the twin brother of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Since this project was born using the Artemis-GUI codebase, I decided to respect that heritage by calling it Apollo.

So, without further ado, let’s present Apollo:

Apollo Save Tool is an application to manage save-game files on the PlayStation 3.
The apollo-ps3 homebrew app allows to download, unlock, patch and resign save-game files directly on your PS3.

Download link (latest version)
As usual, full source code is available on GitHub

See the full project’s README for more information.

Feel free to share you comments and ideas! Smile
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Artemis r6.net released

As a little side project, I’ve forked Dnawrkshp’s Artemis PS3 and added the following network features:

  • Online Cheat Database: access to the latest cheats for over +2300 games online.
  • Local Database Update: download and update your local cheat database with the latest codes.

Artemis r6.net

on the UI, these are the new features available:

  • Added Online DB option (main menu)
  • Added Update local cheats (options menu)
  • Added L1/R1 triggers to improve game list browsing
  • Added user confirmation dialog when unloading the plugin (Square on the main menu)
  • Added exit to XMB without changes (Circle on the main menu)

I’ve also updated the MAMBA payloads (PRX Loader 4.84.2), and included the Artemis sprx plugin from vr5 (by @haxxxen ).

Download Artemis PS3 (r6.net)
Source code available on GitHub

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